The day before Fuyuko's birthday, one of her wishes came true readily enough and Kazue's amused voice sounded in her mind, "They've just crossed our border. You go meet them." Fuyuko had been w off her nervous energy on a thhly abused training dummy and at Kazue's words she stashed her falcatas bato her bracers and dashed for the shortcut.

  Shizoku and Derek had arrived, escorted by Takehiko to eimeliness rather than trying to rely on a trade group's progress. Fuyuko had forced herself to stop tag them about when they'd get here; listening to herself tinually repeat the same question had felt annoying even to herself. She retty certain she'd started to annoy her friends too.

  Part the path to the trading post, Takehiko sehe oning 'ambush' in time to step bad let his young panioackled into a tight hug.

  A grumbling Shizoku mao eventually squirm free and she took turns gring at Fuyuko and Derek, who had turned red-faced for some reason. Fuyuko looked quizzically at the white-haired kitsune. "I get why yring at me," not that it would stop her from ambushing Shizo iure, "but why are ya gring at him?"

  "Because boys are stupid," Shizoku retorted, "now e o's go. I want to see this new level those two have cooked up." Bip burbled and chimed on her shoulder, and Fuyuko retty certaitle slime was as fused as she was.

  Derek shook his head mutely, refusing to expin as he followed after Shizoku. Kazue's voice sounded in Fuyuko's mind with an amused tone, "Don't worry about it, you didn't do anything wrong, aher did Derek."

  Fuyuked and followed after them with Takehiko taking up the rear. Her long strides quickly brought her alongside her friends again and they simply walked in silence for a bit, before Derek spoke up, "Um, Gan told me he'll be ing to the dungeon for bat training soon. He's supposed to be joining us in the spring for a big training trip."

  She nodded and replied, "Yeah, my parents have some pns for a lot of people ta form up and take a trip to the southern dungeon. I don't really know the details, they said they were still w some stuff out."

  Shizoku and Derek both looked over at her and Shizo said, "Parents, huh? That's going well?"

  Fuyuked awkwardly and replied, "Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it's ly like it was with my blood parents, but it's still good." Not that she'd called any of them Mom or Dad yet. She wasn't quite ready for that.

  "That's good," Derek said. After a small bit of silence, he asked, "Do you think we'd be able to do a run of the Earth Zone? I want to finish it today though, I don't want to miss your birthday. But I want to see what I do on Kazue's path at least."

  Fuyuko's guilt over having missed Derek's thirteenth birthday increased a little. She hadn't thought to ask to go to Riverbridge despite talking with her friends regurly thanks to their linked ring. The idea only occurred to her after Shizo had mentiohat she and her cousin were going to pick up Derek in time to be there for Fuyuko's birthday.

  Sure, their trip art of pig her up to go training with the kitsune for a month or so, but there was no reason Fuyuko couldn't have taken that trip. Shizo hadn't goher, but she was twice as far away. It would have been more than a week just traveling there and back. Still, they were going to be with Shizo wheurned fourteen, and that meant Derek was the only one of them who hadn't been visited by their friends on their birthday. Though from what he'd told them, it sounded like he had a lot of friends at home, so maybe it wasn't so bad for him.

  She shook off that guilt trip to answer Derek, "Um, yeah, I think you guys do that. Er, is he joining ya?" She gestured at Takehiko.

  Takehiko shook his head and said, "No, the kids go py on Kazue's path. If my uanding from the reports is correct, I should be able to solo the bat path and I meet you all up top. That zone is huge, I'm looking forward to giving it a try." He gestured at the earthen structure looming above them with the exposed crystal roots whose glowing tips kept the area from being iual shadow. "The tree must be magnifit. I couldn't get a good look from the road."

  Fuyuko tried not to frown at the man, Kazue's paths may be pyful but they certainly weren't just py. Whatever. Turnitention back to her friends, she asked, "Do ya have s for Kamatha? Ya won't get very far if you don't have good ones." Both of them nodded and Fuyuko checked with Kazue before telling them, "Kazue says she thinks you guys plete it in time. She also said I walk with you guys as long as I don't provide any hints." Kazue had insisted that part of Fuyuko's education had been to take on the Earth Zone's non-bat path. Fuyuko didn't get any rewards for doing so and the dungeon had to spend mana iing the puzzles instead of getting mana for her efforts, but it was still training and education.

  The group split up right after they had signed up for the first open slots. The Earth Zone was currently the least popur route for several reasons, especially the bat route, which meant that there ening for Takehiko immediately. The stro parties wao face the stro challenges, so they mostly wao ght down.

  For fresh traihey mostly went into the hunting grounds which was more of an open space than a path and was far less restricted in hoeople could go there.

  This left the Earth Zone's bat route mostly popur for people who either wanted a quick delve or who weren't quite strong enough to get past Crios or Hildegard.

  It wasn't quite as bad for Kazue's path, but it still had a smaller number of people wanting to run it. And given that they were in te fall now, the cold and occasional rain was making the above ground zones less popur in general. The turbulent winds that surrouhe Earth Zoo prevent cheating via flight provided a little bit of insution and slowed any snow or rain that got tossed around by that turbulence, but it did not stop it from getting through eventually. In some ways that was worse, because the rain and snow could be flung into the zone from any dire of open sky.

  Today was simply a little cold so Shizoku and Derek would just o wear gloves to work the puzzles safely.

  For s, Shizoku presented minerals that were also alchemical ingredients. They had a reasonable cost, represented something personal to her, were pleasing to the eyes, and all this while representing something that was an aspect of Kamatha's power. Bip ted as aension of her, so he did not have to make any s.

  Derek's was simpler, but even more personal. He drew upon his personal reserves of energy and attuhem to elemental earth before up that vitality to Kamatha. His vitality would be restored with food a, but the immediate effect made him look tired like he'd just pleted a moderate workout.

  Both were readily accepted.

  For the first challenge, Shizoku was in charge of making the initial decision of where the spheres o be pced while Derek moved them. His trol over earth made them easier to roll than they would be normally, but he still had to use a fair amount of muscle power at the same time. Based on her own efforts in moving those spheres previously, Fuyuko retty sure that she was still physically strohan Derek. This was also wheiced that he was a little taller thahey'd met, mostly because she saw the height differeween him and Shizoku.

  However, Derek's affinity for earth also gave him an instinctive sense of what belonged where, and one of Shizoku's seles felt wrong enough that he vetoed it. After some discussion, they went with a bination that Shizo was less fident about but that felt right to Derek.

  Fuyuko spent the time pying with Bip, including using a small sliver of stone as a tiny 'sword' to spar with the little crystal slime, who made his own 'sword' out of a crystal-encased pseudopod.

  Betweewo of them, they mao clear the first puzzle in one go. Fuyuko was a little jealous of that, she'd had to try several times. At least she hadn't gotten the hidden increasi penalty since she wasn't a delver.

  At the artist's workstations, Shizoku jumped straight to the painting. Mixing pigments from minerals was simir to her alchemical work and she had some basic art training as part of her education. As for the subject of her work, she decided that painting a set of stoo look like a rabbit family ropriate. They were wildly colored rabbits, but that fit the dungeon's style pretty well.

  Derek took a moment to decide, but in the end he went with sculpting. He did not have the power and trol to simply meld marble into his desired form, but his abilities did help him shape the stone more easily and precisely using the tools and training provided. Shizoku blushed when she saw him pce a marble bust of her head oar.

  Fuyuko didn't have to do anything in particur so she messed around with cy as she chatted with her friends, making weird shapes and funny faces with giant tohey weren't very good, but they made Kazue giggle when she checked in on Fuyuko, and that was enough to make Fuyuko happy.

  They'd all mao lose track of Bip for a while, but when Shizoku called for him Bip rolled out of one of the cy pits. His appearance caused all three of them to ugh; he'd mao get into the mineral pigments at some point and had absorbed some of the more vivid ones, which were currently swirling through him in random color binations. It was quite the trast to the cy he had to shake off.

  The third challenge had really annoyed Fuyuko, but she hadn't had any help. At least she'd only had to evenly baones across two ptforms; Shizo and Derek had to do it across three.

  This articurly b for Fuyuko to watch, so she put a board across one of the stos and tried to ban it. That little game only sted until there weren't any good stones left, as they all had to be used oforms. Theue end of the pnk into the ground ahe other out at an angle before trying to put her weight on it. She was trying to find the right angle and bao 'stand' on the board while it was stig out of the ground. The idea seemed easy at first but she soon realized it was much harder thahought. Fuyuko never got more than a few seds like that before the board tilted too far one way or another.

  That game ended when she came close to squishing a sleeping Bip. So Fuyuko just sat on the ground with the slime in her p as she petted him a her mind wander until her friends were done.

  After that was the birial of quarrying and adding to the stru of the building. Once more they split the chore by having Shizoku in charge of seleg what stoo quarry in what size and direg its pt. She did still have to demonstrate her uanding of the teique by quarrying out a few smaller squares and then using them to fill in a gap that couldn't be filled ly with the standard-sized blocks, but Shizoku simply didn't have the physical strength to work with those.

  The small kitsu snappish during this part as it was starting to get dark and rapidly grew colder. Derek wasn't bothered despite the fact that most of it was directed at him but Fuyuko got annoyed and said, "Oh just get over it and grow fuzzy. Ya already know he doesn't care and I certainly don't." Shizoku scowled without answering, but she did shape ge into her more fox-like form as the pair tio work. Fuyuko had to admit that her friend was an adorably floofy kitsune in this form.

  Fuyuko eained herself by pying hide and seek with Bip and climbing around the partially built buildings. She didn't bother with making herself fuzzier. She had to work to maintain a shape ge, usune who could just take a new form and stay there. Besides, her oni bloodlines were native to the far north. The cold never bothered her anyway.

  Well, that's what she would cim if asked. She did have limits, but she was fortable even in moderate snow. As long as she had enough to eat that is.

  Ohe pair were dohey were presented with their colle of prizes and they could all leave. Derek was quite happy with the exteool set he received as he'd discovered he rather liked sculpting and wao give engraving a try too. Shizoku was also happy with the mineral pigments she received as she'd asked for pletely non-toxies with low reactivity, which was normally hard to guarantee. She wao use them to better color code her potions and such. Many potential c agents could ruin a potion, so one had to be careful. She also wao see whies could color Bip for longer; most but not all of the pigments he'd previously absorbed were already gone.

  Normally Fuyuko would just use her special entra her guests wouldn't be able to use it even if they were keyed to be allowed to. Derek had no affinity for void whatsoever, and Shizoku would have had to find an appropriate spell ahead of time to have it ready to cast. So instead she led her friends over to the mushroom clouds that would normally be used for leaving the Earth Zone. Instead, Saraag made one of them sparkle with living crystal for her, and the three of them got aboard to let it gently float up to the rge baly that was the mairance for the tree home.

  Fuyuko did ohing that was slightly badly behaved though. She deliberately, and with more than a hint of mischief, hadn't remihem about the hatgs. Shizoku yelped and jumped when the baby dragons pouhe trio to iigate the arrivals and Derek stood still in shock as the curious creatures swarmed and snuffled about them.

  Fuyuko fell to the floor of the baly ughing. "Oh, ya should see your expressions! They're great!"

  When her friends recovered from their surprise Shizoku, her arms ed around a fidgety cat dragon, growled and said to Derek, who was being distracted by twon heads staring at his own, their one body banced on his shoulder and leaning on his ear, "Derek, if you get off one of her boots I bet I tickle her foot until she begs for fiveness."

  There was a bit of shouting and running about after that, whicluded the dragoedly chasing them about too, but it ended when Mordecai came out to shoo everyone inside for diakehiko was already there waiting, along with Kazue, Moriko, and Bridgette.

  Zagaroth