After the st day of the year and before the first day of the year there is a day outside of the dar and the year.

  Non-Day. Zero Day. Null Day. Void Day.

  These were all various hat the day was referred to by.

  While in physical reality it art of time like any other day, fal and social matters it was a day that did not t. It was not a work day for anyone, no matter their social status. If someone's work tract was measured in days, this was not sidered one of those days eveher holidays were.

  It was a day to break routio just exist for a day. Even food should require a minimal amount of work to prepare, and most people ate eals aovers on this day.

  There were exceptions of course; critical care and ent matters would always exist. But outside of important needs, one was to rest, rex, and otherwise be outside of all the normal events of day-to-day life. Even fancy dress should be avoided; simple robes or tunid trousers were the outfit of the day for all, even for emperors.

  Mordecai had always sidered this his least favorite holiday.

  Inactivity was difficult for him to begin with. The day alsht with it reminders of the worst aspect of chaos. Entropy ainess.

  If oated to pass the time during the empty day, this was the topic they were enced to meditate upon.

  The chaos that a person like Li brought was the chaos of life. It was activity and movement and energy.

  This chaos was the chaos of decay. A faint echo of what the existence of the unending void was like, and a preview of what the universe could bee once more.

  He did his best to while away the day quietly, but Mordecai could not say he e. Stillness and quietness, a full day of the quiet most often found in the pre-dawn twilight. A short period of it was good and refreshing, a full day of it was a burden.

  In this, he envied both Kazue and Moriko. They were both able to fully indulge in having a low-energy day. If this was an awakened avatar, he'd at least be able to sleep some, though that wouldn't help his core. Kazue's core was able to daydream readily and it allowed her to pass time without feeling it heavily.

  Though he was not alone in his suffering; Fuyuko ainfully restless. During the day it wasn't as bad for her as she could just hang out with her friends and talk, but ter into the evening she had far too muspent energy to fall asleep readily, and Mordecai decided he should help, which might help him a bit as well.

  So they idled away the time pying simple card games that took little effort to keep track of. Depending on the game, you either won or lost when your hand was empty. During that time their versation was just as idle and they avoided speaking of anything important.

  Fuyuko's problem was that she was a very eic teenager and had gotten into a routine of physical activity and training of some sort every day. This left all the things she would normally do to burn off energy as things she was not supposed to do on this day of broken routihe girl's u energy caused her to practically vibrate even as she yawired, but not actually sleepy.

  Mordecai stayed up te enough with her that sleep eventually won out. They'd been hanging out in her room and she was already in her bedclothes, so it was easy to put her in bed and tuck her in. He left a ellio sleep in as te as she wanted and that she could eat whenever she chose; breakfast would be waiting for her.

  The day was the first day of the year, the first of the month, the first day of the week, and the first of spring. This left every year identically aligned with thirteen months of twe days each.

  The Spring Equinox was also Sakiya's holiday. It was a time to celebrate one's passions as well as new beginnings, and some passions were best seen to in private.

  However, Moriko had e to a realization that caused her to swear. She could only indulge so muow that she riestess because she o be avaible for others to sult with if they wanted advice.

  Mordecai and Kazue had teased her of course, talking about what they would be getting up to without her, and that led to a rather passiolet of energy early that m. her of them meant it of course; on a normal day any of them might pair up based on simple avaibility, but for a celebration like this, it would be mean to leave out Moriko. So further fun activities would have to wait.

  There was still plenty for them to do. Kazue's avatar was focused ily on her writing while her core reparing for their zone. While the three months of winter had in a sense been very quiet for the dungeon, it had also been steadily providing mana gained from the soldiers training in the sewers along with the occasional delvers from the Kuic guard and the kitsune hunting groups from Azeria that were currently statio the dungeon full time.

  Mordecai's core was helping Kazue's core as much as he could, but the final steps would be up to her. If the rebang went acc to pn, this should be the st truly difficult zoo cim. The rest would still require effort, but there should not be anything tricky involved.

  For his avatar, Mordecai finally decided on some dungeon busihat was reted to something he assionate about. He was looking forward to this tour after all.

  The zone should be ready within the week, so setting the tour date for five weeks from today would give plenty of time, as they had decred there would be at least a month for people to clear the downward zones and make it to the arena. It wasn't going to be a lot more than that four-week time frame, but it would still be at least a few days more.

  Mordecai spent much of the day wandering the trading post and striking up versations with their various visitors. He made sure t up the tour and hand out at least one flier to each group. The word had already spread from when they'd given the rough timeline, now he was firming the date.

  Right now their inhabitants were celebrating too, but tomorrow he pnned on tasking them with making fliers that inhabitants could take out of the territory and a few days ter he was going to send out a couple of groups to spread the news.

  He didn't want them to go farther than Riverbridge or Azeria, but if o north there were still some small vilges and individual farms in that radius as well as travelers on the roads. More importantly, having the inhabitants be seen would make an impression on some people that words alone would not.

  For spreading the news further afield, Mordecai was mostly ting on Ricardo's work of merts, though he had also made sure to send word to the capital thanks to Bellona's secretary desk. It wasly a direct way of spreading news, but he had ihe royal family to attend or even participate. It wasn't hard to include some w to let them know that both Orchid and 'Ruby' already inteo pete.

  Mordecai was fairly certain that Bridgette was going to qualify, but that was in rge part because she was delving with Orchid's group. Bridgette, Nainvil, and Brongrim were sistently the ones pushed to their limits. Orchid, Paltira, and Xarlug struggled signifitly less, but they still had to work for it. Kansif, the most experienced of the group, remairue to her background as royal babysitter to a much younger and even more mischievous Orchid and deliberately focused on proteg people so that the others were the oo do most of the work in overing the inhabitants that they faced.

  Akahana and Ricardo had also mao clear the o zoh the right groups, but Ricardo o travel to maintain his business as a successful mert and caravan anizer. Of course, the winter had provided him with some serious upgrades for his primary wagon and gear for Zara and Tiros, and he had promised to returher before or shortly after the tour in order to provide transportation to the southern dungeon.

  The disguised ali and nixie noaired harnesses spun out of starlight thread. The harnesses let each of them use many of the abilities of the other; the most important of those for this purpose is that they would let Tiros fly a Zara breathe uer and serfectly as Tiros. The harnesses only worked when both were being worn of course.

  The wagon itself no longer needed wheels. Instead, it could simply float passively and indefinitely. The indefiure of its ability to float was a trade-off, pared to a vehicle that could actively fly by itself. That was why the harnesses were important, the hover entment would let the wagon remain mostly level and steady while being pulled by flying steeds.

  Ricardo decided that he was going to keep it looking grounded for now, with wheels rolling along the ground. The floating was fully funal but it normally hovered low enough that with wheels the wagon simply appeared to not be carrying much.

  When Mordecai could no longer find any new groups to spread news about the touro, he switched to his training. No one was delving today either, so the inhabitants had plenty of free time on their hands. Mordecai sent out a challehrough the dungeon for sparring parto meet him in the arena.

  He didn't limit it to individuals either. Pairs were always allowed to meet his challenge, while trios or more could ask and he'd judge if it was a match-up that would be useful for everyone.

  Enki and Cimbu proved to be a potent bination ahe only pair to win their match against him. While both were focused oh reted powers, there was also only so mue could do agaih as well. Fire, ice, electricity, corrosion, and other suergies could all be warded against.

  It was much harder tainst a boulder to the face.

  Zushi's abilities were simir to Mordecai's specialty, which gave Mordecai the advantage. Mutually bang out void abilities meant that Mordecai could then use his other abilities while Zushi's defenses were weakened.

  Saraag's power was too diffuse for the mushroom king to bother sidering a challenge. He was a strong match against rge groups of weaker foes, but he was not a good match against singur strong foes.

  Mordecai had a fun time against the o zone bosses, including the entire pirate crew. Cephelia and Dhamini were at a disadvantage pared to their normal enviro, but training for other situations was good for them and the match also gave them the opportunity to improve their teamwork with each other and the Big Cheese.

  The ratlings were in perfect if chaotic harmony of course. It was coordinating outside of their group that was the problem.

  He worked his through rger groups of different positions. Mordecai won a little over half of the spars, even when fag multiple oppos, and his losses all included at least one raid boss or a zone boss from the marshnds or o.

  Even Carmil joined in for a match, though she insisted on a solo spar and to have it oher Side so as to be at her full strength.

  This meant they had to go topside for the match. While the zones were reflected across to Faerie, the arena and other areas he core were not represented and the space was simply more of the dark underground sea. Mordecai suspected that it was because these areas moved every time the dungeon got deeper, making them too ephemeral to leave a mark on Faerie.

  It was a rather atch, and in the end, they called it a draw. If it had been an all-out fight, Mordecai's more destructive powers would have tipped things in his favor, if at the cost of massive damage to the area nearby. But spars were as much about skill and trol as they were about power, so within those limitations, a draw was a fair clusion for a duel against a faerie priurned s witch.

  That was the st spar Mordecai accepted for the day. It was almost time for dinner, and both Mordecai and Carmil had to get ed up before they were to joihers at the dining table.

  Kazue, Moriko, and Mordecai retired a couple of hours earlier than they usually did, and everyone else preteo not notice.

  After all, it was still the first day of spring, and there were still celebrations to be had.

  Zagaroth