“We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.” John of Salisbury Metalogicon
I elected not to use my speedreading skill to give myself some relaxation time and to properly savor the book. I felt like I’d been going pretty much nonstop since my transmigration, and I was enjoying the sensation of not really having anything pressing. All the pressure I was under was essentially self-inflicted. That wasn’t new to this world, but the loss of any need to sleep seemed to have made it worse.
The work had given me some broad insights into the range of theories put forward over the years. What I was getting was that there was a LOT of speculation about the origins of the sky islands but little concrete evidence. It appeared that the oldest surviving records containing reference to the sky islands, at least that the current batch of scholars had access to, "only" dated back about 20,000 years, and those were pretty fragmentary. Given what I knew about the age of my own sky island, that meant essentially that any historical record was only going to cover the last third of the island’s occupation. Truly a daunting thought. In my own world, 20,000 years already predated any known writing system by over 10,000 years, and 60,000 years put us back near the earliest known cave paintings. For that matter, it took us back about 20% through the existence of anatomically modern humans.
So no, I wasn’t going to complain about the fragmentary nature of those early records, but I’d still had unreasonable hopes about what I might find. There was relatively little mention of Tel Dorinth specifically; islands not occupied by dragons got significantly more discussion – not unreasonably. There was an interesting, reconstructed timeline that attempted to track the occupation of each sky island that Leahtha had tried to reconstruct solely through references in various historical works. There were a lot of gaps, and it frankly suggested some biases in the reporting that I found unsurprising. She’d made an effort to document each of the sky islands, but the ones that passed above her own nation obviously were discussed the most; ones occupied by dragons in the current era and ones farther away (mostly below the equator) were generally sparsely documented.
Fortunately, (albeit not for the Aubesanian settlers) Mayphesselth’s arrival was a comparatively recent thing going back only about 300 years. Adjusting the dating system to match my own loosely reconstructed timeline, the sudden end of the Aubesanian colony fit well with what I’d observed. The colony had already passed its peak by that point, however, as it had been substantially impacted by some sort of magical epidemic some 500 years before that and plagued by periodic recurring outbreaks. According to Leahtha’s research, the settlement had been constructed roughly 1800 years before the current date (which I pegged as BP in classic archaeologist style given my focus on radiometric dating; In my old world, that had always been an awkward system where the present is permanently set to 1950 – that being roughly when radiocarbon dating began and the point at which nuclear testing really started to throw off C-14 dating).
The Aubesan empire had planted their colony during one of the brief periods where the sky island was reputedly free from sapient settlement, it having been roughly 200 years since the preceding occupants had abandoned it for apparently unknown reasons.
Those were reportedly avian humanoids, and I suspected that they may have been ancestral to the Redcrests, though my evidence for that was limited to some vague legends I’d overheard being shared around the table when after dinner drinks came out. What limited information the book offered about them suggested they’d probably lived in the upper reaches of the mountain and hunted the main surface level; it was unlikely I’d run into their ruins. Assuming they still existed, they’d be up on the mountain in May’s stomping grounds. I might find some remains scattered around their hunting grounds, though, since they’d apparently resided on the island for about 1200 years.
That took us back over 3000 years and at that point her records got a bit fragmentary. It was known that the island had been occupied by dwarves and elves at various points, though the order and location of those occupations were debatable.
Before about 10,000 years ago there was almost nothing. There was a mention in one of the earliest texts of a sky island that may have been this one that was home to a dragon, but not only was the timing of that occupation uncertain, there was some debate over which sky island was being discussed – though the general consensus was that it was probably this one. I say “general consensus”, but I’m just taking the author’s word for it at this point. I’d guess there are probably only 5 or 6 researchers around that actually cared about the subject anyways.
Occupation by a second dragon didn’t seem to be unusual, though. A quick survey suggested that probably at least half of the islands had been home to a dragon at one point or another. My only hope of information on that subject was likely May; I had my suspicions that she’d be at least aware that a dragon had lived here before.
There was no mention of Relkhold, of course, as it predated the earliest records by a substantial margin. And reviewing the predominant theories, while many of them involved dwarves, not one of them postulated extraplanar, void-aspected dwarves – which came as no surprise at all.
The other major focus of speculation, as one might expect, was the exact nature of the magic that held the sky islands in the air. Here, at least, there seemed to be some consensus among the few formal researchers investigating the issue. They did, of course, argue about the structure of the enchantments, but uniformly they’d decided that gravity magic was the only thing that really made sense. Other postulated means of keeping the islands aloft had long since been ruled out. Most of the mass of the islands was not dimensionally shifted into another dimension – their sheer momentum shut that option down. Equally clearly, there was no propulsive force pressing into the planet’s surface to make them hover – or they’d leave a constant wake of destruction on the ground below. Air magic had been suggested, but again the associated windstorms would be hugely destructive.
No, the general consensus was that somewhere in the center of the island was a massive gravitational core that was locked in place somehow and carefully calibrated to resist the pull of gravity from the planet. Supposedly, there’d even been some confirming experiments performed that measured the effect of the sky islands on the tides generated by the planet’s moon. Assuming they were correct, I expected there would need to be numerous failsafes on such a thing, or the loss of any number of earlier sky islands would likely have had catastrophic consequences. Or possibly in such scenarios divine intervention allowed for the effect to be mitigated. Frankly, I’d hope both cases applied. Certainly, in so far as I’d seen, the original builders tended towards redundant security and maintenance features, and I’d certainly expect caution for something as powerful as a gravitational core capable of floating a massive hunk of stone.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
That had been interesting reading and had provided plenty of food for thought, but not much real direction for furthering my immediate goals.
I decided it was time to get back to some practical dungeon building. As one of the main characters from a favorite story of mine would always say, “Time to put in the work.” (Author’s Note: To prevent unnecessary speculation, this is a reference to one of my own favorites on RoyalRoad, now sadly inactive. If you haven’t read I strongly encourage you to do so. That said, it’s got almost 450 chapters, so maybe don’t start unless you have a lot of time to spare...)
I started by settling into the work on my third floor. I didn’t want to spend all day at that, but I needed to keep plugging away at it. I spent a chunk of the morning developing the cross-tunnel that I was envisioning as the first set of encounters adventurers would find. I ran the hallway out far enough to include a pair of residences across the hall from each other. I had them mimicking the floor plans of the homes I’d first explored when approaching Relkhold, but I hadn’t actually furnished them yet. Beyond that set of residences, I set up a taller opening and added the appropriate substrate for a mushroom farm. At the moment, I was leaning towards making this floor seem like an abandoned city overtaken by monsters with some lingering traps, but I’d come back and add all that later.
By the time I’d gotten the mirrored set of residences and mushroom field set up on the other side of the hallway, it was coming up on mid-afternoon. I figured that was enough building for today.
One more session like that should have me in good shape in building out the hangar, and probably a couple more sessions to turn the main plaza into something more substantive than the current roughed out placeholders. Then I'd get to the fun part – adding in the monsters, traps, and loot that would give the floor its main vibe. I had some ideas for some of the individual pieces of the floor, but I still had a lot that needed figuring out – since I wasn’t going to have another floor full of skeletons. I was leaning towards myconids in the mushroom fields, and air-aligned creatures in the hangar, but I wasn’t sure what to do with the main, central plaza space and its structures. I did want at least one tier 3 creature there to serve as a sort of primary threat for the floor, even if it wouldn’t be an actual boss monster, as defined by the system.
I was also kind of hoping to secure the blueprint for those void creatures in the dwarven ruins, since that would really help set the tone, but that would mean extending my domain into their area (or at least sending in a creature or two to secure an example for me. I’d have to ponder that though, as I wasn’t sure how solid those creatures even were. I’d have to reconsider my current approach, at any rate, as I didn’t think the wizard’s cat was up to the task. Possibly the spectral librarian would work, as its damage was less physical and more of a direct drain on the life force of the target.
In any event, shifting my focus away from the physical creation of roughed-out dungeon rooms on the third floor, I decided to go back to exploring. For the time being, at least, I wanted to mostly leave the dracolisk alone, so I started by sending the plains stalker down the hallway away from the dracolisk’s lair. I wasn’t sure if that was part of his perceived domain or not, but as near as I could tell, he’d not passed in front of the security door marking the edge of my domain there since we’d spoken.
The big bird was much less nervous than the cat, and while not quite as stealthy, its powers did keep it quite silent as it strode down the hallway in a measured pace, cocking its head periodically to check for movement and listen for noises. These were hunters, and It had the tendency of a lot of terrestrial hunters to focus on the ground before it in search of prey, but I tried to get it to maintain situational awareness. I doubted there was much that was capable of killing it in the area aside from the dracolisk, but I didn’t really want to make unwarranted assumptions.
That said, the corridor came to a right angle turn in about 25 meters, bearing left towards the center of the island. Not very far, however, as maybe 15 meters beyond that corner, the plains stalker came to a closed door, apparently constructed from the same hard, gray granite as the surrounding walls of the hallway.
There didn’t seem to be any active attempt at concealing this door, though, nor did it appear to have any particularly ornate locking mechanism. No, it seemed like a perfectly ordinary door, were such things normally made from granite slabs. It had a simple lever handle, apparently made from brass and some form of polished stone. That was fortuitous, as the plains stalker could use its long legs and grasping talons to work the door – except that the door was locked. If I wanted to get through, I’d need to either expand my domain to include the door or try to have the predatorial bird force it.
As it turned out, the plains stalker wasn’t capable of breaking the lock or the door; the claws and beak were good at puncturing damage, but not so great at the direct leverage of force. I heaved a mental sigh and debated my options briefly, before I began slowly extending my domain down the hallway, away from the dracolisk’s lair.
After a few moments of that growth, I heard an angry, or possibly frustrated, snarl from the direction of the dracolisk’s lair. The dracolisk was clearly sensitive enough to the mana flows that the expansion of my domain was apparent to it. When the sensation didn’t end after a minute or so, an annoyed and somehow nervous hiss emerged from the direction of the lair, followed a few moments later by the sound of the dracolisk’s sizable claws scraping on the stone of the hallway.
Its movements sounded a bit hesitant, frankly, as though it didn’t really want to speak with me, but felt like it had no choice. Even so, it wasn’t that far from its lair to the edge of my domain, where it paused for a moment to consider its options. Apparently not caring for any of them, it begrudgingly took a few steps into my domain and drew itself up into a rather threatening pose before speaking, black and yellow scales shimmering in the mana lights I’d emplaced.
**Alright Dungeon, we need to talk! We need to define some boundaries and come to some agreement** Its mental voice seemed frustrated and angry, with a distinct note of resignation and fear.
I let the silence hang for a moment, largely in an effort to set the right tone. I wasn’t feeling as angry and bloodthirsty as I had the last time we spoke, but I also wasn’t willing to get pushed around. I infused my mental voice with a certain coldly stern overtone. **Quite right. We absolutely need to come to some sort of understanding. Ideally, BEFORE someone gets hurt. Let’s talk about what we both need and what kind of deal can be made that works for us both. Like rational beings, of course.**
