As Kazue started building their sixth floor, Mordecai drew back his focal point and expanded his senses, paying the most attention to the complex structures of mana that tied everything to their core. New patterns and possibilities were being born through their actions and growth, and there was one he was hoping for yet.

Mm, a hint of what he’d seen only once before, but it wasn’t fully formed yet. There was another pattern coalescing around Kazue’s half of their core however, and he was pleased. That one would make her just as happy for now.

As for himself, well, he knew how to watch these patterns as they formed, and what they meant. His options were defined by what they had done and who they were as a pair, but he was not limited to just what resonated most easily.

Only three of the available mana forms were tempting. He could improve his ability to channel spells through their inhabitants, he could pick up an elemental-energy resonance that would enhance all of their inhabitants, or he could select a boost that would temporarily enhance their floor bosses when faced with explorers that were stronger than them.

The first option was the easiest to discard as he’d only need it against hostile intruders and he felt that he had better options than that. That brought his choices down to a minor enhancement for all inhabitants all the time, or a stronger boost specifically for the bosses but only when they needed it.

Mordecai considered the group from Riverbridge that had flubbed the first floor a few weeks ago and decided on the boss-boosting ability. The range of skills and power for their visitors was too wide, it was better to be flexible rather than just more powerful. So he focused on that pattern, pulling it toward his side of the core and amplifying it while the others subsided. There was a subtle shift throughout the dungeon as soon as it locked into place, but Kazue was still focused on finishing up their starting layout for the sixth floor.

The pattern settling into her half of the core was stabilizing nicely and he left it alone, rather than accelerate it like he’d done for his own. He would show her how to do this eventually, but Mordecai was still concerned that letting her be too aware of the ability to choose new abilities like this might affect the one he thought she’d be the happiest with.

That was frustrating to not be able to ask if this was what she wanted to work for, but awareness that she could work for it might taint the sincerity he was pretty certain was required for it to be possible.

Of course, it was going to be impossible to hide that something was going on she wasn’t aware of, especially when he pointed her toward watching the forming souls of their inhabitants. This was the result of the actions she’d set in motion when she’d first started uplifting rabbits into being full people. He’d helped by including more of them into his plans, but now it solidified. Every creature that was an inhabitant or boss in their dungeon had a minimal level uplift or more. And with a fully cognizant mind came the more complex patterns of spirit that evolved into a proper soul.

That prediction was proven true when Kazue’s avatar stirred and bit into his avatar’s shoulder with a tiny growl. Mordecai tried to not laugh too much as he pried her off and wrestled her down. Her glare only held so much heat so he stole a quick kiss, pulling back before she could bite his lips. “Yes, I’m hiding something. And I believe to get the results that will make you happiest, I need to keep it hidden for now. So I’m asking you to trust me and not go poking at figuring out what I was doing. If you insist on knowing, I will simply tell you, but I’m asking you to trust me to keep this secret until I think the time is right.”

Kazue sighed, then stuck her tongue out at him. “Fine fine, keep your secrets, ancient dungeon man.” Now her green eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’ll just have to find entertaining ways to punish you later. Or reward, depending on how I decide I feel about it.” The kitsune gave him her best overly-innocent look. “Wait, those are supposed to be different things, right?”

That led to an entertaining distraction of demonstrating the difference, and when they were done they pulled themselves together to do a walk-through of their home starting from the top, to see what changes their recent growth had wrought. There were a few surprises in store for them, even for Mordecai, starting with the faeries that Kazue had created for her first-floor puzzle. They hadn’t been meant to be truly independent creatures, they had been a manifestation of the puzzle, but somewhere between interactions with visitors and the recent intelligence boost these too had become real people. And unlike the dire rabbits, this lot had the physical requirements for speech.

This didn’t make them great conversationalists however. Mordecai hated to admit it, but he found it a little painful to talk with them for long. But they did have unsurprisingly short attention spans, and Mordecai was quick to encourage more interactions and visitations between the dire rabbits and the faeries, and let the tiny winged creatures know that they were free to visit the rest of the dungeon when they weren’t on duty.

When the tiny sparkling humanoids had excitedly dispersed and the two avatars had moved on to someplace with a bit of privacy, they took the time to sit and breathe in the pleasant silence for a bit. “Okay,” Mordecai began after they had recovered. “I have an idea. Right before they get to the room with the faeries, we should give a small reward of some bunbee honey and wax, something to not make it obvious this is partially a potential aid for the next section. They’ll talk less if they are distracted by eating sticky honey, and the wax can potentially be shaped into earplugs if people think of it.”

“Right. Good idea.” Kazue paused before adding, “You know that they will sincerely try to ‘help’ people solve their puzzles, right? Only, I am not sure they are going to be very good at it.”

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Mordecai chuckled at the thought. “Well, it makes things more interesting. Having smarter inhabitants is one of the paths toward making a dungeon more challenging.” While the direct power of the creatures on any given floor was limited, the enhancements a dungeon gathered as it grew were on top of that baseline. One thought nagged at him though, "I'm still not sure how they went from puzzle constructs to actual fairies. My best guess is that we attracted sprite-sparks from the Other Side. Those are often no more sapient than our fairies, and less able to communicate. At least, until they evolve, but that can take a while.

Kazue frowned, "So, they aren't actually the fairies I made for the flower puzzle?"

"Well, if I am right, then they are sort of both. Your fairies were organic constructs, and I think your ability to give inhabitants sapience created an opening. The sparks merged with the faeries, making them true faeries while also making the sprite sparks more than they were. There's no separation of existence between them, they are both this new, more complete creature. And it would appeal to any sparks that were at the first stage of becoming something more." He shrugged, “I could be wrong, I'll have to examine them in detail to be sure. But that can wait. Come on, let’s see what else is in store for us.”

Zushi and Ryohoho had received a stronger mental enhancement as a raid boss and a floor boss respectively. By pure ability to abstract and memorize, Mordecai put Zushi at a fairly standard human range with Ryohoho only a little behind. The dracobit was able to talk directly however, which annoyed Zushi. Kazue promised the giant void bunny that the two of them would work on making sure everyone could talk clearly before they moved on.

The second floor wasn’t a lot different than previously, but now the rabbits on the puzzle path could be cleverer with their clues and more creative on making new dances, while the rabbats and bunbees on the combat path were capable of being more tactical without any need to be directed. Hildegard and Crios both were enjoying the same improved mental clarity that Ryohoho was, but like Zushi they were not built for talking.

The laganthros had the least obvious amount of improvement, but those that they talked to did acknowledge that their minds felt clearer and sharper, as did Betty. Umbrowl was a small surprise, not only had the mental enhancement synergized well with feline cleverness and innate magical abilities, but natural cat vocalizations combined with the ability to make owl-like calls could be modulated to be rather close to humanoid speech. Close enough to be understood at least, though not close enough to be mistaken for one.

The dire polecats had received about the same amount of increase as the other animalistic inhabitants but with a slightly higher baseline, leaving them rather clever giant mustelids. Their ability to speak was not quite as good as Umbrowl’s, but they were still intelligible.

For the library, both the biting words and the bookwyrms proved quite capable of speech, with the bookwyrms being the cleverer of the two. The books were more talkative however, much like the faeries if less bubbly, and were eager to try insulting and demoralizing explorers. Maybe he shouldn’t have named them biting words? His own humor coming back to bite him he guessed.

The bunbrarians had about the same change as the rest of the laganthros of course, seeing as how it was more of a mantle that they donned when it was time to play the part. Any of the laganthros with sufficient combat skill could take up the role as needed, though the mantle was ‘stuck’ to them until the next dawn reset and the dungeon could only have so many mantles for the role.

Biblios enjoyed his enhanced mental facilities, now able to think clearly and talk, and was turning his attention to the books that made up his ‘hoard’. While some of it was for entertainment, there were many books available that had information on the working of magic and he was becoming rather invested in his studies of it.

Horace just seemed unaffected by the enhancement and still only verbalized with ‘ook’ and close variants, though it was quite clear he understood everything that was said and was in fact working on writing his own book, though it seemed he wasn’t quite ready to share it yet. The only way for him to be unaffected was to already be at least as smart as the maximum capacity the boost could provide, which Mordecai had not expected. He’d known the orangutan was smart of course, just not that smart.

For Fungal Floor Five the enhancement had left the river drakes and feather serpents rather pleased, and both were able to speak if with a somewhat stereotypical sibilance to their words. It wasn’t as ‘s’ heavy as some exaggerations made such speech out to be, but it was rather hard to end words sharply when you didn’t have proper lips. They were about as smart as the bookwyrms, which was to say still somewhat childlike compared to most races, though less inclined toward intellectual pursuit beyond what directly affected their lives.

The standard dracobits were at about the same level, putting them a bit below Ryohoho in mental capacity, and the dire badgers were about an even match with the dire polecats.

Sarcomaag was rather interesting. Mordecai and Kazue were fairly certain that the fungal boss had been enhanced as well, but the way in which it thought was still rather slow and deliberate, and a touch alien, making it harder for them to gauge the difference. And they weren’t certain what was going to be the best way for Sarcomaag to communicate with others if it wanted to, but that seemed best to leave alone for the moment.

Klastoria was much more straightforward: not only was her mental activity much more vibrant, her core was visibly larger and faintly sparkled with energy as it processed her thoughts. It was her brain after all, not unlike a dungeon’s core. She was getting a bit bored now however, which confused her because she hadn’t been capable of being bored before. Not completely bored though, she had been practicing speech! Well, not so much speech as capturing air in pockets of slime and then pushing it out in different whistles and burbles, but she was working on it!

Fixing her boredom wasn’t difficult, at least for the short term. Her slime physiology was unique amongst the inhabitants and the more intellectually curious of the laganthros were happy to keep her company and talk with her (physically limited as her responses might be) while they tried to learn how she worked.

For the long term Mordecai and Kazue were hoping she’d be able to talk with Sarcomaag eventually, and they made some mental notes to figure out who else would be good company for her. The various draconoids were happy to visit and flit around for a bit, but they weren’t exactly the most stimulating company yet.

The sixth floor didn’t hold much to examine yet, seeing as how the laganthros were still filtering in and figuring out their niches. Even with dungeon-enhanced growth rates and upgrading of warren rabbits, their laganthro population had already been spread rather thinly and this latest push left them without any semi-normal rabbits. The dire rabbits were now their least enhanced lapins, and some of those had become laganthros as well.

With their inspection tour done, the two dungeon avatars returned to the core chambers to relax for a while before deciding what to do next.