"You long to go into nature because nature doesn't care about you. To be clear, it's not that nature sees you, accepts you for who you are, and loves you anyway: nature just doesn't give a shit about you." ― Diana Helmuth, How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner's Guide to Hiking and Backpacking

The self-congratulatory back slaps and quieter sighs of relief were brought to a rapid end by the gnome paladin's sudden interruption. "I hate to interrupt a well-deserved celebration, but the sun's getting low on the horizon, and I suspect it's going to get dark pretty directly. Best we look for a defensible campsite and set up for the night. An' it's alright with you, I'd as soon take the last watch; I'm afraid I'm not as young as I once was to stay up three days running..."

Shuzug and Lazgar shared a look, briefly chagrined. "Right enough, Sir Milback. I expect we can let you just sleep through the night," Lazgar quirked a smile. "Get you started on your mission as recovered as we can manage." The paladin of Drogma turned to Lugrub, who had turned to brushing off grass accumulated during her somewhat rough landing. "Think you can find us a decent spot in the general direction of the dungeon? Don't be too picky. Doubt we've got more than 15 minutes until it's dark enough we'll want to light torches, and none of us want to be wandering strange, floating islands in the dark."

She grinned, white tusks flashing in the dusky light. "We-elll, dungeon should be about that direction," she pointed in a generally northerly direction. And it's only 150 meters or so to that line of scrubby alders. I'm guessing there's a stream there for water. I vote we check the far side of it for a rocky outcropping near the cliff edge. That may be all we can do for defensible with this little notice."

Shuzug shrugged. "Sounds reasonable enough to me. Lead the way, if you would. Lazgar and I will take flank; Ushug, you watch our rear. Orbul, you take the center. Milback, I'm going to ask you to stick with me, for the time being."

That largely mimicked the usual party formation for the adventurers, so they took up their posts with the ease of long practice, and the group moved out after just a minute or two. Precautions going largely for naught, they forded the low stream along a game trail not ten minutes later and found a low hill with a few stony outcrops butting up against the cliff edge of the island.

"Good enough, no?" asked Lugrub, apparently tossing it back to the senior leaders of the party equally.

They shared ambivalent glances, but Shuzug nodded acceptance. "Yeah, don't think we're going to find anything better wandering in the dark. Ushug, Orbul how about you get a fire going while Lazgar and I set out some ward stones. Lugrub, I'm thinking you could haul out some food and the bedrolls in the meantime, right?" The lanky rogue nodded. "Milback, we'll leave you to set up your own bedroll and then decide if you want to eat with us or just go right to sleep. Either way is fine."

The gnome offered a smile, largely hidden by his full beard. "I'm old and tired, no doubt, but also not one to skip meals if I can help it. I can stay up a while longer. I'd offer to cook, but I doubt I'd have an easy time cooking enough for everyone!"

With all of them having substantial experience with the basic procedures, camp was set in under 30 minutes, with a low, smoky fire of green alder in the center of the rocky hilltop surrounded by simple bedrolls. A shallow latrine had been dug out by Ushug on the downhill side, away from the campsite and the stream.

Soon enough, they'd shared out a simple cold meal of roast goat, bread and melon with small beer – working to use the fresh food before they'd need to fall back on dehydrated or foraged food. The orcs began recounting the highlights of the voyage so far, practicing for audiences once they returned, and it wasn't ten minutes later that Milback crawled into his own small bedroll (between a pair of larger stones to avoid getting rolled on or stepped on in the night) and was out like a hamster in its burrow at noon.

The orcs stayed up a while later, arguing in low tones about the order of watches, but most were in bed not too much past moonrise.

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The Redcrest scouts had noticed the arriving party on their collapsible gliders; with their dramatic markings, they weren't particularly easy to miss, after all, even if they were approaching the island from the south, rather than the west. They'd seemed rather occupied with their maneuvering and unlikely to appear in my domain this evening, so they hadn't bothered to confront them. Instead, they'd simply reported the arrival of a party of orcs on gliders, sounding frankly a bit baffled by the method. I'd been expecting the arrival of at least a dungeon inspector from the Orclands, but an entire party was a pleasant surprise. At least, I tried to convince myself the surprise was pleasant; I knew adventurers were likely to appear at some point, and that it should be a good thing for me. I wasn't nearly as exposed as I'd once been, and I was more familiar with the general rules laid down by the adventurers' guild, so I wasn't all that worried beyond some generalized anxiety at meeting a group of potentially violent strangers.

And, of course, there was always the hope that they'd brought the institutional reader along, though I couldn't be sure the central archives had managed to get it to them this quickly. It was a bit unclear to me just how high a priority that delivery was for the archive, much less the orcs they were hoping to have deliver it.

The Redcrests had kept a distance and maintained a low profile against the sky island, so it was likely they hadn't been spotted. From the reports, we had five orcs coming and from the general level of armoring, they were guessing a paladin, a barbarian, a rogue, and a mage of some sort, with the last being a bit more generic, but probably a fighter of some ilk from his size. That sounded like a fairly classic adventuring party to me, so I figured they likely weren't far off.

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I didn't ask the Redcrests to approach them; there was too much potential for accidental violence approaching presumably nervous adventurers in the dark, so I let the scouts return to their normal business with my thanks for the advance warning. Their village was only tangentially connected to the main dungeon, so I assumed I could keep the orcs away. If not, they almost certainly had the manpower to repel a single adventuring party, if necessary.

I did stop by to notify Hakdrilda, though, and to see what she wanted to do. I figured that if she had concerns, I could set her up on the secret path to the mana gathering array, or simply seal her into her testing area for a day or two with some supplies. In the event, though, she hadn't seemed all that concerned, simply bringing out her own adventurer's badge to help prevent any misunderstandings – the unadorned black iron triangle indicating a level between 16 and 20 and enchanted to signal her presence to other adventurers within 50 meters when worn.

She grinned. "That should help. Not likely they'd assume a dwarf was a dungeon monster, of course. Far as I know, only undead versions of dwarves are dungeon-created monsters, and I'm hardly the first person to come to an arrangement with a dungeon for temporary residence. Plus, I'm sure Norfoth mentioned my presence; assuming they got that report, I shouldn't be a surprise for them. Still, good to have the warning. Does that mean I shouldn't expect you to stop by for experiments tomorrow?"

**GREEN** We'd put in a few more hours this afternoon, so she should have data to work on for a while at any rate.

"I'd imagine it depends but let me know if that changes. It's technically possible they aren't here for you at all, but that's certainly the odds-on bet. And if one of them actually is a dungeon inspector, then you're likely to be pretty busy. Well, the Forgemistress gives, and the Forgemistress takes; just let me know if you want help with anything." She shrugged. "Can't imagine what help I could offer, but I'm willing to try."

**GREEN**

With my various residents aware of the coming influx of orcish adventurers, I'd done a quick double-check on the various traps, making sure they were active. I wasn't sure, after all, whether the dungeon inspector was along, but if he or she was, I could disable the traps easily enough – assuming the adventurers waited until after the inspection.

To be honest, I wasn't clear what the protocol was for a dungeon inspection when adventurers were present. Did that suggest a more active testing of the dungeon? Or would they take turns? Well, hopefully, the inspector, if one was present, would follow the existing protocols and let me know what the procedures would be.

In the meantime, I had all night to fill before then, and I decided to fill it by starting work on my gnome-themed third floor. I knew I wanted to start with the central plaza and replicate at least most of the major buildings I'd examined so far; likely though, I should start them in the entry hallway, so that I could position the plaza centrally beneath my core. The question mostly was how to indicate they were in a gnomish city, exactly, as I'd never really settled on a specific method to indicate the scale shift. In the end, I decided to leave that part for later, opting to simply scale up the gnomish city to standard adventurer size and work out some visual/sensory effect later to suggest they'd been shrunk to gnome size. I figure maybe some sort of shower of apparent potion, coupled with some disorienting lights and noise along with some sort of quick-change doorway with differently scaled, identical doors. There were a few things I was going to have to work out first, of course.

Still, at the bottom of the stairs I'd constructed in the final room of the second floor (where Hakdrilda was currently residing), I had it open onto a small landing with a single long hallway running generally towards the northwest and my core. Only a few meters down that hallway, I triggered a cross-hallway running past spaces designed to mimic the residential spaces I'd mapped before ending in a large agricultural space in each direction. I wasn't bothering with the furnishings of the rooms or the actual crops in those spaces, as yet, though I did carve out the basic rooms and provide the agricultural spaces with soil beds ready for mushrooms.

I did cut the number of residences down to just four on each side of the hallway, two sets of two apartments facing each other across the cross hall on either side of the main hall. I might need to go back and explore those further just to locate some appropriate artifacts to include.

Of necessity, the whole thing was going to need to be a bit compressed, even if this was going to be the most ambitious floor yet. Still, to provide the correct impression, at least, I added a few more structures along the main hallway on each side before. I hadn't actually checked to see what those buildings were in the actual city, opting instead to proceed to the main city center. I did the same thing here, leaving space for two more cross hallways (that I intended to basically circle the central plaza, but driving the main hall to a central plaza. I'd had to slant the main hallway down a gentle grade in order to leave room for what amounted to a two story, abbreviated version of the city center, though I attempted to make it look like additional levels continued into the ceiling. Those were inaccessible from the inside of the buildings though and entirely empty by design.

I was rapidly running out of nighttime, though, and I wanted to be focused when the orcs arrived, so once I'd carved out the basic layout of the central plaza, I called it a night. I ran a quick scan of the dungeon, including the Redcrest village and the parts closed to the public where I was still exploring and the surface. Other than the sudden realization that with my expansion on the surface I likely needed to expand my host of creatures there, all was in order and relatively quiet. I spawned in a shade owl to keep night watch on the surface, hosting it in the old orchard I'd created.

The wizard's cat was also stirring, a bit annoyed at having been ignored, so I led it back towards the main dungeon, under concealment, and had it take up temporary residence in the third-floor central plaza. I thought it might enjoy a mostly open space with enough room to at least spread its wings and fly a bit. I established some ledges around the top of the space and set up a little stone bed lined with rough spun wool cloth, accompanied by low ceramic majolica bowls that I filled with water and some loose goat sausage with a grouse egg over the top. It sniffed at the food a bit sullenly and opted to simply curl up in the bed and nap.

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As dawn broke over the sky island with a rosy glow around the towering mountain, the adventurers began to stir. Lugrub had taken the last watch and had set a pot of water on the banked fire to heat, stretching cat like as she took one last cautious stroll around the campsite. There had been no activity in the night; if there were any creatures large enough or desperate enough to attach a group of large humanoids, they hadn't located the campsite in the night.

Milback and Lazgar rose next, the paladins long accustomed to rising with the dawn for their morning rituals. Simple prayers with a bent head sufficed for both, and they were finished well before Shuzug awoke. Those four shared a simple breakfast of bread and strong tea with some fruit and seared ham. The smell of the latter had the final two party members stirring, the barbarian and the mage both moving silently to join their compatriots after a brief stretch.

Breakfast completed, they packed up their simple campsite, carefully extinguished the fire, performed their final morning ablutions and gathered by the streamside.

"Right," said Shuzug shouldering his pack. "Let's get this done. Lugrub, go ahead and take the lead. Best we be on our way..."

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