“Well,” Moriko began as she stepped out onto the smooth, almost gss-like surface. “I was born in Riverbridge, a small city built around the southernmost crossing of the Crest River, a little north of where it es out of the Raincatcher Mountains.” She was certain Kazue khis, but Mordecai probably did not. The floor wasn’t too bad by itself, even when dodging the occasional dive bomb of fluff. Moriko ighe temptation to snate out of the air to cuddle it, she had a job to do. An ice-breathing rabbat swooped in front of her a a patch of frost in front of her. She sighed and deliberately stepped onto the patch to test the results.

  Okay, that was a lot worse, though still not enough to knock her off baoo badly. Years of training do pay off after all. “We’re a major trading hub between Kuic and Danuana, the elven kingdom, and since our city spans both sides of the river that makes up our border, we have a special charter to be semi-indepe, yet somewhat beholden to both.” She grinned as she wove through a series of dive bombs, ‘ramming’ attacks by hornless rabbats to make a challehout actually attag her. She didn’t even trip over any of the bumps or dips, though one dip almost caught her. Still, she had a lot of training with simir teiques, not everyone was going to be so agile.

  “As you might guess by me, we’re full of half-elves, as well as humans, elves, and the occasional other raixed blood. It’s a lively pce, and I loved growing up there, but I was always a rather passionate kid. Got me into all sorts of trouble.” And skills like this got her out of trouble, sometimes. Moriko leapt up before she quite got to the cliff face, c the small gap even as she made it to the sed set of outcroppings for climbing, skipping the walking path as not enough of a challenge for her to even judge.

  “I wouldn’t say I was a ‘tomboy’, I always liked dresses and pretty stuff, but I also liked getting physical and often found my way into pces I wasn’t supposed to be, and occasionally got into fights with the boys. I usually won if we were close in size, but I got rarer wins if they were much bigger.” Now this was harder. When she was just climbing it wasn’t so bad, but when she had to jump a gap she had to make sure none of the flying fluffballs were in position to hit her. Huh, that jump o be fixed.

  “Hey, this is only floor two. Once I clear this part, raise where I am jumping to. My training will let my body take this, but someo reinforced could really hurt their arms. Never make downwards jumps for any area that is still supposed to be newbie friendly.” She made the jump, grabbing onto the rocks iion with only a small pint from her shoulders, then tinued her upward climb.

  “Where was I? Ah, yeah, getting into trouble. Well, it assion that guided me, whether food or for ill, and my pareually decided to see if a bit of priestly intervention might help set me on a better path. It riestess of Sakiya they went to first, and she practically begged them to sign me up for temple training, fully intending to set me on the warrior-monk path. So it was that at the tender age of fifteen, I was sent off to the Sakiya temple outside of Ekuihe capital city.”

  She’d reached the top, then made her way through the stag-maze to the other end, where she first used the ey for a trolled dest, the again to make her way back up. Yeah, it was about the right size, though any race much bigger or much smaller than humans would have trouble. “Maybe you should make a few of these, so different-sized folk try this if they want.”

  Moriko crested the top once more, then finally made her way to the other side. The rabbat swarms were annoying, and would potentially be bad in such a close area for unprepared groups, but sihey weren’t actually attag her they were only a little disorienting.

  “I ’t say I was happy with this, and got into even more trouble there in some ways, but the lectures, or punishments, were mediated in their severity by how sihey believed my passion was, rather than shing out because I was angry or something. But they insisted that I learn to ‘moderate and guide’ my passions, rather thahem trol me, and they eventually got those lessons into my thick skull. I was a stubborn brat.” She said with a bit of a smile at the memory. And now she arrived at the mud slope. Bah. It had that thick, slightly mossy st that the riverbanks near her home had, and that gave her a good idea of how thick, sticky, and slippery the mud was going to be. “Hey, if you ever want to make this part just a game for someone, add some boards to let them sled down,” Moriko added, as another happy memory surfaced. But she had to do it the hard way. So Moriko sent herself skidding down the slope, and it was harder to keep her baha-gss ft nd had been, but she ma without falling down, even if her dress and legs did get a thh coating of dark brownish-green mud droplets. “Remember that bath!”

  The winding paths were not much of a challenge for her, she’d been traio fight on muarrower beams, but once more a det challenge for people with less experiender their belts. “So it’s been about twenty years sihen, lots of training, occasional forays if a monster mao make its way nearby, and all of that stuff. Once I got over my bruised ego and realized how much I actually liked the pce, I stopped ign my parents' letters, and was happy to visit my parents when I could take the time to travel to Riverbridge.” Of course, that wasly why she was on vacatiht now. Stupid Trionean nobleman. Ah hell, might as well tell them.

  “Er, so, that kind s up something. This isn’t a normal vacation.” At least the story kept her mind off of how unfortable it was to be winding her way through these tight tunnels. She didn’t o crawl, and walking while crouched was certainly faster, but it also made her aware of muscles that everaining didn’t cover this thhly. “I was iy on a day off when a nobleman from Triohe empire to our north, noticed I wore a symbol of Sakiya, and decided to take a rather insulting interpretation of a woman following the Goddess of Passion.” Her teeth fshed in what was definitely not a smile rin. “I olite when I first corrected him that we all follow our own passions, and some of us are passionate about our bat training. He didn’t take the hint and tried to grab me when I started to walk away. Then I broke his arm and a few ribs before his bodyguards could intervene. Dodged them until we got to the local guards, who broke things up and took us all in.”

  She was beginning to really hate this little cavern maze; it was hard to keep track of her dire and position, and she didn’t even know where the exit was. “I was willing to let it pass with that, but the twerp insisted to charge me for assaulting a noble. So I insisted on submitting to a Zone of Truth.” One advantage of being a member of one of the temples, you generally didn’t have to pay for a priest to cast spells like that. “Seems he hadn’t gotten the message that The Empyreal Pilrs take a really dim view of nobles who abuse their power, and the kingdom follows Their lead. So he was officially chastised a bae, and I aid a small sum from his money in reparations.”

  The funny part was, he had been handsome enough that she’d actually been sidering flirting with him for a fling before he’d opened his stupid mouth. Moriko was indeed passionate in a lot of ways, but her passions were her own to decide. “Of course, that’s the official side, and I certainly wasn’t in trouble. But the temple thought it might be expedient if I took my vacation early this year, and I decided to take the long way around since I don’t know which dire his lot took out of the city.”

  Oh finally. Moriko rolled out of the tun and rose to her feet to stretch as tall as she could, crag her bad neck. The a good look at the creature in the room. “That’s Hildegard? She's adorable!” She tilted her head slightly "Is that a gem in her forehead?”

  Mordecai and Kazue's avatars had been waiting for her here since she'd begun the floor, and Mordecai had a rather satisfied expression at Morikos' rea. Kazue was more enthusiastid bounced with excitement. “Yep! Mordecai showed me how to make a carbuncle! But that’s not all for our boss fight.” Giggling, the little kitsune pointed up.

  Mordecai couldn’t resist a small chuckle at the expression on Moriko’s face as all the flying monsters on the floor came swarming out of various warres in the ceiling. “Part of the challenge of the floor. If you mao run through everything just dodging the creatures, you have to face them here. But if you take your time and eliminate all ehen you face carbuh the few held in reserves. Not only does skipping fights make the boss fight harder directly, but carbuncles are primarily defensive, both proteg and healing allies. So the more there are to harry a party, the more they s out to be healed, making the fight even harder.”

  His mud-speckled wife shook her head. “You and my masters would love trading notes on how to torture sweet, i young apprentices.”

  He gave her a mildly dubious look, but chose the path of wisdom and said nothing about his opinion on her ‘innoce’, past or present, and ged the subjestead. “You said earlier you wao spar. We do it here, Hildegard and her friends sit on the sidelines and watch.” Moriko’s eyes lit up at the prospect.

  “Oh yeah, you better believe it. I’m in the mood to work off some steam.”

  It didn’t take long for the creatures te themselves oskirts along with Kazue, who was curled up with Hildegard. “And three, two, one! Begin!” she shouted from the sidelines.

  her of them charged, and instead slowly circled towards each other. The first couple of blows exged were tests, w out both skill and power. In part to judge how best to attack the other, and in part to get a feel for how much they o hold back. They quickly figured out it wasn’t much, each easily defleg, dodging, or straight-up blog those first few strikes.

  Then it got much more serious. Mordecai read her first real pund stepped at an ao the outside of her blow as he brought his knee up intut. Moriko's muscles tense in time to lessen the blow, but the first 'point' was his. She recovered quickly and pivoted with a bad strike aimed at his head followed by a kick using the same rotational momentum to carry through. Her style was a familiar rhythm to him, and one he could mostly matd ter, flowing with her attacks to avoid or mitigate them and nding in blows of his own, soon leaving her with a bloodied lip.

  But despite the physical advantages of his avatar, Mordecai was still getting used to the finer points of this body and was limited in power by the strength of his core. Moriko's spiritual poresence were not limited that way, and they proved suffit to slowly overe his innate physical advahroughout their fight, Mordecai took more strikes than she did, though the sturdiness of his freatly reduced their impact. His own strikes were mitigated by Moriko's body-hardening training and the reinfort of her spiritual strength.

  They left several bruises on each other, along with scrapes and dirt from the occasional opportunistic throw or trip. He was tinually able to surprise her with a eique, but so long as they kept to the purely physical realm he only had so many tricks, and Moriko was a fast learhe same trick rarely worked twice, aually, the matded with Mordecai on his bad Moriko’s knee against his throat.

  “I win!” The half-elf announced happily, then removed her knee so she could lean down and kiss him, leaving a smear of her blood on his lips. “Nice fight. And you’re strohan I thought, but your teique is awkward.”

  Mordecai ehe kiss for a moment, then sighed at her words. “Yeah, still trying to ie everything. When the core is grown a little bit more, I’ll be able to give you more of a workout. Maybe even too much of one.” He finished with a smirk and refrained from mentioning that he'd not used any spells. It would sound too much like being a sore loser.

  Kazue rolled her eyes as she walked up to the two of them. “Flirting over beating each other bloody. You’re both crazy.” Then she wrinkled her nose. “As well as dirty and smelly. I’ll meet you at the bath.” She pointed imperiously at Mordecai. “And you have to walk there to keep our lovely wife pany.” Then with a wink, she was gone, off to prepare everything.

  Moriko helped pull Mordecai to his feet, and oanding he used a little prayer magic to heal their wounds. Thewo of them walked together the rest of the way to the private chambers, arms around each other. It was a good day as far as he was ed, and based on the warmth he felt across the bonds, both women shared that se.

  Zagaroth