Once the party had died down enough, the cores shifted their attention to some of the other items that had made it into the dungeon, most notably the inventory of Moriko’s wooden backpack. The old-fashioned gyosho bako held a ton of scrolls and books and their library was quickly filled with fresh copies of materials, and they no longer had so many blanks taking up space.
Their avatars were not able to help with this process right now. Mordecai had mixed some of their honey with the elixir, and Kazue had enjoyed the resulting drink perhaps a little too much, and her avatar was completely blacked out which was causing her core to grumble a bit at herself.
Moriko had lasted much longer, but that only meant she’d had the opportunity to drink more. Mordecai tucked them into bed groggily, which was a testament to the elixir’s potency given the advantages of his avatar, then made himself walk around the dungeon and make sure everything was in order, as to stop was to potentially fall asleep as well. There were things he could do to make himself more useful temporarily if needed, but if his avatar was passed out then he might not be able to rouse himself.
As the night progressed, Mordecai started noticing something off with the maps, and he began making a composite of all the maps that they had available to double-check everything and create the best estimate he could regarding their accuracy. It didn’t look quite right, but his core decided to wait until after dawn so that he could talk to Kazue and Moriko at the same time.
There was at least plenty of mana being generated from the knowledge and materials assimilated. Their cores discussed some possibilities and settled on modifying some axolotls that had been brought in from Riverbridge a while ago. The changes were going to be fairly simple, if dramatic. The first thing they did was make them huge, matching the largest of their bosses with the exception of Sarcomaag. This process also reinforced them, though it did not make them particularly agile. Instead, their primary form of attack would be to lie in wait in the center of the river and stand up underneath a boat, and from there they could bite at people or try to step on them. This would be a key moment for other creatures to attack, especially those with echolocation.
The second change that they gave the axolotls the ability to release a large fog cloud that would obscure vision in the nearby area. While this did block their own vision, Mordecai made sure to give them another sense to compensate: a high sensitivity to the vibrations and ripples on the surface of the water, making it akin to a spider’s web for them. The fog wouldn’t hamper their underwater vision, and their giant creations were not suited for land or aerial combat, so the ripples of the water’s surface would suffice for a secondary sense.
Most of his creatures possessed some interesting abilities, so fairly simple giant creatures seemed like a decent change of pace and felt like an interesting surprise for the river. And they could double as ‘draft’ animals for Kazue’s half of the river if people negotiate their way correctly.
When dawn finally broke Moriko woke up with a start and bolted upright in bed. Mordecai shifted his avatar back to their bedroom and chuckled at her expression. “First time you’ve been here and that drunk I think. Your body just got cleaned of everything.” His gaze shifted to Kazue who was stirring much more lazily. “This one just likes her sleep, she’s used to refusing to wake up despite normally not needing any sleep at all.”
Kazue gave him a sleepy glare, then yawned. “It’s not fair that you are both a morning person and a night owl and a whatever else. Well, I guess I am too now sort of, but I like the feeling of sleeping. And I get to be asleep while being awake! What can beat that?” She grinned at him.
Moriko shook her head at them. “I know the reality, but sometimes I forget that you guys sort of have two brains each. Then you talk about being awake and asleep at the same time.” She gave Mordecai a look through lowered lashes. “More importantly, now that we are all feeling better, I do believe you still owe your wife a proper homecoming.” Her voice purred as she wrapped her arms around Kazue to create an enticing scene for him, and Kazue was quick to play her part.
Mordecai smirked. “I’m the one who remained conscious the entire night, it’s not my fault you two are lightweights.” Moriko gasped in mock outrage at the slander, but he continued before she could reply. “However, I do actually need to go over a few things with the both of you, so I’ll have to make it up to you instead.”
Kazue frowned at him, then sighed. “Yeah, you’ve been feeling antsy about something most of the night. Fine, let’s deal with it. What’s up?” Moriko pouted but raised no objections.
“Let me show you on the table.” He said as he walked over to his destination. Once they had joined him, Mordecai created a large map across the wooden surface. “This is a composite of all the maps we’ve gotten. But there is a discrepancy to my memories.” He conjured a small piece of graphite and drew a shape roughly paralleling the current coastline but a little further out, and completely ignoring the indentation of a large crescent shape along the southern section of the coast. He also added a couple of mountains along the coast and several small islands, whereas the original map had none at all in this area.
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“I can’t promise this is exactly to scale, I’ve never been a surveyor, but my memory tells me there should be a lot more coast here. What happened to the missing section? Two thousand years doesn’t cause that much erosion.”
Moriko and Kazue exchanged glances, looked back down to the map, and then back at him. “Um,” Kazue began. “As far as I know, this has been the approximate coastline for longer than the kingdom has been around. So if something happened, it was over a thousand years ago.”
“You know,” Moriko added, “I’ve heard that something drastic happened about two thousand years ago…” She deliberately let that trail off, arcing a brow at Mordecai.
“Hey, don’t look at me. As far as I know, that coast was intact, and none of my creations should have been able to take out a chunk of land like that.” He pointed at the nearly perfect arc that currently served the kingdom as a nice bay snugged up close to the southern mountains. “I don’t think it was my fault.”
There was a moment of silence as they all stared down at the map, and none of the half-formed thoughts flowing across their link were helpful either. “Well,” Kazue said slowly. “The oldest two people I can think of are Aia and Traxalim, though don’t tell the Matriarch that I called her ‘old’. Anyway, maybe we can ask them sometime? See if they know any clues? I’ve been sorting through the oldest history books we have, I can’t find anything mentioning any earthquakes or floods or such that could have caused such a radical change.”
“Alright.” Mordecai conceded with a frown. “I guess it can wait. It’s not urgent, but it’s damn strange to me.” He sighed, then shook his head. “Okay, putting that out of my mind for now. On to dungeon business. Everyone else is refreshed as well, and not all of our guests allowed themselves to indulge as much, and others quit early, so we should get ourselves ready to greet people and trade or host delving parties, as needed. But I have a special request for you Moriko.”
He grinned at the dubious look on her face. “Oh, you might have fun, though it probably won’t matter until tomorrow or the day after. While our sixth floor is not finished there is enough to create a little bit of a challenge, only we don’t have a boss. And you haven’t had to fulfill your contractor role as a defender of the dungeon yet.”
Moriko’s eyes lit up at the idea he was presenting. “I get to play floor boss?! How is this going to work?”
Kazue had perked up at that as well. “I hadn’t thought of that! Then again, I don’t do as much with the combat side. And I kind of forget she was also our contractor.”
Mordecai nodded. “Yes, and it doesn’t take much really. But the environment isn’t quite ideal for you, so what I am thinking is to temporarily add some random ice floes floating around the lake, giving you someplace to stand on and to jump between, or even onto a boat and back off. Well, if I start off next to you, I can give you a temporary enchantment to let you walk on water, but that doesn’t seem as much fun.”
His wife eyed him suspiciously. “You just want to see if I fall into the water. I’ll have you know that I can run across water for short distances.”
“Love,” Mordecai replied with a smirk. “If I want to see you soaking wet with your clothes plastered to your skin, believe me when I say that I am quite capable of arranging it. You are our contractor, our power can affect you rather directly.”
Kazue was eyeing Moriko thoughtfully now. “Ohh, I hadn’t thought of that. Hmm, the dress you were wearing when we met you is enchanted, so it won’t be as affected, but I am certain I could reproduce it, maybe with a thinner silk fabric. That could be entertaining.”
“Hmm, clothing. If she wants to play floor boss, she might want to select an appropriate outfit. I mean, if she wants to fight naked, I don’t think most of our guests will mind too much, though they could end up being a bit distracted.”
Moriko was trying to look offended at their casual suggestions, but in the end broke down laughing. “Oh, Kazue, you were such a sweet innocent when I met you, you’ve turned into such a lech, and I love it. You, on the other hand,” she said as she pointed at Mordecai, “are still my favorite pervert dungeon.”
Kazue swished her tails and only slightly blushed. “I wasn’t all that innocent you know. I just had some issues with the noise in my head and dealing with all that jumble and reality at the same time. It was just overwhelming. And, you know, I was inexperienced. Now that I, well, know what to do and how you feel and that I don’t have to worry about it so much, it doesn’t affect me so badly.”
Mordecai could sympathize, but only to an extent. He didn’t really know what it had been like growing up that way, cores didn’t have puberty and his first several avatars had been created in adult form. His one experiment with starting younger had proved uncomfortable to say the least, but it hadn’t been as hard as some people experienced since he’d had more experience to help him cope.
And what he knew of Moriko suggested that she’d started off brash, at the least. When he had some leisure time to do so, he kind of wanted to find some of her childhood friends and the like and dig up some dirt, see if there were any exploits that might embarrass her a little as a semi-responsible adult.
That was another thing that would have to wait however. “Well, why don’t we get you two dressed, then Moriko can head over to the lake to see what she can work out with the inhabitants to make for a challenging fight.” He paused as a thought came. “We’re probably going to want to work something out for rules though. While you have the same protections while you are in the dungeon, you don’t have the same sense of safety the dungeon born do, the surety that it’s not actually deadly for you. And I don’t think you particularly want to experience death, even if it’s not going to stick. So I think I can set up a rule that delvers have to agree to in order to do the sixth floor’s combat path, where everyone is agreeing to treat it more like a live steel spar, at least where you are concerned.”
Moriko looked thoughtful as she tapped her chin. “Maybe. I mean, I feel guilty at the idea of being treated differently in this case and am quite happy to retreat if it comes down to it, but you’re right, I don’t really want to chance experiencing death even if it’s going to be okay the next day. Well, I’ll think about it.”
And with that, the three of them shifted their focus to picking outfits for their duties for the day.