"Creativity is not a solitary process. It happens within networks... when talented people get together, when idea systems and mentalities merge." ~ David Brooks

  I spent a little more time exploring the various nooks and crannies of the hangar and pondering not only the logistics of abandoning the city but also the possible reasons that would have motivated it. Unlike the Aubesan settlement, which had been driven off by the dragon, there was no obvious reason for the gnomes to depart. My knowledge of site abandonment from my old world offered some possibilities, but I lacked evidence to support them. Could they have been affected by disruptions to their trade patterns? Sure. Could they have been pressured out by some competitors on the sky island? Maybe. Could they have faced some sort of natural (or unnatural) catastrophe? I suppose, though that would likely have been more apparent. Could they have been decimated by disease or other illness? Yes, though again, I’d have expected a different set of material evidence.

  Factoring in magic and active divinities broadened the possibilities substantially. Could they have been swayed by some mind controlling monster or monsters? Ordered to move by their own Gods? Simply removed en masse by a particularly high powered spellcaster? Devoured by some beast? I simply didn’t know what the likelihood of any of those things or a host of other odd possibilities might be. And in the end, I dropped the subject, though I knew I’d return to it when and if I obtained more insight – either from the evidence or from chatting with residents of my new world.

  I repaired the outer doors and thinned the outer stone wall to a thickness measurable in centimeters rather than meters, then turned to my next set of explorations. Having made some progress in securing and consolidating both my surface domain and the below ground elements below my central dungeon area, I was feeling a bit more able to continue my more exploratory plans. I wasn’t about to push farther towards the center just yet, but I did feel like I could at least expand my domain to fill in the area between where I’d pushed along the mana line from the gathering array towards the dracolisk and the tunnels where I’d first located the dracolisk’s scale. That would help to consolidate some of the weirder extensions I’d made into a bulge towards the center from my main dungeon.

  Again, I decided not to try opening up all that space, but simply push my consciousness along, claiming that space for my dungeon. In the interest of smoothing out my edges, I concentrated on expanding from my initial thin tunnels from the second floor to the south and east to connect with the tunnel from the mana gathering array (which meant also pushing down a bit, at least in the early stages).

  I’d thought about starting from the secret door by the dracolisk’s lair, but I decided that I’d save that as a treat for another time. There wasn’t much point to stirring him up again, even if I wasn’t particularly worried about his reaction. I’d assume he’d be able to sense my domain expanding, and starting from the main dungeon should at least give him a chance to get accustomed to the notion. Or, you know, move away from my influence if he really wanted to keep his distance. I wasn’t sure what options he had, but I wouldn’t have thought there were too many creatures out there that could prevent him from moving. Well, I say that, but May would keep him underground and whatever he was scared of in the core would presumably also limit his options. It was entirely possible there was more out there restricting his movements – especially if you threw me into that category, which I assumed he did.

  That said, expanding in an orderly fashion from my existing dungeon borders was a bit less exciting, as I spent several hours in the mid to late afternoon systematically claiming extensive volumes of mostly granite with a few other, already documented, types of stone with little to show for it beyond a larger volume and a somewhat improved mana flow. I had managed to expand such that the space between my initial exploration shaft and the tunnel to the mana gathering array was all claimed, at least from the first drop in the exploratory tunnel to where the tunnel from the guest space intersected the tunnel from the mana gathering array.

  From there, I spent a good part of the evening working to truly smooth out my rough edges, and by midnight, while my subsurface area was still a bit oblong, it was much more uniform in its depth (at least to where I was constructing the third floor) along the edges and I’d eliminated the last few amorphous extensions aside from my active explorations towards the core. The surface domain didn’t quite match up with the underground, but it was much closer, at least on the south side. To the north, the surface domain extended farther than the underground, and the opposite was true as you moved east towards the center. I figured I’d probably get around to fixing that eventually, but it was already noticeably improving my mana flow and, with that, soothing some of my dungeon instincts.

  I regarded that as a day largely well spent, if not the most exciting, and I promised myself that tomorrow I’d work on something more interesting if I hadn’t happened on something naturally by noon.

  At that point, I returned my focus to the core room to check my mail and do some reading. I started by checking my correspondence, finding that I had several responses. Both Semyaza and Janelle had written back, and I had the distinct sense that neither of them had to pay for the messaging service. Interestingly, it looked like I wasn’t charged to write to them either; I supposed that administrative functions made that a perfectly reasonable approach for communicating with Archive staff. I hadn’t noticed the first time around, but it appeared that I would be charged on a per message basis for writing to the professors (and I assumed vice versa). It wasn’t really a major fee, given my ability to rack up credit with the archives as quickly as I needed to, but it was likely going to limit discussions to more substantive messages for most correspondents.

  As such, the messages from the archivists were relatively inconsequential. Janelle expressed her pleasure to hear from me again and offered me her thanks for the Umberto Eco book. She requested more works from him, if I had access to them, but politely noted that there was no hurry and she was interested only personally, and she wasn’t making a formal request on behalf of the archives. She also inquired about any further news, with a particular focus on later visitors. I had the sense that the works I’d provided directly to the goddess had been made available to the archives, as she asked after only those works I’d individually gifted to others. I assumed she’d be reaching out to those beneficiaries to see if they were willing to share access – presumably for the credit I’d given up in gifting them.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  Semyaza, on the other hand, had less of a focus on hearing my news and more on hinting that I’d get preferential treatment if I cut Janelle out and worked with him directly. Apparently, having gotten the attention of the goddess herself meant that I’d become a bit of a hot property within the archive, at least among those in the know. He worded it politely enough, but the whole thing seemed vaguely sleazy and more than a little unethical.

  I wrote back to Janelle first, sharing with her the list of visitors I’d encountered along with a brief note about the works I’d provided for them. I also notified her about my contacts with the Professors Keradji and the efforts of her boss to cut her out of the loop. I assured her that I had no such intentions and asked her how she’d like me to respond. Him, I effectively left on read, opting to hold off on responding until I’d heard from Janelle.

  The Keradjis had sent me a short, combined note – presumably to save their credit with the archive. They had begun by thanking me for the new works, which they had begun working through carefully. They did say they’d begun giving some thought as to which researchers they knew who might best fit my expressed interest; it was at least suggested that they’d reach out to some carefully vetted colleagues who might be able to assist me. They did note that the fields I’d expressed an interest in were rather unusual, so they weren’t sure, offhand, who that might be or what they might want to know in return. As a final note, they’d asked about some of the fundamental works in their fields of interest – with references made to Darwin for Ahmed and Al-Khwarizmi for Raina. I supposed they were interested to get a clearer sense of the development of the concepts, particularly as they’d presumably be easier to follow than the fully developed versions.

  I sent them my own short note in return, expressing my gratitude for their assistance. Unfortunately, I had mixed news on the foundational texts they’d requested. I had, as a professional archaeologist, taken sufficient anthropology classes that I could replicate On The Origin of Species (though I’d found it dry reading, personally). I had NOT, however, read any 9th century texts on mathematics from the Islamic Golden Age. I’d flipped through Principia by Newton, but they weren’t up to that yet, and I wasn’t going to volunteer it at this stage. Besides, it was really more about the motion of celestial bodies, even if it was often pointed out as a starting point for the field of calculus. The notation really came more from Leibniz, as I understood it, and I hadn’t ever even glanced at his writings.

  In any event, that was all stuff I could worry about later. I was guessing that even working on those books continuously, it’d be a while before they really needed access to more material. I dismissed it from any immediate consideration and went back to my own reading. This time, I opted to read some of the books I’d been given on dungeon traps, with a specific eye on how to better incorporate my air affinity and to refine the existing traps on the second floor. I happened across a couple of traps I thought I could tweak to be appropriate and resolved that could be one of the tasks I pursued the next day.

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

  “So -- what’s got the two of you venerable professors so worked up?”. The massive lamia had politely wrapped her tail around the base of their shared table to be out of the main traffic of the central plaza. Even with 3 meters of its shimmering, scaly length thus out of the way, enough of her tail remained that she easily loomed above her human compatriots.

  Raina snorted at her old friend. “Who are you calling ‘venerable’, Euphisia? You’ve been here longer than the both of us combined?” She’d flagged down the lamia as she was on the way to her office – rather conveniently for all involved.

  Her raven-haired colleague smiled down at her, innocently. “What? But I don’t look a day over 200! Even if I say so myself... Still, I’ve seen that look on your faces before, if not for a long time. You’re up to something, and you’re thinking about roping me in! So spit it out, my young friends. Why flag me down and why are you BOTH excited? Chancellor fall sick and this is your moment? Plague sweep through Nightport and carry off the Taemraths?”

  Ahmed laughed out loud at that one – the dark elven twin professors had been thorns in their professional sides for decades now. “No, no. We’re not actually taking joy in the lamentations of our enemies this time around. We’ve got good news – and it should be good for you too, if you’d like to collaborate.”

  Fortuitously, the Keradjis’ lists of candidates had both featured Euphisia right near the top. She was a good friend, a trusted colleague, conveniently local, and best of all – a specialist in obscure magics and arcane lore.

  At the moment, however, she was eying them askance – unblinking, golden eyes giving her a truly unsettling stare as a century of undergraduates had discovered. “Forgive me, Ahmed, but that sounds remarkably suspicious. I have, sadly, learned to be cautious of offers that sound too good to be true. Relieve me of my concerns by telling me how you benefit from bringing me on board a project that has the two of you so excited?”

  Raina and Ahmed shared a quick glance and a nod before Raina began.

  “Well, let me back up a couple of weeks. As you may remember, Ahmed and I make it a point to periodically survey the Central Archive for new works of relevance to our fields. In fact, we have a standing search that notifies us when new texts with some specific keywords in the title appear.”

  Euphisia shrugged her rather narrow shoulders. “Of course. Every researcher who’s aware of that function does something similar. I take it you got an interesting hit?”

  Raina grinned. “Indeed. But here’s the interesting part... It’s not a new work from an established source – it was retrieved by an archival expedition when its title popped up on their list of unknown and unavailable works! And when Ahmed got excited about it, we tracked down the other new works that had been retrieved alongside it, there was another work that has sent me down my own research warren.”

  Euphisia’s tongue flickered, tasting her friends’ palpable excitement in the air. “And you think there’s a third book from this recovered stash that would be of interest to me?”

  Ahmed looked momentarily crestfallen. “Ah, perhaps not, but let us explain...”

  Raina cut him off. “It’s not a recovered stash, exactly. It’s an outworlder scholar with an eidetic memory transcribing works from his own world! And he’s a dungeon! On the sky island of Tel Dorinth!”

  Their lamia colleague reared back in startlement. “That’s... unexpected. And you think he’ll have knowledge of obscure magical systems from his own world I could request?”

  Raina winced. “Umm. Seems as though his world lacks active magic. Apparently, it shows up only in legends there. But he DID request that we put him in touch with a researcher with an interest in – um, let me check my notes.”

  Ahmed snorted. “It was fungalmancy and crystallographic magic. No idea why, but I’m guessing he’s run into something interesting, or he wouldn’t be seeking help with that. And besides, how often do you get to speak with a dungeon about magic? I’m guessing that he’d have some novel insights for you – especially coming from an entirely different system.”

  The lamia pondered that for a moment. "Alright, then. Tell me everything."