“Anyone who teaches me deserves my respect, honoring and attention.” ― Sonia Rumzi

  *Well, if time is limited, I’d really like to take advantage of your expertise. How do I share my status with you and let you see what quests I have and what resources are available?*

  Aven’s response came quickly and with an amused mental overtone. *That should be easy enough. Simply think ‘System: Share status with Aven Crystalspeck’. I should note that you will only be able to share your status with acknowledged representatives of the Dungeon God. Dungeons, in general, are discouraged from sharing too much knowledge of the inner workings of dungeons with adventurers and other unsanctioned sapient visitors.*

  I followed its instructions and was rewarded with a thoughtful *Hmm* and a soft whistle.

  *Well, Sylvanus, the first thing to note is that a divinely sanctioned dungeon taking advantage of a transmigrated scholar is an incredibly unusual thing. If you aren’t wholly unprecedented, you’re close. The fact that whichever deity placed you here didn’t want you to know what your mission is also seems weird. I’d guess, as I’m sure you did, that your knowledge set is almost certainly at the core of your mission and that your location on this sky island is probably related. That’s just a guess, though. If pressed, I’d suspect that the deity who placed you here might be tied to the pantheon of whatever culture built these sky islands in the first place, but that’s somewhat less certain. They also might be from one of the other later cultures to inhabit this place. I’m assuming your placement is nonrandom, but of course there aren’t any guarantees.*

  *Wait. The sky island was BUILT? It’s not a natural phenomenon? No lighter than air magic rocks or antigravity rays or whatever?*

  Aven scoffed at the notion. *I take it you’re from a world with no magic to speak of? No, that’s not how this world works. The sky islands, and I think there are about 50 of them, are clearly not natural and must be supported by continually gathered mana through some massive ritual array. They’ve been here for thousands of years, at a minimum, and if anyone knows who made them, it’s certainly not common knowledge. Still, is that really important, right now?*

  I mentally conceded the point and decided that was something that could wait for a later date for more explanations. *Okay, yes, that’s good to know and I’d love to hear more, but I probably should focus on the basics right now. What do you think I should do first? Is there a tutorial for these first few weeks? How are dungeons treated by their neighbors? How scared and defensive do I need to be?*

  *How SCARED should you be? That’s an odd question, but to put your mind at ease, the answer is – not very.* Aven shrugged dismissively. *I mean, there are some hazards, and at this stage you’re technically vulnerable, but there’s not much reason for anyone to harm you.

  The local beasts should have little real interest in your core, and most of them couldn’t hurt you anyway. Dungeon cores are tremendously hard and vulnerable mostly only to directly targeted magic and enchanted weapons. There aren’t many sapients currently occupying this island, though you’ll want to be alert to the dragon that caused that particular state.*

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I deliberately didn't mention the whole traumatic squirrel invasion, and instead, seized on the one presumably critical element in all that. *Wait. There’s a dragon nearby?! What kind of dragon? We only had legends about them in my world, and the stories range from wise, near deities to savage, ravening beasts. About all the legends agree on is that they’re very powerful.*

  *Well, your legends aren’t wrong then. Dragons are among the very most powerful beings active on this planet, practically immortal and incredibly intelligent, though prone to violent outbursts and easily capable of regional destruction, if provoked. That said, you will have literally no way to provoke a dragon for a good while, even if you wanted to. Hopefully it won’t object to your mere presence, and even dragons tend to be unwilling to mess with divine actions.

  Returning to your original question, your primary concern would be the more normal range of intelligent beings who enter dungeons. They can destroy dungeons, but it happens only rarely and typically only to dungeons that present a clear and present danger to local inhabitants beyond those who enter – that is to say, unless you start sending out armies of undead, you’re likely fine.

  More to the point, you’re likely to get a visitor from one of the adventurer guilds to see what kind of dungeon you represent. Start thinking about ways to answer at least yes and no questions, since showing yourself to be sapient will add additional protections and likely some direct benefits. The divine sanction, if they can identify that, will make you essentially inviolate, as no one wants to get on the bad side of a deity*

  *Whew. Well, that’s a relief. Assuming I can’t communicate with them like I am with you, is there some standard way of interacting with them? Sending pulses of mana? How is it done? *

  *Well, there’s lots of ways, depending, but as a basic service to sapient dungeons, I can provide you with the blueprint for a mana light – essentially a crystal that lights up, so you can pulse the lights or shift colors to communicate on a limited basis. Also handy, if you want to encourage visitors, as lighting is helpful to most. They won’t work if they’re removed from your area of control, so only the newest adventurers will touch them.*

  [Blueprint Provided: Mana Light]

  *As for the rest of your question... What should you do first? Well, you’re off to a solid start, I assume from following the implicit guidance of your quests. I’ll stick around for a few days just to help you acclimate and figure out what you want your immediate and longer-term goals to be. I don’t always do that, but you’re enough of a special case to justify it, and frankly, you seem like you’ll be a lot easier to work with than most of my other dungeons. If you’re anywhere near as interesting as I think you’ll be, I’m going to be around fairly often. That said, if you have any sort of emergency, you should be able to message me directly. I’ll leave you a single-use communicator stone that will tell me you need attention – there's no associated message, so don’t use it unless you really need me to appear, and I’ll come as quicky as I can – generally within 5 minutes. If you abuse it, I won’t give you another one.*

  *Fair enough. Thank you, I’ll be careful to only use it if I know I need help.*

  Aven flitted its wings and flashed a toothy grin.

  *Well, don’t be too nervous to use it. I won’t punish you for an honest error.

  Now, getting down to business, we should decide which of your quests you should be working on most directly. A bunch of them, you can likely put out of your mind for a while. The scholar quests aren’t anything you can work on right now, and even the xenoarchaeology quests – what a strange word – seem like they’ll need to wait on you happening across a ruin. The naturalist quests may be possible but should probably wait for you to have less construction to do. The divine quest is obviously going to be critical, but until you figure out what it involves, I’d just let it slide. The gods are nothing if not patient, as a rule – they work on a whole other timescale and if your work were urgent, they’d likely have given you more to go on. It doesn’t look like you have any hints at all to work from at the moment.

  That leaves you with the Dungeon quests, which are pretty standard and mostly quite easy for a sapient dungeon. You just need to decide where you want to put your efforts – do you want to expand horizontally, or do you want to go vertical? Do you want to create traps or focus on creatures? The quests will tend to become more involved as you work through them, so at some point, you’ll want to finish all your basic dungeon quests. More broadly, do you want to encourage sapient visitors? At some point, you’ll likely need to for your scholar quests, and I’m guessing, your divine quest. But do you want to build some basic defenses first? *