"One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn." ~ Oprah Winfrey

I continued to follow the existing pathway to the mana gathering array, backtracking along the tunnel that seemed to run parallel to whatever conduit was transmitting the gathered mana back towards the core of the sky island. My dungeon instincts really wanted to take advantage of the massive mana flows generated by the array. As such, I continued to be tempted to investigate that flow/conduit but was aware that messing with it without knowing what effect it might have was a tremendously stupid idea.

I tracked along it for nearly 100 meters before deciding that it was going to just keep going straight (at least in the short run) and wasn't about to veer nearer to any of my previously claimed areas. I could be wrong, of course, but there was essentially no deviation to be seen, with the tunnel aiming nearly directly to the center of the island. That might have been a requirement of the larger mana flow design, but I wasn't enough of an authority to know whether it was necessary or just the easiest way.

In any event, after pondering it for a moment, it seemed as though the simplest connection that wasn't directly to the mana gathering array itself, but to the tunnel (just to avoid messing with anything critical), was going to be not much farther coreward and would tie the tunnel to the space Hakdrilda was living in, conveniently enough.

That would take me a bit longer to establish, since I'd have to actually remove the intervening stone rather than simply claiming it, but it might eventually be useful in shaping the path of the third floor (whenever I got around to that, anyways). I'd want to secure the mana gathering array well before that; no need to let random adventurers anywhere near it. For that matter, a series of traps would likely be appropriate as well. I'd need to think of it as more of an access tunnel than part of the dungeon proper.

That could all come later, though. For the moment, I was just driving a narrow 2 meter X 2 meter square tunnel from the slightly larger original tunnel towards Hakdrilda. It made for a slightly awkward joining angle, but the first 20 meters or so went pretty smoothly.

At a bit beyond that, however, I encountered a modest chasm, which frankly seemed odd to me, as from a structural sense it seemed like an unnecessary weakness to include in an artificial construction. I could think of a few possible reasons for its inclusion – a defunct mine from some older occupation, a natural void occurring from water flow over the millennia, a remnant of some larger ventilation system, or simply a relic of whatever original source of stone they'd used – but I wasn't seeing any obvious indicators. As I came up on the edge of the void, I wasn't finding any obvious tool marks or indicators of metallic ores, or anything like that. It was also a hard, dark granite, which suggested that movement of water likely didn't explain it. I set that aside for the moment as largely irrelevant and started pondering whether I'd need to fill it, go around it, or simply bridge it somehow.

In the end, I decided that going around wasn't going to be helpful, so a bridge was probably my best option. Conveniently, I could expand my domain through the air of the void, enabling me to establish bridgeheads on both sides easily enough. This seemed like an excellent place for a trap, so I tried to design the approach with that in mind. Firstly, I concealed the entrance to the mana gathering array tunnel behind a convenient outcropping, making sure it wouldn't be visible from the dungeon side of the chasm. Eventually, I might go for a more secure concealment, but this would be a good start.

The bridge itself I constructed from my darkest matte granite and ran it from a solid two meters below the overhanging lip of the chasm in a gently arching form spanning about 10 meters to a narrow ladder of handholds cut into the wall on each side. (It should be noted that while most people wouldn't be able to see the bottom easily under normal lighting conditions, it was hardly bottomless – maxing out at under 30 meters in depth and running into solid stone walls in less than 50 meters from where I'd encountered it in either direction). Still, the hope was that people would come to the chasm and assume it was a dead end. I didn't have a lot of hope that I'd fool everybody – frankly anyone with darkvision would likely be able to spot the bridge easily enough, but it might work for a cursory peek. The bridge itself was only about a meter wide with no railing, and I'd built in some potentially retractable hazards – ranging from poisoned needles in the handholds and a lamp oil reservoir in the center of the bridge, to breakaway sections near either end of the span.

For good measure, I spawned in a storm myconid, concealing it within a small array of other fungi on the mana gathering array side of the chasm. I figured that fighting a flight empowered, lightning flinging mushroom would make crossing a significant challenge, especially if the lamp oil made footing treacherous and potentially flammable. Out of basic fairness, I added in a variety of edible or otherwise salable fungi as well as some small gems embedded in the ledge to provide a reward for anyone who DID opt to make the crossing. Hopefully, it might also distract them from searching for the entrance to the continuing tunnel.

That said, I was also hopeful that the myconid might help discourage individuals from ignoring the bridge entirely and trying to cross the chasm through flight, climbing the ceiling, or a variety of other tricky skills. For similar reasons, I spawned in a small stone chest on the near side of the array to serve as an excuse for adventurers not to cross the chasm. I didn't put a lot into it, but a few sleep potions, some small gems, a cloak of concealment, and a pair of Lesser Whisper Rings should serve as an adequate reward for the rogue who was going to need to deal with my traps.

While I was having fun trying to make the chasm a centerpiece of the mana gathering array's basic defenses, my inhabitants continued their attempts to establish reasonable routines. Hakdrilda pestered me every few hours about my progress but otherwise continued taking base measurements of mana flows in her test chamber, with the addition of various elements used to calculate their effects on the movement of mana. Her preliminary results were interesting to me, but not apparently any surprise to her. It seemed as though mana moved much like a liquid, but with most solids having relatively little effect on structuring those flows. Instead, mostly mana flows were impacted by the addition of mana-enriched materials – with some repelling the flows and others drawing them closer, suggesting more of an electromagnetic effect.

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I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, really, but that did suggest potential experiments with the manipulation of mana flows to my benefit – though again, not something I wanted to try on myself or my dungeon until I was more comfortable projecting its effects. All I needed was to divert massive amounts of mana onto myself without the ability to use or store it, or even to mitigate the environmental impacts of that kind of shift in mana flows. And knowing I was on a flying hunk of stone gave the term "environmental impacts" a whole series of additional worrying interpretations.

The Redcrests, on the other hand, appeared to be settling in with fairly minimal issues. Game on the sky island was more plentiful in general than in the mountain terrain they'd been living in, and the supplemental fruits and nuts were plenty for now to keep them comfortably fed. There was, of course, still some lingering bitterness over the need to relocate at all, as well as the loss of most of their livestock, but none of that was directed at me, and not much was directed even at the leadership of the clan. They did have to talk down some of the angrier, mostly younger, warriors, though, and Glynesha and Kragosh had taken to at least suggesting the possibility of raiding their harassers in a year or so when the sky island returned to within striking distance. At the moment, the steadily growing separation of their new and old homes helped to keep the grumbling to a minimum, as all but the most foolhardy recognized that it wasn't really logistically feasible to mount a punitive campaign this season.

And while I wasn't seeing everybody in the tribe exhausting most of their mana, each day, I was getting that from most of the adults, at least – typically using it up in either crafting activities or more militaristic training. While I enjoyed watching them run the flight course I'd developed with a couple of the elders, I was really getting more benefit from the magic training and the crafting activities. The crafters were mostly involved in filling out basic supplies that had either been abandoned or were in short supply, and they weren't giving me copies of everything, but they'd more than met their minimum requirements. I'd gotten examples of their pottery, feathered jewelry, silverware, and bedding, for instance, and I was sure to get more as time went on. Probably my favorite new acquisition from their labors was the product of an elderly enchanter who was clearly still on something of a war footing. I didn't know if he was always like that, or was just having trouble shifting gears, but I wasn't about to complain.

Blueprint Acquired: Enchanted Quartz Crystal of Minor Explosion.

I was pretty sure I could think of some fun things to do with that, even if I wasn't able to scale it up to something more impressive just by making it bigger or adding more mana to it.

Watching the more magically inclined Redcrests working on their spellcasting speed and power was interesting, but also kind of frustrating. It quickly became clear that whatever form of magic they were using had little relation to the runic magic or fungalmancy skills I'd been rewarded with, nor was it very similar to the air magic described in the various texts Hakdrilda and Throg had provided. As nearly as I could tell, their magic mostly involved calling on the innate powers of elemental spirits they'd contracted with; they didn't seem to manifest when called upon, but the flows of mana to the Redcrests generally indicated some connection to a separate elemental plane. I was unsure whether I could contract with a spirit like that, but it was likely I'd need to discuss how that worked with Orentha at some point. For now, at least, there weren't any spirits hovering about me seeking out a connection as far as I could tell.

I wondered in passing if either she or Hakdrilda had any insight into the wide variety of magical systems that seemed to be practiced in this world. For that matter, I should likely speak with Aven about how common it was for a dungeon to receive a magic skill; I'd gotten two, but both seemed pretty directly tied to the execution of my main quest, and I suspected that was skewing my perception of how this usually worked. Of course, I could also use my new library connection to research that, but I suspected that to be a rabbit hole that I might vanish down for far too long for what limited return I'd get from it.

For that matter, at some point soon, I should take some time to flesh out an actual list of topics to pursue and do an initial scouting of the index. I heaved a mental sigh. The more progress I seemed to make, the longer the associated to do list seemed to grow. I'd set out on what seemed likely to be a years' long path, and I'd be a while just working through the preparations needed for that journey. Still, I'd rather have some obvious paths to pursue than to continue in the painful ignorance I'd been laboring under.

With that, I went back to work slowly clearing stone and shaping a path towards Hakdrilda and my first outside opinion on the mana gathering array. Having found it and seen how different it was, I was less than confident that she'd have truly useful advice, but perhaps she could at least point me in the correct direction.

I was perhaps another 100 meters from making that happen, and I continued on steadily through the night. It was roughly 4 AM local time when I connected the tunnel with her sleeping area. Rather than wake her, I decided to spend the next few hours adding a secret door and a few additional traps on this side of the chasm. I tried to mix the traps up a bit, adding in ones that used my new exploding crystals to drop large stones, massed arcane boltcasters, poisoned needles, and even one that simply collapsed the tunnel for a five-meter stretch 20 meters beyond the trigger. I expected that would mostly serve as a delaying action, but with enough warning, I'd at least have some reaction time to make plans or even to contact Mayphesselth.

When Hakdrilda still wasn't awake by 10 AM, I'd gone ahead and built a classic puzzle door to separate my tunnel from the original access tunnel. Deciding the most reasonable test for a visitor would be for them to have a sense of what they were looking for, I made it require the replication of a schematic model of the mana gathering array from a selection of color-coded stones and simple copper wires.

There was no punishment for failing the test, but after three failures, the door would lock for a 24-hour period unless I directly opened it. That was mostly enforced by the slow descent of a 3-meter thick slab of granite that would slide into place before the puzzle door.

Before I could get any more paranoid with my precautions out of sheer boredom, I took note of Hakdrilda stirring. Once she was on her feet, dressed and preparing some breakfast for herself, I slid open the new secret door in a silent invitation.

She smiled around a mouthful of toast and jam. "Ah, Vay, I take it this means you're ready for me to check on the array you found?" She swallowed, then yawned and stretched, kicking her bare feet up onto the table to peer at my mana lights.

**GREEN**

"Right, well, let me just slip on my boots and grab a cup of tea and I'll be on my way. Anything you think I need to bring along?"

Logbook Entry: Maybe a notebook and pen? It's pretty complicated and not at all in the style of your runic equipment.

Her eyes lit up at the thought of an entirely alien enchanted array, and she grinned even wider. "Right, then let's not waste any more time!"

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