“Getting to the next level always requires ending something, leaving it behind, and moving on. Growth itself demands that we move on.”Henry Cloud

  Ornthalas actually spent nearly an hour jotting down general notes, and I got the sense that completing the formal paperwork would likely involve a solid day of deskwork. Not that daunting for a scholarly sort like myself, of course, but I also understood it to be both the least satisfying and the least interesting part of the job. He’d settled in, cross-legged, on one of the platforms in the rest area and I’d raised the ambient light level a bit for him. I decided I’d need to figure out a way to allow visitors to manually control that at some point. The simplest way would likely be to simply put the mana lights into recessed niches with adjustable covers. Likely it would take me a couple of days to implement the various suggestions he’d made or the refinements I’d thought up; none of it looked to be that complicated and any of it was likely to be more interesting than his paperwork, I suspected.

  Eventually, the Inspector rolled his shoulders, arched his spine and put his notes away with an audible sigh.

  “That should be enough for now. I’ll probably add a few more notes at my campsite this evening as things come to me. Once I get back to the office, I’ll have at least a solid day of work figuring out how to accurately describe you in the limited options of my standardized forms. Then I’ll get to argue about it with my boss, before filing it in triplicate with the central office, the kingdom, and the senior priest of the God of All Dungeons in the capital. All that should give you roughly three weeks of lead time before the word starts to really get out, and at least a couple of more weeks before the first real rush of visitors.

  As I hope you’ve gathered, I see no problem with allowing visitors to access your dungeon. Officially, my recommendation is that you be classified as a Divine Sapient Dungeon with an unspecified patron deity, falling into the rapid growth category and with no clear theme, as yet. I expect you will be on your second level by the time sanctioned visitors arrive, possibly approaching your third. As such, I will tentatively suggest standard adventuring groups of 4-5 individuals ranging in level from 3-6, or for solo adventurers around levels 8-12. I will note that you appear focused on gathering knowledge broadly, but with a special interest in magic and possibly history. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

  **YELLOW**

  “I guess that was kind of a lot. Let me try to break it down and figure out where your concerns lie. Is there anything troubling about your basic classification as a divine, sapient dungeon?”

  **RED**

  “Is my assessment of your interests wrong?”

  **RED**

  “Ah, is it my recommendations for your visitors that is the source of concern?”

  **GREEN**

  “Are you concerned that the level recommendations are too high?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Are you simply not sure what those levels and groupings will tend to mean for you?**

  **GREEN**

  “Well, then let me shed a bit of light onto how adventuring generally functions, at least in Zaipruniel. Adventurers are traditionally registered with a central adventurer’s guild, with offices to be found in almost every major population center globally. The central organization is pretty loose, though, and most guild offices operate with a focus on the individual polity in which they exist. They’re forbidden from direct political action, though violations of that policy recur sporadically, unfortunately.

  Most adventurers function at the level of basic parties of four or five, commonly including traditional roles like front-line fighters of various sorts, mages, healers, rogues/trapfinders, and backline damage dealers. In Zaipruniel, and many Elven kingdoms, you get rangers filling several of those roles, depending on their personal skillsets. There’s no known cap on levels, but they get harder to gain as your level increases. Basically, the levels I gave indicate that your dungeon is appropriate for groups of beginners who aren’t absolute novices, or for solo adventurers with more significant experience. At the moment, your primary hazards are some creatively nasty traps, though I know we talked about toning those down a bit. As currently laid out, you could be potentially lethal for groups without a decent trapfinder, and as you proceed you’re likely to gain access to creatures that are potentially hazardous in their own right, making a balanced party the safest way to proceed.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  The systems vary a bit from region to region, but in Zaipruniel and most other polities on this continent, adventurers are given coded badges as a visual cue; quality of gear can sometimes be used to assess them as well, but that’s a lot more dependent on their social class as well. Starting adventurers, with relevant primary classes at levels 1-5 get wooden badges, 6-10 get bone ones, 11-15 is brass, 16-20 is black iron, 21-25 is titanium, 26-30 is copper, 31-35 is silver (like my own), 36-40 get gold, and so on. Above level 50 they switch to exotic magical metals, and while I’ve never seen one myself, above level 100 adventurers simply get an orichalcum badge without further differentiation. Not much point, really, at that stage, as they’re basically walking catastrophes for more normal people!”

  Above level 10, the badges encode some basic information about the adventurers and are usable as an ID. Noone tends to impersonate low-level adventurers, so it’s not much of an issue. That information is only accessible through proprietary magical crystal readers, or to people with high-level identification skills (at which point they generally don’t need the badge to assess people). The crystals are all connected, though, and once dungeons hit 5 levels deep, the guild will typically install a reader at the dungeon entrance to log entries and exits. Once those readers are placed, there are penalties assessed to adventurers who fail to log in and out. Generally, if they log in, but not out, we assume they’re dead after a 2-week span, and if they’re not, they face penalties and substantial paperwork to bring their records back to an active status.

  I got a bit off topic, there – my apologies! Did that answer your concerns?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Well, you may simply have to trust me on this until you get enough visitors to get a sense of their varying capabilities for yourself. The ranking system is, obviously, a gross generaIization, but it’s intended to set realistic expectations for the normal run of adventurers. Some adventurers are obviously more talented than others, even at the same level, and some classes will be a better or worse fit for the specific challenges you offer.”

  **GREEN**

  “So, do you have any plans for the second floor yet?”

  **YELLOW**

  “Maybe, but not much certain? You have some ideas, but no firm plans?”

  **GREEN**

  “Think it’ll be a similar mix of traps and creatures in a fairly straightforward traditional mode?”

  **RED**

  “Will you be starting a specific theme?”

  **YELLOW**

  “More traps?”

  **YELLOW**

  “More creatures?”

  **YELLOW**

  “So, you’d like to start setting a theme, but you’re not sure exactly how it will work?”

  **GREEN**

  “Coming back to the theme, are you debating between multiple possibilities, or do you have one in mind but face problems making it work?”

  **GREEN** **GREEN**

  “Oh, my mistake – not so much a yes or no, question, huh? Do you have multiple ideas on themes but also some issues with making them work?”

  **GREEN**

  “This is where some clearer mode of communication would be helpful, but I’m grateful you’re already as interactive as you are. Well, rather than spend all evening trying to guess your options, I’ll just wish you luck and look forward to coming back to see what you came up with. Normally, I make a loop of my assigned dungeons 2-3 times a year, but you present logistical challenges. Your dungeon will only be in Zaipruniel’s airspace for about 2 months a year -- I checked! You can expect at least one visit from me every year, but you will probably see other inspectors from most of the other polities the sky island passes. The books you absorbed should give you some sense of which realms you’ll transect, but since the island tracks generally from east to west, the next up should be the Dwarven/Human twin kingdoms of Daekar and Aubesan. They share borders neatly, with the dwarves of Daekar below and the Humans of Aubesan above. It’s an interesting coordinated system, though one that shows some internal stresses at times. You should cross their borders in about another month, give or take a few days. I’ll send my notes along to their guild as well, so whoever visits you shouldn’t be starting from scratch.”

  **GREEN**

  “It has been a pleasure to meet you, and I look forward to working with you for years to come. I’ll be very curious to see where you go from here. I’ll retreat to my camp for the evening and probably leave in the morning. If you come up with additional concerns before then, you can send your shade owl to me, and I’ll return before I depart.”

  **GREEN**

  And with that, he turned on his heel and left, making much more rapid time on the way out than he had on the way in. I was a bit surprised to see just how much he’d slowed down to prevent causing me unnecessary concern; I was pretty sure he wasn’t doing it to avoid traps, by this point.

  I doubted that I’d contact him overnight. I had questions, sure, but nothing too pressing and nothing that would be easy to transmit.

  https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRUhqoWNACtZuJkgj5P9kyPdCLCHgOV4JoNUIbC0p2BCJALGHVsoQCnoJLAskSfz_kBqpQx2jNiSfp9/pub