It took a moment for Mordecai to search through his memories and pull out the name of the giant 'tree' before him, which was made harder by the xyloid having grown so much since Mordecai had been asleep. Fortunately, xyloids were extremely patient and teo move at a slower pace than most other species did.

  "Maeel," he finally said, once he mao find the right patterns to match. Despite what some stories said, most xyloids did not have faces, so visual identity y in less obvious aspects of their appearance. In this case, it did help that the former zone boss resembled an apple tree.

  Mordecai's naming sense and humor had only ged so much over time. It was the scariest name he could think of for a tree-like guardian of a giant underground forest.

  He tinued, "I had not expected you to be here when we cimed this nd. So many of you were being very stubborn when I went to sleep, all I could do was hope you'd find a way forward to your own lives."

  "Mm," Maeel rumbled through the creaking of wooden limbs, "some did stay, some of us did not. Of those who did not stay, well, I have been asleep for a long time." There was the barest pause before he asked, "Did you say you cimed this nd? Yes, I see now, this is your territory, but, the aura is different. Very different. What has ged?"

  For a xyloid, Maeel was talking rapidly, which still meant it took several minutes for him to say his piece. Mordecai was doing his best to keep his speech just as slow, but it did not e easily to him. Especially when he had so many thoughts and ideas rag through his head and he had so much to say.

  "Many, many things, my friend. For ohing, I am married. One of my wives is Kazue, another core, though she was reinated as such. My other wife is Moriko, a disciple and priestess of Sakiya. When we have a moment, I would like to ihem both to meet you."

  While he was talking, Mordecai also checked with Kazue about an idea, and then lightly brushed Moriko's mind to ask permission to a her behalf. Given what she was occupied with right now, he didn't want to disturb her more than necessary with details that might be distrag.

  Mordecai smiled at Maeel, though he wasn't sure that the expression was very visible to the xyloid. Their visioed differently and it would depend on how focused he was. "There are some ges, but there is ohat I think is particurly relevant. There is no way we could invite you as even a raid boss for a long time. But, if you are willing to lend me your support once more, there is another option."

  Wind whipped around Mordecai as he called upon a different source of power, ohat should be quite patible with the xyloid. "Maeel, on behalf of Queen Kazue, Queen Moriko, and myself, King Mordecai, I humbly request that you join Our court as Our druidic advisor and cil member. Iurn, We offer you the title of Faerie Noble and all the bonds and duties that go with granting you a position in Our court."

  The air stilled and not even Maeel's leaves rustled for a long moment.

  Theirety of his tree-like form began to shake with ughter. "You, a Faerie King? Whom did you annoy to be granted such a title and power? Oh, I o know so much more. Very well, I accept; the bonds of faerie nobility will not alter the nature of my existeerribly much."

  Mordecai's awareness of Maeel shifted to aowledge the xyloid's atus, and he said, "Thank you. Now, I offer you a separate but patible deal. How would you like to also be our tractor?"

  There was more flexibility in how strong a tractor could be, but Maeel's existence had more pressure than they could normally bear right now. Making him a part of their court helped offset that pressure. This sed offer was also accepted, followed by Maeel saying, "I get the feeling that you already have something in mind for your new advisor."

  "Indeed," Mordecai replied, "I do. If you reach out with your roots, you will find a web of mycelium and living crystal roots. The first is our raid boss Saraag. The roots belong to the crystal tree rising from our elevated earth zone. You should be able to unicate with Saraag and use the crystal to focus your attention on a room where you will find Moriko o a sapling. We will be attempting t the sapling into harmony with the crystal tree and blend them together into one life form."

  While the crystal was alive, it was simply a living mass, given structure by their wills but with no more spiritual presehan moss. If their pn worked, the Yggdrasil's nature would ihe crystal and they would merge into one new life form. Physically, the crystal would appear dominant at first, but the world tree's spiritual presence would be the truly dominant one.

  "But that is not the end of events that we could use your assistah. Norumi has transformed herself into a dryad, and she is currently awaiting in Faerie for the opportunity to give her blessing to the Yggdrasil ohe merge is plete. There is some uainty of how well the blessing will take, and it would be a fort if you were avaible to offer your support."

  "Norumi? A Dryad? I had not heard of this. Iing. After we are done, perhaps she would be willing to visit me."

  Mordecai's eyes narrowed.

  A dryad was typically bound to a siree, and though there were ways to move the tree by transf it into a sapling, a dryad could not normally bee bound to any other tree.

  Xyloids were one of the very few exceptions to that rule.

  While the activities on to all animals held no io the tree-like entities, a dryad's bond tained a certain amount of emotional and spiritual intimacy even when shared with a normal tree.

  "First," Mordecai said, "you should know that she is a forest-bound dryad, and happily married to a human who has bee a guardian spirit of those same woods. But while she would probably be happy to see you again, in the way she had when you were my zone boss, you o be aware of a particur danger."

  He paused to let the anticipation build up before he said, "Her mother is visiting. Oh, and Satsuki is irely pleased that I am married, so her mood might be a little more votile than usual."

  Maeel took that in for a moment and then replied, "I would certainly not wish to suggest anything that might upset Norumi's mother. It would simply be pleasant to spend a bit of time with Norumi again, and it would be an honor to meet her husband as well." He did not seem eager to mention Satsuki's name, on the small ce that it might draw the ail's attention.

  Much like a dragon, xyloids grew stronger simply by living, and Maeel was now nearly three thousand years old and when it came to managing a forest and the enviro around it, they were sed to none. However, they were not very effective at direct, personal bat.

  "That probably be arranged," Mordecai replied, "though in all likelihood you will o shift to the Other Side first. She has difficulty being away from her forest on this side, but it is much easier for her there."

  Xyloids were mobile, but moving location became more difficult as they grew rger, so it would probably be easiest to let Maeel remain rooted where he was. His power, now enhanced with this faerie title, should ehat Faerie matched his current enviro well enough that he could shift across without uprooting himself. He would simply appear oher side in the equivalent location.

  "Now," Mordecai said, "let me tell you how this all happened. Oh, and feel free to talk with Saraag at the same time, I am sure he would be happy to have someone who he speak properly with through his mycelium.

  Mordecai settled himself into a position to be fortable for a long period. Given the slow nature of the nguage they were using, this was going to take a while.

  During his versation with Maeel, Mordecai's core had tinued with setting up the basics of their new zohe theme was 'mountain survival training', which was going to be iing to flesh out.

  For now, he was rearranging the zoo ses with different types of mountain forests, plete with different trees aive weather. They had plenty of open space to work with, as Kazue had applied a mild spacial expansion effect to the zohe extra volume of earth had been automatically filled in from the earth they'd dug out for the o zone.

  Modifying the weather for each se was a little tricky, but the important part was simply bang them out. If you want to mimic a scrub nd mountain, you o move the extra moisture to the se you want to be a rain forest. If you want some mountaiions to be perpetually colder than the rest, you o shunt the extra heat off to the se that was supposed to e close to bei mountains.

  Given how they were emuting multiple enviros in a single zo was not perfect, but it would suffice. The seasons aher would be a rough match to the local weather, but the processes he put into pce would modify it to be closer to the equivaleher in the simuted enviro.

  Of course, to be survival training, there had to be both the resources to survive off of and challeo overe.

  A cave near a spring might be a source of shelter and safety, or it might be the den of hostile creatures.

  Berries and other edible pnts and mushrooms be found, but one must be careful to correctly identify them lest they prove to be toxic.

  Climbing a cliff to scout or climbing down into a cave to explore be rewarding, but one must be careful of enviroal hazards such as ndslides.

  As he created these hazards, Mordecai also made sure to mitigate them.

  Some mitigations were simple; people were to be given the ce to run and would not be pursued beyond chasing them out of an area if they did; toxits and mushrooms were to be mildly debilitating, but not harmful, though they might make the delver sider whether they'd prefer death.

  Other mitigations took signifitly more effort te. Even for a dungeon, creating wards to allow for rock falls or even avao happen without doing serious harm was difficult. Though, as with maures Mordecai added for safety, he did ehat it ossible for them to temporarily disable the wards too.

  Maintaining this interleaved style of dual path was more challenging than simply splitting them, but i and fairness were the keys. Also, safety.

  To that end, it was time to create some barriers. When the hunting grounds were created, they still o be subtle as they were hiding how much they had expahis time, they had no such limitations.

  Terrain, trees, and thick, thorny brambles were bined into a nigh imperable barrier along the e of the zone, which was also the edge of their territory in this area. Between eaviroal seordecai created breaks in this outer wall along the edges between each terrain type and then a corridor leading toward the ter. The barriers along this corridradually lowered and thinned, eventually leaving only a marked path one could diverge from. So long as one was oh, one was traversing the zoher than participating or delving.

  It did the job; the terrain was so artificial that almost no one was going to actally wander in, and if they did, the safe path was marked. There was still plenty of space where a delver could cross between the different enviros for different training experiehe dungeon could always respond if somehow a child or other lost-looking person did e in, but redug how much border they had to pay attention to or have inhabitants watch helped greatly.

  There was ohing to add before Mordecai was going to be satisfied with the yout. In some of the bat-tric caverns, Mordecai id deeper tunnels. These squeezed tight in pces and occasionally had dips that were entirely uer, and the final stretch of each had some dramatically pced old bones and fragmented remains of rusted swords and armor.

  The very st warning was a 'wandering' slime. Beyond that slime, it officially became the sewer path.

  He was taking advantage of the power density being equalized between the survival training zone and their first underground zoo ect the sewers. In this way, for the first time, there was officially more than one way to travel into the lower zones.

  Multiple entrances were always something to be careful of, but these would be hard for an invasion force to use and the dungeon had the additional safety that they had started reag signifit depths.

  With the zone's initial setup plete, Mordecai turned his attention to where Moriko was; w on the inhabitants and bosses was going to have to wait, though when that time came they o also make sure that the way to choose between bat and non-bat delving was clear. For the most part, simple location was not going to be enough of a signifier.

  Zagaroth