While her husband atteo their guests, Kazue turned her attention to her half of the earth zone. For the first trial, she decided to bine a physically demanding task with some basiowledge of earth in its many forms.

  On one side of the path forward, she created a series of dioramas, each featuring a different sort of easily identified terrain, such as mountains as. Upoher side of the path, she created several rge spheres of earth, each matg one of the terrains opposite, though in a randomized position. The spheres rested in shallow divots to hold them in pce, a step that was extra important given the slight slope of the earth path, and there ot in front of each diorama with a simir divot.

  The objective was simply to roll the heavy spheres to the proper diorama. Anyone should be able to match grao the mountains, and most should be able to figure out sandstone belonged in the desert. Those who have worked with growing things should be able the appearance of rich, loamy earth even if it was sealed into a solid sphere by magid match it to a se of lush greenery. But fewer people would be able to match marble to seashore cliffs with visible caves, or shale to a keside shore, for marble is transformed from limestone much like shale is transformed from cy. And fe or well-informed groups, she could add harder ones like a sphere of white nephrite that would o be matched to dull gray and gray-green striped serpentine. Especially as striped serpentine rarely held nephrite.

  Suffit knowledge enabled a minimal amount of effort. The spheres could be moved endlessly to try different binations, but there was a hidden cost t incorrebinations. Every time a sphere was settled into the wrong diorama, all the spheres became 1% heavier. And you wouldn't know it was the wrong oil they were all in pd the cliff face parted or did not.

  Kazue prepared several different varieties of possible matches to make it harder for various groups to eventually colte all the binations. She also had a lot of books at her and and so she started making harder matches if she felt people were cheating, such as having to match ruby to the seaside cliff as rubies were often found inside of marble. Or worse, match ruby to an outcropping of anyolite, one of its other sources.

  Of course, there was always the ce that some would try to climb the sheer cliff face. Those who attempt to do so will face first localized earthquakes, then buffeting winds, and finally, a sleet storm as they got he top.

  If anyone mao do that, they'd then have to crawl along the top while still being pounded by a powerful storm of sleet and hail and then have to climb dowher side of the cliffs. This was a very, very poor option for most, and Kazue couldn't help but think of Gil here, but she felt that it should be left as an option rather than trying to make it pletely impossible.

  One way or another, a great amount of physical effort would be expended. So Kazue backed off of that for her sed challenge and focused on a skill challenge instead, though there would certainly still be some work involved. Beyond the first cliff a delving group would find an open area with a workstation for each of them, and against the far wall were several altars to match the number of delvers as well. Like the shri the start of the zohese altars were dedicated to Kamatha.

  The nature of the workstation would depend on what type of artistry was going to be called upon, with the four current possible options being pottery, carving, sculpting, and painting. Painting might seem out of pce, but the objects to be painted were rocks of random natural shapes and materials, and the process was going to involve making the pigment out of various minerals.

  There were instructors on hand to guide someone in the basics, and some aspects were slightly altered, such as the kilns for pottery being ented to fire the only an hour. Perfect artistry was not expected, but siy of effort was, along with being able to demonstrate some growth in ability and knowledge, and respect for the substance from which the art was made.

  The tortoise god of earth would be the oo judge the worthiness of the s. Only when each person had presented a worthy could the group pass. Kazue had mixed feelings about 'using' the deity this way, but who else was in a position to best judge the siy of s made to him? And if the earth tortoise had felt this effort unworthy, the altars would not have received his sanctification.

  The rial, which covered the major curve ih, was simpler in many ways. The delvers would just o pce stos onto various ptforms to evenly distribute the weight of the stones. When all ptforms were banced and all the stos were oforms, the way would open.

  Of course, all of them were ented to only allow oo be picked up at a time. The weights were also scattered about the area and varied greatly in size ay.

  All of the ptforms were of different sizes too, requiring that the de stones be pced on the smallest ptforms, ing the ability to sort stones of a give evenly. It was sort of like math, only the hat you were adding were retive, rather than having hard o work with. After some sideration, Kazue also created a few pnks of wood and scattered them about. With a bit of cleverness, they could be used to determiive weight and be pared against each other, allowing oo use actual math after putting in the initial work to create a table of stones a.

  In the wo trials she bio create a small story. There was a marble quarry he entrao the final stretch, and further up the slope were several buildings that were eternally 'under stru' and being assembled via masonry. Here the delvers were to be traio a minimal, basic profi quarrying, shaping, and building with stoone w expertise being demonstrated and taught to others would receive bonus rewards, iivizing masons to take this path as a demonstration of their strength and skill.

  For prizes, Kazue set a sele of small gems and s of preetals appropriate for the type of earth used in any give, plus a variety of high-quality masonry and stone sculpting tools with minor entments, as well as some rarer mineral pigments. Even if a person wasn't ied iools or materials directly, they would still be worth selling, and those who specifically wahe tools would have something to look forward to.

  There was a small trick here, though it would take a little while before it became obvious. Kazue was starting the town at the end/top of the earth zoh the bare minimum of funal buildings and areas to camp out. As buildings were pleted as part of the challehe dungeon would shift their location to the town when no one was around, and add a pque naming every delver who had worked on the building. She was going to give everyone who passed through the zohat small touch of possessive "I helped build that" feeling. The dungeon was only going to provide the foundation for each building, mostly to make them easier to move ter. Most of the work was going to be done by inhabitants and delvers.

  Not everyone had that sort of seality of course, but a lot of people took pride in what they helped make, and Kazue thought that a lot of people would appreciate it.

  Now for a way down. Kazue was going to have fun with this ohough she admitted to herself that not everyone would agree. She was going to provide two ways down: One was a long, winding slide in an enclosed tuhat would deposit a person at the top of the foothill taining the entrao the underground portion of their territory.

  The other way down was to jump onto a giant floof of a mushroom cloud a drift down to deposit you somewhere oskirts of the trading post, courtesy of Saraag. The exact location was random, and the clouds would slowly dissolve to be absorbed bato the fungal boss. Kazue thought both were fun, and both were kind of scary, if in different ways. She also worked with Saraag to design a variation of the ushroom that could be filled with a lighter form of air and only need a little bit of dungeon magic to cause it to float upward to the ptform above. This would mostly be used by inhabitants moving about, but there could be cause to allow guests to use them.

  Kazue's goal was their new suite of rooms, which she was going to build into the crystal tree. She started by designing a variation of the crystal matrix that would guarantee privacy, pletely diffusing any light and scattering it. This would make up the outer 'walls' of their home ihe tree, and some of the inner walls. But most inner walls Kazue made more transparent, allowing a teasing py of shadow and light from motion elsewhere. It was just for the three of them, they didn't need much privacy from each other.

  Once she had designed her materials, Kazue designated a rge branch to be a nding area and grew a ft ptform that could be flown to, or stepped onto from a floating ushroom. This led to a on living area, and from there branched off to a kit, some rooms for possible special guests, a small library, bathing facilities and such, a duplicate of their current bedroom set up, and a few other rooms. It was a luxurious setup, spread across three 'floors' and pear the top of the crystal tree.

  The st major thing to do was to look over their handful of shortcuts. They only had six, with one of those being brand new, and things were being plicated. Acquiring a new shortcut also loosened up the anchors on the old oemporarily. The feast hall near was still the best area for their major hub, with the iryway of the dungeon being the sedary hub, so most of the shortcuts were going to have one of them as an end point.

  First, between their earth city and the feast hall heir core was the biggest distao be covered, so Kazue added their shortcut between them.

  Betweeryway and the feast hall was the most only used existing one, so Kazue left that alone.

  The library was ected to both the feast hall and the entryway, taking up two more of their shortcuts, and those were used fairly often as well.

  A shortcut between the feast hall and the vilge at the start of the river zone made it so that there was a shortcut entra within one zone of any location.

  A little-used shortcut between the library and the wetnds vilge Kazue decided to shift and make it a hidden emergency escape path. It led from the feast hall to a hidden cave she made deep into the hunting grounds, led into a small hill. The cave iion had a solid facade that could only be unsealed from the inside, and it only opened outward. She was feeliain that Mordecai's paranoia was rubbing off on her, and she sent that thought at him even as she made sure the cave had appropriate lighting and a rge number of supplies in case they ever had to send a bunch of people here in a hurry.

  The cave was also ected to the warrens, if via a very long and circuitous route. And as a final touch of paranoia, she very carefully made sure that the system had not a hint of spacial alteration to its area. In a worst-case sario, the colpse of their territory would not damage the cave.

  Mordecai's voice whispered into her mind, "Well done love. This isn't the type of tingency I would have thought of. My pnning has all beeative, but this is more selfless and so very you."

  Kazue could feel the warmth of his love and she let herself indulge in simply enjoying it before she returo her tasks.

  Not that there was much left to do. After she swept through and made sure everything was w properly and there were no missing es, she took care of a final step that Mordecai had requested earlier. He was a little ed about how their growth pattern was going to work and wao spread their 'base' more. Their territory only abutted Kuic's he surface, and Mordecai wao expand every underground zo until it touched the border as well.

  At a casual look, it was rather wasteful; they were going to be expending most of the mana they earned for the several weeks into g 'dead' territory, and even more would be spent to cim the zone down as they were going to tio cim that much territory.

  But it would ehat there were fewer ces for nasty surprises due to their unventional growth pattern, and Mordecai was going to at least take advantage of the extra space to expand the sewer system into a much more plicated set of tunnels, creating a very long and circuitous path. Based on what he'd shown her, araveling through the sewer path would be c at least three times the distahey would be if they were going down the normal bat path.

  Zagaroth