"The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value" ~ Charles Dudley Warner

I provided some gentle acceptance of the change of topic, and Throg continued.

**We do work a bit differently from the adventurer's guild in this regard. We try to focus more on items that will be useful to you, rather than the goods they'd like you to provide to delvers. We can rely on them giving you items they, or both you and they, want you to have, so we focus a bit more on things we think you'll want that they might not provide for you.

That said, as an organized religion, we'll also provide you with some basics of our church – in part because you're likely to get occasional pilgrims from our church, and partly because we want you to have a connection to our deity. The God of All Dungeons may not have placed you here, but he does want to support you. Beyond that, we have a basic kit of things you might find useful as a dungeon. And finally, there are some personal gifts from the three of us, reflecting our personal specialties.**

I tried to rein in my eagerness, a bit. I did, obviously, enjoy getting new blueprints, and I was curious to learn more about the Church, its tenets, and what sorts of things it thought I would need. At the same time, I had enjoyed just speaking with them, and I didn't want them to think I was just in it for the gifts. **I appreciate that, actually. I don't actually have any idea about what kinds of things I might need that I don't have. I've just been trying to muddle through with whatever I can get from visitors or by scavenging locally. I'm also interested in the church itself, at least on an intellectual level. I've been an agnostic long enough that I don't know if I can really commit to the faith as a worshiper, but I'd like to learn about it.**

Throg nodded acceptingly. **I don't think that should be an issue. Our deity doesn't really seem to want worship from the dungeons, directly. If you'd prefer to think of the God as sort of hands-off senior management or a regulatory agency, I don't think it would care. I would only expect you to hear from them directly if you cross some lines that I don't think you intend to.**

**So let's begin, shall we? You've already got the shrine, so next up is our central book of scripture. It's basically an anthology of statements that the God has handed down to its archpriests over the last few centuries. It covers everything from the proper function and role of dungeons through opinions on historical cases of conflict between dungeons and between dungeons and other powers. If nothing else, it should give you a good sense of how the God and the Church perceive dungeons and their role in the world.**

Blueprint Received: Collected Pronouncements of the God of All Dungeons

**We also have a way for you to send a one-time, one-way message directly to the central church. This won't be reproducible for you, so I caution you against attempting to absorb it. Typically, it's a way for you to reach out in a dire emergency. If the call is seen as pressing enough, you might receive immediate support – though I obviously can't guarantee that. The church does maintain a quick response team with teleporting capabilities, though I'd warn you that they won't, and realistically can't, protect you from the dragon. If you are unjustifiably attacked by normal adventurers, your chances are somewhat better, assuming you get enough notice to call for help.**

At that, she lay a small, delicate, ornately engraved rod in the dungeon niche of the shrine. **To use it, simply telepathically embed your message by pushing the thought at this blank space, then snap the wand. The message will be received by a dedicated agent at the central church.

In similar fashion, and in order to buy you a little time, we can also provide a single-use, non-reproducible divine ward, which should protect you from physical and magical attacks by creatures of Tier 4 or less for a period of roughly half an hour. Adventurers will also be unable to move you from your location for the same period. **

This one took the form of a solid gold coin or medallion, roughly 4 cm in diameter with the sigil of the Church on one side and a complicated ritual array precisely carved into the other.

**Those are a tremendous boon, and I don't think I can thank you or your church enough for the implied protection. I'm not really in a position to reward you for the assistance, but if there is ever anything I can do to help, please let me know.**

Throg shrugged off my thanks. **There's no need to repay the church. These are items offered by the church to every sapient dungeon, to be honest. You are each important to the proper functioning of the world, and we respect that deeply. We all hope and expect that you will never need to use them, but given the lack of mobility dungeon cores possess, a little extra defense is reassuring.**

**It IS reassuring, and my dungeon instincts make that very deeply felt. Sometimes it feels as though the strongest feelings I still possess are bloodlust and insecurity, so anything that reduces those is appreciated.**

Throg flushed a bit, and that was a startling look on a 3-meter tall, green skinned troll. **Any ways, moving on, the next few items are just a set of simple items intended to provide you with some useful blueprints. Those mostly consist of base materials that adventurers won't recognize you will find useful, and parts for key mechanisms useful in things like traps, doors, and the like. The mechanisms are things I expect you could construct yourself, but this should make life easier for you.**

Kraal offered his insights, too. **I'd guess you have a broad array of basic stone, wood, and metal at this point. I'm sure you'll be filling in gaps in your palette for a while yet, but you can make do. Some of the materials needed for basic enchanting may not have been provided to you yet. Obviously, you won't want, or be able, to generate them in significant quantities at this stage, but these small blueprints will likely be useful for you as time goes on. The magical metals are too expensive for the church to offer up at this stage, but we can provide examples of elementally-infused minerals, enchantment-ready parchment, and mana-infused inks.**

Blueprint Received: Wind Iolite (air-mana infused mineral)

Blueprint Received: Flame Opal (fire-mana infused mineral)

Blueprint Received: Earthen Sphalerite (earth-mana infused mineral)

Blueprint Received: Water Chalcanthite (water-mana infused mineral)

Blueprint Received: Enchantment-ready Parchment

Blueprint Received: Basic Mana-Infused Ink

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**Thank you for those as well. I look forward to experimenting with runic magic, so those will be tremendously useful**

Kraal hesitated a moment, then smiled. **I look forward to seeing what you come up with, frankly. I suspect you'll surprise me with your creativity. And just to provide some inspiration for you, I've brought along a piece of my own work for you that I thought you might find helpful. If you place it within your main entrance, it will allow you to set a maximum number of individuals who can enter within a half-hour span. It can't be set to fewer than 5 individuals, though, as that's commonly the base size for adventurer parties; enchantments that prevent entrance to fewer than that tend to be destroyed, despite potential sanctions. It won't prevent higher level adventurers from circumventing it in a variety of ways or even brute forcing it, but it would have kept the goblins to smaller groups, for instance. For most higher-level adventurers, it's a point of pride, in any event, that they don't need to break the basic etiquette of delving, and they'll abide by entrance limitations.**

Blueprint Received: Minor Ward of Entry Restriction

Now that seemed immediately useful, and I told him so myself. **I didn't realize that was even possible. Oh, that's excellent news! Being able to prevent the goblins from just swamping me with numbers was something of a concern – even if it seems to get less likely every day...**

I immediately emplaced it, setting it to a maximum of 8, for the time being. I'd have to explore my options for the second-floor warehouse; it didn't seem like the ward was substantial enough to cover the broader entrance there.

Blorg took over the conversation at that point. **We've also brought you a set of common potions. They will tend to make good loot, but since they can be pricy adventurers will tend to save them against future need rather than donating them.**

She set out a quick flight of vials, in a variety of shades. **They're generally dyed to standard colors to enable adventurers to identify them in a hurry. For whatever reason, the basic convention since forever is red for healing, blue for mana recovery, and green for stamina recovery. Other potions can be any color, or none at all, except that it's bad form to use those conventional colors for other purposes**

Blueprint Received: Basic Potion of Healing

Blueprint Received: Basic Potion of Mana Recovery

Blueprint Received: Basic Potion of Stamina Recovery

**And, as my own personal gift, given your location and affinity, I thought I'd offer you something special...**

Blueprint Received: Basic Potion of Flight

**I figured that would give you a nice thematic piece of loot, and something you could potentially incorporate into a challenge of some sort later. Or if you're really feeling nasty, you could make it part of the trigger for your comical chute trap.** Blorg chortled in a bubbly way. **Drop them off the sky island with just the flight potion to save them – if they can gather their wits in time...**

**I see you have a similarly questionable sense of humor to myself** I noted, as the grey, pearlescent vial was whisked away. **They'd probably have to annoy me directly to warrant that level of trauma and risk.**

Blorg conceded the point with a snort and a grin – a bit disconcerting on a slimefolk, as there weren't any teeth involved and the mouth seemed to be largely for cosmetic purposes.

Throg took up the thread of conversation after a moment. **Now normally, we'd take this opportunity to offer an array of blueprints for some basic creatures that dungeons might find useful but that wouldn't be directly offered by adventurers – rats and spiders, and such. Things more useful for atmospheric effect or spying than combat, but you're a bit far along for that, and I didn't get the sense you'd find them all that helpful. Given the reports of your interest in books, I went ahead and grabbed you a few I thought you'd find inspirational, if not directly useful. I'm not an enchanter or an alchemist – I came up through the archives, mostly.

The first is a classic, and always popular with sapient dungeons who are willing to read for inspiration.**

Blueprint Received: Dungeon Traps and Puzzles: A Survey of the Basics

**It's really intended for new adventurers, but it's a good overview of the more commonly used traps and puzzle mechanisms, and just as useful for dungeons. Just note that these will be the kinds of traps and puzzles adventurers expect, so you can either accommodate them or use them to subvert their expectations in a variety of ways.**

That WOULD be useful. Frankly, I'd appreciate not having to come up with ideas all on my own – especially as my range of possibilities opened up.

Throg noted my appreciative thoughts but kept going. **The next one is similar in some ways, but is intended to give you a sense of the most common classes among adventurers and some of their basic skills. It should be helpful for you by giving you a sense of what kinds of abilities you're most likely to encounter.**

Blueprint Received: Adventurer Classes: From Artificer to Wizard

**It, obviously, can't cover all the variations and advanced versions of the classes, but it should give you an overall sense of the common ones, as well as typical party structures. They're generally at least a little more complicated than what you saw from the goblins – but scouts and warriors out front, archers and magic users in the back, is a common enough starting point.

The last of the books from the Church's general collection for you is one focused specifically on Dungeon Core defenses. Again, it's intended to teach adventurers about common concealment and trap patterns used by dungeon cores, but like the trap book, this should help you think about ways to defend yourself when necessary.**

Blueprint Received: Look Twice Before Touching: Approaching Dungeon Cores

Between the three of them, they'd significantly increased my survival odds, as well as offering tools to customize my dungeon and its contents. And they weren't quite done yet, as Throg drew out one last book and offered it to me with a wolfish grin (trollish grin? Something with a lot of teeth, anyways).

**This one's from my own collection and given what little information we had to work with when we set out, it seemed like my best option for you. I know that dwarf in the other room is going to be working with you on Air Magic – but her goals are likely to be a bit different than yours. This should help to broaden your repertoire beyond what she can provide...**

Blueprint Received: Dungeon Air Magic: Traps, Puzzles, Debuffs, and Detection

**Thank you for that, Throg. I've been having a hard time figuring out ways to incorporate my air affinity, but between this and some of the work I'll be doing with Hakdrilda, I think I should be able to address that.** I was already having fun imagining ways to work with pressurized air, flight potions, air flow patterns, toxic air, abrasives, invisible tripwires, and the like.

**You are quite welcome, Vay. But now, we really should be on our way. You aren't as likely to receive formal delegations from the church as you are from the adventurer's guild, but it is entirely possible that you will see parties of pilgrims, accompanied in many cases by a dungeon priest, Some of our more well-off adherents will likely find the allure of a sapient dungeon on a sky island, irresistible. The line between those and the straight up dungeon tourists will be a bit hazy, I'm afraid, but they're at least likely to be a bit more polite towards you. And of course, if you need help, feel free to reach out either to the Church or to the God of All Dungeons itself.**

I took this chance to make my own farewells, and to give them a parting gift of my own. **I'm afraid I don't know exactly what either you or your church would value, in terms of knowledge from my world. That said, I thought I'd offer you a book from my world that covers my field of study – Archaeology. The specific examples won't mean much to you, I'm afraid, but it should give you a sense of what archaeologists do and the kinds of questions they try to answer. Hopefully, you'll find it interesting at least.** And with that, I passed them a copy of the latest version of Renfrew, Bahn, and DeMarrais' Essentials of Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice that I had transcribed early this morning. It would likely take them some time to translate it, if they bothered, but it did have some very cool images in the meantime.

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