"We doubt that any facts actually exist. We only have observations and interpretations. Most of the interpretations remain questionable." ~ Peter J. Carroll

I spent much of my evening and night-time hours working on some refinements to the space dedicated to the Redcrest tribe. I began by simply widening the opening to the sky, giving their pseudo-village less the impression of a large cavern and more of a sheltered space tucked into a cliff face. It might be a bit less defensible that way, but my suspicion is that they likely wouldn't prefer closed off or otherwise claustrophobic spaces, as a flying species. I expected they could probably deal with it, but there wasn't any reason to stress them unnecessarily. I also converted the doorways to their residential areas into an oval format, figuring that might fit the organic lines better, as well as referencing what I knew of most cavity nesting birds as well as those cliff-nesters that actually constructed enclosed nests.

I added some spires and outcroppings flanking the entrance as a place for sentries, or for simply enjoying the view; using that as inspiration, I added more perches around the dwellings I'd created – some jutting out directly from the constructions and a few hanging down with crosspieces in sturdy oak. I'd decided to mostly hold off on furnishings for the homes until I knew better what they'd need. I considered adding a formal gateway from their habitation space directly into the main dungeon, but decided I'd rather wait and see whether they'd want that, and frankly I wanted to meet them before really trying to integrate them into the larger plans in any event. I went ahead and added adjustable lighting in the form of mana lights, and I also built in large open windows with securable shutters.

I considered adding trees along the stream at the bottom of their space, but that seemed inappropriate to the largely bare cliff face. Instead, I settled for some scrappy blackberry bushes and creeping alder along the stream and some varieties of moss around where the water splashed into their space.

It was still a bit on the barren side – lacking in furnishings and any ornamentation – but I was starting to think it might make for a surprisingly welcoming dwelling place with some simple tweaks. I was hoping I wouldn't regret this, as I'd put in a solid amount of effort, with no obvious payoff if they didn't stick around. I'm not really sure how I could convert this into just another part of my dungeon – though I suppose that if they stayed for even a little while, they'd fit my criteria for occupants of the sky island. That felt like cheating, though, and I was really hoping not to pick up a birdkin skeleton blueprint anytime soon!

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I briefly checked in on Hakdrilda in the early hours, but she seemed to have collapsed into her bedroll at some point late in the evening after struggling with the translation tool all day and reaching the limits of her ability to interpret the figures in the textbooks. The snoring was a solid clue, and I didn't bother trying to wake her; I hadn't yet forgotten what it was like to need to sleep.

I did quickly survey the lab space and pantry areas she'd set up, but refrained from trying to absorb anything until she could let me know which items she wanted to share – or, in fact, needed to be able to duplicate. I didn't get the sense that there was much she'd brought that I wouldn't be able to absorb and replicate, aside from a couple of her more advanced magical tools that my Identify skill balked at – noting only that they included enchantments above the tier 3 limit my skill could currently assess. They had the look of being expensively complicated, if not especially fragile, and I left them entirely alone.

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That left me available to check in with the priests, but I waited until they'd completed their breakfast and morning rituals and had begun packing up their gear – leaving some notable parcels lying out intentionally. They weren't wrapped, or anything, aside from standard travel packaging, but I was halfway expecting those to be gifts for me.

Throg was the first to notice my attention, but the others spotted her noticing and joined her around the table.

I chimed in with greetings and an apology for interrupting their packing, but that was quickly waved off.

Throg smiled, the amused look frankly a bit jarring on a 3-meter tall troll, but I had mostly stopped noticing her outsized frame while simply enjoying being able to speak with people again. **Good morning, Vay. Couldn't wait any longer, huh?**

Well, she wasn't really wrong, but she also didn't seem aggrieved about it, particularly. ** I mean, I guess that's part of it, but I did just want to continue chatting with you all while the opportunity remains. I'm hoping some of the Redcrest tribe will be able to converse with me, but I have no idea how likely that is. Lukash didn't seem to have any idea, but I thought that with nearly 80 people, hopefully a couple of them would have the telepathic ability to speak to me. Do you have any idea how common the skill is?**

Throg nodded, a bit distractedly. **It's not super rare, apparently, but it's often concealed, and tends to show up the most in classes where it would be obviously advantageous – and those can be a bit socially unacceptable. People without the skill have concerns about mindreaders that are, frankly, rather overblown until suddenly they aren't... Some of the larger governments have formal response teams in place for misuse of mental abilities, and that response is often rather harsh. Still, most people who get the skill don't have the capacity to abuse it – it's for willing participants only. In any event, I'd guess you have maybe a 50-50 chance of one of the Redcrest tribe having the ability – most likely one of the governing elders with an ambassadorial role or whoever gets tasked with mindhealing in their group. If they have one, they're probably filling both those roles.**

**Well, I guess I'll just hope for the best, then. Good to know it's not incredibly rare, anyways. Any sense of how far I'd need to level up to be able to reach people without the skill, in at least one-way communication?**

She shrugged, looking quizzically at her colleagues. **No idea, really. I would doubt it would be any time soon, but a lot depends on your various quest rewards. I'd guess that pursuing your scholar skills might be the quickest way to help bolster your communication. It wouldn't likely be telepathy, but I'd expect real time speech or written communication to come in the next few sets of quest rewards**

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Kraal weighed in on the topic with his area of expertise. **There are enchanted devices that would help with that, but they're rare and expensive. Most sapient beings are perfectly capable of communicating directly, so there's not much demand for them, really. You'd need somebody further along, or at least more narrowly focused, than me to create something for you. And it would almost have to be custom, since you're a dungeon and not some smaller, more mobile creature.**

Blorg burbled a bit consolingly. **Same with alchemy, I'm afraid. Potions of telepathy exist but are expensive to produce, require a level of mastery I haven't reached, and are tightly controlled in any event. And I would guess that the various kingdoms you pass over would object to you passing them out as rewards, should you happen to gain the blueprint.**

I conceded the logic behind that, knowing that such potions were likely to be abused – or at the very least would be a major source of temptation that would probably result in violence somewhere along the line. **Yeah, I can see that ending poorly, regardless of how convenient it would be for me. I imagine I'll work something out – currently I'm limited to transcribing works I've read (or written myself) or possess already, but the logbook skill should help in the short term.**

Throg redirected the conversation at that point. **We do legitimately need to get going today, so we should probably turn to the "gifts" we have for you. You already know about one of them, so why don't we begin by setting up the entry shrine we'd already discussed.**

It was the largest of their parcels, though still smaller than I'd have guessed from their earlier description. The three compartments in the stone shrine weren't terribly big – maybe 20 cm X 20 cm and 30 cm deep – arranged in a triangular fashion, with the compartment for my own use below the two dedicated to the gods. The one for the God of All Dungeons had the same symbol as the insignia on their skycraft – two hands cupping a dungeon core. The other two had a blank space available, but nothing there yet.

Throg carried the rather heavy looking shrine, seemingly carved in a fine-grained, pale grey granite, easily bringing it to the main entrance to the dungeon. I took a couple of minutes to raise a plinth from matching stone – attaching it to the doorway at the base and the top – then linked my own mana to the appropriate chamber modeling a sigil of my own (at least temporarily). I wasn't really sure what symbolism might work as a representation of my nature and mission, so I went a simple route – embedding small blue mana lights in a shade similar to my core as the eyes of a stooping hawk-eagle whose claws clasped a scroll and pen.

Kraal snorted a bit at the image, but said only **Well, you made that look easy. I'm a bit jealous. Maybe a tad overly dramatic, but to each their own, I guess.**

**You may be right. I'll have to give it some more thought. Still, it'll do for now.**

By comparison, it took most of an hour for the priests to construct an array around the base of the shrine and then empower it with a combination of prayer and ritual. I felt it, in passing fashion, as the God of All Dungeons connected to its own sigil, which now glowed with a gentle golden light. The God gave an impression of curious good nature, but nothing else, leaving its priests to continue their work.

By this point, they had decided to break for lunch, offering me stray bits of their meal – as much for politeness' sake as for the blueprints.

Blueprint Received: Mushroom Bread

Blueprint Received: Goat Butter

Blueprint Received: Reconstituted Beef and Barley Soup

Blueprint Received: Spiced Pork Sausage with Paprika and Fennel Seed

Blueprint Received: Giant Fennel

I checked back in on the shrine as they cleared up after themselves, but whatever deity served as my patron had still not visibly connected to the third compartment, and my curiosity prompted me to ask Kraal about the results of his divination.

**I'm not sure exactly when you meant to discuss this, but would now be a good time to address whatever you've learned about my "patron deity"? It's a bit less pressing, now that I have some direction on my divine quest, but I'd really like to fill in that gap.**

Kraal croaked, in what seemed like a dispirited laugh. **I guess now's as good a time as any. I can't tell you the name of your deity, I'm afraid, and I can only provide some loose estimates of their racial and affinity markers. The pattern isn't one I've encountered before, which is unusual, but not surprising. More surprising, I couldn't find a good match in my reference book – which I would have said was fully encyclopedic if you'd asked me a week ago.

That is to say, your deity is not widely worshipped anywhere in the world at this time. It could be a very new deity, or one that is deliberately obscuring itself, but the most likely reason is that it's a very old deity, probably working from its limited stores of divine power or at best a very small base of continuing worshippers – a relict congregation, if you will. I can say that the pattern I have established indicates a dwarven god, but not one that shares your affinities for air or light or darkness. Oddly, I don't even have a good match for its affinity, but if you pressed me, I'd say it's closest to a void affinity. What that means, I cannot say. Sorry. I was really hoping to solve this puzzle before we left, but I'm pretty well stuck.** He shrugged, as much with his wings as his shoulders.

It almost felt as though I had a headache coming on, though that made no sense at all. **You're telling me I was placed here by an ancient god of space dwarves?! How does that make any sense!**

Kraal snorted loudly at my reaction, before responding. **Oh, it's even worse than that. Void affinity doesn't really apply to the cold, airless space above the world. It refers to the emptiness between universes. Well, and the unknowable things some people suggest dwell there. It's not a commonly pursued topic, for a variety of reasons – ranging from the inherent risks to generalized social disapproval for the field. The few stories we have make creatures from the void seem beyond comprehension to the point of driving researchers mad as well as being destructive to our plane of existence by their very nature.**

I heaved a purely mental sigh. **So, what? You're telling me the most likely scenario is that I was placed here by an ancient, possibly eldritch, goddess of extraplanar dwarves? Brilliant. Next you'll be telling me the sky island is actually some form of vessel for extraplanar travel!**

Lore Gained: +2% Local lore

**Ugh! Seriously?** At the quizzical looks of the dungeon priests, I tried to explain my reaction. **Apparently, the system feels I'm onto something – I just gained an advancement to my local lore. Well, thanks for that, I guess.**

I imagine I sounded a bit sarcastic, so I reminded myself that the knowledge was, in fact, helpful – though I had no idea which parts or how much of that guesswork was completely correct.

**Sorry, Kraal. I don't mean to be dismissive. That is, genuinely helpful information – however frustrating it may be as a starting point...**

Kraal snickered. The other two priests looked both a bit abashed and a bit amused, and Throg redirected the conversation, a bit hesitantly.

**Yes, well, I'm glad that was useful to you, even if it's not as much help as we'd like to have provided. On that note, though, we should likely return to providing you with a few more blueprints before we depart...**

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