"When you are not missing something, longing for something, you don't really think about it that much. It's like that girlfriend you don't want to have anymore. You don't think about her anymore. Or ex-husband. You just don't." ~ Danica Patrick

  Euphisia flicked the tip of her tail in an unconscious display of her concentration and mild frustration. She muttered to herself over her large mug of black, unsweetened tea as she pored over the message from her new correspondent for the third time.

  “This both makes no sense at all and is utterly fascinating. I’d have never considered it, but I can see how dwarves would have an interest in both crystallographic magic and fungalmancy, despite how disparate the two fields are. Similarly, I can see how you’d use crystals to focus mana flows, and a self-replicating fungal array could certainly be used to stabilize flows – at least if you can keep the fungus growing in just exactly the way you need it to. I suppose if you strictly restricted the appropriate substrate, that should keep it in place. Still, I feel like something must be missing to explain how you’d tie those two systems together. And void-aspected?! I’ve never heard of dwarves with a void aspect, and I lived with a half-dwarven geographer for almost 50 years!”

  She winced unconsciously at the reminder of how she and Rangvar had left things. “I’d ask him, but I don’t think he wants anything to do with me at this point.” She heaved a sigh, then turned her thoughts back to the topic at hand. “So what would a combined array like that do on a sky island? Hmm... I could be wrong, of course, but I’d assume it would have been a part of the overall power system keeping the place aloft and potentially steering it. Probably need a bunch of them to balance the energy flows, or really even just for redundancy... Actually, that would seem to lean into the strong points of both systems – durability and self-maintenance – that'd explain how they’ve stayed up this long.”

  That led her to another question for Rangvar. “How long is that, anyways? They’ve been a feature of the world as long as I can remember, and SOMEONE would have told me the story if they remembered otherwise. Must be at least 10,000 years for the long-lived races not to have shared it with me – that’d take us back through at least two local civilizational collapses...”

  Old as she was, at over 500, she was a child of the current era. She’d known at least a few people over that span who dated to the previous one – but no one farther back than that. “I’m going to have to swallow the poisoned rat and talk to Rangvar, aren’t I? Ugh. That’s going to be so awkward. Can I just send him a letter?”

  She pondered that for a moment. “No. No, I don’t think so. This is going to have to be a whole conversation, or worse, an active collaboration. Too cowardly to try to handle it at a remove. And whatever flaws he has, he’s a good collaborator and not at all petty. It’ll be awkward and painful, but not actively contentious.”

  She shrugged her slim shoulders and shook her raven hair dismissively. “I’m not quite at that point yet, though. I’ll want to at least review the materials I recommended and come up with a list of questions for the dungeon to answer for me, as well. Raina and Ahmed were correct that this is a rare opportunity. I know there are other sapient dungeons around, but I can’t think of a better opening to ask about dungeon magic. New to the whole thing and a scholar to boot! Just hearing about how he’s been learning about magic should be fascinating!”

  She took a long sip of her now quite cold tea and winced at the bitterness of the over-steeped drink. “Well, that fits the mood. Now all I need is for it to be overcast and drizzling.” She snorted at her own sour mood, then returned her focus to the reader with a twisted smile.

  *********************************************

  Not far away, as the crow flies, Rangvar was struggling with some of the same issues as his ex, and like her, was actively trying to distract himself from the potential need to speak with his ex.

  “Granthor knows, we were always going to run into each other again at some point. And I suspect Euphy has some of the same regrets I do. In retrospect, neither of us handled that situation with a great deal of maturity – despite our ages.” He didn’t actually think the God of Fate had anything to do with the current situation; the academy just wasn’t big enough that the two of them could maintain entirely separate circles of friends. The Keradjis, among others, had refused to take sides – and while he and Euphy didn’t get invited to the same events, generally, they still maintained connections with a lot of the same people despite the brief period of rancor and strife.

  He paused for a moment, as the thought struck him. “Does she know that Ahmed and Raina gave Sylvanus my name as well? Or is this going to come as a shock to her too? I should probably ask Raina to let her know. She’d handle it more appropriately than Ahmed, for sure...”

  He made a mental note of that decision but went back to trying to write down all that he knew about the history and composition of the sky islands – which to be fair, wasn’t nearly as much as he’d like. “Not sure what he knows already, so I suppose I should start with the broad overview of sky islands generally, then move to what little we know about Tel Dorinth, specifically. I’m guessing he’s figured out at least some of this, and likely knows more about Tel Dorinth than I do, but I don’t want to assume too much.”

  He shifted awkwardly in his desk chair and began composing a note to the dungeon.

  “Hello Sylvanus,

  My name is Rangvar Smithsson. I’m a professor of Magical Geography at Talendra; you’ve been brought to my attention by my old friends Raina and Ahmed Keradji, who recommended I write to you. Ironically, it turns out that I also helped Janelle Graywolf establish that you were the one producing new books, as well.

  They’ve suggested that you were interested in the history of the sky islands, and that you were actively exploring the past occupations of Tel Dorinth – which I’m excited to hear about. They weren’t able to tell me much about what you know about the sky islands, so I thought I’d begin with the general overview – as I understand it. I should warn you that the sky islands aren’t exactly my main focus, though I have done some research on them years ago.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  To start, I can give you a few book titles to get you started. Sky Islands and their Mysterious Past is probably the best-known work, or at least the most read among lay audiences. That one’s a bit sensationalist, but reasonably accurate concerning their recent history; the claims to knowledge about earlier eras are pretty shaky, though. Probably the most authoritative work, or at least the one least prone to rampant speculation, would be Orist Yelfaren’s Annotated History of the SkyMounts of Relnis. It’s rather dry, but thoroughly documented. The man had a notorious love of footnotes – so you may want to prepare yourself for that. It’s also a bit dated, since Orist passed on over 30 years ago. Probably the most recent full-length work would be the sylph Leahtha’s Theories on the Skylands: A Survey. I’m not sure I agree with all of her claims, but she does at least make use of what evidence is available, and it all kind of hangs together.

  There are many theories as to the origins of the sky island. As you might expect, it’s a popular topic, but I wouldn’t say that there’s any real consensus as to when or how they were created (much less by whom). Our oldest records on this topic date back roughly 20,000 years, but even then, the sky islands appear to have been considered long-established, permanent fixtures. I’ve seen some wild theories, but as far as I can tell, the most popular ones suggest either an act of divine intervention for unstated reasons or concentrated effort at the behest of an ancient dwarven empire. There are circumstantial arguments for both cases, and both could be true simultaneously, I suppose. I’d reserve judgement on that subject, unless you have some fresh insight.

  Broadly speaking, there are 52 sky islands, mostly making regular circuits around Relnis. Three of them have been permanently anchored and are now fully stationary. At least two others have been reportedly destroyed at various points, though there’s evidence to suggest the number is higher than that. Probably a moot point for you, and there’s no real consensus on the original numbers of them either. I’ve seen estimates up to 75, but most people tend to place it at 60 or fewer. They mostly circulate with the prevailing winds and are roughly evenly distributed between about 30 degrees above and below the equator. Interestingly, the ones north of the equator move from East to West, while those below the equator go in the opposite direction. No one is really sure why.

  They don’t range very much in size, though, and Tel Dorinth is pretty standard in that regard; they do all seem to adopt a similar mountainous form, incidentally. There aren’t any flat–topped ones at any rate. Their elevations vary a bit more, though for obvious reasons they all float at least a few kilometers in the air. The highest ones, though, float about 15 km up and move a bit faster, presumably because there’s more wind up that high.

  All but a couple of them have a magical barrier around them that maintains livable conditions on their surface. We assume that the few lacking such a barrier had one originally and lost it at some point – either from decay or through some sort of violent intervention. If I remember correctly, somewhere over 45 of the islands are capable of maintaining a sapient population, and about ? of them do. They’re quite popular with dragons, though, and at least a dozen of them host dragons as essentially permanent residents. A couple of others are in the possession of other apex monsters, but about twenty-five host colonies of one sapient race or another. A couple of those colonies are fairly well developed, but periodic takeovers by dragons have kept that number down.

  I don’t mean to ramble on, though, so let me know if you have any specific questions in mind. I’ll spend some time researching Tel Dorinth and its earlier residents in the meantime. I’ll be looking to hear what you’ve discovered about the island and its residents – particularly if you have insights into what the islands are meant to be doing or who built them in the first place!

  Your colleague in research,

  Rangvar Smithsson”

  He sent the missive off with a theatrical flourish for his own amusement, before he remembered his ex with a weak smile.

  *****************************************

  I had kind of thought that being capable of audible speech would go a long way towards expanding my social circle, but ironically that expansion was all happening in the equivalent of a slow email chain. Here, within my own dungeon, I was still abiding by Glynesha’s request that I only speak with tribal elders unless I was addressed first. And since the general run of tribesfolk hadn’t yet been informed that I COULD speak with them, that meant I wasn’t really in any better position to chat with people.

  To be fair, we all had our own individual tasks to complete, and I’d need to get back to my own in the near future, but it was still disappointing. I didn’t really think I was lonely, or anything; I’d always been a bit of an introvert and becoming a dungeon had really only made that more the case – given my instincts were pushing me in vaguely antisocial and paranoid directions. I was getting the very clear impression that dungeons really weren’t social animals, but for the sake of my quests and in the service of not getting bored, I did want to interact with my various sapient visitors and residents.

  To that end, I waited as the tribal leaders informed each of their eight elders, then I made polite introductions with each of them. Only a couple of them seemed even a little comfortable with speaking with me, though none of them were actually rude about it. I wasn’t sure if they were simply too busy, or whether I made them nervous. I expect it was a mix of each, as they all had valid excuses to use (and did so, apparently aware, on at least a subconscious level, that I could and likely did watch what they were doing). To be fair, I was aware of what they were doing, but I quite deliberately didn’t focus my attention on any of them specifically.

  There were a couple that didn’t seem actively discomfited when I spoke with them, though I still had the sense they’d rather speak with me only outside their own dwellings in order to maintain the illusion of privacy. I was generally okay with that; I didn’t actually want to appear to be omnipresent if I could help it. In fact, I pondered simply setting up a permanent interface in the center of town where the regular Redcrest tribesfolk could consult me when they wanted to. I hesitated to limit myself like that, though, even nominally, and I assumed at least a few of the individuals wanting to speak with me would not want to do so publicly. It also felt a bit too much like setting up an altar to myself, as well, and I was disinclined to step on any divine toes.

  For the time being, at least, I stayed away from the Redcrests other than the two elders who were willing to chat – or at least interrogate me politely.

  The first was Janetha, who was, I think, the oldest of the Redcrests and had essentially lost her fear of much of anything at this point. Unfortunately, she also seemed to be mostly interested in what kinds of sweet fruits I was capable of providing, as she had difficulty processing things with too much fiber. I learned rather more than I’d wanted to concerning the digestive issues of elderly avians, but politeness required I put up with it for a while.

  Luitza was the other elder open to speaking with me. As one of the tribal scouts, she was mostly interested in what I knew about the rest of the island, as the Redcrests mostly hadn’t strayed far from my immediate vicinity. She was particularly interested in the odd patch of forest not far to our north, and I made tentative plans for us to scout the region in the near future, though we’d need to speak more about what creature or creatures I sent with her – since we wouldn’t be able to speak directly after she crossed my border.