After the entryway I create a giant 80m x 80m x 80m room. For my first official room on the fifth floor, I create a giant forest. I make sure to vairy the terrain such that it's not all smooth grass. Going so far as to add broken tree limbs, fallen trees, and other detritus normally found in a forest. Then I add a bunch of rabbits, chickens, and squirrels to hunt. That should give them a good supply of meat. I don't bother placing any traps in this room. Instead, I want delvers to progress past this room without spending literal days looking for traps. They probably will anyway because, at this point they've been trained to always be on guard for traps.
After that I populate the floor with a thousand level 20 wood golems. With a floor this big that should be a population density just high enough to keep delvers from relaxing completely. Especially considering they should be obsidian rank by now. I disguise the walls as an impassable assortment of half fallen tree trunks and tree branches. It's far from perfect but it's better than a random wall in the middle of the forest for no reason. I also put in several species of birds and insects to bring the forest to life. One species I specifically make a point to add is the honeybee. For the finishing touches I add the skybox.
The one big problem which is also the same old problem is cost. Along with a dramatic increase in size comes a dramatic increase in cost. Fortunately, it also takes a while to plan out and then fill each room. Especially when you're trying to make sure encounters are spread out enough, so delvers never get bored while also never being overwhelmed. Sure, they still need to fight to make any progress but never more than two, maybe three, at a time. Even with the extra time it takes to build each room and even counting the fact that my mana generation on the first two floors has dramatically increased lately I still find myself having to wait sometimes weeks between rooms.
The next room I place Is another giant room. This one however I decide to make into a giant grassland area. This is where I decide to finally add a few flyers. I still can't afford dragons, which is fine because when I do introduce them, I want them to be worthy of the name dragon and obsidian rank isn't nearly high enough to let them truly shine. Instead, I choose griffons. This may seem like an odd choice for my first flying mob. Admittedly it was a bit expensive though still leagues cheaper than a dragon. The main reason I chose it as my first flying mob is that while it does have the divebomb skill where it flies straight down from the sky onto an unsuspecting opponent, it primarily engages in combat while on or near the ground.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
I don't go overboard with the griffons. I spawn in one hundred level 21 griffons and give them each a sixty-four square meter area to patrol. The last room was an absolute slugfest, so I decided to take it easy on them in this room. Also, it's the first time introducing flying enemies, so I don't want to overwhelm them. Like with anything else I plan to slowly ease delvers into it. To add to the atmosphere, I even add a few crop fields. Making sure to make it seem as if the fields were abandoned years ago. I even splurge on a village ruins theme so that I can add a destroyed house aside from the farmhouse. As for the wall I disguise it as a normal rock wall built by whoever used to live here. The hard part was making it appear aged and weathered while also appearing sturdy enough that nobody tries to force their way through it. Not that they could I mean it is dungeon stone disguised as a normal stone wall after all. It's just too bad that I'm required to put a hallway between each room that is at least a meter in length.
Meanwhile outside the dungeon, Cole POV.
"You can't be serious? You still want to go delving even knowing that Lily is carrying your child?"
"Not really." replies Clyde "But you try talking her out of it. Besides this dungeon has a much lower mortality rate than any other dungeon on record. Plus, it's not like we don't know what to expect. I do draw the line at facing the third-floor boss though. Especially given that is should be obsidian rank seeing as the dungeon has a tendency to push the bosses level as high as it can."
"While the mortality rate is low it still isn't zero. I suppose I should be grateful we aren't going to be fighting the boss. At the same time, I have to point out that we can't be everywhere, and all it takes is one attack getting through. You do realize that chest and abdomen wounds are the second most common aside from wounds to the arms, don't you?"
"I didn't actually." He says for once looking like he is seriously reconsidering.
"It makes sense though considering wolves make up a significant portion of the mobs so far." Darrel says while motioning towards something in the distance.
Looking to see what he is point out we spot Lily coming towards us with Chandra and Luna in tow. Knowing Luna, she is trying, and apparently failing, to talk Lily out of delving. "I tried." She says while throwing her hands up in defeat and walking off towards the newly built guild hall. None of us really expected her to succeed in changing Lily's mind but it was still worth a shot. to be honest I'm surprised we got her to agree to only three times a week. She is so stubborn sometimes that I'm seriously starting to wonder if she might actually be part dwarf. Despite the fact that she is a healer, and I know both her parents.
