"We might as well give in to the tug of our spirits to explore this confounding and wondrous world. We might as well greet each other as endless pilgrims and bid each other well on our way. Because we're already on the road." -- Anthony Lawlor

  The bronzed hawk-eagle had completed its tour of the base layer of the sky island, having taken nearly two weeks to soar low over the island in a complicated zigzag pattern that, while not providing full coverage, had certainly broadly covered most of the flat portions of the island. I felt reasonably sure that it had spotted the majority of the major settlements visible from an aerial survey, and there were both a surprising number and an unusual (in my experience) diversity of sites, in their layout, their scale, and their component architecture.

  Possibly more important, I’d gotten a much better sense of the variety of microenvironments present, and as I’d guessed they were also quite diverse. The grassland I was centered in was fairly unusual, and the majority of the near side of the island was made up of several different kinds of forest – ranging from river bottom deciduous woodlands to remnant orchards, to some odd sorts of specialized magical woodlots (or so I assumed from the visible magical effects the hawk-eagle had noted). The bird had kept to the lowlands, as directed, but her eyesight was good enough to suggest significant elevational differences in vegetation on the mountain itself, moving through colder evergreen rainforests to dwarf cloud forest and high-altitude grasslands.

  The far side of the island was dominated by much dryer habitats, and I suspected the island had a stable enough orientation that a rain shadow effect was coming into play. The habitats ranged from scrubby woodlands to dry grasslands to straight up desert terrain, with a single larger river valley cutting through it. I was unsurprised to discover that more sites were visible in the areas with less tree cover, and the hawk-eagle had spent a solid day tracking along the river valley, documenting a variety of sites, including some quite large ones with monumental architecture and some grand pyramidal structures. Sadly, they were quite distant from my location, so it would be a long while before I could do more than get a surface sample or two.

  I did think that I’d send the hawk-eagle back to secure some small samples of organic materials and cultural artifacts, as well as a closer look at some of the ruins; that would give me a basis to expand my first floor at some point. That would obviously take a good bit of time, as she simply couldn’t carry that much at once, even if I rigged some sort of collection pouch for her. Fortunately, becoming a dungeon enabled me to adopt a rather long-term plan (something archaeology promotes anyways!).

  I considered sending out a band of plains goblins, but I suspected they’d be both too mana intensive to be worthwhile and not tough enough to cross the territories of some of the terrestrial animals the hawk-eagle had observed. Fortunately, the avifauna didn’t seem to rise above tier 2; I was guessing the presence of the dragon had either inadvertently or directly suppressed any larger avian competitors.

  The closest cultural remains we’d documented fell along the traces of the roadway I’d found in my first round of exploration, maybe 500 meters in towards the center of the island. It looked like the remains of a small settlement, and I assumed it was contemporary with the manor, though the nature of their relationship wasn’t immediately clear. The closest area likely to yield evidence of earlier settlement was in one of the larger areas of magical vegetation – taking up a substantial pie wedge-shaped part of the NW corner of the island. A remnant orchard and a crumbling arch leading into the more magical forest suggested it might be home to some more forest-focused group. The closest edge in that direction was about 700 meters to the north of my limited surface zone.

  Given my subterranean efforts, I decided against any major expeditions, though I did task the hawk-eagle with seeking out surface artifacts at each of the sites it had documented and bringing them back; I thought she could likely retrieve at least a couple of small items each day. The shade owl, hawk, and wyverns were also impressed with the intent to keep an eye out for interesting items to bring back when out hunting. Their idea of interesting was likely different from mine, but I tried to at least indicate a preference for shiny objects and live animals not yet included in the dungeon.

  In the meantime, I decided to see where the tunnel I’d found led. I wasn’t even sure if it was evidence of a subterranean civilization or simply indicated the presence of an animal capable of tunneling through solid rock. In my old world, it would have to be the work of people; a few animals can excavate through rock, but it’s quite rare and I didn’t know of any that would be this deep or in stone this hard. In a world with magic, however, all bets were off.

  Turning my attention to the deepest part of my explorations, I paused for a moment, torn between following the tunnel deeper, or tracking it upwards. Ultimately, I decided I’d go up – wanting to make sure it didn’t open into any areas that were going to cause me problems. At the point where I encountered the tunnel, I was roughly 200 meters east and 60 meters down from where I’d started driving towards the center, meaning I was probably at least 70 meters below the surface. If that 15-degree gradient held, I’d likely hit the surface after 250 meters or so. That was a steep tunnel but not unmanageably so.

  I started heading up slope, pushing my territory towards the north without bothering to widen the tunnel as I went. Rather than waiting to learn what was at the end, I drafted one of my badgers to explore ahead of me – being the best suited creature I had for a tunnel of this limited dimension. While I was enjoying the slow reveal, I was hoping to get some verification that the tunnel was worth pursuing in this direction. If it was empty all the way to the surface, I would start pushing downward instead. I’d had to attach a mana light to its neck with a thin leather strap, as its night vision wasn’t up to a complete absence of light.

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  I’d only expanded about 10 meters up the tunnel, before the badger was able to confirm I wasn’t wasting my time. The main tunnel, about 150 meters up from where I’d started had entered a zone of neatly perpendicular side passages with the cross passages evenly spaced about 3 meters apart. The side passages were a bit narrower than the central passage, only about 40 cm in diameter, and when I prompted the badger to explore down the second cross passage, it was uncomfortably snug for it. I let it back out, but not until after it had verified the hall continued a good distance (at least 10 meters before the light was too dim) with 15 cm doors on either side a few meters apart the entire visible length. This suggested to me that I was likely looking at a well-organized residential district for some race of diminutive sapient beings, as the doors were well-crafted and apparently metallic.

  Returning to the main passage, the badger continued upward past another 15 cross passages before entering a larger, open space dominated by a central sculpture I suspected was once a fountain. It appeared to represent a bearded male humanoid, slender of build, holding a golden spanner dramatically above its head, covered by a tight-fitting cap with earflaps and with a belt slotted with a variety of tools. The entire sculpture, plinth and all, rose above the level plaza, “towering” nearly 4 meters above the floor. Flanking it were a series of ornately inscribed free-standing structures that looked like doorframes, or possibly Japanese Torii. Small windows and balconies looked out over the square on all sides, with about 25 cm between levels. However the city had been lit, and I was assuming it had been, it wasn’t any longer. I’d flared the badger’s light as much as I could but was generally limited to a fairly short range. Fortunately, at least, it didn’t seem as though anything had taken up active residence in the abandoned city; there didn’t seem to be any obvious access to food or water here, so barring creatures that didn’t need to eat or drink, it didn’t seem like there was much to support a population here anymore.

  Larger cross passages entered at each side and on each corner of the square; the overall impression was of a significant, well-planned city center at a much smaller scale than I was familiar with. Given the scale of the architecture and the look of the statue, I wanted to call this a gnomish city, but I wasn’t sure what most of the sapient races looked like. My eidetic memory enabled me to recall that Aven had mentioned gnomes in passing and they had some brief mentions in the Geopolitics of Relnis, but that was all I really had to go on. Those passages suggested gnome polities tended to be small but technologically advanced, so I was looking forward to a closer look.

  The badger peered into a few bottom-level windows, determining that the settlement had been abandoned in a reasonably orderly fashion but with their less portable furnishings left behind. The base level of the plaza was dominated by commercial establishments – with restaurants, shops, and some apparent office spaces all identifiable by the remaining fixtures. There was little evidence of disturbance, but also few organic materials remaining. Stone and metal seemed to be the preferred base material. Which, you know, made sense for a subterranean civilization. That didn’t bode well for finding books or historical documents generally; I’d expect some text carved into the stone in places, but I had to assume that paper might have been a limited resource. Possibly I’d find records in some other format, though ceramic tablets (a la Mesopotamia) didn’t seem likely either

  I sort of assumed that, however they had fed such a substantial population (and I was estimating it in the tens of thousands already), those productive endeavors weren’t happening in the city center. I eagerly continued pushing my territory up the tunnel, but it was going to be a while before I could put my archaeological skills to direct use. In the meantime, I sent the badger exploring along the continuation of the original tunnel on the far side of the plaza. I could see evidence of inscribed text in several places around the plaza, but apparently my translation skills also wouldn’t work through the filter of a simple dungeon creature, or possibly the low light conditions were the bigger issue.

  The central region seemed likely to be primarily commercial and administrative spaces, possibly with residential spaces in the upper floors, though I was mostly working from parallels with human cities and couldn’t trust that assessment at this point. Still, it looked like storefronts and office spaces to my eye, and I had trouble coming up with an urban setting that would lack those. The architecture, in general, was blocky – dominated by sturdy-looking cubic forms and without much in the way of organic curves. Ornamentation seemed more inspired by mineral growths, and colored crystals at regular intervals seemed likely to represent a now defunct system of lights, and with smaller crystalline structures seeming to highlight rectangular storefront windows that didn’t seem to use glass, but did have metallic shutters enabling them to be sealed.

  Presumably residential tunnels continued on the upslope side of the plaza for an additional 16 crossroads, before the formal grid pattern broke. Depending on how far those extended and the number of individuals dwelling in each residence, the population might have been quite large. Some 30 meters on from the final cross passage, the badger evinced some excitement, smelling some hints of fresh air coming from ahead. Not much beyond that point, though, the tunnel came to an abrupt halt – filled with collapsed rubble. It had settled enough that hints of fresh air were coming through, but not enough that the badger would be able to reach the surface without extensive digging – and with no good place to deposit the rubble, I called it off. I guessed the final stretch before the surface had collapsed, whether intentionally or by natural decay was unclear. Once I eventually got that far, I’d likely just absorb the rockfall, but for now I simply estimated that it would reach the surface to the east of my current border. Interestingly, I hadn’t yet triggered the completion of my “Identify Past Residents Quest”; I’m assuming I need to determine at least a bit more about them first.

  I’d just pushed my reach to the edge of the settlement, a few meters before the first cross-tunnel, and had started tasking the badger with searching the downslope part of the tunnel next, when I was notified by my ground squirrels of the arrival of new visitors. With the hawk-eagle off scouting, I wasn’t going to get quite the same notice I had before, and I mentally kicked myself for the lapse in my alert system.