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 can go meet them." Fuyuko had been working off her nervous energy on a thoroughly abused training dummy and at Kazue's words she stashed her falcatas back into her bracers and dashed for the nearest shortcut.

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

Partway up the path to the trading post, Takehiko sensed the oncoming 'ambush' in time to step back and let his young companions get tackled into a tight hug.

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

"Because boys are stupid," Shizoku retorted, "now come on, let's go. I want to see this new level those two have cooked up." Bip burbled and chimed on her shoulder, and Fuyuko was pretty certain the little slime was as confused as she was.

Derek shook his head mutely, refusing to explain 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, and neither did Derek."

Fuyuko shrugged 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, Galan told me he'll be coming to the dungeon for combat 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 plans 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 working some stuff out."

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

Fuyuko shrugged awkwardly and replied, "Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it's not exactly 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 can 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 regularly thanks to their linked ring. The idea only occurred to her after Shizo had mentioned that she and her cousin were going to pick up Derek in time to be there for Fuyuko's birthday.

Sure, their trip was part of picking her up to go training with the kitsune clan for a month or so, but there was no reason Fuyuko couldn't have taken that trip. Shizo hadn't gone either, 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 when she turned 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 can do that. Er, is he joining ya?" She gestured at Takehiko.

Takehiko shook his head and said, "No, the kids can go play on Kazue's path. If my understanding from the reports is correct, I should be able to solo the combat path and I can 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 in perpetual shadow. "The tree must be magnificent. I couldn't get a good look from the road."

Fuyuko tried not to frown at the man, Kazue's paths may be playful but they certainly weren't just play. Whatever. Turning her attention back to her friends, she asked, "Do ya have offerings 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 can complete it in time. She also said I can 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-combat path. Fuyuko didn't get any rewards for doing so and the dungeon had to spend mana in resetting 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 popular route for several reasons, especially the combat route, which meant that there was an opening for Takehiko immediately. The strongest parties wanted to face the strongest challenges, so they mostly wanted to go straight down.

For fresh trainees, they mostly went into the hunting grounds which was more of an open space than a path and was far less restricted in how many people could go there.

This left the Earth Zone's combat route mostly popular 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 late fall now, the cold and occasional rain was making the above ground zones less popular in general. The turbulent winds that surrounded the Earth Zone to prevent cheating via flight provided a little bit of insulation 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 direction of open sky.

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

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For offerings, 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 counted as an extension of her, so he did not have to make any offerings.

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

Both were readily accepted.

For the first challenge, Shizoku was in charge of making the initial decision of where the spheres needed to be placed while Derek moved them. His control 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 was pretty sure that she was still physically stronger than Derek. This was also when she noticed that he was a little taller than when they'd met, mostly because she saw the height difference between him and Shizoku.

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

Fuyuko spent the time playing 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.

Between the two of them, they managed to 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 increasing weight penalty since she wasn't a delver.

At the artist's workstations, Shizoku jumped straight to the painting. Mixing pigments from minerals was similar 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 stones to look like a rabbit family was appropriate. 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 control 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 place a marble bust of her head on the altar.

Fuyuko didn't have to do anything in particular so she messed around with clay as she chatted with her friends, making weird shapes and funny faces with giant tongues. They 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 managed to lose track of Bip for a while, but when Shizoku called for him Bip rolled out of one of the clay pits. His appearance caused all three of them to laugh; he'd managed to 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 combinations. It was quite the contrast to the clay 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 balance stones across two platforms; Shizo and Derek had to do it across three.

This was particularly boring for Fuyuko to watch, so she put a board across one of the stone weights and tried to balance on it. That little game only lasted until there weren't any good stones left, as they all had to be used on the platforms. Then she stuck one end of the plank into the ground and held the other out at an angle before trying to put her weight on it. She was trying to find the right angle and balance to 'stand' on the board while it was sticking out of the ground. The idea seemed easy at first but she soon realized it was much harder than she thought. Fuyuko never got more than a few seconds 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 lap as she petted him and let her mind wander until her friends were done.

After that was the combined trial of quarrying and adding to the construction of the building. Once more they split the chore by having Shizoku in charge of selecting what stone to quarry in what size and directing its placement. She did still have to demonstrate her understanding of the technique by quarrying out a few smaller squares and then using them to fill in a gap that couldn't be filled neatly with the standard-sized blocks, but Shizoku simply didn't have the physical strength to work with those.

The small kitsune got 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 change into her more fox-like form as the pair continued to work. Fuyuko had to admit that her friend was an adorably floofy kitsune in this form.

Fuyuko entertained herself by playing 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 change, unlike kitsune 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 claim if asked. She did have limits, but she was comfortable even in moderate snow. As long as she had enough to eat that is.

Once the pair were done, they were presented with their collection of prizes and they could all leave. Derek was quite happy with the extensive tool set he received as he'd discovered he rather liked sculpting and wanted to give engraving a try too. Shizoku was also happy with the mineral pigments she received as she'd asked for completely non-toxic ones with low reactivity, which was normally hard to guarantee. She wanted to use them to better color code her potions and such. Many potential coloring agents could ruin a potion, so one had to be careful. She also wanted to see which ones 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 entrance but 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, Sarcomaag 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 large balcony that was the main entrance for the tree home.

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

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

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

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