No Need For A Core?

Fuyuko was torn between excitement and nervousness as she walked toward Ricardo's wagon, along with everyone else who was leaving for the training trip to the southern dungeon. The wagon in question was in one of the emergency caves that Kazue had made, to make the loading thereof and their departure more discrete.

She wasn't sure that she entirely understood why it was needed, but everyone seemed to prefer it if not too many people knew when exactly they left or that Ricardo's wagon could actually fly. Of course, that meant letting some outside people know about the caves, but Fuyuko was pretty certain that her friends could be trusted.

Speaking of, Amrydor had stopped short after he and the others had walked into the cave, and he was now staring at the two 'horses' hitched to the front of the wagon. He pointed at them and said, "I don't know what those two are, but they are absolutely not horses."

Zara, the alicorn disguised as a white horse, sounded amused as she said, "That one has some keen senses. How did you know, boy?"

Tiros, the kelpie disguised as a black stallion, just rolled his eyes and snorted disdainfully.

Amrydor shook his head to shake off the surprise and then said, "Ah, your life force doesn't feel like any sort of animal's, Ma'am. Um, your friend there is a fey of some sort, I can tell that, but I am not familiar with what I am sensing of your life, Ma'am."

"My, polite, aren't you?" she said. "I am Zara, and my unsociable companion is Tiros. I am an alicorn, and he is a kelpie. Don't worry, he won't bite unless I ask him to."

"If you say so, Ma'am," Amrydor replied, though he and most of the others looked inclined to give the 'horses' a wide birth.

Fuyuko, on the other hand, had been previously introduced by Kazue, and had learned from Mama K's example. "Hi Zara, hi Tiros," she said as she approached to rub both of their noses. "You've been good for Gramps, right Tiros?" The stubborn nixie had started to lift his lips in an empty threat to nip her, but her question made him snort in laughter.

"Yes," Tiros said with a snicker, "I've been good for 'Gramps'. I've made sure your old grandpa isn't hurting himself in his frail senescence." Zara rolled her eyes at the teasing aimed Ricardo's way, while Ricardo grumbled about the lack of respect. Akahana comforted him, but her delivery might have been compromised by the laugh in her voice.

"Then you both get apples, and a nice big piece of jerked meat, extra spicy, for you," Fuyuko replied with a grin as she pulled out the appropriate items from her cloak's pockets and fed her equine friends. It wasn't her giant furry cloak, though she still wanted to find an excuse to wear that, but she still loved the cloak that had come with her armor almost a year ago.

When she was done, she went to get aboard the wagon, and smirked at her friends on the way. Well, most of them; Shizoku and Derek had already gotten to know the alicorn and nixie and were not impressed. Ranulf looked the most impressed and also seemed the most leery of getting near Tiros.

Fortunately, both the front and the back entries had access to the expanded space inside, though each of passenger had to be attuned to it first. If someone not attuned to the enchantment opened either door, they would find a more normal expanded space, merely twice as large as a wagon of this size would have without enchantment. It was a rectangular room, matched to the inner framework of the wagon, which allowed one to still look through the small side windows.

But if someone who was attuned to it opened a door with the intent to access the special area, it led to a more isolated pocket of space. Both doors opened up onto the same landing, though here they were side by side. The landing had steps leading down into a very large rectangular space, and a second set of steps leading to the upper level of the space.

Her papa had said that he made it twenty feet tall inside just in case of anything unforeseen needing to be transported, though it would still have to squeeze in through the door or be made temporarily smaller to get it in.

Which also allowed for a huge stockpile of crates in the back storage area.

This large central living space that everyone was slowly filing into was split into two levels along the sides.

The bottom level was a lot of individual rooms, including a total of four washrooms. The washrooms had running hot and cold water, with controls set up the same as at home.

The top level was open space with a railing along the exposed edges, and these open spaces had things like couches and tables along with a kitchen area on each side. One of them was designated for meals and the other for snacks, just to keep things organized, but both were fully equipped.

The back wall had a door within a door, well, two of them actually, leading to the back storage area. The normal doors were the right size for most people to use, and were midway between the center of the wall and the walls on either side.

In the middle of the 'wall' there was a seam between what was actually two large panels. A mechanism in the storage area was able to pull these two panels, including the normal doors, back by several inches and then slide them apart to either side. There was no anticipated use for the full-sized doors, as the crates and such all fit through the normal ones, but Mordecai said he liked to be as prepared as he could be.

There was one more feature that none of her friends had been told about, and Fuyuko had been instructed to not tell them. If the wagon was destroyed, this area wouldn't be ejected out into normal space like was usual for this sort of enchantment. Instead, it would trigger an emergency disconnect from the wagon, and the entire 'bubble' would be tugged by a sort of tether to 'land' at Krystraeliv, who would then be able to attach the doors to one of her interior spaces.

This could also be triggered manually from inside, which Fuyuko had been shown how to do. Papa had said this was to prevent anyone with the right magic from forcing the doors to let them enter into this space. He'd also said this would be a smoother 'ride' back to Azeria as well.

All of this was part of the rewards Ricardo and Akahana had been delving for, along with the other enchantments on the wagon. The remainder of the rewards had been turned into various trade goods, which were stored in the back along with some other goods that were either supplies for the trip itself or more trade goods.

Once Fuyuko had the last of her stuff stashed in the room she and Shizoku were sharing, she headed up to grab an apple, a wedge of cheese, and a hunk of bread before taking a seat on a couch so she could use one of the illusionary windows to watch outside.

Kansif and Ruby were sharing a room as well. Bridgette and Gou were both going to continue to use their fake names for this trip.

Amrydor and Yugo were paired up too, as were Taeko and Ranulf, Derek and Galan, and Allania and Rika, the elven acolyte and half-elven apprentice ranger from Riverbridge. Fuyuko didn't know them as well as the others near her age, but she had trained with them a little bit.

There were now ten people to account for in 'Team A': Fuyuko, Shizoku, Derek, Galan, Allania, Rika, Amrydor, Yugo, Taeko, and Ranulf, whose father had asked for his inclusion as he did want a closer relationship with Azeria even without that other stuff.

Her parents had decided that 'Team A' would need to be broken down into an 'A1' and an 'A2', but they would change up who was in each team to get them all used to working in different groups.

This expanded out Team B as well, with Kansif joining them. Kansif would not be joining for the assault on Deidre's dungeon, for much the same reasons as Orchid and Paltira. She was just to close to the Kuiccihan throne to be openly involved.

When the others came out of their rooms, each marked with temporary nameplates, Fuyuko called out to her friends to let them know the snacks were on this side. That was when she realized that everyone who had been paired up as roommates had rooms on her side, while all the relationship groupings were on the other side.

After the briefest moment of consideration, Fuyuko decided she was quite happy with that arrangement.

When the wagon started moving, she couldn't feel it, which disappointed Fuyuko a little bit. She really wished she could be outside during this, but all the adults had agreed that only Ricardo and Akahana would be outside until the wagon was flying level, and then the warding enchantments were going to be double checked before any passengers were allowed topside. There was enough of a flat space on top for people to go sightseeing, but anyone who couldn't fly or have a similar safety would be required to have someone with them who was a strong enough flier or had the right magic to provide assistance if needed.

The view outside started out boring; all she could see was earthen walls as the wagon started up the slope leading outside. After that, it was the thick, thorny hedges that hid this section of the path. But they were going up a steeper slope now, headed toward the edge of the territory. Finally, they reached the end of the path and the wagon kept traveling at that same angle as the hedge fell away behind them.

Fuyuko didn't have a perfect view of the territory as she could only see the same amount as a real window would have allowed her to, but it was still incredible to see so much of the land spreading out below them and all the giant trees slowly shrinking, though of course Krystraeliv was the last to shrink away.

Machineel would have competed for that place if most of him wasn't hidden away in that little canyon. Fuyuko had tried to climb him, with his permission of course, but she couldn't get a good enough grip on his trunk to get up to his lowest branches, and she certainly wasn't going to grow claws to do that! Not that she was entirely certain that it would have worked anyway, his bark felt really tough.

He had lifted her up to his lower branches to climb up from there, and Fuyuko appreciated that, but it wasn't quite the same. She couldn't use the shadows either, his presence filled them too much and she couldn't take that tiny bit of control she needed to move through it. He hadn't even noticed her attempt as far as Fuyuko could tell, and asking him to let her through his shadow felt like it would defeat the whole point even more than being lifted to his lower branches.

While Fuyuko's thoughts wandered, she watched her view of the mountain range and the stars grow. She knew that the mountains were big of course, but seeing the whole range just keep growing in length the higher up they got was amazing. And the mountains still went up more too!

The wagon finally leveled off a little below the snow line on the mountains and Fuyuko scrambled to get a shot at getting topside early. She found herself caught by the waist and she was briefly slung over Mordecai's shoulder before being set down on the floor with a laugh.

"Wait for me, you need an escort, remember?" He said with a grin as he looked up at her.

"Oops," Fuyuko said with a blush. "Sorry." Her head was also a little dizzy from being tipped over that far and fast. Getting slung over the shoulder of someone shorter than you meant going more upside down than if they were taller.

Mordecai called out, "Alright, I'm abusing my power and taking my daughter topside first."

"I knew it!" Kazue said with a laugh. "He has finally gone mad with power. We'd better follow him to make sure he doesn't do anything too crazy."

"Yes dear," Moriko said to Kazue then winked at Fuyuko.

Well, looked like her whole family was going to take advantage of the situation.

This was the first time she had gotten to see the special harness in action. Zara had taken on her true form and spread her wings wide, and Tiros had a matching pair of spectral wings in his true kelpie form. The harness had also changed its shape and the two of them were spread far enough apart that they could use their wings freely. Once Fuyuko had taken in that spectacular sight, she scrambled up the little ladder to the roof of the wagon.

The view from there was spectacular and never had she felt the endless depths of the sky more than this. In every direction except south, the horizon was far below her, and everything above the horizon was stars and moons. And she got to share it with her parents. She wished Carmilla could be there too, but the swamp witch had a job to do.

Fuyuko had asked about that before they left, if Carmilla was going to be able to take a break from that role.

"Yes," Mordecai had said with a nod, "but someone has to cover for her. They wouldn't get her witch powers or need to do things the same way, but they would need to take on the same basic role of giving people missions and judging if they had done sufficiently well in passing the trials. They also have to be strong enough to take her place as a zone boss, in case they need to fight."

That was a thought Fuyuko had tucked away. She wanted to be able to give her adoptive sister a chance go places, though it might also be nice to take a trip together; a pair of adventuring sisters! But that was for the future.

Right now, she was enjoying the brisk night air and the incredible view and being cuddled close with her parents. It wasn't the same as with her first parents, it never could have been the same, but she loved them and they loved her, and that was what mattered.