Fag away from his queens while standing in their faintly glowing bedroom high in the crystal tree, Mordecai materialized a vellum sheet covered in unnecessarily beautiful script. He quickly sed it, to check that he hadn’t fotten anything, then ha to his wives sitting side by side on the bed. As Moriko’s hands were filled pying with the fur on one of the kitsuails, Kazue held it so they both could see.

  “This is a rough sketch of the timeline for freeing Deidre’s dungeon. Obviously, there is a lot to do before we even start direning. And with the way our circumstances keep ging, I kept things simple for now.”

  “Adding as many zones as possible before Spring makes sense,” Kazue said thoughtfully. “We’ll want to be as powerful as possible if we’re going to be the ‘heavies’ going in. Wouldn’t it be ve if Gil was back before then?”

  “Not likely,” Mordecai responded, “Li usually involves lorips than that, and Li's instincts trend toward a certain amount of fairness. Gil would easily win against most, and I don't feel ready to host a bout between Gil and someone who go toe to toe with him." He shook his head at the image before tinuing. "The tour will also feed us more power, as well attract more batants who might have some potential tractors amongst them. And we might be able to squeeze out one more zoh the ma from the tour.”

  “With all that mana, we should be able to do all that while iing in an inated avatar for you too, Mordecai,” Moriko chimed in, “It’ll be fun putting you through your paces.” She added with a leer, a smirk pulling at the ers of her mouth.

  Mordecai teasingly eyed his wife and replied, “I think you'll find I'm still up for the challenge." He didn't anticipate bei as far as Kazue had been; not only did he have much more experieh adapting to a remade avatar, this avatar's tempte had beeed with his full depth of knowledge and power. There should be little in the way of adjusting and relearning to be done.

  But it was time to move on to the subject. "We’ll o find some ral dungeons for us to train in, preferably as close in type to Deidre’s as possible. Luckily, our irrepressible fairy daughter has a fondness for bards, and bards have a fondness for talk...amongst other things. This includes more details about the eastern and southern dungeons. Acc to that talk, the eastern dungeon is heavily involved in trade and such, much like us. That’s why I think we should visit the southern dungeon. It seems that their retionship with the nomadic tribes is very focused on rites of passage and other bat challenges. I don’t think Deidre’s core has been allowed to develop anything other than bat and traps, so that should be the more simir experience. But the southern dungeon is signifitly harder to get to, and I want to keep travel time down, so I’m not sure what transportation to use. We don’t have the time to spend on travel, unlike when you both went out on your trip.”

  Kazue flopped onto her belly, flippiail out of Moriko’s grasp, then whipping it bato her hands, the other tails gently caressing her wife. “Oh, I think I have ahere.”

  “Do tell,” Moriko said, amused at Kazue’s clear self-satisfa.

  “Well,” Kazue said, “my parents will be visiting again before too long. They’d have been by eventually anyway, but sidering how Moriko’s parents were effected by the fairy thing, I’m sure my parents were as well. That’ll probably speed them up. Admittedly, we’ll have to deal with Mom first as she’s pretty overprotective, but we’d previously discussed ideas about how iing Dad’s main wagon is.”

  She sat back up, smirking at Mordecai, her hands resting lightly on the bed between her legs, arms gently pushing her breasts up and out, creating a very distrag view. “Of course,” she said breathily, wiggling a little, “this part requires the iy of our clever and brilliant husband, letting him put that wonderful mind of his to work.”

  “Uh huh,” Mordecai said dubiously, even as he ehe proffered view enabled by the deep nee of her dress. Moriko seemed to be taking advantage of the sic view as well. Kazue’s deliberate overag could certainly be eaining, in more ways than one.

  “You see, I remember you saying you had an idea about how to get an airship at least partially made with our resources. I’m sure you figure out a way to make or enhane of Dad’s wagons as part of a more than acceptable trade deal with him.” Kazue fluttered her eyeshes at him.” And I’m sure I vince him to take up a rade route and take us along with him as part of the deal.”

  Mordecai ughed softly. “Fine, I think I e up with something,” he said and then gave her an evil grin. “Though, I think I will be taking that implied payment up front.”

  “Oh, why, whatever could you mean?” Kazue said with false shock, hand raised to the hollow of her throat.

  He ignored her question to gnce sidelong at Moriko. “And seeing as how this is my payment, you’ll just have to wait and watch.”

  “Oh?” Moriko purred as she pulled the now fotten vellum from Kazue’s loose grip and tossed it to the ground, “Make me.” Her eyes glittered with challenge as an eager smile crossed her lips.

  Mordecai did exactly that, though she certainly made him work for the victory. Once he had Moriko secured, Mordecai cimed his ‘prize’ from Kazue. He made sure to take his time to enjoy the process, and only let Moriko participate once she’d ‘asked’ nicely enough.

  When their pytime was over and they'd had the time to cuddle and rex for a bit, Moriko slid out of bed and picked up the vellum so that they could tio discuss the pn while they ed up and got dressed. As her spouses attentively watched the sway of Moriko’s backside, Mordecai mentally sketched out the basics for fulfilling Kazue’s idea, which didn’t take him long, though resently seemed the most effit idea would require some cooperation and agreement from a pair of ‘horses’.

  Hmm, payment. He was fairly certain that Ricardo could afford to trade an appropriate value for the pos of Mordecai’s idea, but he was also pretty certain that Ricardo wouldn’t be ined to do so if he had a better option. But there were now enough zohat her parents could delve for the value instead and cim the wagon as their prize.

  “Now, let's discuss the training of the Azeria Dueams,” Moriko said as she slipped into the bath.

  Kazue came up beside her, asking, “Are you sure Training Team A will let us leave them behind? They’ll be w hard to help train Fuyuko. The rest of Team B might want to e as well.”

  “They’ll have to," Mordecai replied, "as I doubt any of our prospective teammates for her will be allowed to go. They are either minors or beholden to other responsibilities, if not both. The training trip is ohing, a trip into a dungeon being forced to try to kill us is another." Holy, he wasn't thrilled with Fuyuko goiher, but she had es to the area and would be fifteen in just a week more. "As for Team B, most of them won't have suffit e to the dungeon for our oaths to necessarily bind them and they are to for us to readily suppress. I want to be able to swear that we are there to free Deidre's core and make sure that she 't be pressured into a Break."

  That emergency power did require the threat of true harm to the duo initiate, a properly worded oath from three fairies should suffice to prevent that, especially given Mordecai's status as a high priest of Ozuran. There could still be difficulties if Trionea's forces had a suffitly powerful squad, but that roblem for the future. "Moving on," Mordecai asked, "What do you think of the teams?”

  Moriko pursed her lips thoughtfully a moment before saying, “Team A is a little scattered for bat capabilities.” Kazue and Moriko sidered the list for a moment more before Moriko added, "I certainly see Alnia and Rika being appropriate as they worked with Derek and Shizoku during Derek's first bat training here, but I'm not certain about getting my little brother into bat delves."

  Mordecai joihe two ih and said, "That's up to you and your parents of course, but he was able to hold his own in spars against Fuyuko and has received training from Gil." Given the luponi girl's advahat meant Galen probably had more skill in a straightforward, one-on-one fight. That did not always transte well to survival fights, and Fuyuko had been undergoing a lot of interaining sihen, so that did not necessarily make him equal in overall strength and bat ability. "He would o start doing bat delves here first, to get him used to the chaos outside of a spar."

  “Hmm,” Moriko said thoughtfully, adding her assessment of the team, “Shizoku is still the stro overall and Fuyuko seems to be catg up fast, but if Derek and Gao take the front liogether with Fuyuko and Rika as skirmishers, then Shizoku and Alnia could focus on their support roles and make sure no os hurt. Shizo could hold ba her spells until the team starts getting pressed."

  Rika's training as a ranger was simir in some ways to Fuyuko's training, and Alnia's focus was mostly as a priest and healer. With Shizoku using her alchemical skills mostly for support and healing, that would give the others plenty of opportunity to practice. While everyo on the Final Assault Team could just do delves here, the Assault Team itself was mostly people who had more limited options in the Azeria Duerritory. Also, getting experien a more ral enviro might be useful for the team training of the others as well.

  "Um," Kazue asked, "why do you have the three of us in our own team? I mean, everyone on Team B seems like they'd be at least as strong as us." The five-member team of Bellona, Xarlug, Bridgette, Orchid, and Paltira was mostly well-seasoned, and Xarlug wasn't far behind the others with the amount of training he'd beeing.

  "True," Mordecai replied, "but I am also looking to the long term. This will be the first time the three of us get to fight together like this and I think it's important that we get our teamwork down. Once we all have some practi the initial three teams, we reform as The Final Assault Team with Bellona, Xarlug, and Fuyuko, and then practice together with them. The others reform as they like." The three of them had already agreed that the Assault Team should be those most closely tied to the dungeon. Xarlug was currently a bit of a stretch but it didn't seem impusible that he'd be a tractor by then and none of them could see Orchid as having any objes.

  “And then we just return to the Azeria Dungeon, prepare, travel to Trionea, and free Deidre’s core; just like that?” Kazue asked.

  “Just like that!” Mordecai said with a smile. It certainly wasn't going to be that easy, but dwelling on it right now wasn't going to do much good.

  After taking time to rex and then up, Moriko and Kazue released their "private py time" ands they'd given their familiars. None of the dragon hatgs articurly happy with learning that particur rule, but given the reas they'd received the oime that curiosity won out, it was thhly ingrained now.

  As his wives headed out to the tasks they'd decided on for themselves, Mordecai found himself at a loss for what to do. Once a dungeon had enough experie usually didn't he full attention of both core and avatar, and this dungeon had two cores looking after it. This art of the reason Mordecai’s avatars had historically spent so little time at home, there was not much that the avatar o do there.

  So he decided to start by reviewing what everyone to, to see if anything would inspire him.

  Moriko was leading a training session for Betty and several of the other usagisune along with Nezha and Ysi, their dragon bosses for the s nds, who were both there in their human forms. All the inhabitants that could take a humanoid form received some training in that form to maintain circumstantial flexibility. Especially if their true forms were a ler than humans, as they might o fight in a small space. Thunder and Lightning were happy to have their rger brethren there; they found the masima dragons fasating, especially as they had lightning powers in addition to their bried magic.

  Kazue had taken Fuyuko out on a shopping trip through the stalls and carts of their more mertile visitors, mostly to get Fuyuko used to that sort of socialization rather than because of a o buy anything. elian Fme was enjoying herself as well, darting about to explore everything. Tasting everything too, if not prevented from snatg samples.

  Bridgette had found a bat delving group to join the day before, which had been iing. Without her familiar Fintan, maintaining her full disguise as Ruby would have been easy enough, but the familiar was rather eye-catg. In the end, she'd decided to keep using the pseudonym while not using the disguise. This made her true identity a rather ope, and there were some people who had trouble w with this dual identity, but so long as she was officially Ruby she didn't have to worry about the normal proprieties of being a princess. Well, most of them at least.

  Bellona and Xarlug were also topside, though on duty. Teically. They were geared and ready to act if needed, but the inhabitants had a handle on things and most visitors had learhat the cute rabbit people were quite capable of handling themselves. Xarlug was ag much like a tractor, but he seemed to be waiting for Orchid's return so that issue could be resolved before he spoke with Kazue or Mordecai about it.

  Deidre was ohird attempt at taking on the Earth Zone. Her first attempt had resulted in a resounding failure at the shrine, which rather fused her as she'd selected perfectly suitable s. When she asked Mordecai about it, he'd simply told her that the dungeon wasn't the one judging the s. She'd been surprised to learn that a dungeon could ie a real shrio its challenges, and Mordecai had to suppress a spark of a this sign of how little she had been allowed to truly learn and grow. Most dungeons figured out something along those lines withio twenty years, sometimes sooner.

  Her sed attempt was better as she'd mao put more siy into the instead of being perfunctory, but she'd still been partially effected by the increased weight of the zohis time she'd been able to find the right mi aional state to be truly sincere in her , and it appeared to Mordecai that she felt genuinely happy when it ted fully. He rather suspected that she'd given up on eg with the gods some time ago without realizing how much her bindings had been interfering.

  Deidre was still shadowed of course, but by Kansif this time. She wasn't obligated to do so, as she wasn't a tractor, but it did allow her to do a little delving herself at the same time. Her ted the first time, which she waited to offer until after Deidre's third attempt ted, but Kansif had a lot more experieerag with the world and the various maions of divine will.

  After his mental review of everyone's activities, Mordecai sent his thoughts toward Cimbu and said, "If you want to train and py a bit, take flight. I'll meet you in the air." He hadn't left their bedroom yet, so he went to their upper baly and unched himself into the air with a powerful leap before he transformed into his Ambassador form.

  A short time ter there was an aerial show for those on the surface. One figure ed with feathered wings, metallic scales, and seven fox tails of different colors. The other was a rge dragon made of cy. The two raced each other through the skies just above the Earth zone and then dived down to fly below the zone and wind their way around the pilrs. What started as a simple petition of speed evolved into a test of agility and maneuverability, then into a mutual chase where each was trying to tag the other with a hand or cw without being tagged iurn.

  Eventually, Mordecai led the chase back up into more open spad the two spun apart to begin the ranged portion of their game. Cimbu's lo-ranged on was the ability to fling heavy cy at high velocity, and at shorter ranges, he had steam and mud/cy breath ons. Mordecai had a variety of choices, but for this game kept himself to flinging fox fire at his foe, though he did allow himself to switch up the elemental energies he used.

  Mordecai was by far the mile of the two, but he was also more strained in his space. He couldn't flying outside of the bounds of their territory, while Cimbu did not have that limitation. The raid boss was less powerful without the energy supplied by the cores, but he was still aal dragon.

  The biggest loss Cimbu faced outside of the dungeon's territory was the flexibility of his breath on. He was still a tea pet at heart, and his steam breath could be used in a recuperative mode, with the exact properties varying by what teas he'd retly ied. He could also get people drunk if he imbibed enough alcohol, thanks to the einherjars' influence. Cimbu also had less flexibility in his cy breath; he couldn't infuse healing properties into it, nor could he make it less viscous. If he wasn't careful, he could suffocate an oppo who couldn't clear the cy from their face quickly enough. The situation was worse if the enviro could dry the cy quickly.

  Mordecai's greatest challenge for this game was to not allow enough cy spatter to accumute that it affected his wings, but for the most part, he had little trouble dodging Cimbu's attacks. Cimbu's rger size made him a much easier target and his elemental nature made him heavier, and thus less maneuverable, than most dragons of simir size. That was why Mordecai was limiting himself to the weakest forms of his fox fire, as he was able to sany more hits.

  The two did not py train alone for too long, as other flying dungeon inhabitants wao get in on the game. There was the slight problem of needing to maintain enough inhabitants in the lower zoo provide challenges for the delvers so only a few were able to join at a time, but they did start cyg up as soon as they could.

  Some were limited in how much of their power they could use, as the earth zone was not as mana-dense as some of the lowest ones were, but one particur challeood out as she had no such limitations. When she was doh dug her training session, Moriko rose to the skies to join in the fun, along with Thunder and Lightning.

  It was after su by the time a set of sweaty, muddy, and worn-out figures nded on the upper baly of their tree-top home. Before Mordecai and Moriko could ehey were fronted with a stern-looking Kazue who crossed her arms as she stared at them. "Both of you, straight to the baths. You aren't to touything or remove anything before you get there."

  Moriko and Mordecai g each other before they gave Kazue tired grins. "Make us," they told her. Thunder cracked open an eye briefly before letting his head droop again, while Lightning didn't even bother with that much.

  Kazue's eyes narrowed at them before she proceeded to do exactly that. None of them was in good enough shape to put up much resistance, especially as Kazue used a bit of magic to help her push them about, but that wasn't really the point, was it? In the end, all of them were forced into the baths where they y 'helplessly' as they were scrubbed and pampered.

  The Mordecai and Moriko were barely able t themselves downstairs to join Kazue and Fuyuko for dinner, and the familiars were already curled up in a er and passed out. elian had slipped away to join in the games as well, but she had also returned much soohahers. The dirtiness had bee too much for the more cat-like dragon.

  To Do List

  1) Add as many zones as possible before spring, without promising oals2) Hold the tour3) Hopefully add one more zone4) I in an inated avatar for Mordecai5) Have an interaining expedition to the southern dungeons6) Return, prepare, and travel to Trionea7) Free Deidre's core

  Training Teams

  Team A:Fuyuko, Shizoku, Derek, Gan?, Alnia?, Rika?

  Team B:Bellona, Xarlug, Bridgette?, Orchid/Paltira?

  Team C:Mordecai, Moriko, Kazue

  Final Assault Team:Mordecai, Moriko, Kazue, Bellona, Xarlug, Fuyuko

  Zagaroth