No Need For A Core?
273: Unexpected Guests

Moriko shook her head with amusement as she flipped through Mordecai's outline of the tournament to come. 'Propreantepenultimate'? Really? Now the man was just showing off his vocabulary. Not that Moriko was certain about the construction of that word, and less certain how to pronounce it, but she couldn't imagine Mordecai using it here if it was not technically correct.

Also, having at least five rounds meant that Mordecai was anticipating about 32 people passing the preliminaries, aside from those he was going to seed higher up or had other plans for. That wasn't huge, but it also meant that even more people were going to be clearing the ocean zone via combat.

Most of them would still be individually weaker than their strongest inhabitants, but they were inviting a fairly powerful and diverse set of people to be gathered relatively near the core.

It made Moriko a touch nervous, but she also trusted that Mordecai had layers of backup plans just in case.

The slightly distant sound of an armored person attempting to move quietly caught her attention, letting her know it was time to get back to work. Moriko let Kazue's core take the papers away and replace them with a generic demon mask, to complete Moriko's monster disguise. The 'disguise' was quite obvious, but it was there only to temporarily hide Moriko's identity.

She was currently in the upper rafters of the decrepit-seeming library of the combat path and was awaiting specific targets. Five young men were cautiously moving past the bookshelves, warily keeping an eye on the books in case they should turn out to be biting words or bookwyrms.

Two of the boys in question were able to move silently without issue, which was not surprising. Moriko had given Galan some of his training after all, and the other boy was the cuiwan boy, Ranulf. She would expect a wolf-like fae to be trained in being stealthy.

The other three, well, they'd clearly been trained, but it wasn't a specialized skill and they were wearing armor. Then again, a champion of Zagaroth wasn't often called on to be a scout; they were front liners.

These five people had been nudged into forming a group for a reason, though none of them knew it yet. Helping them focus on teamwork was part of the reason Moriko was going to be ambushing them.

The other part had to do with one of the three trainees having managed to avoid Bellona's notice previously.

Moriko slammed down into the center of the group, a shockwave of air and lightning blasting them away from each other. All of them had managed to start to react to her ambush, but none had managed to fully brace themselves or dodge.

She immediately launched herself at Amrydor and Yugo and slapped a black lighting tether between them. While the two of them dealt with breaking free of the binding, the third trainee recovered from Moriko's attack and charged in.

Taeko and Moriko both started high attacks, but both were actually feints. However, Moriko had been warned about Taeko's abilities, and her feint was in anticipation of his next maneuver. The young man suddenly shrank just before they would have clashed, and he twisted to drive his blade toward her foot.

Unfortunately for him, her foot wasn't where he anticipated. Instead, that foot landed against his chest as Moriko kicked him to the side. The tanuki flew toward Galan who neatly dodged to the side. Trying to catch the young man might have seemed the kinder choice, but even at his current size, Taeko and his armor combined to have significant mass.

With Galan delayed, Ranulf was the first to reach her.

His fighting style was not as dance-like as Carmilla's, but it was still focused on being fast and light on his feet. The cuiwan's rapier and buckler combination was about as heavy as most fae got in their weaponry and armor.

Moriko briefly engaged with him, sliding past his sword thrust to aim a fist at his gut, which Ranulf blocked with his small shield. Just as he recovered, she leapt away and kicked a table at Amrydor and Yugo, who had broken free of their binding.

She continued to harry and harass the group, aided by the bunbrarians that the noise drew in along with some bookwyrms and biting words. The five boys were forced to reorganize on the fly, but they did an excellent job. Moriko had to spend a fair amount of effort on keeping track of Taeko. The other four were occasionally tossing random objects at her and sometimes that object was actually the transformed tanuki, who could shift back fast enough to lash out with his sword as he flew past if she didn't dodge far enough.

To make it worse, at least one of those times there had been an illusionary doppelganger of Taeko attacking at the time his transformed self was flying past. That's the attack where he managed to crack her mask, though he hadn't managed to draw blood.

In the back of Moriko's head, she could hear Kazue grumbling about the displayed skill and Moriko had to suppress a laugh. Though kitsune had many other magical talents, tanuki were the true masters of shape changing and transformation.

Mordecai was suspiciously quiet on the subject, and Moriko wondered if there might be an 'unimportant detail' he'd never mentioned about his own shape-changing skills in his current avatar. There were a lot of species combined in that form and there had been no point in explicitly listing each one.

But discretion is the better part of valor, and it would have been wise to 'forget' to mention that detail early on, given the notorious rivalry between kitsune and tanuki.

Moriko kept up the game until the boys were looking ragged, at which time she leapt upon the top of a bookshelf and clapped her hands together, amplifying it into a thunderous sound. At that signal, the remaining inhabitants scattered, which left the group staring up at her warily.

She cackled and did her best 'hag' voice as she said, "Well done, well done, but would you like to know the cause of this special treatment, hmm?" Moriko pointed at Taeko, which caused Amrydor and Yugo to narrow their eyes suspiciously at their friend.

"It seems Lady Bellona got a full list of all the visiting trainees, and she was a touch perturbed to notice that she had not seen the proper face to match a name she knew." Moriko paused briefly then said, "Consider this your welcoming party, trainee Taeko."

While most of the group was glaring at the tanuki, Galan was staring up at her instead.

Well, she only had a few voices she could do and her little brother had heard all of them when she'd read him stories when he was a child. Moriko lifted up her mask to give him a wink and blow him a kiss before scampering off into the rafters again, where she slipped into an entrance into the warrens.

Giggling like a madwoman was not very dignified or queenly, so Moriko worked on controlling that urge as she headed toward the nearest shortcut. As she walked, Kazue started swapping out Moriko's monster disguise for more decorous clothing, to make her presentable for the next event on her list. On the way, Thunder and Lighting rejoined her, wrapping themselves around her shoulders.

She was heading to meet Kazue and Mordecai's avatars; the three of them were going to talk with some of the contestants who had already cleared the ocean zone, which was the problem.

Simply put, they were too strong to make a good show for the tournament.

Mordecai could probably have held this little meeting by himself, but it seemed appropriate to present the offer as a group.

Waiting for them in one of the arena's side rooms were four distinct groups.

There was a trio of shifters; two men who were a boar and a bear shifter, and their leader, a woman who could shift into a moose.

Another group was just two people; a human war priest and a bakeneko woman who was a martial disciple and a druid. At least, Moriko assumed she was a bakeneko, given that the woman's mostly human form had cat ears and two cat tails.

The third group was a set of five mercenaries who had already shown remarkable teamwork but had also proven that they were almost as dangerous when cut off from their team.

The final group was another trio, this time of dwarves. Their passage had been perhaps inelegant, but the three warrior runesmiths had the tools to go through, around, or over all the obstacles in their way.

Moriko and Mordecai flanked Kazue, who was going to lead the presentation of their offer.

"Hello!" Kazue said as she beamed at the groups. "Thank you for meeting with us. You have done wonderfully, but unfortunately, this leaves us with a small problem. We're concerned that with as well as you've done, your skills will outshine the rest of our contestants too much. As it is, you would be seeded during a later round, which would make you effectively a wall that we wouldn't expect any others to pass. That, well, kind of makes the earlier rounds pointless."

The moose shifter woman frowned and asked, "I can see how that would be a problem for you, but I hope you don't expect us to simply drop out or anything."

Kazue shook her head and said, "No, we have a much better plan than that. After all," she gestured toward Mordecai and Moriko, "wouldn't it be much more fun if you all had a chance to go a round or three with these two?"

Moriko stepped forward to say, "We want to ask you to agree to exhibition matches, which could even begin before the tournament proper. You will receive all the same chances for earning prizes, and our tournament will be more entertaining for the audience."

One of the dwarves asked, "How does that work? I thought we had to advance to earn rewards."

Mordecai took this question. "That's the simplified version, but any contest or battle works. Fighting and similar intense clashes are simply the most efficient way for a dungeon to gain energy. At the far extreme, a powerful mage could simply expel a lot of their mana, but that is only one form of the energy that a dungeon gathers and it would be difficult to gather mana released that way, so the mage would earn proportionally less rewards."

"So," a mercenary said, "you want us to do exhibition matches instead, put in just as much effort, and get the same rewards, while you get to put on a better show? Hmm, well, it's somewhat fair in that we do the same work for the same reward, but at the same time, you gain from this agreement while it doesn't change anything for us."

"Not quite," Moriko said. "If we do this, you all get to participate in more matches than you probably would during the tournament, which would thus affect your winnings."

There were some more questions and several small details to work out, but in the end the groups agreed to the dungeon's deal.

Through this all, the war priest and the bakeneko had said very little, only speaking when needed. Something about them seemed vaguely familiar in a way that made Moriko feel suspicious, though she wasn't sure of what yet.

As the discussions drew to a close, Moriko drew deeply on faerie magic, letting the chaotic mana mingle with her own chi before gently releasing an aura that crept across the room. When that faint bubble reached the pair, she was careful to not probe them. Instead, she just let her aura interact naturally with them. Moriko then examined the way her energy interacted with their auras, looking for anything that would give a clue as to why they seemed familiar.

Then she found it.

Once the meeting was officially over, Moriko turned toward them and said, "Excuse me, Master Chung, was it? Jacob Chung that is, and Miss Chirrhari? Perhaps the two of you might be willing to stay behind a moment to speak with me." She deliberately made her tone overly sweet.

When Mordecai and Kazue gave her concerned looks, she mentally waved them off with a bit of amusement. There was no real danger here, just a game to play.

The pair glanced at each other and shrugged, then waited patiently as the rest of the contestants left. When there were no other guests in the room, Chirrhari asked, "Is there something we can do for you, Lady Moriko?" There was a mix of amusement and resignation in the woman's voice, but it seemed they wanted to play this out.

That was fine by Moriko.

"Well, I had this interesting thought. You see, I know a cat folk disciple with more than a little talent for tending to the monastery's grove. It's just occurred to me that this could be the result of actual druidic ability, not just her having a green thumb. Also, she is good friends with my master at the monastery, and he's the one who taught me how to expand my devotion to be both a disciple and a priestess. I think it would be more than a little strange for him to not have mastered more than one set of talents himself."

"Really?" Chirrhari said, "What an interesting coincidence that you should know another feline with similar talents to mine. Though I am fairly certain that cat folk tend to be a bit, mm, fuzzier than bakeneko are."

"True," Moriko replied, "however, I can't help but notice that your aura is not nearly fey enough for a bakeneko. In fact, it has the feel of a cat folk's aura mixed with a kitsune's aura, which would make for some interesting shape-changing options. Also, while I know that friend of mine fairly well, I am much more familiar with my master's aura from our spars, along with being familiar with the way he speaks. If those two were to be trying to disguise themselves in front of me, it would be wise to have her as the spokesperson as just changing the sound of his voice might not be enough to mask it."

'Chirrhari' and 'Jacob Chung' glanced at each other and shrugged with a smile. "It was worth a try," Theodoric said as he reached into his hair to pull out a hidden hair clip that was the source of the magic changing his appearance and voice.

Chaxiss didn't bother to shift her form, she simply returned to her normal voice. "I wasn't expecting you to notice, you've definitely gotten better."

Moriko shook her head with amusement and crossed her arms. "You are in the realm of a Faerie Queen, hiding yourself from me is going to be a lot harder than usual. So why are you two disguised?" Moriko wondered if Chaxiss preferred this form as it looked younger than the appearance that she normally showed the world.

"We just wanted to avoid any biases in our challenge of the dungeon, in either direction," Theodoric said. "Also, I thought that the faerie realm effects were limited to the Other Side?"

"Normally, yes," Mordecai said, "but our mixed nature allows us to do more than most would expect, especially now with Krystraeliv's presence. It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Master Theodoric, Mistress Chaxiss."

Kazue nodded and said, "Yes, it's good to meet you two again, but, um," she turned to Moriko and Mordecai, "does this affect their entry?"

"They've already agreed to the exhibition matches, I don't see why it would have an impact," Moriko said. "Although I don't know which identities they want to proceed with."

"I think our real names should do," Chaxiss said as her now-eight cat tails lashed. "My heritage and skills are not a real secret, but I have found that the information can be distracting for some of our disciples. It will be fun to have the chance to push myself here, assuming that your arena can handle it."

Moriko wondered if other kitsune hybrids with tailed heritages would result in similar abilities regarding shape changing and the number of tails a person had. She dismissed that thought and said, "Well, if the arena breaks, you can blame Mordecai. It's his project, after all." She gave her husband a kiss on his cheek after teasing him.

Mordecai hugged her and smiled. "I've been putting a lot of work into reinforcing it, and have had some recent help with that matter from a couple of our longer-term guests. I think you will find it quite durable."

"It's good to see that our wild child here has found such reliable support," Theodoric said and grinned unrepentantly when Moriko shot him a glare. "You are no longer under my supervision or authority, I get to tease you a lot more directly now."

She sighed at him before shaking her head. "Enough of that," Moriko said. "Well, while I think it is probably appropriate for your accommodations to remain the same until after the tournament, we can at least invite you up for dinner with us. I'd like you to meet our daughters, and I think some of our other guests would be interested in meeting you."

"Moriko, a doting mother," Chaxiss said, "the world truly is still filled with wonders."

Moriko had the feeling that she was going to be teased a lot tonight, but she didn't mind. She was happy to have these two as guests after not seeing them for so long.

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