It was decided that we would follow suit with whoever had come before us and carve our names into the shelves. It seemed like a possible solution to the idea of creating a record of our existence, and it wasn't like the room presented us with a great many options. We drew lots to see who went first. Dav was the unfortunate one, followed by myself, Suti, Azul, and Wist coming up last.

I gave Dav the engraving tool and boosted him up to one of the shelves. Leaning slightly in, he started to carve his name into the wall of the shelf, but before he could even finish the first letter, Azul called out "Wait!"

We stopped, Dav still standing on my shoulders, and attempted unsuccessfully to look at the dwarfkin.

"I think whoevers' names those are had the wrong idea," Azul said. "I mean. I know that they probably aren't actually whoany and the Dungeon just has the names because I hate Dungeons and they make no sense, but I think it's a wrong solution on purpose."

"You couldn't have worked that out earlier?" I asked, while Dav made an annoyed whistle from above me. I made a stirrup with my hands to help the little Gremmi back down to solid ground.

"Old Titanic isn't exactly a common language," Azul said defensively. "Look, see this symbol, here?" He pointed to the third symbol of the five present. It looked like a spikey question mark to me. "I thought it was a copy error, since Selsutima wouldn't know Old Titanic." Suti didn't answer, but her crest fin splayed out in a way that I knew meant offense was taken. Azul wasn't looking, so he just kept talking "It should have an extra mark here," he pointed at a place with no spike, "Indicating that it's forming a compound word with the following word. But it doesn't. I don't think it's an error. I think it's a language trick, an idiom, like a common saying, right? Except it's a written language trick. By taking out the compound word link in what would normally be a compound word, you get a phrase that means the same thing, but not quite the same thing. It's common in Old Titanic. My teacher called them 'idiomatic discompounds', which I always thought was a little obvious, and having a separate term for the effect seemed unnecessary, but--"

"Okay," Wist interrupted. She wasn't as well-studied as Azul, but she knew more languages than any of the rest of us. Except maybe Suti, who I wasn't entirely sure needed to know languages to speak them, being a partially-magical creature. "I think I follow you. So, in this case, which word is compounded?"

"'Beck', which would be formed from the words 'buea' and 'uckko'," Azul answered. "The former means 'namestone', which like I mentioned, would be a record of identity. The latter would be the words for name and stone but separately. It's not an idiomatic discompound I'm familiar with. But it should mean something like 'a record of identity, which is recorded on an independent object'. Assuming my guess is correct, that means we're not trying to create papers proving our identity, we're trying to create badges to carry with us of our identity."

"So, what?" I asked. "We need to make badges. Wist, could we use some of your coin blanks?"

"I'd rather we didn't," She replied. "Besides, I think the fact that Old Titan's word for 'stone' also translates into 'record' may have more to it. Azul?"

"I agree. My new conclusion is that we're meant to carve our names into these rocks in the tray."

"The rocks that may or may not independently be wizards," I deadpanned. "Do you think they can feel pain?"

"Doubtful. Even if they can, it won't be the same as in fleshy creatures. As long as we don't dig too deeply, I think we'll be okay."

I held the rock I had removed earlier out to the wizard. "Alright. You mind going first, then? Since it was your idea to change the plan?"

Azul hesitated briefly, then took the rock from me and the engraving tool from Davin. "No, I suppose I don't. I mean, someone's got to try it."

He set the rock flat on the table and leaned over it, scratching at it with the engraving tool with a precision characteristic of his trade. But despite the sharpness of the stylus, and despite the rock seeming to be no harder than any other ordinary stone, he was unable to make a mark on the flat base.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"The jar," Dav offered, having clambered once more onto the table to watch. Azul looked at him without comprehension. Before anyone could translate, Dav used the simplest shorthand and passed the jar of unknown paste across the table. Azul blinked at it for a moment, then muttered. "Of course."

In the end, he decided to use a scrap of paper torn from one of his journals (I'm still not sure how many he was carrying, but it always seemed to be 'enough') to smear the paste on the rock, so as not to risk damaging the engraving stylus.

It was fascinating to watch. The paste was firmer than it looked, being almost wax-like rather than the buttery texture I expected to see from it. But as soon as it touched the stone, it melted right into it, leaving no trace or residue. Azul applied it carefully to the whole face of the stone, then gently wiped the stone off with a handkerchief, not that it was necessary. This time, when Azul applied the stylus, it sank into the stone, forming a deep groove.

Azul carved his whole name, which I knew by sight, and a few more words in dwarven script which I didn't know off-hand, but I guessed was either his family name (which he never revealed to us) or possibly his rank and title, if he had any such in his home culture.

"There. 'Azul, Wizard'," He announced, clarifying my unspoken question. He lifted the stone and set it in a pocket, then looked around the room. "I think it worked!" He pointed at a section of wall. It didn't seem to be especially significant by Wist's chalk markings, but Azul could see it. "There's a door on that wall, now. Can you all see it?"

I couldn't, and a quick glance at the others told me they couldn't either. After a moment, we each reached for a new stone from the tray.

It was only after we had taken them all that I realized there had only been five stones on the tray, one for each of us. Surely it had more, before we got to this step?

Using the same scrap of paper and handkerchief, we all rubbed our stones down with the softening paste. There was about half the jar left after we finished, so Azul set about resealing it, using the original ring of wax and a heat spell that he promised us was not going to produce any fire that might ignite the coal dust Dav had smelled in the room.

Dav and Wist both had tools that could function for marking stone down, so I ended up with the engraver from the shelf. I marked down Hughbert Mann, Sanctified Sealer on my own stone in the tongue of my home country. Wisteria wrote Wisteria Polles followed by some words that I didn't recognize. I expected they translated into something like 'coin magician' or possible 'tinker' in her own country's language. At least the letters looked similar to mine. Dav's was written in his peoples' language. Technically, I could read their writings in a pinch, as I had learned when I learned to understand Dav's speech. But I didn't often need to use those skills. Like his given name, his clan name had an accepted trade tongue translation that resembled not at all the original pronunciation. In this case, 'Flamewrought'. His profession translated literally as 'astral chemist', but more commonly was just lumped in with alchemists. Dav was touchy about the differences, which I knew because I still did not fully grasp what the differences were, exactly. I had learned just not to bring it up around him.

Suti took the engraver from me when I was done. Despite lacking proper arms, she could somehow wrap one of her gossamer wings around the item like a kraken grasping a stone, carefully balancing in her flight with the other three. Her writing was even less recognizable than Azul's. I don't think I'd ever seen her write her name down before. There was almost no distinction between one clump of markings and the next clump of markings. The whole thing wound up looking like a cloud formed of parallel swooping lines, crossed at various angles by a group of other swooping lines that were not parallel. Wist leaned over to see what Suti had written and grinned. "No titles today?"

"No." Suti's tone did not invite more questions. Wist actually laughed at that, albeit quietly. One of these days I would figure out what that secret joke between them meant. The two were good allies and even friends, but they kept some things secret, except from each other. I suppose we all did, in our own ways. It wasn't like I knew all of Dav's history, and we'd been working together for two years before we even met the others. Plus, it wasn't like I had any right to complain about keeping secrets. I had my own share. So far, none of those secrets had been a problem.

It took us a minute to work out how Suti could carry her stone without hindering her movement. She carried a small pack, as did the rest of us, but it wasn't large enough to hold the stone, and though she could lift it in two wings for short stretches while using the other two to stay aloft, flying around all the time with only two wings would tire her as much as if a human had to hop everywhere on one foot. Eventually, we managed to use some strips cut from my bedroll to form a sort of harness that would let Suti carry the stone without interfering with the movement of her wings. I was worried for a moment that the weight of it would make it harder for her to flutter, but she claimed that it wasn't an issue. Cloudsnappers were frankly confusing. I'm pretty sure I understood Fragmented Ones better than my own ally when it came to simple things like the natural law.

The rest of us stowed our respective rocks in pockets, packs, or pouches, then turned to where Azul had pointed earlier. Sure enough, as soon as I finished tucking the rock bearing my name into my jacket, a door materialized. It didn't manifest or grow, or anything like that. It just seemed to have always been there, from the instant I let the weight of the stone fall into my pocket.

"Well," Suti spoke up first. "Let's open it!"