Speech is a very important aspect of being human. A whisper doesn't cut it. --

  I felt as though I’d caught up with most of my lagging quests, at least the ones that were easily manageable and of the most importance. I wasn’t in a position to push my main divine quests, and there was a long way to go in whipping the third floor into shape. I could still push the archaeological ones if I wanted to push for the void dwarf location with its bat-like void creatures; I was actively considering that, but it would require a significant extension of my domain and would likely make the Dracolisk nervous. I wasn’t that worried about it, but I figured I should let it settle down a bit before pushing it more. That limited my direct exploration of some interesting possibilities as well. At some point, I’d have to negotiate with it more (or kill it, my instincts whispered at me) or at least establish what it thought the borders of its territory actually were.

  I could go back to expanding on the surface, and I kind of wanted to get to the heavily magical looking forest to my north; I was guessing that would likely trigger both my plant quest and the one for a new occupation on the island (judging from the visible ruins near its border). They were unlike the Aubesan ruins and were scaled wrong for gnomes – that much I could tell just from what the Hawk-Eagle had transmitted.

  Still, I wanted to work on clearing up a few nagging issues. I’d largely neglected the refinements to my second-floor traps, so that was going to be one focus. I also needed to check in with the Redcrests, if just to show off my new skill and get their opinion on a voice.

  First, though, I took a few minutes to pilot the ground-cuckoo out of my core room and up to the surface, where I left it to explore and feed itself. I also cleared up the remnants of the food I’d left it and the consequent reminders that even dungeon creatures had digestive tracts. That was simply a matter of absorbing the unwanted elements, which was simple enough and something I was already accustomed to, though the bears, at least, poop in the woods. The spectral librarian, speechless as always, still managed to look relieved – tricky without a face, but I thought I could see it in its posture.

  I pondered the best way to reach out to the Redcrests about my new skill. I considered playing pranks on them, but frankly I was still trying to get them to trust me, and that seemed actively counterproductive. In the end, I let go of the temptation to mess with at least Glynesha and Orentha and simply reached out to the shaman directly by telepathy.

  **Orentha? Do you have a moment?**

  The shaman started, slightly, before mastering her reaction and straightening up, away from the text she had been reading.

  **Of course, Vay. I was just brushing up on my herbalism a bit to see if I had anything that covered some of the herbs our scouts have been retrieving. Not much so far, sadly. I’m still looking for substitutes for some of the things I’d been accustomed to using in our old home.** She looked wistful, briefly, before shaking it off. **What can I do for you?**

  I made a mental note to see if there were any relevant works on the herbs of the sky island. It seemed like a long shot, but who knew. Possibly, if Ahmed was right about where the sky islands came from, then I could match up the plant life to that location. It seemed likely that 60,000 years of separation with multiple reoccupations of the island would have allowed for substantial changes. The names of some of the species of birds I’d encountered, at least, suggested a fairly high level of endemism. Again, even assuming normal evolutionary processes and ignoring the possibility of divine creation of new species, I’d expect a fairly unique biotic assemblage over that length of time.

  I refocused on the active conversation, I thought without a notable pause. **I don’t really need anything from you, but I did just receive a new skill that I wanted to let you know about. Ironically, it should lighten your load a bit. It’s called ventriloqual speech, and it should allow me to speak out loud with anyone within my domain. I thought you’d appreciate me telling you about it, rather than just startling you by speaking out of nowhere.**

  She cocked her head and her body language showed her interest and pleasure. “Well, then, shall we shift the conversation to audible speech, then? I do appreciate the consideration. I expect I’d have been briefly startled, but no worse. Some of my clan members, though, likely wouldn’t do well with that kind of surprise. It’d be helpful to have you introduce yourself to the tribal elders directly, first – well, maybe after Glynesha and Kragosh?”

  I tried out my new voice on a live person for the first time. I spawned in a mana light on her table to link my new communication with my old. “Sounds reasonable to me, and about what I had expected.” I cast the voice from the location of the light, figuring having some solid object to focus on might help. “The light isn’t actually necessary, but I thought I’d give you a way to identify the point I am speaking from. Similarly, the voice isn’t really my own – that is, it isn’t really what I sounded like when I was human. I can make it sound like anything I want, really – so if you have any suggestions to make it sound more appropriate, please let me know.”

  She nodded her acceptance. “Appropriate? It seems fine to me. A good voice, really – kind of trustworthy, which I assume you’re shooting for? A bit deep and gravelly, which I guess suits a dungeon.” Her body language spoke of amusement at her wordplay.

  I conceded the point. “It’s true, my original voice was a bit less authoritative sounding, but I figured I’d try to lean into it, if I’m going to be the ultimate authority within my own little realm here. I just don’t want to sound overly hostile or pretentious, particularly.”

  I could hear the amusement in her voice this time. “I think you’re fine, Vay. Just pick a voice and stick with it, and it’ll be fine. People can get used to anything, given time. Give me a moment and I’ll track down Glynesha and Kragosh.” She started to rise.

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  “Okay. If it helps, they’re both in their shared quarters, chatting over some tea.”

  She shot my mana light a sharp look as she paused. “I forget sometimes that you can monitor everything that happens in your domain. It’s easy to just treat you like another person.”

  I tried to convey some warmth and a gentle rebuke. “I AM another person; I just also happen to be unable NOT to register what’s happening in my domain. If it helps, I’m rarely truly conscious of what’s going on – only when it impacts me or when I’m actively paying attention. And everybody seems to be aware of when I’m actually focusing on them. I MIGHT be able to stretch to two conversations at once, but for the moment, at least, that’s about the limit.”

  I didn’t bother to point out that my eidetic memory meant that I could scroll back through events I hadn’t been paying attention to and establish what had occurred. That still required me to focus on what had happened, in any event. Most critically, I guessed, it meant that just because I hadn’t been paying attention to, let’s say, a death in my domain, it didn’t mean I couldn’t establish what had happened. I had yet to have one of those for any intelligent visitor, but it was just a matter of time.

  She seemed only partially reassured as it was, but she shrugged a bit nervously and headed to the chief’s abode. Glynesha and Kragosh had claimed the highest available room in the village for themselves. I wasn’t really clear if that was a status thing, a matter of personal preference, a sacrificial move that left rooms closer to the water for the less capable, or due to the two of them having the highest levels in the village. Still, it made the flight a simple one for Orentha and made it so that the leadership of the village could see most everything going on in their village without leaving their balcony.

  I wasn’t sure if Orentha had contacted them to let them know she was coming, but they were seated at their table awaiting her arrival. They also clearly noted my attention falling on them as well, though they didn’t say anything about it, waiting on their friend and adviser.

  Glynesha spoke first, as the aging shaman gathered herself and sat in a waiting seat at their table. “I wasn’t expecting to see you this afternoon, Orentha. Should I assume this has something to do with Vay? Given that he’s watching us at this moment.”

  Kragosh snorted quietly. “That’s a sucker’s bet, Glyn... Clearly, they’ve been speaking and he has something he wants to tell us. Do we have more visitors coming?”

  The shaman drew herself up, sitting quite stiffly erect. “No, no visitors... But Vay did get a new skill he wanted you to know about.”

  Glynesha looked at her old friend a bit quizzically. “And you decided you’d like to build suspense before telling us about it?”

  The shaman just nodded, the cock of her head making her look a bit smug. “I thought he’d like to do the honors himself, actually.”

  Ah, my cue, I suppose. I quickly spawned in another mana light on a little knob in the middle of their table. “It’s called Ventriloqual Speech. I can, for a mana cost, speak out loud from any point in my domain. I won’t be able to hold long conversations for a while, but we should be able to let Orentha get a break from translation duties.”

  Kragosh leaned in to inspect the light. “So, what’s the light for, then? You don’t actually need it to speak, do you?”

  I sighed, audibly for the first time in a while. “No, that’s true. Mostly it’s just to give people something to speak to and focus on. I wasn’t sure how people would respond to just a disembodied voice. I COULD just whisper in your ear, if you’d prefer that?” I coupled that remark with a breathy whisper in his ear, “But I doubt most people would...”

  He started with a twitch. “GAH! Point taken. Please don’t do that again. And especially not to any of our more traumatized clan members.”

  Glynesha snorted but nodded in agreement and teased her mate. “Big, strong war chief jumping at whispers!” She looked at the light and spoke to me directly. “That will make things easier in the long run, no doubt. Though, the reaction you get from people is going to vary pretty wildly.”

  She sighed. “Just living in your domain is putting some of my people on edge. The pointed reminder that you’re a sapient dungeon, potentially watching them at any moment, is going to be hard on their nerves for a while. Presuming you don’t abuse your omnipresence, I expect most people will get over it after some time.”

  Kragosh nodded slowly. “Hmm. True. I would generally advise against starting conversations with most of the clan, but if you tune in and answer the occasional polite query, that will likely help. It’s rude to say, but I’ll come out and do so – if you speak only when spoken to, for most, they’ll probably simply continue to ignore your presence. And for those who WANT to speak with you, and have even a smidgen of curiosity, they’ll be interrogating you pretty directly. I’d say don’t speak to anyone but us and the council of elders for a couple of days and I’ll make sure everyone is clear that you are likely to respond directly when called upon.”

  Glynesha eyed him a bit sidelong. “WE’LL make sure. The three of us will divide up and make sure everyone gets told. It helps that you have a pleasant, but authoritative voice, Vay. Seems like it fits pretty well.”

  Not sure if that was just flattery, but it certainly served that purpose. I could resist the urge to repeat my conversation with Orentha, though, and simply said. “Thanks. I expect I’ll be using this voice most of the time, but you should likely know that it’s not the only voice I can use.”

  She caught on quickly. “Ah. It’s intentionally chosen, then? And not simply what your voice sounds like?”

  I likely had a somewhat embarrassed tone. “Um, yes, it was chosen. It’s sort of a mix of popular actors’ voices from my old world. I thought it might make me sound a bit more serious than my actual voice; I’ve been told by the occasional student that I’m both too quiet and have a tendency to mumble when I do speak. So, I thought I’d try a voice with more projection capabilities.”

  The meeting broke up shortly thereafter – it was nearing dinner time, and they needed to warn the elders in any event.

  I went back to considering my trap options for the second floor and planning some new ideas for the third. I was hoping to take more advantage of my air affinity generally, but especially on the new floor. Working air-based traps into my second floor seemed likely to cut against the theme a bit too much.

  I could probably do something with the bellows and some iron filings in the farrier’s shop, but really the trap I needed to work over was the one in the chandlery. The slip and fall trap in the pottery had worked better than anticipated, but the ones in the Paddock and the Warehouse could also use a little tweak to boost their effectiveness. And I thought at least one of the mimics in the manor house could be replaced with a mechanical trap of some sort.

  I spent a little time going back over my readings about traps, then began making some actual changes.

  Starting with the Unsexy Hot Wax Trap in the chandlery, I removed the bucket of wax from over the door; that hadn’t made much sense and hadn’t worked anyways. I did still want to keep the hot wax, but I revised it to give one of the skeletons a brazier upon which a small pot of hot wax bubbled away. It was hot enough to provide at least low-grade burns, but more to the point, could be used to disrupt the adventurers’ initial assault on the skeletons. Even if the skeleton missed, which should be hard to do, the adventurers would need to adopt evasive maneuvers as the wax would make the flagstones slippery, if only briefly. If they hit, I’d expect painful, if minor, burns as well as impaired sight and potentially damage to some susceptible items.