"She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot" ~ Mark Twain

  I was going to miss the constant presence of the dwarven airmage, but at the same time it was going to free up a block of time for me to get other things done. In the end, she had left a fairly broad range of lab equipment behind, as well as a carefully transcribed set of notes for Mayphesselth, but nothing I was particularly tempted to absorb. She hadn’t left me any instructions either way, but I assumed I should just pass over the notes the next time May stopped in for a visit. I certainly wasn’t going to interrupt her to pass on the notes.

  I was a bit annoyed that the scholar quest hadn’t triggered – with Janelle and Semyaza apparently not being considered scholars by the system – so I opted to finish off a couple of other lingering quests by focusing my attention on the surface for a while.

  I started by expanding my surface domain in ways that would tidy up some edges and hopefully trigger my surface expansion quest. As I’d discovered, mostly that meant expanding upward into the air, and I focused on getting an 8-meter air zone calculated from the height above ground at my main entrance. There were a couple of higher points – mostly in towards the center and at some isolated rocky outcroppings, but if I needed 8-meters above those too, I’d come back for it at the end.

  While I was working on that, since it didn’t require a great deal of my attention really, I was using this time to also try to complete a couple of my active naturalist quests – notably, the ones for birds, plants, and terrestrial animals. The others, for aquatic animals and fungi, were going to require a more systematic approach, so for the time being I was simply seeing what I could find as I tidied up the edges of my surface zone.

  I hadn’t really looked for birds in over two months, unless you counted the ones I’d added while creating the Redcrest village, and I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I was using the Hawk-Eagle in conjunction with my Classify skill to work on adding species – needing a dozen or so to trigger the next level of the quest. The primary issue was that anything mobile had a tendency to flee from the expanding edge of the dungeon.

  To address that, I stationed the Hawk-Eagle outside of my territory on a selected observation post and then pushed in its direction. I suppose I could have tried an encircling tactic, but frankly it didn’t seem necessary as I didn’t need to capture the birds and small animals fleeing my approach, just get a decent look.

  Birds were easiest in that regard, as they tended to take to the skies in open flight where they were readily observable. With me driving them from cover, I managed to add the required dozen species pretty easily, and in fact added almost twenty bird species to my list. I suspected future growth would be difficult until I reached the interesting woodlot to my north that seemed to have more exotic vegetation. My other option was to send the Hawk-Eagle soaring higher up the mountain side to check the resident bird life at different elevations, but it didn’t seem worthwhile to potentially irritate my draconic neighbor.

  The bird species were mostly Tier 1 creatures and nothing all that dramatic, but there were a couple of more interesting species, including a pair of Tier 2 species and an interesting flightless bird that was spotted as it scuttled from the cover of the tall grass.

  Species Identified: Riverine Flycatcher, Blue Queenfisher, Sky Island Swiftlet, Great Black Masked Swift, Crevice Swallow, Drab Seedfinch, Spruce SIskin, Flightless Seedsnipe, Gray Treecreeper, Red-footed Sparrow, Lesser Mimic Ground-Cuckoo, Rufescent Tiger Tyrannulet, Ashy Mousebird, Toothed Firechaser, Pink Antbird

  Quest Completed: Spot a Bird; Reward: Choose 2 T1 Blueprints and 1 T2 Blueprint from Avians Identified

  That left me pondering my options for a moment. The T2 blueprints came down to a choice between the Lesser Mimic Ground-Cuckoo and the Toothed Firechaser. Both had interesting skills that bumped them to this tier. The Ground-Cuckoo was a good-sized, mostly gray bird, and as the name suggested, was a talented mimic, able to copy nearly any kind of sound – which it apparently used for a variety of purposes ranging from luring in certain kinds of prey to frightening off potential predators. The Toothed Firechaser was a smaller bird – more jay-sized than the macaw-sized cuckoo – but it specialized in catching prey startled out of hiding by fires. Interestingly, its magic was such that it could both start AND stop small magical fires as part of its hunting technique. I wasn’t quite sure how that worked, but I could see the ability to put out fires it had started being a distinct survival advantage. If nothing else, any other creature in the area smart enough to understand what it was doing would be likely to try to kill it otherwise.

  In the end, I opted for the Mimic Cuckoo, with the explicit intention of experimenting with it to see if I could use it to manage at least brief conversations without telepathy. It seemed a bit odd to me, but it had the anatomical equipment for it at the very least, even if it would be a bit weird to run all my discussions through a created bird. The Tier 1 options were much less interesting to me, but I opted for the Flightless Seedsnipe, which was a plump, quail-sized bird I could see being a useful source of food for delvers and residents, and the Gray Treecreeper. The treecreeper was a small, highly camouflaged insectivore that spent its days gleaning insects on tree trunks; I suspected it might be a useful creature for discreetly observing adventurers on the surface.

  Quest Reissued: Spot a Bird – Identify 25 new species; Reward: 2 T1 Blueprints and 1 T2 Blueprint from Avians Identified.

  New Quest: Spot Big Birds - Identify 2 species of T3 Avian; Reward: 1 T3 Blueprint from Avians Identified.

  I’d expected the reissued quest, but the new one was exciting. I wasn’t sure how likely I was to encounter T3 birds on the sky island, but even the possibility was a positive. I kept my eyes on the skies for a while after that, but giving it some thought, I suspected any T3 birds we had on the sky island were likely to be smart enough to not make themselves targets for the dragon. Frankly, I assumed they were more likely to be terrestrial or at least nocturnal, and I certainly wouldn’t rule out other, weirder possibilities – subterranean birds, camouflaged ambush predators, magically defended in some fashion, or the like. In any case, they certainly weren’t out soaring around at midday! I chalked that particular quest up to something I’d have to pursue more actively at a later point – possibly by sending scouts off the sky island entirely to survey the lands below.

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  I was using a similar strategy to the Firechaser, now that I thought about it, if a less destructive version. And it DID continue to work, on terrestrial animals as well as birds. As noted, I did have a few more species towards the next spot a bird quest – Tawny Solitaire, Spot-billed Wren, Yellowish Flycatcher, Little Brown Sparrow, and Medium Brown Sparrow. Those last two felt like they’d been named by the laziest ornithologist around, but it was certainly an accurate description – and suggested there should be an even bigger one around somewhere.

  It took a bit longer to get the five terrestrial animals called for by the next quest. I wasn’t expecting to spot any larger creatures, given that I was just tidying up the edges of my domain, and that was generally accurate. The largest creature I spotted was a brown ribbon snake, and that one was only about a meter and a half long.

  That may have been the biggest animal I scared up, but it wasn’t the most interesting. That title likely went to either the brightly colored Orange Arrow Frog or the diminutive Pillbug Armadillo. As you probably assumed from the name, the frog was orange to advertise its highly toxic nature – apparently derived from its diet of similarly noxious ants and small insects. That one I spotted along the streamside as I extended the surface domain towards the forest lands at the base of the central mountain. I pondered briefly if it would have counted as aquatic if I'd waited for it to enter the stream, but that was kind of a moot point, frankly. The armadillo wasn’t quite as small as the name suggests, unless this world had substantially larger terrestrial isopods than my old one. Still, it was quite small – only about 15 cm from head to tail – making it about the size of a pink fairy armadillo, if those were a glossy black with a nasty attitude.

  The final two species were of generally less interest to me – another species of grassland vole – this time a White-tailed Grass Vole – and a fairly nondescript lizard that I identified as a Masked Skink.

  Quest Completed: Spot a Terrestrial Animal II; Reward: Orange Arrow Frog

  Quest Reissued: Spot a Terrestrial Animal III – Spot 10 new species; Reward: 2 T1 Blueprints from the identified species.

  I’d opted for the poisonous frog, mostly for its potential use in setting traps and as a potential source of loot/alchemical resources. The armadillo was interesting and kind of malevolent looking, and I almost went for it, but it wasn’t likely to be actually useful unless I got evil gnome paladins on the hunt for a tiny, yet edgy, mount.

  That left me trying to fill out the plant quest. Finding another 25 species of plant wasn’t really an issue, particularly once I started edging into the central woodlands. The real issue was that I needed to also identify either a T3 plant or three T2 plants. I was discovering that those were few and far between. I suspected that may have been the result of intentional thinning of the T2/3 plant population by dragon fire, though I didn’t really have the evidence to support that guess.

  I did manage some progress, in the end, though I didn’t quite finish the plant quest before I completed the current level of the surface domain quest. Eventually, I did manage to turn up two T2 plants, both rather interesting. The first was a low-lying, silvery sedge that grew in a single dense patch not far from the Aubesan ruins. The system identified it as Flame-repellent Sedge, and the name was one of those transparently descriptive terms. The sedge was not just fire-resistant, but the manipulation of the small, embedded metal scales in its foliage enabled it to either reflect or absorb radiant energy. That is to say, that under normal circumstances it used the scales to refocus and aid in the absorption of radiant energy – typically the sun. If exposed to too much radiant energy, it was capable of at least briefly absorbing and rereleasing that energy in a focused blast back at its original source, if at the cost of whichever frond was being used to redirect the energy. It was capable of handling, and reflecting, energy up to and including spells like fireball or flaming arrow, which I could also see serving as a nasty surprise to the incautious.

  The second such plant was rather less dramatic, if probably even more dangerous. Mana moss, unlike the Lesser Manashroom, didn’t passively radiate mana. Instead, it drained mana from the environment, and most particularly from those creatures that took advantage of its soft, golden texture as a potential bed. It gave off a mild soporific at the same time, and the unwary person or creature that happened to fall asleep atop the moss might not wake at all. It would require a fairly long, uninterrupted nap for that effect, however. More plausible as a risk was its tendency to drain mana from enchanted objects – particularly consumables like scrolls and potions. On the upside, for those adventurers who properly identified it and its uses, it was apparently a valuable alchemical reagent used in many potions when properly prepared.

  I was still hunting a third T2 plant or a T3 plant by the time I completed the surface domain quest not long after nightfall. This was the big one, and I was quite excited to see what I’d receive for it – particularly in terms of the promised T2 Field Boss.

  Quest Completed: Expand on Surface III; Reward – Grass Lion (Razor Boss Variant), Grass Lion (standard), Gold Locket (Aubesan), Cloak of Free Passage

  I wasn’t disappointed. The field boss turned out to be a large feline in shades of green and tawny whose mane was comprised of razor-sharp quills in a dull, dark green. It camouflaged well with the grassland and had a roar imbued with sonic magic that could induce a stun effect in its intended prey. It came with blueprints that enabled me to provide it with a full pride – though those creatures were substantially smaller and lacked the razor-sharp mane. They did have a downgraded version of the stunning roar, but its range and duration were both reduced from the boss.

  The locket fit my second floor well, as it apparently derived from the Aubesan empire. The locket included a highly refined portrait of a young woman, and I could only speculate who she might have been or whether she was purely a fiction created by the system. In any event, it was wholly non-magical but exquisite in its simple, yet refined presentation.

  The final item was another good fit for the dungeon as it was evolving. The Cloak of Free Passage effectively enabled the wearer to escape or avoid any number of traps and hazards that relied on bindings or restricting one’s movements. It wouldn’t help you out of a pit or a cage, but would help a scout slip through briars, vines, tentacles, barbed fences, or anything else that prevented movement of lesser potency than a solid wall.

  Quest Reissued: Expand on Surface IV; assimilate a surface zone reaching at least 500 meters from the dungeon entrance and incorporating an area of at least 15000 square meters and including at least 8 meters above the surface level. Reward: T3 Field boss, 2 T2 Creature Blueprints, Loot Blueprint, and Magic Tool Blueprint.

  I wasn’t really sure whether I wanted to spawn in an entire pride of lions just yet, particularly since the Redcrests didn’t need the competition for game at the moment, but it was definitely something to consider (and probably to discuss with Orentha and Glynesha).

  In any event, I took that as a signal to stop working on my surface domain for the night, returning my focus to my core room for some light reading...