No Need for a Core?

The vastness of the ocean was hard to understand until you truly saw it. Kazue mused upon this thought as she and Moriko walked slowly along the beach of this port city. It was the third and last day they would be spending here before they moved on. Since they had left the capital, they had been much more careful about how long they lingered in any one location. Most places they gave no more than one non-traveling day to, but this city was Kazue's first visit to the sea, and there was much to see and learn here.

Though somewhat surprisingly, neither of the spirits she currently had bonded to her related directly to the sea or sand, or other such ocean themed concepts. The first of them was a rather esoteric, ephemeral entity; a creature of light and shadow, of liminal places and the borders between. Kazue still didn't know why this was the spirit that responded when she was seeking a solution to how the sun readily burned her skin, but she suspected it had more to do with the light and shadow aspects than the liminal aspects, even if these things weren't entirely separable. And it had provided her with the spell she needed.

Of course, the reason she needed it was that Moriko had insisted they buy dresses in the local fashion, though Kazue had insisted that Moriko join her in wearing the short pants that were commonly paired with the lightweight dresses that barely fell to mid-thigh. The fabric was thankfully thicker across the chest because it was borderline sheer in other places, and it was only held up by a thin pair of straps for the shoulders.

And this exposure was no doubt a good portion of why Moriko had insisted on such flimsy casual wear. Not that Kazue had much to complain about, as it did give such a wonderful view of her wife's legs and the way the sun shone on Moriko's skin as the muscles beneath flexed. Yum. While the wide-brimmed hat that Kazue was wearing did make it harder to look up to see people, it did help hide her gaze when she wanted to admire her wife's figure discreetly.

That figure had been such a beautiful sight last night, when Moriko had recklessly chosen to dance in the air with the thunderstorm. It had been both enthralling and terrifying to watch the half-elf laughing almost maniacally as she leapt across the sky; wind, rain, and lightning swirling about her lithe form. While Kazue might have been able to pull together enough spells to enable her to at least join her wife up there, it wouldn't have really been dancing the same way. Kazue would have been moving despite the elements, not with and because of the elements, and she would have had to put a lot more effort into ensuring that lightning didn't strike her.

Not that Moriko was immune to a direct hit from a natural bolt of lightning, no, the reckless woman was entrusting to her control of the elements to keep such a strike from hitting her.

But if Moriko hadn't gone out to dance in that storm, Kazue wouldn't have met the second spirit she was keeping bonded right now: a spirit of lightning and storms. While not so esoteric as her liminal spirit, it could be almost as ephemeral. She knew that they would continue to exist as discrete entities so long as they were bonded with her, but they were the sort of spirit that might otherwise dissipate when conditions were no longer optimal for them. Especially the liminal one; Kazue thought it might have come into existence because she'd been putting effort into finding something that could help her out.

What she was hoping was that if she could keep them bonded long enough to give them a stronger sense of identity and self that they'd be able to exist independently. It was limiting for her to keep them bonded; she could only keep two bonded at a time, and it took several minutes under optimal conditions to bond with a new one. But she didn't mind and thought that her liminal spirit worked really well with her ability to bring dreams and imagination briefly to the surface of reality. Her trick for making it briefly hard to tell where she was as random images of might-have-beens flickered around her could be amplified along the edges of spaces, letting her slide through reality a bit more. She could move further so long as it was along a border and squeeze through gaps she otherwise shouldn't be able to fit through.

Her lightning and storm spirit did not synergize quite so well, though it could speed her up and that did help, and its bolts of lightning were probably her most powerful ranged ability at the moment. But she hadn't had a good chance to test it out yet, not inside of city limits. But maybe tomorrow while they are on the road.

For now, Kazue was listening to Moriko recount yesterday's events back home.

"So after breakfast, Mordecai tormented the kids by waiting a while before asking if there was anything that they wanted to talk about. Then he just nodded thoughtfully when they spoke and asked things like 'is there anything else?' while smiling patiently and encouragingly. The two of them spilled their guts." Moriko was having trouble not laughing while she recounted the tale, and it made Kazue grin.

Nothing truly inappropriate had happened, but they were at the edge of different social rules. There was a difference between the three of them sharing a room with well-understood rules, and very different for one of them to spend the night in the other's private room. And it certainly wasn't the dungeon's place to 'punish' them for any sort of indiscretion, perceived or otherwise. But as the adults in charge of the area, it certainly fell to them to help encourage a healthy amount of responsibility. Thus Mordecai 'forcing' Derek and Shizoku to tattle on themselves and explain exactly why that wasn't supposed to happen.

Moriko continued happily, "After he'd gotten them to give themselves their own guilt trip, Mordecai gave the pair heavy head rubs and laughed at them before letting them know they weren't in any trouble. His only real concern was responsibility, and he thought that they were both pretty responsible overall but that going forward they should be more careful. He didn't say it directly, but he implied that being responsible might be harder as time went on."

Which was a pretty fair assessment. The Azeria clan worried about it a lot less than even other kitsune clans as all pregnancies were causes for celebration and there was plenty of support for the girl without a need for the father to be in the picture. Kazue had no illusions that this meant her clan was some bastion of enlightenment. Part of the reason that Shizoku leaned so heavily on her grandmother and the forest spirit for parental guidance was that her father had five wives who also wanted his attention and Shizoku's mother hadn't felt the need to be very responsible when there were other women who were happy to spend time cooing over Shizoku and taking care of her. Kazue was fairly certain that this was also the reason that the young kitsune had a tendency to crush on older men, but hopefully, that was taken care of now.

"So after that, Fuyuko decided she wanted to make her contract with the dungeon official. Mordecai made sure to write everything up with her becoming our ward and after it was done he sent a copy of it to both Riverbridge and Azeria to get her status recorded. And then it was on to training! Gentle training this time. Well, mostly. For Shizoku and Fuyuko it was focused around marksmanship practice, mixed with switching their weapons out on the fly. He doesn't think that Shizoku would need to swap between gun and staff quickly very often, but there was no reason to skip that part of the training. For Fuyuko, he's popping up surprise targets for her and mixing them up with some 'targets' that are actually innocents. He says that it should help her get her battle rage under control. Oh, and the swords that came with her bracers are falcatas. They aren't good for fancy sword work but he figures that sometimes she might just need to hit things hard, so these will be better than her long daggers. I have to say, the only reason those things are 'daggers' is because of how tall she is. They'd probably feel like short swords for me, and almost certainly be swords for you, ankle biter."

Well, Kazue wouldn't mind biting Moriko, but that was a slightly different topic and she had her honor to defend. "Careful what you say, my love. This little ankle biter has very sharp teeth and knows exactly where you sleep every night. And she might just think you are tasty enough to take a big bite out of."

"Eek, I am terrified," Moriko said while laughing, "oh please don't eat me all up scary fox lady, I don't know what I'd do." Ignoring Kazue's threatening glare Moriko continued passing on the dungeon's events. "Anyway, the blades are heavier than Fuyuko is used to and weighted a little strangely, but Mordecai says she's adapting fast. Now, as for Derek, well, Mordecai is pushing him a little bit more. Our husband has sectioned off part of the arena to be an elemental testing and training ground. It generates random sparks and bubbles of different elements which naturally drift toward any living thing in the area and speed up as they get closer. Derek has been sitting in the middle of it and his training is to use only his elemental abilities to push them away. And Mordecai has made sure to lean heavily on fire and lightning as those seem to be Derek's weakest elements right now. Man, the poor kid. But he at least has some moral support, Bellona is right there with him. She's taking more of a beating actually, she doesn't have any influence over wood and only indirect influence on metal. She's not going to be there every day though, and Mordecai plans on this being the majority of their training to finish out the first month of the exchange program."

Given how long it had taken the kids to get through the dungeon, there wasn't a lot more time to finish out a month, so everyone had agreed to just start the program early. After this, Derek and Shizoku would arrange to travel with other groups back to his home and after a few days of rest head back to the dungeon, where Fuyuko would rejoin them and they would all head to the Azeria clan to begin a month of training.

"Everything else has just been going smoothly. With your non-combat path, we've been attracting a lot of people who are willing to spend weeks to get through the dungeon instead of the days it takes the combat teams. Though there aren't a lot of teams clearing the wetlands, most of the ones who finish the river zone don't even try it. The people on your path usually only give up if it's taking too long. Oh, and Mordecai says he'd like you to practice working with enchanting crystal-focused items, especially anything that involves altering the crystal itself. He's hoping that the two of you combined might be able to manually convert other gems and crystals into core matrix, though it will probably take both of you to figure it out."

Well, as much as Kazue admired their husband, she did have to admit to herself that it was kind of nice to see that he wasn't as all-knowing as he sometimes appeared to be. And that wasn't a bad idea, it could make a nice project over the winter, when they weren't occupied by other things. Warm thoughts and feelings flowed with that idea, only to be dashed by a sudden sensation of dread and danger. Kazue spun to put her back to Moriko as she frantically searched for the source of that sensation.

A few moments later she realized that the source was inside her, a tug and pull toward her faraway home. She crushed down the panic that wanted to bubble forth and turned back to Moriko, who had gone still and pale.

Moriko met her worried gaze and confirmed Kazue's fears. "We're under attack."