In the northern hemisphere of the planet Darsal, Summer Solstice arrived. In most nations and cities, Zagaroth was the deity most celebrated, with Bedelia, the Phoenix and Queen of Fire, often being the second most revered on this day.

In the southern hemisphere, the three-day Winter Solstice celebration was on its middle day, celebrating Amirume and Mericume, the goddesses of the Sun and Moon. Yu-Kiang, the Leviathan-Whale and King of the Oceans, was often acknowledged on this day as well.

But not all places held the Primogen deities first. Across the ocean there was a country that celebrated Xiyual before all others, for he was the hero and risen god who had founded their nation after cleansing the land of demons.

In the Trionean Empire that covered much of the northern area of the continent of Dovrador, the church of Dormire had long been pushing a narrative that placed their god as an equal to the Empyreal Pillars. The gap in power was in truth too large to close during the lifespan of a single universe, but the narrative strengthened the religion, and it had begun to spread to other worlds as well.

So across the world, people did celebrate in the manner most suited to their nature and customs. In the Azeria Mountain Dungeon, Kazue, Mordecai, Moriko, and Li Zarb walked together to visit all the inhabitants and bosses. The three spouses were focused upon praising all of the dungeon’s denizens, and took great care to tell Li stories of all the accomplishments and great battles of these true heroes.

Li, in turn, was happy to tell many a tale of his own. Though the ratling god-shard had trouble keeping in mind that it was a day to talk about others, his instincts guided him enough that nearly half of the stories were about someone else.

And a good third of those were about Mordecai. Mordecai was pretty certain Li wasn’t actually there for most of the stories Li told, but somehow these retellings had Li involved in some pivotal role. And even though they praised Mordecai, they also were often stories that included some embarrassing moments. Freshly invested avatars of younger dungeons were effectively the same maturity and experience as any normal young adult, giving Mordecai plenty of opportunities to make mistakes and have ‘learning experiences’ across different avatars.

Mordecai took them in stride and good humor. He acknowledged his embarrassment over certain incidents, but all of it was too distant for him to be bothered by it anymore.

Kazue and Moriko found having tales told about them by Li to be more discomfiting. Li was less likely to be inserted as a participant in these stories, but they were still a little weirded out by him just knowing things, even of those events were presented as “Oh, and I heard about that time that you […]”.

It was a thing all the greater gods could do, for while not even Zagaroth could truly know everything at once, all of them were capable of knowing about almost anything that was not specifically shielded from their awareness.

But even in this, Li was special. Nothing could be shielded from his awareness. But that awareness often did not come with understanding, and was quite open to reinterpretation by the time it became a part of Li’s story. Like the time that the ratling told them in hushed tones that Zagaroth’s favorite food was plums, but that it was a special secret. Mordecai was certain that this was some wild misunderstanding of something else, but he deliberately quashed his curiosity about it when he felt Ozuran’s attention turn directly on them when Li told them this ‘secret’. The feel of the Lord of Shadow’s presence was a very precisely controlled neutral response, which rather strongly suggested to Mordecai that pursuing the topic in any fashion would not be looked upon favorably.

Ozuran’s attention withdrew as quickly as it had come. There were disadvantages at times to being a high priest. You had more of your god’s favor, but it also came with more attention, and one did not always want a god’s attention.

In addition to their own tour of the dungeon, the inhabitants were celebrating in their own ways, whether showing off for each other, competing in challenges and games, or extolling the virtues and strengths of their fellows.

It was to also be the last night that Mordecai was going to get to spend in the physical presence of his wives for a while. But he was certain that it was the best for their personal growth right now. Kazue most especially needed to gain skills and experience beyond what he taught her.

He was also slightly worried that having an aspect of herself separated from their connection would cause her to drift away from them, and that distance and viewpoint would be integrated back into her core when she next visited. He thought it very unlikely, but if it was going to happen, he’d rather find out sooner than later.

Mordecai also didn’t know how an integration where there was significant dissonance between core and avatar would turn out, as the avatar would also be influenced by the core’s experiences. While some of his avatars had significant personality differences, especially when compared to each other, they were all remixes of his base personality. That should hold true for Kazue as well, but her circumstances were different and there was potential cause for her to develop different opinions and feelings.

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But that worry he kept tucked far away in the back of his mind. For now, he would simply be as supportive as he could, and the biggest material support he could give them was to stock the expanded backpack Moriko would be carrying as best he could. The two of them would be walking out with every coin and easily traded small valuables the dungeon had acquired from delvers, along with every potion and scroll Mordecai had the time to make from the raw materials that had been traded in. Including a particularly precious opal as an emergency fund.

Far to the west, Bellona was having a very different celebration. While some aspects were the same, the village was focused around her. The tales they told her of each other’s accomplishments were accompanied by the spiritual pressure of the starring element in the story, and every drink and bite of food she was being served was filled with elemental energy, often acquired from the elemental planes directly. She was pretty certain that this flood of conflicting spiritual energy would have killed her before her training had begun, but even in this celebration, her training continued.

Her will and mastery of the elements was tried and challenged over and over again, contesting the spiritual pressure of these mortal descendants of jinn and other elemental beings one by one, needing to match their exact mixture of elemental heritage every time.

Their power was sinking into her soul slowly, gradually altering her. By the time her training was finished, Bellona would be recognized as having elemental bloodlines by anyone who could sense such things, and it would even be reflected in any children she might have in the future. It might not awaken in any given descendant, but the potential would be there.

The extent of the powers this would awaken was not known even by the people training her. The only limitation of potential was that she would not gain any powers or magic that only full genie or elemental creatures had. Any power or technique that could awaken among the people of the village might awaken within her.

Bellona got to fight as well and enjoyed some wrestling and boxing matches to show her skill and physical strength. She had worked to keep in shape when most of her time had been devoted to cultivating spiritual power, and she was glad to let loose this side of herself for the first time in a while. This was very much a part of herself, the raw physicality of her sculpted orc physique honed by endless hours of training and practice to master her weapons and armor.

She pushed herself until the sun rose the next morning, said her daily prayers to Amirume, goddess of the sun, and finally collapsed into bed. This was the one day she was going to get to sleep in, as everyone else was exhausted as well.

Fuyuko had no one to celebrate with, however. Her travels were not illegal, but a girl traveling by herself was a potential target, and it was a coin flip if one could trust any given soldier to be professional. And even those might be suspicious of a lone traveler heading toward the border.

Crossing the border wasn’t illegal either, but again her circumstances made it suspicious. She had no money and no connections, no reason to give for why she traveled. So she had been traveling under the cover of darkness, taking full advantage of the fine equipment that she had been gifted.

For this day however, she found a place to shelter before midnight instead of pushing for dawn, and she settled in to meditate on all that had happened over the past several weeks. She ran her thoughts over what she had managed to do, and how her skills had improved with bow and blade.

Which was not nearly as much as she’d like. If she wasn’t too far away from a still target, she could usually hit what she was aiming at, and she was strong enough to pull the bow back completely, but she’d hate to try hitting a moving target with it.

She was better with her daggers, even when throwing them. She usually traveled with one in hand, and used them for hunting any small game or birds she came across. She couldn’t exactly haul around a deer carcass anyway, so the only time she’d hunted for one had been when she found an empty hunter’s shack with a smoking building. Fuyuko assumed it was visited regularly as it was pretty clean, so she left the smoked meat that she couldn’t carry hanging up in the shack.

Not that she’d done a great job at dressing the carcass or butchering the meat. She knew the basics of cooking and preserving meat, and had a bit of training for dressing caught animals from the family farmer who had taken her in for a couple of weeks, but she was still very much new to all of this.

But Fuyuko had also grown stronger and more confident during her lonely travels. She’d proven that she could do it, that she could survive off the land. She wasn’t sure yet that she would call it thriving, but she was doing fine.

When she’d finished doing her best to appraise her own improvements and made sure to congratulate herself for every accomplishment she’d actually achieved, she felt she’d done all she could right now to fulfill the purpose of this holiday. So her mind turned to the future.

She was not looking to cross directly into Kuiccihan. There were too many conflicting emotions and thoughts there. She was leaving the chance, however slim, of joining a clan of her own people in order to … what? She didn’t know. There was some sort of opportunity there, but someone also wanted something of her.

Instead, she would make her way into the Elven kingdom of Danuana. Crossing the river by using a bridge there seemed much easier than trying to cross directly into Kuiccihan anyway. Not that the idea of traipsing around elven forests didn’t make her nervous, it just made her less nervous than whatever unknown waited for her in Kuiccihan.

It would also be a chance to learn something more about her possible destination. Of course, she wasn’t sure what she was going to do if she decided things were too fishy and bailed out of the idea of going to this dungeon. Apprentice herself out to a hunter? Try to become a mercenary? Would either of those be better than what would happen if she had joined a gang? She didn’t know.

When Fuyuko had chewed on all the thoughts she could, she simply slept the rest of the daylight away, and broke camp once it was dark once more.

The next day found the Azeria dungeon saying farewell to Kazue and Moriko. There were mixed feelings all around, but Kazue did understand Mordecai’s point about experiencing the world and she was excited to go see Moriko’s home and the capital and so many more places beyond. Not only was she not bound by any duty or obligation to stay, but she had a sort of duty and obligation to herself to go and explore the world. It was still scary though, even with Moriko at her side.

They both gave Mordecai one more kiss goodbye, then stepped across the border of the dungeon to begin their adventures together.