No Need For A Core?

Mordecai took a deep shuddering breath as he tried to recover from the ritual. For the first time since he had awoken and fully assessed his situation, he actually felt safe.

Desperation had driven him to turn himself into basically a ghost, though not an undead spirit since he managed to technically not die in the process. Then a glimmer of hope, and the generosity of this young dungeon with problems of her own, and he now had a home, a core, and an avatar. Well, a partial core at least. All of his own magic was gone now, and it was only going to recharge at a trickle. He’d made sure to balance that in her favor, one of a few things he’d skewed that way for each of the women who’d helped him.

They had sacrificed and risked much for him.

So the ancient dungeon bowed his avatar low before Moriko and Kazue. “Thank you, truly. You have both given of yourselves, one first to save me, the other to then help give me more freedom in this world. You’ve trusted me, and I will do my best to ensure your trust is not unfounded.”

Several minutes passed as they talked and adjusted to their new reality, especially the intrusive strangeness of the link between their souls. Mordecai had an advantage here; it was similar enough to other magical connections such as a familiar's bond that his previous experiences also applied .

Kazue's joy at finding out her previous home was so close was infectious and it was entertaining to see her dealing with the fallout of her reaction, but it was a bit concerning too. She was a sweetheart and he found that he liked her, but he also knew he was going to have to be very careful with her. She wanted this connection so badly that it would be easy to accidentally mold her rather than helping her find who she wanted to be.

The moment was shattered by an intrusive presence as energy began to gather outside of their territory.

"Blood and shadows," Mordecai swore, "what now?"

His core's focus shifted to their entrance and Kazue's focus followed shortly after. It was nighttime outside, but the stars above were not what grabbed their attention.

The living patch of starry night that stepped out of a tree's shadow was much more spectacular of a sight. It took the form of a nine-tailed fox that stood about as high as a large wolf, and it shook itself as it finished stepping free of the shadow. After glancing around, the celestial fox stalked towards the dungeon entrance, stars and moons floating across the surface of its night-black fur.

Well, Mordecai had a rather good idea who Kazue's goddess was now. A stars-and-moons themed spirit fox as a divine agent? It could be none other than the Goddess of the Night and Moons, Mericume, who had sent this entity here.

Though there was no sense of true malice, there was a certain predatory aggressiveness that the nine-tail exuded, and it set their leporine inhabitants on edge. Oh, this could be a problem. He wrapped Kazue in a hug and held her close, still sitting on the ground with her.

"Kazue," he said, "I need you to trust me on this. Let our inhabitants defend you. While they do not need to do so for your sake, right now they need to do so for their own sake. They won't win, they can't possibly win, but if you stop them right now then the dire rabbits will believe they are useless to you. Please, don't stop them from what their instincts are going to drive them to do. Hold on to the knowledge that their spirits will be safe within our core."

The tension in the dungeon had already driven Moriko to her feet, and she was in a ready stance with air-aspected chi circulating tightly around her body. "What's happening?" She asked.

Kazue answered in a shaky voice and said, "A fox, a giant nine-tailed fox made of stars is coming here, and I think it's mad. Mordecai, please, I don't want to watch them die."

"Then don't watch," he said softly. "There is something I think we need your core to do anyway."

He shifted their communication to their mental link, keeping Moriko looped in even though he was directing his attention to Kazue. "Look here, with your core's focus. The fox's aura is leaking enough energy to start giving us mana already. We're at a deficit right now since I just joined your core, but that is going to be taken care of before too long. We don't want to overfill, so you want to start redirecting energy as soon as you can. You can spend some of it on enlarging our territory, but you won't be able to touch any areas near our visitor. The more powerful a creature, the larger its aura, and you can not directly affect territory inside the aura of an outsider." There were specific exceptions to that, but now was not the time to digress.

Simply distracting her from the events to come was not an ideal solution, he just couldn't think of a better one to use right now. Mordecai spoke out loud to separate this conversation from the instructions his core was giving hers. "Here, call one of them to you, we need a big strong fellow for this. There are only so many ways to use up mana quickly, one of them is right here. He can be a reservoir of power, growing stronger by absorbing this energy, all so that he can protect you better."

Even with both her core and avatar somewhat preoccupied, Kazue shuddered when the first of their inhabitants died. Mordecai didn't have anything else he could do for her right now, so he simply held her close.

To Moriko he said, "I don't think the celestial fox is truly angry, though it does seem irritated. What it is doing right now technically benefits us, given that there are no hostilities once it reaches us. But Kazue isn't ready to deal with the violence involved. Please, don't provoke it. Your soul would be as safe as our inhabitant's spirits are, but I think both you and Kazue would find the experience extremely unpleasant."

Not that he wanted to witness or experience any such thing either, but it wasn't something new to him. As he had always been a core, Mordecai had always had slightly different instincts and reactions in regards to his avatar dying.

Moriko nodded and relaxed her stance slightly, though she didn't completely relax. "Alright. Do you know what it wants or why it is here?"

"Not exactly, "Mordecai said, "but I have a vague guess. Kazue?"

She glanced up at him, clearly trying to not cry as she cuddled and pet a hefty black rabbit in her lap. "Yes?"

"Your goddess is Lady Mericume?"

Kazue nodded.

"Well," Mordecai said, "I am guessing that she noticed something amiss and sent our current visitor to investigate. The fox's actions are probably intended to help you."

Kazue did not look pleased at the idea, but there wasn't a lot to say about it either. At any rate, even though the fox was toying with its food, it did not take much longer for it to finish off the dungeon's defenders, though long enough for the scent of blood to precede it.

When the fox-shaped piece of night sky entered the final chamber, it stopped sharply at the entrance.

"Well, that's not what I expected at all," she said. "Lady Mericume said something was amiss, but her direct attention is more than would be proper for the situation. Let us see, the redhead must be Kazue, but who are you two? Also, why am I being glared at so?"

"I think our guest should introduce herself first," Mordecai said, "and Kazue's glare is due to the recent violence. She has not adapted to that aspect of life as a core."

The fox tilted her head quizzically and said, "Interesting, you can speak on her behalf when you say 'our', and your use of 'guest' is very deliberate. Very well, my name is Danitsa and I accept your offer of hospitality. I am here on behalf of Lady Mericume to investigate what has happened to Kazue, whom she recently reincarnated here. Now, I would like to know who you are and what has happened to her core? My understanding is that it was supposed to be golden, not gold and purple."

That was good. While the obligations of guest and host were not truly binding to most non-fae, they were usually upheld anyway. Mordecai glanced down at Kazue to make sure she was fine with him continuing to take the lead and then looked back to Danitsa. "I am Mordecai and am now a partner core to Kazue, and it is my portion of our shared core that is purple. This is our contractor, Moriko."

Danitsa's tails lashed thoughtfully, whipping up the slightly metallic scent even more. "I do not understand how this has happened, I think you had best explain the situation carefully, I do not think you would like my lady's displeasure."

Mericume was not the divinity that Mordecai was most worried about, but it was still a good idea to stay in her good graces as much as possible. "I am a very old core, older than any of the kingdoms I have heard mentioned since I awoke. I was awakened by Moriko's accidental arrival, but we were both trapped in that location, far below here. We were able to leave thanks to her willingness to host my soul. When we arrived at the surface, we found Kazue instead of the new born core I expected. After some conversation, Kazue agreed to become the host for my soul, partly for my knowledge and guidance and partly because she was very lonely."

"Lonely?" Danitsa asked, looking at Kazue. "Girl, it's only been two weeks, how can you be that lonely?"

"Yes, lonely," Kazue said shortly. "Of course I'm lonely. My life was full of being surrounded by people. I like being surrounded by people most of the time. Now I've had two weeks with no one to talk to. I adore my rabbits that you were just so happily slaughtering, but they aren't exactly people who can talk with me, are they?"

Kazue sniffed and wiped at her eyes, then spoke again in a softer voice. "I, look, I get that Lady Mericume meant well, and I am happy to be alive. But I have never been good with being alone too much and I had a nice quiet life. Stories and songs are as close as I have gotten to real violence before today. Well, before I panicked when Moriko arrived and my book told me how to trip her into a pit. I meant to have her just be held there, I didn't know it was going to be, um, so, ah, deep..."

Her words had trailed off slowly and now she looked up at Mordecai in confusion. "Mordecai, what happened to my book?"

Oops. He cleared his throat and said, "I apologize, I didn't have time to ask and the connection was interfering with setting our bond. It wasn't living and you didn't seem to care for it, so I used it to help fuel my transfer."

"I see." Kazue's voice was calm, but he could feel a different sort of anger and frustration spark inside of her. "We're going to talk about this later, but two things. First, I may not have liked it much, but it was mine. Second," she took a breath and then said with slow emphasis, "Do. Not. Hurt. Books."

Danitsa's tongue lolled out into a canine laugh before she said, "Oh, that was quite entertaining, and given his expression I think I am satisfied that he does not intend to be controlling. Still, I do not think that that will be enough for Lady Mericume. From what she said, she spent some effort in setting up a small prophecy to guarantee you found peace."

She hesitated a moment as her eyes unfocused in thought, then she looked sharply at Mordecai. "Why does the local language associate your name with a grim peace? Though there are echoes of justice in there too."

Mordecai sighed and said, "That would have to do with why I was sealed in the first place. In anger and vengeance I unleashed a war. My true targets were justified, but my methods were not. When my vengeance was spent, well, I retreated into myself. It was not a happy peace, but my heart was quiet at least, if empty. I did not resist being sealed." Though he could not see how there would be echoes of justice associated with his name, who was left who would have seen it that way?

Well, there was one at least who might have agreed with him, and perhaps a couple of others who might share sympathy with him to some extent. But what tales would they have told, and to whom?

"Hmm," Danitsa said as she slowly walked toward them, her steps soft from the pads of her paws. "Interesting. That is such a shadowed history, and yet you show great self reflection. Did you perhaps dream about your past during your long sleep?"

Mordecai looked at her suspiciously, and the fox's grin widened.

"I seem to have hit my mark," Danitsa said, not trying to hide the laugh in her voice. "I wasn't sure until you gave me that look, but shadows cling to you far too strongly for the power that currently resides in your form. They even form a protective shell around the woman in your arms, however wispy and fragile they might be."

Mordecai blinked and glanced down, surprised to find she was correct. He must have done it instinctively.

"Were you a priest perhaps? Or maybe a champion or disciple?" she asked.

He sighed and said, "All of the above, at one time or another. I lived through many avatars in my life."

"But you seem reluctant to call upon that connection. Are you concerned about how your patron will receive you? Well, that could be a problem. It occurs to me that my Lady might be satisfied if she knew a promise had been made about the safety and care of the young woman she had gone through all this effort for. It would be even better if that came in the form of an oath spoken in the name of her son."

Mordecai glowered at the very self-satisfied looking celestial fox and briefly wished upon her that she pass nothing but coprolite for the rest of her life.

But there was no sincerity in the mental curse, just a brief venting of his frustrations, and a moment later he nodded in acceptance. "I understand. Kazue? I think I would rather stand for this." It took them a moment to disentangle themselves and rise. Then Mordecai took a few steps away from her, just in case.

He was in no way ready for this yet, but his hand was being forced.

"I, Mordecai, swear by my patron Ozuran that I will do all I can to protect Kazue, aid her in her growth as a living core, and help her find the life that she desires."

There was a sudden intrusion as a presence arrived in the room, bypassing any necessity to travel the distance from the edge of the dungeon's territory. A tall, dark haired kitsune man dressed in elegant robes stood there, his expression tightly controlled.

"Hello, Mordecai," said the avatar, a tiny sliver of the totality of Ozuran; the Lord of Shadows, Reflections, and Dreams, and Mordecai's chosen patron.

In other circumstances, Mordecai would have felt honored. Right now, he mostly felt dread. "Greetings, Lord Ozuran," he said with a bow.