“The only time you start at the top is when you’re digging a hole.” ― Sam Chand

  I was rather enjoying the process of exploring the ruins, with my dungeon skills speeding things up tremendously and enabling me to practically dismiss the more annoying parts of traditional field archaeology – no worries about backfilling, no issues with screening the overburden, no concerns about the weather or biting flies. And with an eidetic memory and without the need to report back to funding sources or regulatory bodies, I could focus on simply satisfying my own curiosity. I could see this becoming an active distraction, so I’d need to be careful. I didn’t want to obsess over the weirdness of my new existence, but I also didn’t want to ignore it either. I’d have to figure out some way to balance the various things calling for my attention – excavating, dungeon building, exploration of the island above and below ground, as well as my slowly growing bloodlust.

  I decided to do one more structure before returning to work on my second level. I had hopes that it would clarify the form of this particular occupational period and that I could use it to give form to my level. I was reasonably confident that I’d get at least some of it wrong, but with any luck at all, further excavations would help me to refine both my understanding of the occupation and the dungeonized form I was going to create.

  As it turned out, my good luck mostly continued to hold. To be honest, I wasn’t sure how much of it was luck, how much of it was due to the specific circumstances of the island and its residents, and how much could be attributed to the speed and ease with which I could excavate, but I was pleased, regardless.

  Clearing a broad strip of topsoil on my way to the next largest mound about 25 meters east of the residence and about 5 meters north of the stream, I found little of note at first – a few blueprints for additional grass species, some scattered earthenware sherds, and a bent iron nail. Along the northern edge of my cleared strip, I did encounter a line of postholes that delineated a fence line that ran about 10 meters east to west, and I deviated course far enough to trace it into a square enclosure encircling a large central laurel tree.

  Blueprint acquired: Silver Laurel

  Inside the enclosure, clearing the surface revealed a series of neatly dug pits marked by heavily eroded marble plaques atop a layer of dark topsoil. I had encountered the family graveyard. Up to this point, I had been using my matter conversion skills to physically remove material as I went. That wasn’t strictly necessary, as I could incorporate the material into my domain without doing so, but the adherence to standard archaeological practice had felt right to me.

  Graves called for a different approach. Archaeologists have a long and unsavory history with excavating gravesites, and while I felt the need to investigate, I wanted to be as respectful as possible. Beyond removing the overlying grass and soil to expose the former ground level of these places, I left the ground undisturbed. Similarly, I left the grave markers in place, using my powers to both clean them to a sparkling, pristine white, and to re-etch the remaining textual elements. I couldn’t completely read the carvings, but enough was left to determine they provided no real information beyond names and dates (in a calendrical system I didn’t have, but assumed I’d figure out eventually). It enabled at least some reconstruction of the residents’ relationships; it appeared we had 3 or 4 generations of the Staphanos family, with a few individuals not bearing the family name – possibly household retainers of some sort.

  Sinking my domain deeper, I could trace neatly rectangular pits suitable for a dozen individual interments. Each pit transitioned from smooth topsoil to a 2-meter layer of rough river cobbles, overlying a roughly shaped granite sarcophagus. Within these fairly simple interments, I encountered an array of individual remains – more or less evenly divided by gender, leaning towards older individuals and children. Both the male and female adults tended to be buried with some simple light chainmail, a spear appropriate for cavalry, and a saber belted at the waist. There had clearly been underlying fabrics, but these were not sufficiently preserved to identify. Enough remained of the footwear to identify heavy leather boots and simple strappy leather sandals on some. Personal jewelry was common in both sexes, with braided gold armbands on all adults and simple gold necklaces on the females. The adults uniformly exhibited evidence of healed breaks on their bones, suggesting a fairly dangerous history. I’d guess they were all warriors, but some injuries looked to have been caused by blades, while others looked more like crushing trauma, and one even had signs of healed bite wounds from some massive creature.

  The child graves contained individuals ranging from newborns to about 8. Causes of death weren’t always clear, but at least one showed trauma consistent with a monster attack around the time of death. The youngest showed no obvious trauma, so complications of childbirth or possibly early childhood illnesses could be inferred. They weren’t buried with any jewelry, but one had a tin soldier in its hand, and another appeared to have been buried beneath a blanket of wildflowers judging from the visible array of pollen.

  Blueprint acquired: Aubesan Chainmail Shirt

  Blueprint acquired: Imperial Cavalry Lance

  Blueprint acquired: Saber of the Imperial Horse

  Blueprint acquired: Heavy Leather Boots

  Blueprint acquired: Simple Leather Sandals

  Blueprint acquired: Braided Gold Armband

  Blueprint acquired: Simple Gold Chain

  Blueprint acquired: Lily of Rest

  Beyond the material culture, my explorations also enabled me to adapt an existing blueprint into a second variant.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Blueprint acquired: Lesser Skeleton (Human)

  None of the interments were undead, but between my existing knowledge of human osteology and the blueprint I’d gained for elven skeletons, these examples could be used to convert the existing blueprint in at least superficial ways.

  Reaching the next structure, which I’d chosen to focus on because it showed the next most substantial surface remains, I quickly traced out and exposed the remains of a relatively small structure made entirely of neatly stacked granite stones. The back wall was dominated by the remains of large furnace, and I quickly came to the conclusion that this had served as a forge. As one might have expected from the apparently hasty abandonment of the site, a mid-sized anvil (albeit one now covered in rust) took pride of place in the middle of the open space before the forge. I briefly pondered traps involving falling anvils but decided pretty quickly that wouldn’t make sense in my historical theme, despite appealing to my love of classic Saturday morning cartoons.

  Blueprint acquired: Iron Anvil (medium)

  Ah well, maybe I can figure out a way to make it happen without seeming too silly.

  Most of the tools that must have once been here were gone – either rusted out or taken in the site abandonment – but a few remained. Either they weren’t worth coming back for or would have been easily replaced. They were fallen along the left wall, suggesting either a long since decayed workbench or a wall rack of some sort.

  Blueprint acquired: Hoof Knife

  Blueprint acquired: Horseshoe Puller

  Blueprint acquired: Farrier’s Rasp

  There was little else to be found, aside from some scattered horseshoes and a few more nails.

  Blueprint acquired: Iron Horseshoe

  The quest didn’t complete, so I assumed the graveyard didn’t count as a structure. I couldn’t claim to be surprised; I didn’t think of it as a structure either.

  Having gotten caught up in my explorations, I changed my mind and opted for one final structure, justifying to myself that completing the quest was a worthwhile goal. The one I opted for was a much larger, but lower lying mound, maybe 50 meters east of the main residence and farther south than the forge – not far from the stream and abutting a large stretch of apparent prairie grasses.

  It could have been an affiliated residence, but I rather suspected this would turn out to be a horse barn, given the hints of a cavalry focus for the occupation as a whole. I wasn’t ever much of a horseman, though I’d done a bit of riding; that said, if I was going to raise horses in this area, this seemed like a good spot for a barn – downwind of the house, but nearby, with good access to water and pasturage, just far enough from the farrier’s shop that it shouldn’t disturb the horses or present a fire hazard.

  Beginning excavations suggested that the large, rectangular structure had a stone footing with wooden walls. Nothing much remained of those walls but a layer of white ash, though, as the structure had clearly been burned down at the end of its occupation. Tragically for the household, it looked like at least some of the horses had failed to escape the blaze. My mental reconstruction suggested half a dozen stalls on each side of a central gallery with a tackroom along the eastern wall. The four stalls closest to the tackroom still had the burnt skeletal remains of rather large horses, roughly Percheron-sized at a guess. I couldn’t quite recall how the “hand” system of measurements worked, but these would have been nearly 2 meters tall at the shoulder. The two stalls next closest were the oddest; the remains there included only the bones of the lower legs, and it appeared as though the rest of the horses had simply been bitten free. Closer inspection revealed a single massive tooth still embedded in one burnt cannon bone.

  Blueprint acquired: Greater Skeleton - Aubesan Warhorse

  I wasn’t sure why I’d only gotten the skeleton of the horse, and not a blueprint for the horse itself; I could only assume the heat of the flames had cooked out any remaining genetic material. The tooth, though, that confirmed some of my suspicions -- looking, as it did, something like an alligator tooth the size of a human hand.

  Blueprint acquired: Green Dragon Tooth (small)

  Didn’t think I was going to use that blueprint any time soon; I really didn’t want my neighbor stopping by to see me using her teeth as loot in my dungeon. That said, I could paint a picture of the final days of the occupation here. The dragon arrives, attacks the horses for a meal, burning down the barn as a consequence. The human residents, I would hope, fled once it became apparent the dragon was settling in to stay, taking their most portable valuables with them. The remains of the barn yielded little else, aside from the extremely tattered and scorched remains of a saddle in the tackroom – any other tack had been too burnt or decayed to last. I was hopeful that the dragon would let intelligent beings flee unmolested, at least if they didn’t try to fight. Not something I planned to ask about, though.

  Blueprint acquired: Aubesan cavalry saddle

  I wondered whether I could get a human skeleton to ride the warhorse skeleton, or if it would be better to keep them separate. I had a sense that I’d need a higher quality of undead if I wanted the rider to be effective as anything but decoration.

  Still, this gave me some ideas for things to do with the second floor.

  Quest Complete: Assimilate one archaeological phase of three additional structures; Reward – Blueprint acquired: Greater Skeleton – Aubesan Cavalryman; Blueprint acquired: Feral Boar (earth affinity)

  Quest Reissued: Assimilate one archaeological phase of five additional structures or Assimilate one archaeological phase of an older structure; Reward: 3 Relevant T2 creatures and one loot blueprint

  I’d also finished a quest I’d forgotten about – Identify past residents. Apparently, I’d secured a good enough sense of the site to count.

  Quest Complete: Identify past residents; Reward: Skill – Probabilistic Survey

  Quest Reissued: Identify past residents; Reward: Variable

  Interestingly, the probabilistic survey skill apparently increased my chances of locating further remains of the same occupation phase by using knowledge of the documented site to predict likely locations for additional materials. The more remains of an occupation I found, the better my odds of finding more would be.

  Sometime soon, I’d have to send my eagle off surveying and check out how that works; given that this seems to be the most recent occupation (pre-dragon, that is), it’s likely to be the most obvious occupation from the air. This being a fantasy world, with a presumably broad range of residents, I don’t want to make any major assumptions. I’ve been meaning to scout farther but keep getting distracted; too bad the potion of memory enhancement won’t work on a dungeon core!

  In the meantime, I decided I should add an array of creatures to my newly expanded surface zone, with a particular focus on the streamside and the exposed ruins. Remembering the dragon’s distaste for the undead, I kept it limited to natural wildlife. Around the streamside, I added a trapdoor snapping turtle; in the ruins, I tucked away two more jewel vipers, a burrow of five horned rabbits, and two meadow sprites. They weren’t really tied to any specific spot but were allowed to roam the area of my surface zone. Still, they pretty much each found an area to their taste and roamed out from there in search of food, sporadically.