The next two challenges were huge projects, far larger than they normally gave parties with seven adults, let alone three teens. The general objective was to have a group move through in about a day, but these last two projects were about a day each.
Kazue and Mordecai had good reason to ramp up the challenge, and the value of the rewards given was going to be a little under what they had earned, which would build up a bit of a debt on the dungeon's side. And that in turn will allow so better prizes at the end.
And it was probably going to be the last opportunity to directly gift dungeon-craft items to Fuyuko, as she hadn't accepted a contractor position yet. And so items required a dungeon's touch to craft easily.
The first of the remaining two challenges on this floor was 'just' a jigsaw puzzle, of a map of the entire continent. It was of course huge, and the pieces were not, but that wasn't the hardest part. Every city and place na was on an identical scroll graphic, which Kazue had gone through so effort to standardize the size of through a combination of extra space on short nas and writing larger nas in smaller text. And the jigsaw piece that was removed for the nas was identical for every piece.
Naturally, there had to be a solution to the puzzle, and that solution was to be found in the very, very detailed reference books that gave descriptive clues about all the labeled locations. While Shizoku's general study habits would give her an advantage in searching through the books, her expertise was not in things like geography, and her base knowledge wouldn't be a lot higher than the others. Aia would probably appreciate them hamring in a little more geopolitical knowledge into the stubborn girl's head.
The prizes were straightforward. First, the linked communication rings that each of them had earned in the crystal puzzles were upgraded to include an indication of the direction and the rough distance to both of the other ones, as well as an upgrade to the distance the communication worked. The distance indication was simply the brightness of the representative dot, which hit its minimum at the edge of the communication range, though the direction range worked no matter the distance, so long as they were on the sa physical layer of reality.
Second, they were each given a scroll case that was intended to be loaded with blank paper and had built-in wells for ink. When loaded and activated, the case would automatically map the terrain around them to a distance of about 20 feet if set in high detail. At the lowest detail setting, it would map out to about a mile, but this wouldn't catch most buildings let alone their interiors, and no matter what the setting it could only add details that the person the case was keyed to sensed, and mostly this ant vision.
The three teens puzzled over their prizes on the way back to the store in order to curl up again for the night, and the group correctly surmised that Kazue and Mordecai were setting them up to learn how to be a team. While they were doing that, Kazue preserved the giant jigsaw and set it up in a gallery that listed the date, ti to complete, their nas, and their ages. She also added a transparent layer over the top that overlaid the place nas with a blank scroll, so that no one else would have an advantage from their hard work. It was going to be the start of a bonus challenge rather than a regular challenge, but given the ego of so people, seeing the nas of three young teens on such a massive piece would entice them to compete.
The final puzzle was a more creative exercise. They encountered an exhibit that explained the concepts of a tarot deck and the ways in which they can be interpreted, and included an example tarot deck using many of the primogen gods, such as Zagaroth for the Emperor, Amiru and ricu for the Sun and Moon, Danu for the Empress, and Li for the Fool. This also gave an opportunity to demonstrate that when selecting specific figures to fulfill roles in a tarot deck, you based them on the individual role, and not the relations between them, thus Danu being Empress as it had no bearing on Zagaroth being Emperor.
The example deck delved into the fifty-six minor arcana as well, pulling from various pantheons. The dwarven god of brewing was in the cups/water suite, while the dwarven god of smithing was in the wands/fire suite, and so on. Naturally, the elental lords of earth, fire, water, and wind took up the position of King of their respective suits, while other elental lords took up the other 'court' positions of queen, knight, and page.
This example tarot set also took up all of the gods that were well-known in this area. This was important because the challenge was to create their own tarot deck as a group, using only deities not currently represented in the sample collection.
They were given all of the art tools they would need to design and create their own cards, and of course, a compilation of all the religious knowledge the dungeon had. There was no specific correct answer, the task was to understand the gods that they studied and chose well enough to be able to choose sothing that would suit them and develop even crude artwork that was representative.
Kazue helped a little by making sure that there were stencils and such as part of the art supplies. The design was part of the challenge, not the execution of the design.
When they were completed, each of them was given a different but related boon. Fuyuko's holy symbol was enhanced to help keep her obscured from the senses of the undead and other unholy things. Shizoku's holy symbol of ricu's moon was enchanted to gleam with a hint of true, holy moonlight when brandished to ward off the undead. Derek's was more difficult as he had not dedicated himself to a specific deity yet, and Mordecai manifested his avatar to have a discussion with the boy.
In the end, they gave him a book detailing all the elental lords and how their various edicts would interact with each other, weaving together a possible customized pantheonic worship that balanced the various elents, along with so guidance on how to construct a suitable holy symbol for the group.
It would be harder than following an individual deity or divinely decreed grouping, but Derek was only looking to find whom to dedicate himself to, and was not looking to beco a priest or champion. The bar was much lower for lay followers.
This was not a dedication in itself, it was a possible guide if he chose this route, but there was no need for him to rush into the decision.
In addition to the above, they were each given three non-magical tarot decks: A copy of the original sample, a copy of the one they designed and crafted, and a third one that was their design as executed by Kazue's own artistic skill. They were all high-quality materials, but in the end, they were more for sentintal value than for monetary value.
The teens were happy to collapse into proper beds in the next rest area and recuperate for the next floor. They had been passed by more than a few groups, so they didn't know any of the people they t here. Kazue had kept their section of the library locked to them for the duration of their excursion through the exhibits.
The next floor was the mushroom forest/village. As each group was given their own quest objectives, there was no need to keep separate sections here, and the three of them were able to flex their talents a little more. Between Fuyuko's sense of sll and Derek's ability to sense slight vibrations when he attuned to earth, they were adept at finding anything alive once they were in the right area, and Shizoku was skilled at discerning minute details and differences when they had to find the exact right item or specin.
It was physically exhausting but clambering through the mushroom forest and occasional deeper caverns or tall cliffs didn't exhaust their minds in quite the sa way as the previous floor did. It was also a lot less customized as Kazue let the bunkin and their fellows handle creating and implenting quests, and their hardest challenge was capturing a 'feral' giant polecat without hurting it and bringing it back to the bunkin in charge of training new mounts. The polecat had a great ti leading them on a wild chase and playing his part, as for the story of this challenge he wasn't supposed to be sapient.
The rewards were fairly typical for this level; Shizoku got a couple more alchemical recipes and a selection of ingredients unique to this dungeon, while Derek and Fuyuko got a collection of single-use 'token' items. So of them could transform into various useful but much bulkier items, such as a long ladder or a berry bush that would root into the ground and provide enchanted berries with restorative properties for a day. After that, it would provide normal berries. Others contained ergency spells like one to cause them to float if they started falling from a great height.
Though the rewards were decent for the work, it was still far from easy for the trio and Shizoku was getting quite good at complaining about the tornts that Kazue was putting them through, though the other two were less vocal. And while so of the griping was sincere frustration, it also had the sound of stress release and bonding against a common 'foe'. It made Kazue eager with the anticipation of seeing Shizoku's reaction to the next floor.
"Sun and moons sear the woman, I forgot about the stupid river level," swore the tiny white-haired kitsune.
Fuyuko took the initiative to start walking toward the lakeside town waiting for them in the ever-widening tunnel. She hadn't experienced the river level at all, but she had been given a tour so she at least was more familiar with the concept than Derek was. Shizoku trailed last, spending so of her energy on continued grumbling.
Finding lodging wasn't hard, but the inn keep had a ssage for them. "Mistress Kazue says you three have so special rules. No paying your way across or through anything, you have to work everything out yourself. If you need any training on skills, you can trade labor, skill, or knowledge, but not money or goods except for goods you collect or make from this point forward. This will apply to the next zone as well."
This elicited groans from all of them. "Why is she pushing us this hard? We knew it was going to take a while with only three of us, but this is getting ridiculous." Shizoku said with a scowl.
Derek nodded in agreent, "I an, I'm kind of having fun too, but this is going to leave away from ho even longer than I realized."
"Well," the inn keep replied, "she's keeping the details a surprise, but she's trying to maximize what is fair to give you as a final reward. And assuming Miss Fuyuko here joins as a contractor, they won't be able to give her rewards like this in the future, so they agreed that they wanted this last chance to provide sothing nice this way. Also, they figure this would be a nice way to help forge so friendships, seeing as how Miss Fuyuko doesn't really know many people in the area, especially those close to her own age."
Fuyuko looked embarrassed at the blunt assessnt but shrugged in acknowledgnt of the truth.
Shizoku glanced between the two as her tails lashed and then sighed. "I was going to suggest separate rooms, or maybe sharing a room with Fuyuko, but now I think that might not be best. Can you set us up with a room with three beds and so privacy for changing?"
That surprised Derek and Fuyuko, who turned to stare at her as they tried to figure out her logic. She rolled her eyes at them, "Look, it's simple. While my training may have included weeks-long excursions with no company but the forest spirit, neither of you really trained like that. Derek's clearly getting a touch hosick without more people he knows nearby, and Fuyuko, eh, I don't know a succinct word, but it's close enough to hosick and you could use so company too. So it's best if we stick together and no one's sleeping alone for now, alright?"
It could often be hard to rember that Shizoku was being guided toward possibly being Aia's heir, but sotis that education showed itself in unexpected flashes of insight from the prickly thirteen-year-old.
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