Truth is confirmed by inspection and delay; Falsehood by haste and uncertainty” -- Tacitus

  Dawn came oddly on the sky island. The sun rising in the east, as always, crept up the back of the central mountain, and the long shadow of the spire slowly retracted. Around the sides of the mountain, a rosy glow of sunrise lightened the sky, but dawn tended to linger around the dungeon. The phenomenon would be more notable towards the center of the island but mitigated somewhat by the rising elevation, I’d assume. Ignoring the geometry of it all, the sky became brighter as a cool wind pushed scraps of grey clouds and drizzle to the east, leaving a clear blue expanse in their wake.

  The hawk-eagle resumed its watch, while the shade owl retreated to its daytime roost, as I waited impatiently for the elves to stir themselves from their bedrolls. It wasn’t long before the ranger rose and began his morning ablutions. After consuming a small breakfast apparently consisting of some kind of gruel or porridge with bits of dried meat and fruit added, presumably for flavor, he cleared up after himself, spoke briefly with his barely awake companions and began slowly working his way through the vegetation towards my entrance. The path he took was direct, though working around any larger obstacles, and it seemed as though he must have some way of detecting the direction of my entrance – perhaps he had some way of detecting the flows of mana like I did, but the method wasn’t clear.

  He paused briefly as he approached the stream that marked the edge of my surface zone in the north. His eyes narrowed as he clearly assessed the likelihood of any immediate threat within my territory. Having warned off my creatures, his caution was unnecessary, but it seemed a wise enough precaution to take. Crossing the invisible boundary into the region I had claimed, he stood straight and spoke, in a generally perfunctory manner. It was possible he knew I had a ground squirrel listening, but it seemed just as likely that this was simply protocol for this kind of first contact.

  “Greetings Dungeon. My name is Ornthalas Ravaric, and as a duly appointed representative of the Adventurer’s Guild of Zaipruniel, I have come to make initial contact with you and to assess your status with the guild. Know that we mean you no harm; I will defend myself from direct attacks but will not seek to harm your core or instigate conflict with your inhabitants. I am now going to proceed to your entrance, where I will begin the formal process.”

  He didn’t wait for a response, which was reasonable, given that I hadn’t thought to try adding mana lights outside the dungeon. I was simply relieved that my Learn Languages skill didn’t seem to need to build from zero – the advantage of a level 10 skill, I supposed.

  He did break out a small notebook and some sort of writing utensil, though, and jotted down a brief note; I got the impression he was expecting to have to fill out some paperwork upon his return, as he heaved a brief sigh before pushing on.

  *** Notebook of Ornthalas Ravaric – 12th day of the 4th month, 715th year since Foundation.***

  8th hour since midnight –First contact with new dungeon on sky island.

  Crossed into the surface territory of the dungeon from the north. Boundary marked by a stream flowing over the edge of the cliffside. Entrance appears to be roughly 20 strides from the boundary, partially concealed by a thorny bramble. Surface zone mostly grassland with scattered trees and rocky outcrops. Initial speech generated no obvious reaction, positive or negative. Small creatures present and presumably listening but made no move to attack or otherwise interact. General aura appears attentive and neutral with no overt hostility.

  To date, only creatures noted so far include a Bronzed Hawk-Eagle and some ground squirrels. Possession of a Hawk-eagle is impressive for a dungeon that opened to the world only about a month ago. Overall, promising at first contact. ***

  Tucking his notebook inside his jerkin, he proceeded at a measured pace towards the entrance, keeping a sharp eye out for anything of note. I assume he didn’t spot much, since I hadn’t really done much outside of the dungeon, but he paused at the entrance and took a deep breath. I assume he smelled the bears, being directly outside the den I’d made them in the entrance room, as he reached behind himself into a pocket of his pack and unlimbered a small round glass sphere containing a gently glowing pink mist and what appeared to be a collapsible spyglass.

  Peering quickly through the spyglass he seemed to make out the bears on their sleeping platform in the back of the room. Before entering, he tossed the sphere with remarkable accuracy, landing it near where the cubs and their adult dungeon counterpart were sleeping in a furry pile. As it smashed to the ground, I concentrated on assimilating both the contents and the sphere itself, with some success.

  Blueprint Acquired: Basic Potion of Sleep

  Blueprint Acquired: Clear Glass

  Nice! The bears were not visibly affected, but Ornthalas seemed to relax a bit as a rumbling snore issued from the bear pile. He crossed the threshold, spotted my softly glowing mana lights, and stopped, squaring his shoulders.

  “The formal assessment begins now. Meaning no disrespect, if you are sapient and able to communicate with me, I ask that you give me some sign.”

  He paused for half a beat, and I took that opportunity to cycle through the three colored lights arrayed on short stalactites partway into the room.

  The elf was visibly taken aback and seemed to cast about momentarily for an appropriate response. “I knew that was a possibility, but it’s quite rare. This will extend our assessment, but in compensation offers you various benefits and extensive legal protections. I don’t suppose you have any way of actually speaking to me, do you?”

  I briefly tried communicating telepathically, as I’d done with Aven, but to no apparent effect.

  **RED**

  “Unfortunate, but hardly surprising. It is possible that you will gain that power eventually, but some sapient dungeons never do. Shall I assume that a red light should be taken as a negative response?”

  **GREEN**

  “And green will be positive. I see that you also have prepared a yellow mana light. Is that intended to denote answers that are neither positive or negative – a maybe, uncertain, or unknown?”

  **GREEN**

  I was very pleased to see how quickly he’d figured that out. Probably I wasn’t the first dungeon to communicate this way; Aven had certainly suggested as much. Still, I was hopeful that this would make our interaction much simpler, as he seemed clever enough to frame his questions in ways where my responses would be unambiguous.

  “I will be taking notes throughout this interview, but they will be shared only with my guildmaster and a handful of senior officials of our kingdom. A formal report will be shared with other guild offices that will encounter you, in your rather unique situation. I encourage you to be forthright with us, but I will understand if you do not want to answer specific questions. In that instance, I will ask that you turn on all three lights simultaneously. Is that acceptable to you?”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  **GREEN**

  Oh, an excellent thought. I don’t have any secrets that I’m aware of, but I suppose I shouldn’t share too many details regarding my stats and quests, and it’s good to have that option laid out in advance.

  “The next key point is to determine your basic dungeon type. As a sapient dungeon, you fall into a protected class. Are you also divinely placed?”

  **GREEN**

  “That obviously comes with additional protections, but also opens a series of other questions, mostly focused on which deity placed you and what your intended function is. Rather than run through a list of the thousands of named deities currently active (and I don’t have such a list available), I will begin by asking about major pantheons. We’ll begin with the most obvious possibilities. Were you placed here by a member of the elven pantheon?”

  **YELLOW**

  “You are uncertain whether the deity who placed you is a member of the elven pantheon?”

  **GREEN**

  “Do you know the name of the deity that placed you?”

  **RED**

  “That... Huh? I’m not sure that has ever happened before. That is likely to complicate things, but I’m not sure exactly how. To reiterate, you are certain that you are divinely placed, but you have no idea which deity is responsible?”

  **GREEN**

  “Let’s see, how might we narrow that down a little bit. Do you have memories of interacting with the deity?”

  **GREEN**

  “Did they manifest themselves physically?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Did it seem more dreamlike?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Are the memories themselves hazy?”*

  **GREEN**

  “Okay, well, meeting with a deity tends to stick with a being unless the deity chooses to remove or alter those memories, so it’s likely safe to assume your memories have been tampered with. Do you remember them as being gendered?”

  **GREEN**

  “Male?”

  **RED**

  “Female?”

  **GREEN**

  “Represented as any particular species of sapient being?”

  **RED**

  “Well, did they give you a specific mission?”

  **GREEN**

  “Okay, some progress. If we can specify your mission, we can make some guesses as to the deity involved. I’ll run through some of the more common, relatively speaking, divine missions dungeons are known to fulfill.”

  “Does your mission involve serving to train paladins?”

  **YELLOW**

  “So, it might, but you aren’t sure.”

  “Providing resources for crafters?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Preparing heroes for a specific event?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Balancing the flow of mana to the region?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Okay, I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Do you, in fact, know what your specific mission is?”

  **RED**

  “Well, that’s ... very interesting, and I’m sure incredibly frustrating for you, but I’ll have to leave the topic for now. Probably a goddess who gave you an, as yet undefined, mission doesn’t give us much to work with. I will ask that a cleric of the God of All Dungeons stop by to help with that, but I don’t know how long that might take. The special circumstances of your case ensure they’ll be interested, but this is a logistically challenging location to visit.”

  I appreciated the sympathetic headshake he offered, even if it wasn’t helpful for either of us. Hopefully he can kick my case up the ladder to someone with more ability to assist.

  “Let’s turn to some simpler things that will hopefully be easier for you to answer and some simple points of importance to the guild and kingdom. Am I your first sapient visitor?”

  I paused a moment, but I decided that Aven likely didn’t count and probably should not be mentioned. Hopefully, my hesitation went unnoticed, or at least unremarked.

  **GREEN**

  “Then it’s safe to assume that you don’t have any specific knowledge of the laws that govern the treatment of dungeons, sapient or otherwise. Rather than try to walk you through the ins and outs of it, I’m going to offer you a quick summary and provide you with a copy of the relevant codes for the Kingdom of Zaipruniel. Can you read?”

  **GREEN** I was confident that, between my learn languages and epigraphy skills, I wasn’t going to have an issue with that.

  “Excellent! Most polities you pass over on this continent will have similar rules, but they aren’t quite uniform; in general, dungeons are protected from harm by international agreement. That’s particularly true for sapient dungeons, and even more so for divinely placed ones. Attempting to destroy a dungeon core without appropriate approvals at the country-level is punishable by ruinous fines for non-sapient dungeons, and by death for sapient ones. Punishment for attacking divinely sanctioned dungeons tends to be meted out by the gods themselves, and only the craziest individuals are willing to risk that. As such, you should be safe from the worst kinds of abuse by normal adventurers. Few normal creatures, or even basic monsters, can harm a dungeon core, as it seems to require magic of at least Tier 3. All that said, you will want to stay on the good side of the dragon that is believed to inhabit the upper reaches of this sky island.

  In return, it is expected that you will try to mitigate harm to any sapient species living in the area. Individuals entering a dungeon know they are taking a significant risk, but we request that you keep mortality rates below 10% on average (and lower is appreciated). Of course, if you have reason to expect they intend you real, lasting harm, you can, and should, do what you must. We encourage you to also avoid themes that provoke lasting mental damage – most notably the fouler forms of undead, eldritch horrors, involuntary gender or species swapping, mind control, and various sexual perversions. If nothing else, those themes will limit your visitors to particularly unsavory sorts and radically increase the odds someone will risk the penalties to destroy you.

  Are you willing to abide by those requests?”

  **GREEN**

  Yeah, I have no interest in molesting people or terrorizing them into mental illness. Ugh. It sounds like they’re fine with me killing some people, which I guess I understand given my slowly rising bloodlust, but I’d like to limit the necessity. I’ll have to see if I can focus on some non-lethal options, and the sleep potion should help with that. Knock them out and copy their stuff seems like a better MO, in general.

  “Very good. Oh, here’s a copy of the fuller legal codes pertaining to dungeons in Zaipruniel; I try to keep a copy handy as part of my job!” I absorbed it directly, once he laid it on the floor. I hadn’t tried before, but it was clear that I couldn’t absorb materials held in the possession of a sentient being unless that being died, abandoned the item for some time period, or deliberately released it to my possession. Interesting that intent clearly played a role in that...

  Blueprint Acquired: “Laws Governing Dungeons in Zaipruniel”

  Blueprint Acquired: Leather-bound Book, blank.

  Blueprint Acquired: Cow leather

  Blueprint Acquired: Standard-grade Paper

  Blueprint Acquired: Standard black ink

  Regional Lore Acquired: 0 --> 2

  Oh, oh! Finally, a way to address my scholar quests! Bonus! Interestingly, while I got credit for the lore immediately and the book’s contents were registered by my eidetic memory, I’d have to ponder it briefly before being consciously aware of the contents. As expected, it seemed clear that my Learn Language skill extended beyond the obvious mastery of the spoken language to include the written form, or maybe that was the Epigraphy skill. Either way, I got the sense that reading the work wasn’t going to be an issue.