Mordecai kept his neutral-friendly expression as Captain Alain Vitomir eyed him suspiciously. “You sound exactly like some of my senior officers.”
Now Mordecai allowed himself to relax and crack a more sincere smile. “I may have played that role a time or three in the past.”
“Hm, for a supposedly young dungeon, you seem to have quite a bit of experience.” The statement came with an implied question, and Mordecai decided to give a partial answer.
“It’s complicated, but consider me to be an older man who has moved into a younger woman’s house,” Mordecai said with a grin, “And brought another woman with me. It doesn’t really cover the situation, but it does give it a rough outline.”
“Hah, and then the two women run off together to leave you sitting the house?” Alain replied with a laugh.
“Yes and no, as Kazue is also here.” Mordecai gestured around the dungeon. “Avatar and Core are two aspects of one being. So she’s listening in right now, and can interact as well, if a bit less directly. Hmm, she recently came up with these animated illusion platforms, maybe she could install them at the campsites. I know she has a couple in the town on the next level.”
“Town?” Alain shook his head. “Well, that answers part of what I wanted to ask. I have no intention of actually dragging anyone’s body. But some of my people are reaching their limits in combat alone, and the terrain’s been getting more complicated at the same time as your creatures have been getting stronger. I’m trying to decide if it’s time to tap out or not.”
Mordecai looked up and tilted his head in thought. “I’ve got an offer, depending on how much free time you have.” He looked back down with a smile. “You’ve proven to be a reliable instructor. But I bet your soldiers have less experience in training others. And the process of going back to basics to train others has proven to often be beneficial.” He shrugged. “We’ve grown fairly fast, and I only have so much time to give direct training. Unless it goes against Trionean policy or orders, I can hire your party for a duration to train the inhabitants on this floor. In addition to any direct pay we agree on, I can offer a free pass on the rest of the floor, and when the contract duration is up, you get to start off fresh and ready to tackle the boss fight.”
He paused and held up a finger in thought for a moment before continuing. “Speaking of contracts, we have the capacity to make all of you actual Contractors for the duration, which would let you also train dangerously, and Kazue has agreed to the idea as well. Contractors get most of the benefits of inhabitants, most importantly getting the daily respawn, but don’t have the stringent loyalty requirements. Contractors simply have to not be hostile to the dungeon in thought or deed.” In fact, with the combined pools of having two cores they could have up to thirteen contractors, so twelve others plus Moriko.
Alain considered the offer in silence for a little bit, then narrowed his eyes a little. “The bit about Contractors having to be not hostile, that’s a test of sorts isn’t it? Does this have something to do with what your wife Kazue said about someone trying to hurt her?”
That made Mordecai chuckle. “That is a bonus effect, and yes, there is a relation to that event. I’m honestly pretty certain that you have no direct relationship with that group, but there is no reason to not throw a little extra precaution that way. If anyone held any hostile or antagonistic thoughts or feelings toward us, the Contract would simply fail to attach.” There were occasionally some deranged people who could actually fake their way past the initial contract forming, but those individuals were extremely broken souls and the contract always broke the moment they decided that they were going to take a hostile action.
The captain pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You know, when you are an officer in the army, you have lots of opportunities to hear people talk about crazy ideas and crazier stories. Some of those ideas might seem particularly crazy to a man whose family has had particularly beautiful but mysterious women marry into it, women with an affinity for the forests or river near the orchard. At least, according to old family legends. Of course, if you call someone an idiot for holding a particularly stupid belief, people who agree with him generally don’t care for you much,” He shrugged, “But anyway, I don’t think you’ll find any hostility amongst my people. They still might be worried about the contract idea though.”
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Mordecai’s core did a deeper analysis of the microscopic bits that had been left in the dungeon from Alain’s passage, and quickly found what he was looking for. A few traces of fey, possibly some type of nymph, and given the region Alain was from, that would probably mean those traces came from a vila. Interesting.
“The problem with crazy ideas and stories passed down over a long time is that they inevitably accumulate changes and drop details. It takes a lot of meticulous effort to keep records straight for millennia.” Mordecai shrugged. “Perhaps we can talk about that sort of philosophy at another time, if you feel free to indulge in that sort of long conversation.” They’d talked around the topic closely enough for Mordecai’s satisfaction. “Why don’t we negotiate a contract offer for just the training, and a small bonus for those who elect to become full Contractors for the duration. The main benefit of being a contractor is the ability to train harder, but it does come with the obligation to defend the dungeon from anyone who would seriously attack it.”
While they negotiated, Orchid was going over the information that Kazue was passing along, while snuggled on a small couch with Paltira. Xarlug and Kansif were off sparring with river floor bosses, conducting some training of their own to keep themselves entertained. “I can almost guarantee that they were ordered to take leave for this trip. We aren’t on good enough terms for a Trionean military group to be approved long-term leave into Kuiccihan allied territory like this without cause, unless our captain here has some very big strings to pull on. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is another group or two on their way, it’s what I would do. And possibly go myself, but I am a field agent.” She shrugged. “I agree with your husband, Captain Vitomir has likely been sent in blind to just get a surface-level read. It’s a good method to get a different point of view without preconceptions.” The princess gave an impish grin and dismissed her fox ears and tails, returning to her original form, becoming a petite beauty with long dark hair, curled up in Paltira’s lap. “Though part of me is tempted to meet him as myself, see how he reacts to personally meeting foreign royalty.”
Kazue’s illusion shook her head with amusement. “I didn’t know the refined princess I admired so had such an evil sense of humor.”
“Part of the training,” Orchid replied. “I always needed to play that role in public, but your wife and I could exchange stories about our youthful escapades.” She turned a little and drew Paltira down for a kiss, then smiled softly when they broke apart. “This is better, though it took me a while to acknowledge it deeply enough to change certain things in my life.” She shook her head, and looked back to the platform holding Kazue’s avatar. “But that is a story for another time. How go the negotiations?”
The negotiations had gone fairly smoothly. Small, thin rods of gold in exchange for the training, created by dungeon mana. One rod per person per full day of training given. The negotiation for becoming Contractors was a little more detailed, as contractors could not be compensated with dungeon-created loot. Fortunately, the weeks of trading had left the dungeon with an overflow of goods, even with the amount that had been consumed by the planar negotiations.
When they were done, Mordecai left the captain to talk with his people. The wizard and the priestess were the quickest to agree to the full contract, while the last was the soldier who had harassed Kazue and Moriko. It took the captain a bit of time to reassure the man that the dungeon wasn’t holding a grudge. Which was mostly true even, at least in regard to a temporary contract. Mordecai wouldn’t have invited someone with that sort of judgment to be a permanent Contractor.
The next day, Mordecai formalized everything, and the training commenced. The party was met by scouts from both of the ‘warring’ factions, and the first day was spent familiarizing themselves with the floor and the inhabitants. They agreed to spend two weeks in the training, which backed Orchid’s opinion that the soldiers were sent to gather information as that prolonged their leave time significantly. If any other parties made it to the third floor, training would be modified as needed to accommodate them.
Not that two weeks was going to be enough for deep training, but it would give the mushroom forest inhabitants more dedicated training during that time than Mordecai could possibly provide, and the rest of their guests were more warriors than soldiers. Tactics and methodology varied greatly between those two groups, warriors were good for training most of the floor bosses, but not as good for training organized groups. And the inhabitants were well motivated to continue any training regimens they learned during that time.