Dungeon of Niflheim

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Establishing the Dungeon

Frost’s loud apology managed to calm Maya down enough to no longer see red. She found herself towering over Frost as he remained prone with his head down. Seeing this made her feel a wave of guilt, if it was her brothers or friends, she wouldn’t but she only just met Frost.

How was he to know of her reverse scale. She promised herself that she would try to change, her fists started to loosen, and her face began to regain colour as she repeatedly a little mantra she used in these situations.

Frost wasn’t able to see this as he was still facing the floor, he still had that cold sweat, and his heart was full of regret. He just met Maya and already wrecked her first impression of him. This standstill lasted for a couple minutes or so. Frost refusing to even look Maya’s way until he received her permission and Maya now fully calmed down staring at Frost with a coy look.

Once the anger had left her body and she could fully take in Frost’s current position she quite enjoyed it. Seeing Frost, who was nearly two metres tall cowering before her little frame gave her a rush of excitement. Even though Maya had features similar to that of a rabbit she was not an innocent one. She licked her lips as if she was looking at a tasty meal, Frost’s enchanting face only added to her desire.

‘Maybe this relationship will work out after all.’ Maya was clearly in the S category. She subconsciously bit her lip as her imagination ran wild. The pain brought her back to reality and allowed her to regain her composure.

‘No Maya what are you thinking, calm down girl there’s a process to these things.... plus, technically you’d be a cradle snatcher.’ Maya shook her head repeatedly at that thought, completely removing her hunger. She released a deep sigh and began to speak.

“You can get up now.” Even though she was still a little reluctant she told Frost to stand up. Frost didn’t hear any anger in her voice, but it wasn’t exactly happy either. Preparing himself for some form of punishment he slowly stood up and faced her.

.....

“First off, I’m the one who should apologise, sorry.” Maya immediately broke into a slight bow which caught Frost by surprise. He was expecting to be the one asking for forgiveness not the other way around, he was even too shocked to notice Maya’s chest bouncing as she bent over.

“Ugh.” Was all he could mutter.

“Sorry for getting angry at you, will you forgive me young master?” Maya stopped bowing and looked directly into Frost’s eyes waiting for answer. She meant what she said, this was her issue and nothing to do with Frost, so she wished to apologise and move on.

Frost received her strong gaze allowing him to regain his thoughts. He instantly felt rather silly considering what just happened and believed he should just acquiesce and accept her apology.

“Only if you’ll forgive me as well partner?” Frost smiled as he said this, he wanted to quickly erase this incident and go back to their earlier relationship. He thrust his hand out towards her.

Maya looked deep into Frost’s eyes and understood his intentions. She smiled in response while reaching out to grasp his hand.

“Agreed, partner.” The two of them smiled towards each other as they shook hands. The atmosphere was back to normal.

“It would probably be easier if we looked at the rest of the status information together.” With the idea being he won’t say something else unnecessary.

“Sounds good,” Maya happily agreed. She moved right next to Frost so they could both read the screen together.

“After the details about you it says that my core type is ice.” Frost didn’t really understand the full extent of what that meant.

“I see, our current location makes a lot of sense in that case.” ‘Glacial mountains’, Frost looked around the cave again. He didn’t see any mountains or ice albeit the cave was very cold. Maya began to answer his queries without him even asking.

“Your core type being ice means that you’ll be adept in anything related to that element and your monsters that you can summon will be ice based. We’re currently located within the Glacial mountain range which is flooded with the ice element making it the perfect place for your dungeon.” They were currently within one of the Glacial mountains near the range’s southern entrance. The closed off cave was simply a hollow recess within the mountain. Outside however the mountains were covered in ice and snow, with blizzards constantly swirling around the upper parts.

“Your skill [One with Ice] should allow you to use ice magic more effectively, plus you should be immune to any ice magic damage. The problem is you’ll probably struggle or be unable to use other elements.”

‘So, I’m a one trick pony.’ Frost could see the advantages of being specialised but also its negatives especially if he went against someone with fire magic. He’d probably melt if the fire was strong enough. He didn’t feel disappointed though, he’d just have to think outside the box to tackle such issues and have fun doing so. Frost smiled as he thought about what ice could do. Maya herself was mostly ice based but wasn’t solely attached to it. Seeing Frost smile and the passionate look in his eyes made her intrigued.

“What’re you thinking about young master?” She coyly asked while licking her upper lip.

“Wondering if I could freeze fire.” Frost knew that certain elements had direct weaknesses like his ice to fire and fire’s to water but he couldn’t shake this feeling. He wanted to try it, freezing fire.

“Eh!” Maya was shocked. He hasn’t even learned any ice magic, yet he wants to do something impossible. Talk about ballsy or simply foolish. Maya shook her head deciding to ignore what she just heard.

“Moving on, looks like we’ve got 15,000 dungeon points to play around with... that should be more than enough to outfit an entire floor.” Maya nodded and calculated a little with her fingers as she processed how to spend the DP. She read the guidebook prior to Frost’s arrival so she knew a little bit about how much the starter items would cost. Frost however was quite puzzled by the figure; Dark had summoned a goblin in front of him earlier which cost a measly 30DP and he had enough for 500 of them. His thoughts were interrupted by Maya clapping.

“Yosh! Now that we know a little more about you, we should get this show the road.” Maya rubbed her hands together in anticipation. She turned to look at Frost, her eyes wide and sparkling like a child in a candy store. Her expression lit a fire in Frost as well, his hands started to quiver in expectation.

“What do I need to do?” He stepped towards the core in preparation.

“Hahaha perfect, place your hand on the core and proclaim ‘deploy'” Maya’s eyes swept upward at Frost’s pre-emptive movement. Frost followed her instructions placing his still shaking hands on the floating core. He took a deep breath and loudly said.

“Deploy,” once he spoke the status screen disappeared and the orb started to rotate and glow. It continued to rotate faster and glow brighter over the next few seconds before emitting and incredible flash, obscuring Frost and Maya’s vision.

“Ah!”

“What the!” Frost and Maya both shouted as a strong gravitational force started pulling them into the orb without warning. The force was too strong to resist, and they were quickly sucked in.

Space distorted and Frost and Maya suddenly appeared standing in a white room decorated with some simple furniture. The Dungeon core was also floating in the centre. Frost and Maya both patted down their bodies subconsciously, making sure everything was there before turning to face one another.

“What the hell was that?” Frost asked while still quite panicked

“I...I don’t know exactly, some sort of space magic?” Maya was also in the dark about the situation. She responded by pulling the guidebook out to see if she missed anything. Frost while waiting for an answer decided to look around to calm his nerves. The room itself was a bit bigger than the cave maybe 70m2. The walls were a bright white or silver colour that made it seem more spacious. He could see simple items of furniture like tables, chairs, sofa, a kitchen area and even a couple of beds with a dividing wall. Ignoring the method that brought them here it was quite a nice little space.

“Ah! Found it,” announced Maya with a degree of irritation in her voice. She almost mumbled out some coarse language on instinct. Frost turned around towards her.

“What is this place then?”

“Haaaaaa, come look at this.” She let out a deep sigh and presented the open page towards Frost. Frost moved closer to read the text. All he could see was the same instructions that Maya gave him as well as a few tips on what to explain, nothing about their current situation. He looked towards Maya in confusion.

“Haaaaaaaaa, look at the bottom of the page in very small text.” She let out an even deeper sigh this time. Frost looked at the very bottom of the page and there in very, very small text.

‘P.S once the Dungeon core has been deployed all beings will be sucked into the dungeon’s private space to allow dungeon creation.’ 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝒆𝘸𝚎𝙗𝒏oν𝙚𝘭.𝐜𝒐m

The text looked as though it was scribbled last minute like Dark forgot about it until the very end. Once he read that he couldn’t even get angry, in fact he started laughing. He easily imagined his father rushing to complete this guidebook with a half assed approach. Missing out some key details that in fairness probably wouldn’t harm him but would definitely be noticed. Maya also started laughing, neither of them were harmed just a little surprised.

“So, this is my so-called private space.” The room certainly had all the necessary facilities to live in and relax.

“Yeah, looks like it.” Maya wondered over to the kitchen area, noticing a few magic appliances; some sort of oven, a kettle, and a hotplate.

“The size isn’t much but having somewhere comfortable like this out with the dungeon will come in handy.” Since the dungeon core was floating in the centre of the room they could manage and view the dungeon from here. The space was more of a control room or hub than a private space, just outfitted with furniture.

“Can we expand or change things within this space at all?” The room would be fine for a short while but prolonged time in such close quarters could cause friction to build up between the two of them.

“I don’t see why not; it should be just another part of the dungeon. If we use DP, we should be able to add stuff.” While answering, Maya was already playing around with the kettle, boiling some water to make tea of which was pre-stocked in an overhead cupboard. Frost hoped that it was the same tea Dark prepared for him earlier, so he patiently waited. He took a seat at the table happily watching Maya act like a housewife.

A few minutes later the tea was ready, Maya carefully carried the two mugs over to the table, she handed one of them to Frost before taking a seat opposite him.

“Thanks” Frost gratefully accepted the tea. He smelled the aroma before blowing and taking a sip. It was clearly different from the tea his father prepared but tasty none the less. Instead of green tea it was a fruit tea, lemon to be exact.

“You’re welcome” Maya smiled and took a sip of her cup releasing a light hum as she tasted the lemon.

“Pretty good stuff.”

“Yeah, a nice bonus from the old man.” Maya giggled when he said that.

“What’s next?” Frost asked as his gaze turned to the floating orb.

“We can now start spending that 15,000DP you were given.” Maya downed the rest of her tea before standing up and briskly walking towards the core. Frost followed suit.

“Dark God-sama should have showed you how to do this part at least.” Frost nodded; Dark showed him how to summon monsters from the menu, but he’d seen some of the other sections as Dark was flipping through. He placed his hand on the core causing it to react. Without needing to say a command word the core displayed the dungeon menu. The menu shown was divided into different sections such as monsters, design, traps etc...

“First we need to see what we’re working with.” Maya shoved her way next to Frost gaining control of the menu. She entered the dungeon design section before stepping back. Like with Dark the dungeon menu drastically changed, it was now 3D and showed a single floor dungeon with three blank sections floating above the core.

A blank slate, three empty rooms of equal sizes and nothing else.