Dungeon of Niflheim

The monster stampede was to see thousands of monsters charging out of the Glacial mountains with fervent hunger, feasting upon whatever they laid their eyes on. A newly establish camp would be quickly annihilated by such a horde, therefore the camps would likely be temporary but even temporary the DP would be worth it.

“Once the area around the front of the dungeon is clear I’ll turn it into a new room in preparation.” A new small room only cost 1500DP and since it was already outside, he didn’t need to pay for an environment. The plan in the future would be to have thriving cities actually within the dungeon but that would be far in the future.

“Ok master what about the rest of the 8000DP?”

“I’ll do as you suggested and purchase more monsters, specifically for the magic and ranger corps as well as regenerating treasure chests...oh and I’ll check out pricing for a small blacksmithing workshop so the dwarven smith can utilise his skills.” Frost nodded as he spoke, roughly splitting up the remaining DP into each area, all while bringing up a page that contained features for the dungeon such as blacksmithing workshops. The dwarven smith couldn’t really do much without a proper anvil and furnace after all.

Purchasing all things at once Frost quickly spent slightly under 7000DP. He bought 3 more frost dwarven rune mages, 3 frost dwarven quarrellers, 5 ice flans and 10 frost goblin archers as well as 5 artic foxes. For the treasures chests he bought 3 at 500DP and had them as well as his current ones rotate locations. Unlike spawners these things were quite simple to relocate. There was however a limit on the amount of locations that could be specified, for the 500DP chests he could choose 3 locations, for 1000DP it was 4. That brought him up to around 6000DP the workshop cost 900DP and was pretty simple, nothing more than a 3 wall wooden shack with a basic furnace and iron anvil. He placed it in the in the iron mine room towards the southern edge. The frost dwarven smith had already made the iron mine his home and even helped out in mining some of the ore and was quite content.

After that he teleported to the training room and was greeted with a cute set of grunts. Nanna and Loki were having a hard time fighting against an unarmed ice golem while Maya observed them and commented on their forms.

She looked up towards her young master once he appeared but that was all, she quickly refocused her attention to the children after giving him a suggestion. “Young master experiment with your new magic over there.”

Frost had gotten two new spells from his time at the gathering and was yet to try them out. One of which he already learned [summon ice golem] and the other [freezing touch] he planned to hold onto. It was only a 1st circle spell and wouldn’t improve his strength much, so he decided it may be best to grant it to someone else instead.

.....

He followed Maya’s suggestion and started practising the new spell [summon ice golem]. This was a 3rd circle spell, the highest he learned and was far, far more complicated. It took him an hour to summon a somewhat successful golem. Somewhat as the thing though outfitted with two arms and two legs, they were rather wonky and it only reached a metre tall, hardly worthy of battle. His gaze couldn’t help but drift over to the harsh sounds of combat on the other side of the room. Maya’s golem was simple but perfectly formed, still going strong after repeated rounds of combat. He turned back to look at his failure of a golem and sighed depressingly as he shook his head in dismay. He cancelled the summon and started again.

Thankfully his mana reserves were constantly refilled due to be being present within the dungeon so he could keep trying without requiring much of a break.

Every so often Maya would turn her head to check on his progress and each time she’d have a smile on her face. Who knows if that was a cocky smile from seeing him constantly fail or something else, no one else saw it.

A few days passed and things were beginning to settle down in the dungeon. The adventurers were no longer quite as mad as they were earlier, making more rational decisions thus reducing the amount of deaths in the dungeon. They were all still eager however to venture deep into the second floor, with a bunch of groups successfully retrieving worthwhile treasures and defeating powerful monsters such as the new castes of frost dwarves. By killing a rune mage for example, the party retrieved its rune hammer staff as well as its robes, quite a decent haul. Monsters such as frost dwarves couldn’t really be eaten or skinned, a bit too awkward given their resemblance to sapient dwarves plus just as poor tasting as some braver people announced.

Frost managed to successfully purchase the area outside of the dungeon during the middle of the night. Now the first step for long term tenants was underway and not a moment too soon. While he was having a training session with Maya the communication locket that he always wore round his neck started to glow and ring, indicating that he was receiving a call.

Placing his hands up to stop Maya from her devasting blow to his handsome face he stepped back and picked up.

“Frost is that you Lad?” A deep voice spoke from the locket.

“Bastion yes it’s me, good to hear your voice.” Bastion was on the end of the call. So far only Leo and Luna had contacted him, so this was a pleasant surprise. He didn’t hold it against the guild master for not calling sooner since he knew that he’d be really busy considering the aftermath of Adam and the looming threat of the monster stampede.

“You too lad, you too....well before I get into the nitty gritty how have you been? You, the kids and that fine young woman of yours make it back home safely?” Bastion smiled on the other end of the line and decided to make some small talk before going right into why he called.

“We’ve been great guild master, all of us made it home safely...Maya too she says hello by the way. What about you?”

“Haaaaaaaa busy would be an understatement lad but we’re getting there. The problems caused by Adam are swiftly being taken care of and Ryuu and Douglas have been arranging for the frost wolf battalion to come and aid us in the monster stampede whenever that comes to pass haaaaaaa.” Bastion couldn’t help but sigh again, the monster stampede was more than overdue, and history showed that that was never a good sign. But he tried to lighten the mood with his next topic “Did you hear about the good news from Leo yet?”

“You’ll have to be more specific.” Frost and Leo ended up chatting every couple days and lots of news was shared between them.

“About Douglas and Cassandra trying for another child hahahhaah, I can’t believe the old man could still get it up hahahahhhaha.” Bastion started laughing like crazy. He was happy for his long-time friend and every time Leo would come into the office with a warped expression, he couldn’t help but rip into the lad about the good old days of when he and the boys were young and able -though in this case Douglas seems to be still capable given the frequency of their activities. Leo would always blush from his cheeks to his shoulders and beg him to not say another word. However once Leo left, Bastion would always feel melancholy and jealous. He missed his wife and hadn’t dated anyone since her passing, perhaps with Douglas and Cassandra showing that they still had it in them he should try dipping his feet into the dating pool. Maybe Ryuu and him could be each other’s wingmen.

Frost had to stifle a laughter as he remembered Leo’s grimace when he brought it up a few days ago. Maya however behind him couldn’t help but blush when she heard Bastion raucous voice, slinking out of sight as she held her burning cheeks and let her imagination run wild. She’d been much less resistant too notions of romance and intimacy since hers and Frost’s moment.

“Cough cough yes Leo mentioned their....activities.” His face twitched as he spoke, struggling to not join Bastion in laughing but he couldn’t really laugh given that deep down he was jealous.

“....Hopefully they’re successful,” eventually after a moment of quiet, Bastion gave his honest feelings.

“Yeah, that’d be good news.” Frost agreed wholeheartedly. “Well then what did the super busy guild master of Furano call for, it must be important?”

The atmosphere suddenly changed, even though it was a chat through a magic device the air turned serious. Bastion was no longer joking and had quite a stern expression in his office.

“It’s about the monster lair you explored”