"Just like old librarians, old coins are often more valuable than they appear at face value." ~ Kate Klise

As I was wrapping up my discussions with the Redcrests for the day, I checked in with Hakdrilda who was finishing her own late breakfast of some sort of crusty roll with honey, dried meat of some sort, and hard cheese along with some sort of hot beverage - not quite coffee, but not what I would call a tea, either.

Once she noticed my attention, she dropped her roll gleefully and moved swiftly to the antechamber. "I love the work space here! Does that mean the test chamber is mostly done too?"

I flashed her a green mana light and opened a small window into the test chamber though the nearly meter thick stone. She had excellent night vision, but I sprouted a mana light on one of the more generic looking fittings to help her see the finer details of the space since even her night vision didn't work well without some ambient light and we'd neglected to turn on the lights in the antechamber.

"That looks great, though of course we won't know how well we've designed it until we start running some tests. You being able to open and close the rock itself is a huge help, but I'd really like to have a door there to enable access when you're otherwise occupied – even if that's a potential problem spot for the tests. Would it be okay if I took some time to design a door that can stand up to the pressures and temperatures we'll need?"

**GREEN**

"Wonderful! In the meantime, can you open the window bigger so I can try out some of the fittings for the gear I brought?"

**GREEN**

" Later, I'll ask you to duplicate the more mundane and replaceable tools and instruments, but first we should check that I designed the fittings correctly. I think between that and designing the door fittings, I'm going to be busy until tomorrow. Can I ask you to check back with me tomorrow morning?"

**GREEN**

And with that, she'd launched into her work, and I had a few hours of free time to work on my own interests. I wanted to start the search for the mana gathering array, but I had no easy way to do that. I could sense mana flows in my own domain, and I thought that might give me a general direction, but as near as I could tell, most nearby mana was simply circulating in a cyclical pattern from the very center of the sky island to the edge of the atmospheric "barrier" and back. From what little I could sense, it reminded me of the diagrams of the magnetosphere on my old world, with the mountain peak and island low point (nadir? Anti-peak?) as poles for the mana flow. There were some deviations in the pattern which might represent the pull of the mana-gathering arrays, but I couldn't even estimate how many there might be, much less their placement. I could send the hawk-eagle out to look for candidate arrays, but it couldn't sense mana flows, and I had no idea what such a thing would even look like. For that matter, it seemed likely the arrays wouldn't be exposed on the surface, assuming they had been built to last for thousands of years.

That meant my best option might be to look for whatever was running things at the center of the island, though that was going to take a while to get to, even if I spent all my spare time heading in that direction. In the end, I decided my most practical option was to work on absorbing and understanding the gnomish city. If I got lucky, they'd have some useful information about the construction of the island, or at least a contemporary map of their settlements. I was stereotyping, I know, but I assumed a settlement of that size would involve a broader knowledge base than the isolated manor house I'd dug previously – it was just a matter of whether I could access it. The longer it had been abandoned, the less likely that may have become, though the overall level of preservation was hopeful. Finding out my patron deity had dwarven affiliations lowered my expectations that the former residents were the original creators of the island, but anything was possible.

I returned my attention to the point where I had stopped, nearly a week ago at this point (and boy did it feel like longer). In my first exploration, I had used the badger for a quick but cursory inspection; this time, I was planning to take the slower but more thorough approach of simply incorporating the city into my domain and registering whatever blueprints I could find. I was perfectly capable of working in complete darkness, so I commenced by simply expanding from the closest edge of the settlement – expanding out along the first cross corridor and absorbing the tiny structures as I went.

My guess turned out to be correct, and these were all residences – at least as I added the first five of them and completed a quest.

Quest Completed: Assimilate One Phase of Five Structures; Reward: Slithering Ooze Blueprint, Gnome Skeleton Blueprint, Tunnel Snake (medium), and Gnomish Rock Crystal Spectacles.

Quest Reissued: Assimilate One Phase of Five Non-residential Structures; Reward: Magic Tool Blueprint, T3 Creature Blueprint.

Well, the new blueprints didn't exactly fit where I was hoping to take my theme, but they were apt for the current setting.

The structures were well-preserved, in general, having been carved from solid granite and polished smooth (if not to the ridiculous degree of Hakdrilda's test chamber). That said, there appeared to have been an orderly departure, as there wasn't a whole lot left that was truly portable. The structures themselves were nearly uniform – each comprising five rooms in a U-shaped pattern and two doors on the external hallway. The rooms were interconnected, with the two front rooms each having an open doorway between them, and a closed door leading to the second row of rooms, and eventually a larger room in the rear of the structure.

From what I could tell, if we started at the first exterior door and followed the U around, the first room was likely a parlor or living room, the second was a kitchen/pantry (judging from the sinks, counters, and defunct "large" appliances, the third was a primary living/sleeping space, the fourth was a bathroom (complete with shower and indoor plumbing), and the fifth may have been an additional guest room, bedroom, or work space. There were a lot of assumptions built into that, except for the kitchen and bathroom whose functionality was made clear by the design and fixtures.

There was basically nothing in terms of macroscopic organic remains to speak of, and I was starting to get the sense they were going to be few and far between. That didn't mean there were no blueprints to be had, though

Blueprint Received: Steel Door (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Locking Mechanism (gnomish)

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Blueprint Received: Gnomish Steel

Blueprint Received: Mana Stove (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Granite Sink (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Mana Cold Box (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Copper Sink Fittings (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Copper Pipe

Blueprint Received: Steel Shower Fittings (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Steel Fork (gnomish)

Blueprint Received: Silver Hoop Earring (gnomish)

The fork had turned up behind the stove, but nothing was left on the shelves in the kitchen and bathroom, and the other rooms were stripped bare enough that I found nothing but a tiny silver hoop earring in a corner of the main bedroom.

The other structures along this cross corridor seemed structurally quite similar, though there were enough minor differences in size and layout to provide some differentiation. I picked up a few additional stray blueprints here and there, though nothing all that useful. The best addition in this first stretch was probably the small floor safe (empty, sadly) that I turned up in absorbing the fourth structure.

Blueprint Received: Steel Floor Safe (gnomish)

Here, on the outskirts of the city, the corridor ran out of structures quickly, and I found my domain expanding into a low-ceilinged artificial cavern, maybe 1.5 meters tall on average, but extending roughly 50 meters X 50 meters parallel to the corridor. The floor appeared to be covered in a moderately deep (almost a meter) layer of dark soil. Either they had been farming mushrooms here, or it had been taken over at some point, as it was shot through with mycelium from wall to wall and fruiting bodies grew in a riotous profusion. There was some light from bioluminescent mushrooms, but there was also some movement, and as I absorbed the mushroom bed, I encountered the first living residents of the gnomish city – a group of slow-moving myconids. Interestingly, as I assimilated the soil and mycelium I received another set of blueprints and completed one of my long-neglected naturalist quests.

Blueprint Received: Green Button Mushroom

Blueprint Received: Oozing Chanterelle

Blueprint Received: Giant Puffball Mushroom

Blueprint Received: Bioluminescent Maitake

Blueprint Received: Lesser Cave Myconid

Quest Completed: Spot Fungal Species; Reward: Golden Destroyer Blueprint

Quest Reissued: Spot 10 New Fungal Species; Reward: T2 Fungal Blueprint

I was interested, but not entirely surprised, to discover that I had picked up the blueprint for the Myconids through assimilating the mycelium that sprouted them. There was no need to kill one of the mobile specimens, though I got the sense I'd have no direct control over the currently wandering myconids. At a guess, they were what was keeping the mushroom bed functional by going out and retrieving the nutrients required. There was a steady trickle of moisture coming in from the ceiling as well, which may or may not have been part of the original design.

From what I could tell, all of the mushrooms present were likely edible, even the myconids (though I couldn't vouch for their flavor). The Golden Destroyer, as the name suggested, was decidedly not edible – except in that dark sense that any mushroom could be eaten – once! This was a nasty one, if pretty. The gently glowing golden parasol was full of amatoxins that would destroy the liver and kidney of most creatures over the space of a painful few hours.

Having secured some interesting blueprints and coincidentally completed a quest, I figured I should pursue the main archaeological quest and push for the center of the city where I expected the highest concentration of non-residential buildings. Hopefully, I'd get the chance to fill in my possession of the whole city, but I didn't really have the patience to do it slowly and methodically, absorbing a few gnomish households a day. And if I was going to find a clue for the divine quest, some sort of administrative building seemed like the best bet.

That said, I couldn't really do all of that today. Even on gnomish scales, it was going to take me into the evening hours just to expand along the main path as far as the central plaza. I pushed my domain slowly along, avoiding the structures that lined the way for the time being. Still no organics to speak of, as the road was a simply constructed affair of granite flagstones with a gentle slope towards gutters that lined both sides. It did get me an assortment of small coins (both literally and by denomination) and assorted minor domestic refuse.

Blueprints Received: Copper and Silver Coinage (Gnomish Free City of Relkhold)

The coins did give me some useful information. The name of the city didn't appear in any of the texts I had available, though that didn't mean much. The coins had names of chief administrators of some sort (the titles seemed to be abbreviated) and minting dates. Those dates didn't tie into any of the calendars I was familiar with, but the range suggested a fairly extended occupation. Assuming the numbers referred to a year (which I was assuming to be the standard), the coins suggested the small city had been occupied for at least 300 years. I'd guess the occupation may well have been longer, but that was the range of the 16 coins I'd found in total. I hadn't found coins from any other polities, but that didn't mean much with a sample size this small.

I'd gotten just to the edge of the main plaza and decided that was a solid place to stop for the evening. I returned my attention to the Redcrests' village-to-be and started roughing out spaces for the magic and archery ranges at the back of the village, running parallel to the small stream connecting them to the main dungeon. For the time being, these were simply long, narrow halls about 15 meters wide by 50 meters long and 4-meter-high ceilings. I'd have to wait and chat with the relevant people to determine what kind of safety precautions were needed, their preferred backstop, targets, lighting, storage etc. That said, simply opening up the space seemed like a reasonable start, even if it took me half the night to accomplish. I began opening up space for some of the crafting rooms on the other side of the stream; those rooms were more rounded and mimicked some of the residential structures, at least loosely. Again, they were unfurnished for the time being, but I did expect to subdivide the space at some point to provide more individual work spaces that could be customized. I was already feeling the effects of expanded mana flow from the relocation to the second floor and from my new residents and it was enabling me to grow even faster.

I decided that I should transcribe another book or two to keep myself occupied until my residents began stirring again, but I wasn't really sure which books to do. In the end, I replicated a basic earth science textbook that dated back to high school. I wasn't sure how much of it was actually relevant to Relnis, but I expected Hakdrilda to find it interesting at any rate, if only for the sections addressing geology, planetary formation, and atmospheric patterns. The books I'd been given didn't give me a clear sense of the full planetary geography of my new world, but there were enough smaller maps that I could at least be certain that Relnis wasn't simply an alternate Earth; the continental map of Charax made at least that much clear. Still, I assumed basic geological processes probably still applied for the most part. I did briefly wonder if the sky island had been built from scratch, somehow, or if there was a mountain range somewhere riddled with craters from which mountains had been extracted.

I was about halfway through a collegiate level textbook on ecology when the Redcrests started to awaken and eye the new constructions that had appeared overnight. Mostly they looked curious, but there did also seem to be some trepidation, judging from their posture and the positions of their crests. I decided to just check in with them over breakfast and see what they wanted to do to fill out those spaces.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.