While Kazue wasn't as enthusiastic about the tournament as her husband and wife were, she did appreciate the festive air and was happy that there were so many people enjoying themselves, and she certainly wasn't bored. There were far too many things to take care of and people to manage for her to have time to be bored.
Such as Satsuki, due to some complaints from the library staff.
Kazue's emotions were mixed but mostly amused as she approached the large plush chair that Satsuki had settled herself into with her legs tucked under herself. "Hello Satsuki," Kazue said as Carnelian Flame took off from her shoulders to begin exploring the library once again, "I hear you've been writing in our books, and it looks as though I heard correctly."
Satsuki glanced up and smiled, an enchanted quill hovering nearby to do her bidding. "Annotating my dear, annotating. That's much different than simply writing random scribbles."
"Annotating then," Kazue conceded, "but nonetheless, that does involve writing in the books."
"Hmm, but these are mana constructs, are they not? Can't you simply make more?" Satsuki asked.
Kazue shook her head slightly and said, "Not exactly. I mean, we can, but these are meant to be potential rewards, which locks up a certain amount of that mana pool. The ones you annotate need to either be unmade, thus freeing up the mana, or claimed to clear it out of our rewards capacity. It's not a large amount, but it is one of those things that can build up, and I assume you don't want your notes to be lost."
"True," Satsuki said thoughtfully, "I am making these annotations for Deidre for when I have her read these books. As fun as these stories are, they are not entirely realistic, and I want her to understand where the writer has taken some artistic license. Very well, I do believe this should be the right amount of mana to offset claiming them."
"Wha-" Kazue's reply cut off as Satsuki pushed some of her mana out. No, she did more than that, the nine-tail was weaving her mana into the flow of the dungeon's mana, allowing for a more efficient uptake than would normally occur with pure mana.
Ever so briefly, the first threads of Satsuki's mana reached their core before she released her hold on the last of what she was giving to them, creating an ephemeral link. That experience was...
Kazue cleared her throat and refocused her attention on an amused-looking Satsuki, who had just claimed all of the books she'd written in, even those in her room, plus a few untouched ones that were in a stack next to her. "Well," Kazue said, "that certainly works. You calculated the proper value rather precisely."
In terms of total energy exchanged, bargains generally had to be in the dungeon's favor by a fair amount; the 'profit' was effectively their food. Satsuki had given just a little bit over the minimum amount needed to offset claiming the books as rewards.
"I should hope so, given how much research I put into the subject," Satsuki said. "After all, I was planning on helping Mordecai out when I freed him. I wanted to make sure I didn't upset any balances or waste any mana, but he'd have needed to reach the surface again in fairly short order."
Huh. Kazue tucked that information away to examine later and said, "Oh, that makes sense." She was still a bit off balance from the sudden energy exchange and that made it hard to keep her tone even, but she did her best to recover as she smiled at Satsuki. "Thank you, and Horace would appreciate it if you made sure to do that before annotating any more books. I'll leave you to your reading."
Kazue mentally called for Carnelian Flame, who looked up with a pout from where she'd been trying to convince a pair of delvers to give her some jerky that her nose had located in their packs. Kazue shook her head and smiled as she sent, "Sorry sweetie, it's time to go. I'll get you a snack in a bit."
When Kazue was well clear of Satsuki and had some privacy, she allowed herself to sag against a wall for a few minutes while she petted Carnelian for comfort. That was close. She'd almost told Satsuki 'I hope you enjoy the book' and she was fairly certain that even such an innocuous statement would have clued the woman into Kazue's secret.
Fortunately, Satsuki had begun her note-taking with some other romance books and had been focused enough on her task to apparently not notice anything about the author of her current reading material. If anyone could figure out the real author just from reading the books, it would be her.
Having one's own romance novels annotated by your husband's former lover evoked a rather complicated set of emotions, and some of the more explicit annotations told Kazue more about Satsuki's experiences than she really wanted to know.
Kazue didn't let that get in the way of using those notes to prepare some future edition edits and releases, but for now those were going to have to wait. Releasing new editions right after the books were annotated would be rather obvious, and she needed to make sure she wrote the changes in her own style, not Satsuki's.
After that breather, Kazue made her way back to her art studio, which she'd created several weeks ago. It was time to get back to her projects.
In the main part of the studio were several partial portraits along with a selection of paints and special mixtures. The experimentation with new metals in shells and scales had inspired her to try creating new paint colors and types, with mixed results.
The biggest hurdle she faced was that the effect she wanted was created in part by the way the material was layered. The best results she'd achieved so far involved creating paints that were mixed with the right metallic dust and after they dried were coated with a thin, transparent gel that added iridescence over the metallic glitter of the paint underneath.
This personal project had now been combined with something she wanted to do for part of the prizes they were giving out. Everyone who qualified to enter the tournament was going to get a personalized painting, done by Kazue.
Given the time constraints, she couldn't do what she would have preferred, which would be to do them all completely by hand. Instead, her avatar would sketch out each portrait and begin the painting process, and then her core would do most of the rest of the work but leave it in a state that required one last layer of paint and the application of any coatings.
These were less perfect than what her core alone could do, she knew that, but that was the point. Kazue wanted these to feel personal, and that required a personal touch. Even with her avatar and core being the same person, the way her core worked tended to automatically create 'perfect' versions of things, within the limits that she could calculate.
The very final layer of coating she applied had a special trait that would probably never be noticed; it absorbed the beyond-blue light, which would protect the painting from fading. It would probably not even be needed as the frames the portraits were going to be in would be given a few enchantments, including one to protect the painting within.
They would also be able to 'collapse' into a tiny square with the use of some space-shaping magic, to make them easier to transport and store. This would keep the paintings perfectly flat on their rigid backings, as Kazue didn't want to risk even magical folding with these paints.
Right now, all the paints in question were mana constructs and technically just simulations of what they'd be like if they were real, so she couldn't yet confirm all the physical properties of the materials used and she didn't want to take any unnecessary risks.
Of course, their rewards were still restricted by daily limits, so Kazue had started with participants who were least likely to pass the preliminaries or the first round. That way their portraits could be given to them as soon as their positions, and thus the value of the rewards, were finalized, along with the rest of their rewards.
That would also give time for some private negotiating with the participants afterward. They would be given an offer similar to the offer that had been given to Gil; a build-up of future reward value in exchange for being allowed to sell their likeness in the form of smaller versions of the portrait.
There was also a separate negotiation to be had for recreating their image as part of a larger, group portrait.
Partly because her spouses were so involved in the tournament itself, Kazue was going to be in charge of doing the negotiating, though it was also because she had become their most effective negotiator, barring extenuating circumstances.
Kazue had discovered the fun of the negotiation game after her parent's wedding, when she and Mordecai had been dealing with all the merchants that had come as part of her father's caravan. She'd also discovered the fun of harmless flirtation as one tool to give her a bit of an edge, though it had taken much longer for her to become comfortable doing so outside of the immediate presence of either Mordecai or Moriko.
It was a fine art, and part of it was learning to tell whom not to make the attempt with. For some people, there was no recognition of innocent flirtation and that could lead to problems, such as the one Moriko had dealt with at their first Faerie party. Kazue was now confident in her ability to read people and how appropriate it would be, as well as being confident about handling the situation if she was wrong.
She was pretty certain that becoming a faerie queen had made her a bit bolder here as well. It was a little disturbing to admit to herself, but Kazue had come to the realization that her personality had been subtly influenced by the acquisition of the title and power.
Naturally, Mordecai had been either not impacted or the influence was too small to ever be noticed. He had the weight of over a thousand years of life to solidify his personality, including already accounting for the influence of faerie nature upon some of his avatars.
Moriko might have been influenced if this had happened to her at a different time or place, but she had already made certain choices about prioritizing her passions and she had the training and experience to back that up. Kazue was fairly certain that Moriko was effectively immune to that sort of induced change.
Thankfully, Kazue didn't really mind the changes themselves, despite being disturbed by the realization that they had happened. She was more confident and comfortable in being herself, and that was a state Kazue had already reached when with her husband and wife. Of course, being herself also meant retaining a certain amount of vulnerability to becoming flustered and such, though she could objectively recognize that as being part of her charm, from the viewpoint of Mordecai and Moriko at least. They were the only ones whose opinions mattered to her.
Now her new confidence applied all of the time, well, almost.
People like Satsuki were still overwhelming, but that was a problem most people would have around that woman. Still, Kazue was pretty certain that she'd not have held her composure as well as she had without that influence.
There might also be some other changes that were even more subtle and minor, but if so, those influences were competing against traits that were common amongst kitsune, which might simply be more visible now that Kazue was more confident in herself.
Plus, if being faerie-touched had been part of what had influenced Kazue into being bold enough to make the art projects that were kept in her very private studio, well it would be hard to be mad about that. Kazue had always appreciated Mordecai and Moriko's bodies and now that appreciation was recorded in both paintings and sculptures.
Naturally, Kazue had shown her spouses these art projects, but their bedroom was not an entirely private space. Not only did they have their hatchling familiars to deal with, who naturally had no idea how or why to filter their words, but Fuyuko did occasionally come up to their room to talk with them. It was not needed given her ability to contact them mentally, but Kazue understood the need to go talk in person.
For now, they would simply stay here and Kazue would continue giving Moriko and Mordecai the occasional little tour of her latest projects. Some of which might be 'inspirational'.
With that happy thought keeping her occupied, Kazue verified that she was satisfied with the first batch of her paintings so that she could hand them off to their inhabitants, to be packaged for proper presentation and brought down to the arena.