"O, once in each man's life, at least, Good luck knocks at his door; And wit to seize the flitting guest Need never hunger more. But while the loitering idler waits. Good luck beside his fire, The bold heart storms at fortune's gates, And conquers its desire." ~ John L. Bates

The next few days went by pretty quickly and didn't deviate much from the few before. I spent the mornings with the Redcrests, getting them settled in, securing samples of their cuisine and material culture, quietly observing their social interactions, and watching keenly as they got the crafting areas set up – if not quite into production – and began to determine who would be using the crafting and training areas and at what times.

It didn't involve a lot of work on my part, generally speaking – the Redcrests were pleased enough with the basic setup and wanted to handle the finishing touches themselves. I could respect that and did. Occasionally, one would make a request, and once they realized Orentha wasn't needed to pass along their words, those interactions slowly became a bit more common, though many were hesitant to make even the simplest of requests.

I learned a fair amount about the group, both as a society and as individuals, and I could already predict at least a few of the ones likely to be troublesome for the leaders and for me. At the moment, they weren't really an issue; it was mostly just muttering to themselves and nervously eyeing the surroundings. The younger ones wanted to spend more time out and away from my domain – typically volunteering for the hunting and exploration parties. The older ones, I felt worse for; they didn't want to leave the security of the village, but they didn't trust me and they didn't sleep well. I was hoping that they'd get over it eventually, but in the meantime, I wasn't really appreciating the oldest avian in the village promising retribution from his grandson if I killed him in the night every time he went to bed. His grandson, ironically enough, was pretty happy with the new location and seemed unlikely to actually follow through – at least he seemed more apologetic than anything. Most, though, were just a bit on edge – possibly just from the change of venue, but moving into a dungeon wasn't helping, and feeling my domain around them on a constant basis rubbed some of their nerves a bit raw.

Afternoons, I mostly spent with Hakdrilda. She'd taken to rising late and working with me on a series of experiments designed to test both my ability to control airflow in the dungeon, to adjust its pressure, temperature, and composition, and to work out ways to mimic that control with dwarven runic magic. I still hadn't really taken the time to learn my own runic magic skill, but I was slowly picking up the basics of the system that Hakdrilda used, and I could feel that my own skill was likely to be more precise and more powerful than that of the dwarves, once I got it leveled up a bit. She seemed happy with her progress over these few days, and by dinner time she was gnawing on some hard bread while going over her data when I'd depart.

The overnight period was my own. I'd continued working to expand my domain in the gnomish city, extending my range toward the center of the island along one of the streets defining the plaza that headed in that general direction. I'd turned up a few more coins and stray bits of material culture when it had struck me that I'd messed up.

I had already violated one of the requests the dungeon inspectors had made = not to produce my own coinage. It had been a facepalm moment, though I'd lacked both a face and a palm. Fortunately, the error was easily corrected, as I'd had no delvers to recover any of the problematic loot. Yay – I guess? I swapped out the scant handful of coinage I emplaced for the base metals in equivalent amounts, sighing at the loss of historical references as I did so.

Still, that had been a matter of minutes to correct and no damage had been done. I might even admit to the slip up to the next inspector; hopefully, open admission of error and a speedy correction would go some ways towards building trust. On the other hand, it might be better to just ignore the whole thing since it had never become an issue.

That was all rather secondary, though, and my focus quickly returned towards my expansion towards the core region of the island. Even with a roadway to follow, it was going to take a while to reach the core zone, and so far my slow and steady progress hadn't really gotten me much. The base stone did seem to have shifted from a dark grey granite to something darker and apparently igneous, which the system confirmed as basalt.

That tended to suggest that the central mountain may have been removed from some existing range, rather than constructed from scratch, as the cross section did seem to suggest a fairly natural pattern. I wondered if the mountain might have even been an extinct volcano, which might account for what seemed like a fairly classic, conical shape – though the lack of a crater at the top suggested probably not. It was too soon, really, to be drawing any confident conclusions, though, as I had a long way to go to get to the core.

Beyond some basic geological musings and the movement through another residential suburb on the eastern edge of the gnomish city, the major finding was that not long after I left the easternmost gnomish buildings the roadway appeared to open up into something larger. It still wasn't big enough for a full grown human but might have been big enough for dwarves to have squeezed through, if they were willing to bend at the waist.

That led me to wondering if the gnomes had simply tracked their way to the end of the dwarvish tunnel to start cutting their own settlement, or if the dwarvish tunnel was just a convenient find for the gnomes. The smooth step down in tunnel gauge and the generally consistent orientation suggested that whichever tunnel had been built last, the builders were aware of the existing tunnel and had planned the connection. I inclined towards the central, larger tunnel being older, but that was largely due to my sense that the dwarves had come first. There was nothing to say that other dwarves hadn't reoccupied the place. For all I knew, encroachment by the dwarves might have been what prompted the gnomish evacuation. That didn't seem right to me, but I'd have to reserve judgement.

In the meantime, I noted that the larger tunnel seemed to receive more recent traffic – presumably by something bigger than the gnomes. At some point, the tunnel had seen use by some predatory creature, as the pellets scattered along the end of the larger tunnel indicated. I wasn't sure if they represented scat or some other waste product, but bits of desiccated hair/fur and bones seemed to make up the bulk of it. They reminded me of owl pellets more than coyote scat, but they were hardly a direct match for either. The radiocarbon skill suggested that they were fairly recent – but that could have meant last night or 20 years ago.

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The change in tunnels struck me as a good place to stop my explorations for the night, and I spent the early morning hours pondering whether I knew any good books that featured birdfolk to share with the Redcrest only to come up dry. I could think of several with sapient birds, but nothing with humanoid avians where they played any sort of central role. I expected those books must exist, but I'd simply never read them, and so had no access to them. Harpies and angels got some play, as did humans cursed into the form of birds, and I'd even remembered the mahars of Pellucidar, but those were hardly going to come across as sensitive considerations of humanoid avian species. In the end, I decided to try listening to some of their stories to see what kinds of works they might want to see. For that matter, I was assuming literacy, though thinking about it, I'd only seen a few signs of written text among the Redcrests, and that all in other languages. It was entirely possible they had no written language of their own.

It was only a few hours after that when the Redcrest warchief, Kragosh, called my name to tell me that a skyship had been sighted nearing the island.

"Good morning, Vay. Our sentries have spotted a small airship headed towards the location where the dungeon priests moored. We'd like to send out a party to investigate their purpose, but I thought we should check with you first. Is it alright if we send out four warriors to ask what they're coming for?"

**GREEN**

Orentha wasn't present, and while I'd have liked to ask a few questions first, I understood the Redcrests were both still nervous about being followed and taking pains to clear the investigation with me. I just hoped they weren't so aggressive that whoever was coming to visit was driven away.

Kragosh, clearly, was also trying to stay on my good side, as he explained further.

"It's not very big – maybe a total of half a dozen people, maybe less. So I don't expect that they're here to cause trouble for either you or the tribe, but of course even one person can be trouble depending. We won't be trying to keep them away from the dungeon, though I'd like to keep them clear of the village. We'll try to direct them towards your main entrance, if they have any questions; otherwise, I'll tell them as little as possible, though I'd assume they'll know we have some sort of arrangement in place. Or did you want me to explain the situation more fully?"

**RED** **YELLOW**

"No, too unsure, huh? Well, if they press, I'll use my judgement. Frankly, I don't think I know anything about you that the dungeon inspectors wouldn't have shared – and I'd assume they're here because of those reports. Alright, well, I'll grab the sentry and a couple of warriors and go see what we're dealing with, okay? Hopefully, I'll have some information for you in an hour or so."

********************************************

The orcish captain didn't even glance over at Janelle before giving permission for the tall, red-crested avian to come aboard, and Janelle wasn't sure whether she was happy or annoyed by that. To be fair, it was his ship and his crew, so the responsibility was ultimately his, even if she was the one paying for the voyage. There was no chance she'd be missing out on the discussion anyways – the boat was small and her hearing was sharp.

"Ah, welcome aboard the Cloudrunner, sir. I'm Captain Winug and this is my ship. That over there, is Librarian Graysdottir, the reason for our trip. As I understand it, we'll be tying up right over yonder so she can consult with the dungeon for a day or two before we're hopefully on our way home again."

Kragosh cocked his head, thoughtfully, turning in Janelle's direction with a piercing golden gaze. "I'm Kragosh, warchief of the Redcrest clan. We've just relocated to the sky island, so we're still trying to settle in and lay low – it's been a rough time, and the danger period for us is strongest for the next few days. I will say, I had a number of guesses as to why you were here, but a librarian visiting the dungeon was not on the list! Well, that's fine. You tend to your business and we'll tend to ours. If the crew stays with the ship and the librarian goes in the main entrance to the dungeon, it should all be fine. I don't think the dragon will care about a short visit, and the dungeon seems generally pleased to be visited at all."

The captain rolled his head, cracking his neck, and grinned. "Sounds good to me. We've got everything we need for a short voyage, so me and the boys will just stay on the ship the whole time."

Janelle shrugged, exasperated. "That was always the plan, anyways. I have a telepathy skill, so I should be able to speak with the dungeon directly. I'm just here to talk to it about the books it's been making. At least, I assume from the dungeon inspectors' reports that it's the one doing it. I REALLY hope the dragon hasn't taken up writing books; that'd be an awkward conversation."

Kragosh was a bit taken aback by her nervous energy and baffled by her mission generally. "I'm afraid I can't really verify who has been making books on the sky island; it's all news to me. That said, I'd say the dungeon is your most likely candidate, though I don't deal much with him directly. Well, then, I'll wish you luck and be on my way. We'll keep an eye on you and the ship from a distance, but if you stay close to the ship, I doubt we'll speak again."

******************************

Kragosh returned to the village, flying a bit circuitously to not immediately give away its location. He was still back in range well before the skyship had completed its docking procedures and quickly gave me the rundown.

"Apparently there's a librarian coming to see you? No idea what her interest is, exactly, but she said it's about some books she thinks you've been making. Anyways, seems harmless enough, if a bit twitchy, even for a wolfkin. At a guess, she didn't really want to come and she's nervous about you and the dragon. Pretty sure this is an unusual scenario for her. She didn't seem the type to delay, though, so I'd guess she'll be along in just a few minutes. Give her a couple to organize her stuff and march to the entrance. Says she has a telepathy skill, so she won't need Orentha's intervention." He shook his head a bit wryly, with a glance over towards his wife and the shaman, who had their heads together as I'd come to realize was standard.

Kragosh was a bit on the laconic side, but I appreciated that he'd gotten this comfortable with me, this quickly. Some of it seemed to be a front, as I could see the tension in his posture, but if he kept at it, it'd be real soon enough.

**GREEN**

And he wasn't wrong, clearly, as I watched through ground squirrel eyes as she dropped a small tent by the skyship's anchor point. She straightened up, visibly shook herself from top to bottom, took a deep breath, and started my way. Stomping wasn't quite the word – too much librarian training, I supposed, but she was definitely moving with intent...

And she wasn't the only one. Deep within my domain, I sensed movement at the point where the larger tunnel tapered down to gnome size to approach the city. I hadn't left anything there to observe with, though, and whatever it was clearly sensed my aura, backing off a ways to consider.

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