Sky Island Core

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

After dying in an accident while performing field research, a senior archaeologist is transported to a fantasy world and reborn as a new dungeon core on an ancient sky island. Struggling to figure out how to live as dungeon with a novel set of challenges, he progresses his new dungeon by expanding through archaeological levels of his new home. Periods of dungeon engineering and archaeological exploration are interspersed with interactions with a variety of visitors - starting with an invading ground squirrel and ranging up to the dragon that currently dominates the island, representatives of the Adventuring Guild, and the Church of the God of All Dungeons. At the same time, he is learning about the previous occupants of the sky island, his new world more generally, and teasing out hints about his divinely-appointed mission. This is a fairly slow growth progression story with episodes of exploration and combat with a focus on world-building and character development/dungeon engineering. There is, in the current plan, no sex or romance, limited violence/gore, and some minimal swearing. **This story is a first effort by a new writer and a participant in the Spring 2025 Royal Road Writathon. You have been warned. ** Cover art is temporary, and I apologize for the low-resolution, AI-generated art involved.

Information

Status: Ongoing
Year: 2025
Author: Rainbringer

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.4/ 5.0
Followers: 1,203
Views: 454,186

Chapters(132 total)

What readers say about Sky Island Core

“It's basically a dungeon slice-of-life from the POV of a former archeologist MC. The main character really embodies his former profession well, which is something I wasn't sure about when starting this story since I worried he wouldn't feel like an archeolo…”
ChirpchirpmeowRoyal Road5.0 / 5
“four out of five archaeological finds. added an extra one for two reasons. 1) there are (unfortunately) those who, due to the slightest hostility, put 1 out of 5. 2) finally, this is the type of pure scientist with his hobbies in everyday life, and not the…”
KoridorRoyal Road5.0 / 5

Reviews

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Community Reviews(6)

ChirpchirpmeowRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
It's basically a dungeon slice-of-life from the POV of a former archeologist MC. The main character really embodies his former profession well, which is something I wasn't sure about when starting this story since I worried he wouldn't feel like an archeologist, if that makes sense. The more scholarly aspects to the story are actually very engaging and understandable, and occasionally even motivated me to look stuff up myself (guess who knows what a majolica is now?). The story is generally slow-paced, so if you're looking for more concentrated action or heavy drama/plot urgency, then maybe this isn't the one to read at the moment, but if you want gradual dungeon building on a floating island, the occasional visitor, archeological mysteries, bird watching, and a sprinkle of violence (really just a sprinkle), then here's the right place.
KoridorRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
four out of five archaeological finds.
added an extra one for two reasons.
1) there are (unfortunately) those who, due to the slightest hostility, put 1 out of 5.
2) finally, this is the type of pure scientist with his hobbies in everyday life, and not the type of MAD scientist who decided to conquer the world (using giant robots - neko - maids - killers) just so that everyone would wear the hairstyle he liked.
quality is good enough to sell if that tells you anything.
not too intense, not too boring, not much action (fight, action), not fixated on numbers and the system panel itself, but interesting enough despite the problems (I always say there aren't enough chapters and that's my problem, not the book's).
you could say the book is the essence of archeology - the study of history.
ZentoearchRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
This story has a lot going for it: an intelligent main character who actually thinks things through and applies relevant expert knowledge, an interesting setting with lots of hints on deep lore, side characters that show depth and promise even with how early the story is, and multiple sub plots that I'm looking forward to the payoff of.
The MC is an expert archeologist that find himself as a dungeon core with a mysterious divine task. It would seemly be easy to fall into a dry academic report of local conditions or the trope of "must grow, kill, consume" for dungeon core stories, but the author shows a great balance and drive for the story despite the unclear goal for the MC.
Little to no issues with the grammar or prose. It's rare that a story on Royal Road can teach me new words, but it's clear the author know what they are talking about in this story. Chapter length has been a bit inconsistent, but it does not interrupt the flow as the chapters feel whole.
With the high quality of these early chapters, I'm excited to see where this goes.
fa1_c0nRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Really well written, and I like the archeological aspect, as well as the idea that dungeon fries manage several cores. It fills the plot hole rather well. Other than that, I like that the qu3st isn't overdone, but is still decently fleshed out. Overall, a great read in my opinion
DmuffinmanRoyal Road
★★★★★ 4.5
I have enjoyed this work immensely, having read from the beginning in approximately 2 days. The big addendum to this review is, do you enjoy reading 101 level textbooks. I do, and what would be seen as tedious info-dumping becomes a small explanation of a concept in anthropology.
the characters are all a little too reasonable and can sometimes seem over generous to the MC, but this could be explained by in-world factors and may only need a few more sentences highlighting this.
CaptainLobsterRoyal Road
★★★ 2.5
I'm going to keep reading to see if this gets better but as of now, the average word count per chapter is about 500 words. In no way is that a good thing and almost every chapter prior to this review could be merged into 3 chapters max. It also doesn't help that several chapters have some sort quote making the actual content even less.