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  [A Quiet Island, Day 45, Morning]

  The ship I saw in the distance landed a day ago, and I'm glad to see Miss Witch has returned. I was really worried that I'd scared her off, but it looks like she's fine. She brought Tank too, who I've learned is called “Freddy”. The other passengers on the boat were the crew, a bunch of craftsmen and construction workers, and a small group of people with above average mana. I'd assume that these ones are a part of that guild organization, especially given their equipment.

  No guns, which brings up a few questions, but quite a lot of European style melee weaponry and armor. From the memories of the gun I have, the powder is powerful enough to be useful against monsters, so maybe there's a stigma or something. Or maybe these guild people just use magic instead. I did notice a few obvious wizards in the crowd.

  Either way, I'll have to keep an eye on these people. I get a few of the nearby animals to keep an eye on them and tell them to notify me if something happens. Once I'm done with that, I return my focus to the second floor. I'd forgotten that I still don't have a way to animate the stick figure I made for the maze, so I'll need to figure something out for that. Also, when the pitcher plants were dissolving the human’s corpses from earlier, they left behind their mana cores, which I have a few ideas for. I also changed the reward from a bolt of cloth to a spool of Silkshroom thread, which I've made to regrow automatically.

  Alright. Back to the stick figure.

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  [A Small Camp, Day 45, Morning]

  It had been a stressful past few days for Anya, worrying about what might happen once they landed on the island again. Having to deal with a ship full of rowdy silvers wasn't something she had ever wanted to do, but she felt a duty to at least try to do something to make it even a little safer. Anya let out the breath she'd been holding in, causing Freddy to turn his head to her. He eyed her with concern for a bit before turning away again. Anya is strong. She'd be fine.

  When the island had come into sight a few days ago, Anya had felt the same sense of dread she had when she first saw it, although this time she was a bit less frazzled by it. The mana storm hadn't dissipated, even growing bigger than it was as it had expanded to surround the entire island, obscuring her view with a giant purple whirlwind as they kept getting closer. It looked like the island was held in the eye of the storm, the mana there unmoving in comparison to the surrounding winds.

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  Anya was thankful that mana was mostly immaterial, but when the boat passed through the storm, almost everyone on the ship had reacted with confusion as they felt their mana wave in the invisible wind. Anya wondered how big the dungeon core on this island would have to be to need this much mana, and what it was doing with all of it.

  Either way, the boat was about to land. As the keel pushed up against the obsidian sands of the beach, Anya noticed that the camp they'd made last time was completely gone. Not in disrepair or weathered away, just gone. Like it'd never existed. There should've been at least some trace of it because it's only been a month since then, but there's nothing. At least that heavy fog of mana was still gone, which meant that Anya could get some actual sleep this time around.

  They'd brought a few tradesmen on the trip to help speed up the construction of the guildhall, and they immediately got to work building a small camp that'd serve as a starting point for the rest of the trip. Usually when a new dungeon was discovered, a town or two sprung up near it to take advantage of the unique resources and increased traffic, and Anya wasn't expecting any different for this dungeon. The only change would be that it's on an island, something that's rather rare for a dungeon.

  The tradesmen took advantage of the silver’s superhuman strength to speed up their construction, and within only a few hours the camp was ready, complete with a few basic bunkhouses and a lunch hall. While that was happening Anya was eyeing the jungle warily, somewhat concerned. Everything in there was saturated with mana, yet there weren't any mana mutants.

  On the contrary, the wildlife was flourishing, the mana inside their bodies being kept in check by some unknown force and simply acting as an extra source of energy for them. In fact, the animal’s mana was acting uncomfortably like how human mana did. Anya decided to put that aside for future thought, already having enough to think about right now. She turned her attention back to the task at hand, returning to the camp for lunchtime.

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  [A Busy Island, Day 45, Noon]

  I've found that enchantments can be engraved as writing instead of just infusing stuff with intent, which has made it a lot easier and less taxing on my mana to enchant things. I've written a bunch of connected enchantments onto the stick figure to control its movement automatically.

  Basically, I've divided the whole labyrinth it guards into a grid, and then it moves to a random square using either the longest or the shortest path, and once it gets there it repeats that with a different square. The hardest part was getting the attacks to work, partially because it's hard to stop the sticks from dissolving when it attacks, but I found a way. I also made it so that it runs away when attacked so the delvers have a chance at beating the level.

  Speaking of, I've taken a few looks at the human encampment while I was working, and it seems like they're already fairly established. These “silvers”, as I've overheard from the rest of them, are about the level of Olympians in terms of raw power and speed, but they're clearly still amateurs when it comes to fighting. I think they'll be able to handle my worker ants, but I'm not sure about the majors. I'll leave one as a boss and move Alectryon to the fourth floor. She seems to like that place.

  Speaking of, she's improved a lot in her mana control, and now when she's using her mana hair thing there's barely any leakage or wavering. I've been practicing with condensed mana too in my down time. I've managed a few tricks with it, like making a mana bullet and a mana laser. It's also a bit easier to control, which I assume is because it's denser. But enough fun. I need to get working on the sixth floor.