Dungeon of Niflheim

“Lady Lola welcome back.”

“Sir Sam how did the hunting go?” Many bright eyed young soldiers pestered the husband and wife as they entered, eager to catch their eyes. The fact that Lola’s father had fallen ill, and that Lola and Sam had left to retrieve a C-rank magic core wasn’t known to everyone. The young soldiers simply thought that they were returning from a regular quest. Only the commander and vice commanders of the vanguard defence force were in the know.

Hearing the clamouring and fervent voices of their subordinates the three officers exited their barracks and when their eyes laid upon Sam and Lola a hope was kindled. Seeing their hopeful expressions Lola simply nodded their way, causing a wave of relief to wash over their bodies. One vice commander went weak in the legs and muttered “thank the gods” over and over while the commander performed a determined military salute. The final vice commander moved to disperse the doe eyed young soldiers so that Lola and Sam could get through and see to the mayor’s health.

Only once he arrived and yelled for his soldiers to get back to work did he see Frost. ‘Hmmm a young elf, never seen him before.’ The vice commander had met a lot of people thanks to his work, but he didn’t recognise Frost in the slightest. He came in with Lola and Sam, so he assumed that it was one of their usual adventurer friends.

“This is?” He asked inquisitively, even though Frost came in with Sam and Lola he needed perform the usual checks. If they just let anyone in without examination it could cause unrest within the enclave.

Sam wrapped his muscular arm round Frost and dragged him before the vice commander. “This is Frost, mine and Lola’s new student and also the one that helped with the hunt.” Sam introduced Frost with a bright smile, his close intimate actions revealing the level of trust he had in him.

“Ah!” the vice commander looked at Frost in surprise, not expecting someone so young to be able to help in hunting a C-rank monster. ‘Guess you can’t judge a book by its cover,’ the vice commander dropped his misconceptions as he showed Frost a grateful smile. “Is that so, thank you Sir Frost and welcome to Kranor, I hope you enjoy our little enclave.” The vice commander gave a respectful bow to the three before taking it on himself to lead them into the former monster lair.

The commander and other vice commander went to work reorganising the soldiers with more oomph and gusto than usual which the young soldiers found odd but obeyed none the less.

.....

As the vice commander guided them into Kranor, Sam began telling Frost a little more about the place now that they were here in person.

“Kranor is built within a monster lair that used to be 9 floors deep with rather hospitable environments that still exist today, though they are less impactful without the constant flow of mana and the lair doesn’t repair itself.” As Sam spoke the group entered into the first section and Frost was stunned by what he saw. The fact that this was once a monster lair was hard to believe. It looked very similar to the open plains surrounding Furano and was dotted with hundreds of man-made buildings with hundreds of people going about their regular lives. It was veritable town built within.

“The floors within Kranor all tend to have this fairly open plain like environment, with a few alterations. Throughout Kranor the weather is mild, far more pleasant than the glacial mountains plus the flow of night and day is the same as outside. Here in the first floor in each section, we have a town that spans the majority of the area. And They mainly hold our military infrastructure given the proximity to the entrance as well as tradesmen and their workshops. A very business-like floor, very popular with outside merchants and visiting adventurers. The shop that made my great sword can be found in the second town; I’ll take you there later if you want.”

“The second floor contains the government buildings, offices, inns and a few restaurants whereas the third and fourth floor are residential based, having houses, flats, villas as well as restaurants, markets, simply shops, bathhouses and also schools. We grow a lot of safe but not edible plants and trees on those floors as well to give a much cleaner living environment. There’s also some caves and rock formations as well as natural pools of water that make for great play areas on the fourth floor.” Sam continued to describe the layout of Kranor as the vice commander led them to the government district. They didn’t enter any of the towns, passing right by them. As they travelled the warm weather started to be more clear, Lola could finally remove her oversized fur coat and finally reveal her oversized ass that her husband loved to ogle which he did without the slightest shame. It took him a few seconds to regain his composure and continue explaining Kranor to Frost.

“The fifth floor is mainly geared towards adults containing brothels, bars, inns and other adult oriented shops, plus there’s breweries and a couple quarries where we dig into the mountain for stone and metal.” Though a great many buildings were made of ice in Kranor many were also stone and or wood based.

“Finally, the sixth and seventh floor are fully dedicated to agriculture and farming since there are the most expansive and have many natural water springs to support farm life. We grow a lot of crops on these two floors with room for more fields but just not the seeds nor the workers to support it. In terms of regular meat, we raise chickens and pigs plus a small variety of fish. But water is rather scarce in that regard making it a small project. To subsidise the lacking amount of meat the military sends out frequent hunting parties and we put up quests for our own adventurers. The last two floors are still bare, going unused for the time being.” Frost was blown away by the degree of infrastructure here in Kranor, it was even larger and heavy duty than Furano (the town not the entire county).

He couldn’t help but be impressed, if he got the chance he’d like to tour each and every floor and learn from them, especially the farming floors that contained their crops, plants, trees, and wildlife. Whether or not his dungeon could support non-dungeon spawned life heavily relied upon his ability to produce food. Though in his case it would be a lot easier since he could alter the floors and rooms anyway imaginable. For instance, Kranor lacked large bodies of water that could support large amount of fish, Frost didn’t have such a problem. With a splash of DP, he could even make an underwater room if need be.

He did however get a much better understanding of regular life within as he observed the goings on in Kranor as well as Sam’s and occasionally Lola’s detailed explanations. Frost even started to think of ways in which he would improve the place or how he would go about dealing with such problems if he was faced with them. As long as he could get a solid future proof layout he could escape a great many pitfalls. Once the area was already established it would be much harder to change it. That’s why a great many towns and cities become cramped and inefficient in their layouts, even Furano had areas like that. Kranor however was quite well designed in his opinion, with each floor being assigned its own purpose with little overlapping. The more prosperous and traffic heavy areas were also nearer to the top, making the travel to such areas quite easy. Bar of course the 5th floor that was mainly for adult entertainment. That may have been better on higher floors given the obvious pull it would have but then kids would have to pass through it whenever they wished to go up. Lots of little details like this went into future planning and it was stuff like this that really interested Frost as well as gave him a headache.

The desire to make something perfect without fault was strong and caused him a great deal of worry since he considered himself a bit of a perfectionist. Now however he understood that there was likely no perfect system or layout just bad ones. Every choice will have some drawback it’s finding out which ones can be allowed, and which can’t. In terms of establishing a simple camp this didn’t matter too much but if Frost wished to embark down the route of town, city, county and then even a country it certainly would. He needed vast amounts of knowledge and experience, far more than what he currently had or what one person could really provide. Skilled assistants would be needed.