Dungeon of Niflheim

‘I guess there’s no need for tall ceilings when you just have goblins.’ Findlay understood that such an environment would play to the goblins advantage while at the same time limiting the fighting strength of large monsters such as him that would usually prey on goblins. Findlay didn’t know if this was Gobuske’s intention or simply a happy accident, but he respected his master’s younger brother none the less.

He spoke with Frost to decide the next move, mainly what to do with his aerial corps.

“Go on ahead with the majority of the forces, leave the gyrfalcons and snow owls in the first room to map out the rest of the area. Leave a small scouting group with them to help deal with any stragglers left there.” Frost gave his command before internally sighing.

‘Guess it was too much to ask for the aerial assault team to not meet a hiccup.’ This room effectively neutralised his flyers, it was too risky to have them fly in the narrow and dark caves. And them walking or waddling on the ground would take too much time. Best to have them finish mapping the first room and allow Findlay and the rest to clear the way. Once the defence forces are either eliminated or pushed back, they can make their way through the caves.

Findlay responded like a good soldier before leading his team into the caves, crouching down as he did. Likely going to end up with a sore back by the end. Frost and Findlay just hoped that the next room or rooms weren’t caves like this.

The aerial corps along with a small sized scouting group returned to first room and started canvasing the remaining 30% of the room. It’ll take them a fair bit longer given their smaller group size. The flyers would also need to stay relatively close to the scout squad for protection.

Meanwhile Gobuske’s invading team was closing in on the latter half of the winter highlands, slowly but surely, they were making ground. The map on Gobuske’s screen was steadily becoming more and more detailed yet he hadn’t found the next room yet. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a highly intelligent monster like Findlay or two young children by his side as company. All he had was an arrogant guardian who despised him at the molecular level. He couldn’t bounce ideas of anyone and needed to formulate the majority of plans by himself. His hob goblin commanders were not bad at leading and keeping morale up among his forces, but they still needed strong direction, they were only D-rank after all.

“Hob goblin commander one and two stay focused and don’t rush, that’ll lead to more deaths by ambush. This elder brother of mine is quite lethal in that department.” Gobuske gave his orders to the two hob goblin commanders. Unlike Findlay they didn’t have access to the dungeon’s features such as the map, but Gobuske could still communicate with them directly.

.....

This did however slow his response time down since he had to watch both the offensive and defensive teams at the same time. This caused a fair number of his goblins to fall victim to insidious traps and ambushes. The roaring blizzard and freezing temperatures were weakening his forces the longer the remained in place. Therefore, he had the scouting groups increase their members and stick closer to the main army. That way the mages could keep everyone at a reasonable temperature, and they could aid one another if they suffered an ambush.

This tactic greatly reduced his losses but also reduced his mapping speed. Though they were in the latter half of the room their map coverage was only around 45 to 50%. They may even get the very end of the room and find that the next entrance was in the other direction. It was by no means a fast approach but one he was very much forced to take. His elder brother was very adept at utilising ambushes and the cover of snow.

When his monsters crossed the frozen river for example, frost slimes attacked from within the water causing the ice to crack, dropping an entire scouting squad into the freezing cold water. Three goblins were drowned thanks to the awaiting frost slimes, while the rest successfully dragged themselves to shore, though their bodies were in a dangerous state. If his goblin mages didn’t arrive in time, they would have suffered severe frostbite and perhaps organ failure from the frigid temperatures. This event was especially nerve wracking for Gobuske and even the audience were in awe.

Slimes were known to be even weaker than goblins, yet Frost managed to find a way to make them useful through using the nearby environment. It gave the viewers a newfound sense of respect for how to use lower level monsters. Yami although still stoic in expression and rather aloof, was nodding his head full of praise. He too utilised a large number of weak monsters in a number of ways, finding that when used correctly they could cause a great upset against superior foes. Others however like the muscle brained idiot Pyro and the arrogant Bahamut merely scoffed at the idea of utilising slimes.

Gobuske was learning so much in his battle against Frost, noting down ideas which he’d try later on after the war. His excitement and investment in this battle grew as time passed, his meek personality and low self-confidence being thrown to the back of his mind. He focused intensely on every movement his brother made and altered his formations and strategies in response, further reducing his losses.

Suddenly he heard one of the hob goblin commanders of the defence team contact him. It used broken common tongue as Gobuske always advised to use it whenever possible.

“Master, enemy in second room.” The report was short and concise, but the impact was strong. Gobuske started sweating and brought up the dungeon view of the second room.

‘Already, it’s only been 35 minutes.’ He then brought up the partial map of Frost’s first room, his team was at least 10 minutes away from finding the next room. He was losing in terms of speed. ‘It must because of those flying monsters, they can cover ground far faster than ground troops.’ Gobuske lamented once again his lack of aerial monsters. His gloom however was fleeting, they’d be no use in the next room.

“Good work, perform as planned.” Gobuske smiled, not only did his low ceiling caves prevent Frost’s aerial troops they also seemed to diminish Findlay’s combat prowess, two birds with one stone. Although he was a little shocked by Frost’s team being quicker, that was to be expected given their advantage in power but that should change in the second room. Like Frost, Gobuske heavily invested his defences in his second room.

The caves were littered with traps, goblin ambushers and tons of dead ends. They’d be there for quite a while. There was also the bonus of many hidden narrow tunnels that his goblins could utilise to sneak around the enemy. The idea for this actually came from an adventurer that he overheard, he said to his teammates to watch out for such tricks and tunnels. Thinking it was a great idea Gobuske edited the room and his ability to kill intruders and his goblins abilities to retreat when outmatched took a large leap forward. He even almost felt bad about killing such a nice intruder, but DP was higher on his list, so he killed him and muttered a silent thank you as he reaped his life energy.

With the hob goblin commander receiving his orders all he needed to do was wait for the enemy to enter his vicinity before attacking. Gobuske had already warned them about Findlay, prioritising non-engagement tactics with the ice troll commander. Only those with ranged attacks should target Findlay and though the hob goblin was a monster with powerful beast like instincts when it came to the orders of his king he obeyed without question as did all his subordinates. They were completely unified.

Around 10 minutes later as predicted, Gobuske’s forces finally found the entrance to the second room, the winter forest. His forces were still high in number but looked quite a bit more haggard than Frost’s. the frequent ambushes and freezing temperatures were difficult to overcome. But now that their goal was in sight all the goblins roared aloud, their blood pumping as they received a dopamine boost.

On that high and under Gobuske’s orders they moved into the winter forest, heading ever closer to Frost’s dungeon core, and claiming victory for their king.

“Master they’ve reached the winter forest.” Nanna who was sitting to his right informed him.

“Is that so? Perfect, let’s show my younger brother the hard work of my frost dwarves.” Frost smiled wildly as his eyes glinted with the thrill of battle, his excitement was growing even though he wasn’t personally on the field.

“Findlay’s group met with some resistance master.” Right after Gobuske’s hob goblin commanders made their way into the winter forest, Loki reported Findlay’s status.

Nanna and Loki were very much involved with this whole dungeon war, functioning as Frost’s eyes and ears, greatly reducing the burden on him.

Maya however after making them (and herself) some snacks and drinks returned to lazily lying on the sofa, silent as a lamb. She was forbidden from taking part under Dark’s restrictions, but she could still give praise or even show the slightest bit of interest but no she hadn’t opened the menu even once. Just lying there trying to catch up on her beauty sleep.