Dungeon Day 261 to 343 - Continues

  The ending for The Rolling Hills was slightly unusual compared to when Dan wrapped up other areas of his dungeon. This was mainly because of the way the three camps worked. The second and third camps wouldn’t have monsters until the first was defeated, and even then, the monsters from the first camp wouldn’t be so widespread. To make up for this lack of the area's main creatures, Dan had to adjust how monster spawning worked for the zone.

  Not only that, but he had to make sure that the entire thing worked like he wanted. As such, Dan spent time working with the zone and checking that the various nodes spawned monsters properly. He also had to make sure that each area of The Rolling Hills triggered properly, which meant conducting a raid against his own monsters with his own monsters.

  Once he had established that the camps worked properly, he reset the zone and left the first camp with its monster roaming about. Additionally, he had made sure to check that normal beast spawn nodes were omitted at the correct times. This meant that when the first camp was active, the area where the other two camps were would have more nonhumanoid monsters. Of course, reversing that, Dan had to make sure that when camp two was active, the nodes in camp one would activate. The entire thing was a way to ensure an area of the map didn’t suddenly find itself thin on creatures to fight. Even more important, all other non-humanoid creatures in The Rolling Hills would be in the lower tiers of powers. The reason behind this decision was simple. Dan didn’t want to overwhelm adventurers.

  Dan already knew the camps and their inhabitants would be a challenge, so the last thing he wanted to do was burn out adventurers by having them fight beasts that were more powerful than usual. This wasn’t to say there wouldn’t be beast bosses or mini-bosses, just that their spawn would be more controlled and localized.

  After checking to make sure the hills were working as intended, which also involved item creation, drop rates, and other such things, Dan finally moved on to begin work on the final area of his dungeon.

  Dungeon Day 344 to 462

  Dan wasn’t sure what to call the gnoll and kobold area. He had thought of naming it after one or the other but didn’t want to play favorites, and it helped that they would each be able to gain their own unique name depending on the final result of their zone. So, until then, Dan decided to call the area The Rocky Caves. It was a bit silly, but he felt the name fit.

  The Rocky Caves would work in a united form like the druid and tainted area, except even more so. However, before Dan got anywhere near started on the dungeonfication of the area, he had to properly deal with the gnolls. They had been mostly left alone, and with the aid of his beasts, the tribe had never been able to truly push against the kobolds. Of course, the problem was that if Dan claimed the lands of the gnolls, the event that was constantly sending invaders against him would end. And naturally, that was something Dan didn’t want. Luckily, after The Beast Lands, Dan had thought of how to deal with the issue.

  Dan was going to abuse a loophole.

  The event that was currently active would only end when he conquered all of the factions in the entire dungeon floor. To count a faction as conquered, they needed to surrender or be eliminated. There were a few other key details involved in the entire process, but those were the main important points. So, the question was, what if Dan conquered the zone without actually conquering it?

  To accomplish his plan, Dan first spent incredible amounts of mana claiming the gnoll's land the hard way. He claimed pretty much all of the lands except a couple of hundred feet he left near the mists. That way, technically, he didn’t control the land just yet. It was one of those things he could always do, but due to the cost and intervention of a certain goddess, he was restrained from doing so, in order to not cheese everything. However, now the goddess didn’t care since the dungeon conquering had come to an end after he defeated the damn goblins.

  After claiming most of the land, Dan promptly opened holes under every gnoll in the gnoll area and trapped them underground. Surrounded by stone as they were and without any real power, the gnolls were helpless. From there, Dan would give them food every so often to keep them alive, but not before sending some worms and moles to quickly eliminate a couple of them so he could gain their blueprints. So, with the gnolls safely tucked away, the event still active, new blueprints, and pretty much most of the area under his control, Dan began to work.

  Like always, it began with dealing with the integration of the area's current inhabitants. Dan spent quite some time properly adding the many kobolds into the fold. In complete honesty, Dan didn’t want to change too much about the kobold warren, and he mostly left as it was. The various kobolds, which were now proper npcs, would also be mostly left alone to continue whatever it is they did in their day-to-day lives.

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Of course, Dan did intervene in many, many situations as he carefully did the job that Merlin was doing in various other areas. This meant making sure basic items respawned when used, as well as examining each kobold to get a measure of who they were and what they did. The process was somewhat time-consuming but not too bad with the help of the system, and eventually, Dan had reprogrammed all the kobolds and their various tasks so they could effectively live their lives while maintaining the same status quo within the warren.

  Once he had properly gotten the warren working as he intended, Dan went through adding the various basic quests that adventurers could gain from the average kobold citizen. These quests were much like those found in the village and extended from gathering supplies both under and above ground, performing escort quests, eliminating monsters, or even helping within the warren’s hatchery. These quests weren’t essential for adventurers to do but simply extra things they could do to spend their time while gaining other rewards.

  The rewards from the quests wouldn’t be anything too special and would vary from basic magical items to increasing the reputation with vendors or npcs. It was something Dan had gone back and revisited across his entire dungeon to make sure adventurers had reasons to do other quests for a chance to unlock other quest chains that would, in turn, give better rewards.

  Going through the warren once more, Dan expanded certain areas and moved various spots around to accommodate future adventurers and the increase in the number of kobolds that were coming. During this, he also visited the gnoll's cave system and effectively did the same.

  The gnoll's area would greatly differ from the kobolds because they simply didn’t have the same priorities as the kobolds. Where the kobolds were much more civilized, the gnolls were a more tribal folk, and the fact they had no access to earthen magic made it so their caves were much more messy.

  Throughout the gnoll's smaller cave system, there were various makeshift tents or piles of stuff that Dan assumed the gnolls used to mark their particular spots. There were weapons, armor pieces, and a variety of other junk strewn about. More importantly, there were blood splatters in random areas and clear indications that the gnolls fought amongst themselves almost as much as they fought against the kobolds. Still, it was clear that they didn’t fight to the death since Dan didn’t find many bodies.

  Dan didn’t plan to change the gnolls much. He liked the vibe they gave as barbarians who care more about fighting and hoarding than anything else. Well, he didn’t actually like such behavior and preferred a more civilized approach, but he knew it was good to have variety and was planning to lean further into the tribal nature of the gnolls. So, as he went about cleaning up the place, he also remodeled the gnoll cave into a proper camp by creating actual tents, weapon racks, barrels of food and liquor, as well as actual campsite areas. Dan wanted to give the gnolls a tribal feel but not the chaotic mess they had been, and instead a proper war-like tribe.

  Where the kobolds were a united civilized society that worked together for a common goal, the gnolls would be the war-like barbaric folk. Dan was deviating even further from actual gnoll society, which was actually a nomadic scavenger-like society. Though honestly, he wasn’t deviating too much. The gnolls in Dan’s dungeon had already deviated from the norm by establishing themselves in the cave and warring against the kobolds. However, from what Dan understood, that only happened when a powerful leader came about and united a large number of gnolls under their banner.

  Still, for what Dan was going for, the gnolls would offer adventurers a different atmosphere than most places in the dungeon. Dan had decided to create various small arenas throughout the cave system to be used for gnoll-on-gnoll combat. Of course, it would also be used for adventurer-on-gnoll combat or adventurer-on-adventurer combat. This was because, unlike pretty much any other area in Dan’s dungeon, the gnolls would offer quests to adventurers that would have them participate in duels.

  These quests would come in many different styles, from having a gnoll looking to face an opponent in a battle to gnolls losing various gambling games and refusing to pay up. Out of all of the quests, Dan’s favorite would definitely be one where a gnoll straight-up decided that they didn’t like a certain adventurer and ended up insulting their mother just so they could pick a fight. On that note, there would be various gambling games that adventurers would have to learn or ones they already knew. Dan even planned to add stuff like hare and snail racing. And naturally there would be quests that would push adventurers to participate if they weren’t already.

  Other types of quests that would be offered by the gnolls would include things like having friendly killing competitions when battling kobolds. Essentially, seeing who could kill the most kobolds. Another competitive type of quest involved capturing a tower within a certain amount of time.

  At the rare end of the questing area in the gnoll camp would be quests from the few crafters the gnolls had. These quests would involve traveling to other areas, finding interesting materials, or simple collection quests within The Rocky Caves area.

  Feeling like he had done a good job remaking both areas in The Rocky Caves, Dan knew it was time to get started on the arguably much more important work. He needed to properly remake the kobold soldiers and rank them up. Of course, he also needed to spawn a bunch of new gnolls, and even more importantly, he needed to set up the entirety of the zone’s event.