Two days ago in the negotiation chamber as the negotiations were concluding.

I updated the display in the negotiation chamber to read, “We are all agreed, we will adjourn for now, the changes needed for the kobolds will take until dusk the day after tomorrow. During that time, I will also construct living quarters for the group staying behind.” I figured that 53 hours real-time should give me enough time to at least initially provide for the two groups. The living area for the kobolds was going to require a fair amount of rework of my existing dungeon space, whereas the living are for the group remaining behind from Felipe’s group would be all new construction.

Additionally, I was going to need to plan a fair amount better for the additional construction I wanted to undertake, beyond building out a new, longer term set of motel style rooms and amenities, for the wizard and his friends. A major consideration for all this change was going to be limiting biological and for the lack of better description spiritual contamination of the new spaces, that was going to be easier said than done, but the easiest way to preventspiritual contamination of the new spaces was simply to pull my presence completely out of the space. However, the kobolds needs for their young wasn’t going to allow me to completely remove myself, so there was that additional complication.

I started my demolition session with the removal of all my existing dungeon test areas and my existing bunkroom, leaving only my hidden subfloor spiked roller trap, that I will leave to use for defending the kobolds living space, in addition to some new physical barriers I planned to put in place. It took a few hours real-time for me to clear everything out, leaving me with a cavern some 30 meters wide, 50 meters deep and 6 meters high, although this was a decent sized cavern, it wasn’t really enough to support a long term growing population of kobolds. As such, I decided the first step, now that I had this cavern, was to expand it to 150 meters wide, and 500 meters deep, for now 6 meters was sufficient height for even the ogre to not to worry about head-room. I centered the newly widened cavern on the main entryway, which I kept, as it had the spiked roller trap beneath it, and provided me with a small sense of continuity for the construction.

I walled off the last 25 meters of the expanded cavern, leaving a 4 meter tall and wide door centered along the wall opposite the main entrance. My intent for this space would be for their ogre to herd sheep, and as a living space for their current ogre, and possibly several more. In the center of the main cavern I placed a 4 meter diameter circular fountain, with several meters of slightly indented floor leading to a drain at the base of the fountain. On one corner of the square, I built their needed egg chamber, fully insulated, with an airlock style door system, a dedicated air supply and filtration system.

For each half meter cubed individual egg incubator I also included individual climate controls and full audio-video monitoring, the chamber itself was layer out so that no kobold could enter the actual chamber, under normal circumstances, and they would have to receive and deposit their egg into a selected incubator that was delivered to the viewing area via a robotic arm and belt system. All told the egg chamber was 10 meters by 10 meters and went the full floor to ceiling height of 6 meters, the chamber had space for 3000 eggs at a time, which for the moment was a significant amount of overkill, but would mean that I wouldn’t have to build out another such chamber for quite a while. As soon as the chamber was built, I flooded the chamber with my presence, as that was the environment that the kobolds were wanting for their eggs, hopefully it doesn’t cause me too many problems what with the possibility of stillborn.

On another corner of the square containing the fountain, I laid out a 25 meter wide and 70 meter long building, going all the way to the edge of the chamber, the end closest to the side of the chamber I laid out as a cafeteria style kitchen, appropriately scaled down for the kobolds, complete with a walk-in freezer and a large refrigerator, several large ovens, all electric of course, and a wider, induction cooktop like I had had in the bunkroom before I removed everything. I placed 3 levels of somewhat low long tables with low bench seating in the main eating area, stairs, an obligatory elevator, and transparent aluminum windows so that they could see the fountain as they were eating.

On the third corner of the square I built a 50 meter by 50 meter amphitheater that could be used for meetings, announcements and even class lectures, well, I was hopeful about that last. Near the main entrance, just off to one side, I built out a meat receiving area, complete with a reinforced moving walkway system, that I had going through a sterilization system that I built into the underside. The carcasses themselves would be forcefully washed with pressurized water jets and then dried with hot air and subjected to high intensity UV light before ending up in a dedicated building that was to be where the bodies would then be processed. The meat would be placed on hooks and would be automatically taken to the freezer area over by the main kitchen. Getting that setup, such that even a less than literate kobold could do it was a bit tricky, but should be worth it in the end.

The final corner of the square, I dedicated to a 50 meter wide by 70 meter long common work area and attached warehouse, a section of which I laid out as an armory. In both the dining hall and the common work area I included several trash chutes, which in turn led to a waste furnace, and also several large sinks. Hopefully the kobolds don’t find it too hard to figure out the primary usage of large amounts of shelving and rolling ladders, set into grooves on the floor and ceiling. Then again, the kitchen area of the dining hall will probably be quite difficult for them to get used to initially. Most of the rest of the space in the cavern was filled with apartments for the kobolds, 5 meters wide, and deep, by 2 meters tall, stacked three wide and tall, with another set just like it immediately behind. Each set of six apartments had a 1.5 meter wide walkway on the upper levels, and a dedicated set of stairs and an elevator.

Fortunately for me, I made each apartment exactly the same, and that allowed me to cheat somewhat when I was building them out, all told, I ended up making 3,852 three bedroom apartments, each with a small sitting area including a display on one wall, some shelves on another, a dedicated bathing area with a sink, and a separate room with a squatter toilet, much like I had seen incidentally whilst watching a documentary on India, I figured the design would be easier on the kobolds, considering their tails. All told, it took me the better part of 44 hours real-time to finish everything for the kobolds and the ogre, including all the tweaks for amenities, lighting, air conditioning and filtration, plumbing, and grass for the sheep.

For the grass, I had cheated by stealing a patch of meadow on the eastern slope of the mountain, and bringing it down a tunnel to the area before planting it. Back filling that tunnel was an annoyance, but necessary. The wall between the herd area and the main cavern, I made primarily out of transparent aluminum, and styled the lower meter and a half as a simple wall. On one side of the area, I included a set of ogre sized simplified apartments, each 10 meters wide and 10 meters deep and 3 meters tall. Each of the ogre apartments included a dedicated hot bath, similar to Roman style caledarium bath, or to a Japanese onsen in many ways, 75 centimeters deep and 4 meters in diameter. I also built a separate room with an ogre sized western toilet and dedicated sink, for each apartment. Each ogre apartment also had two bedrooms and a simplified wood burning kitchen attached to a dining room, with 3 modern conveniences, an ogre sized sink, refrigerator, and an automatic vent hood, above the kitchen grill area. I definitely didn’t want the ogres to smoke themselves out, that would be annoying.

I included 4 of these 2 bedroom apartments in the herding area, in theory allowing for a maximum ogre population of 12 before additional construction is required. I am not sure that the ogre will fully appreciate having the amenities I have provided, but they are there. Despite the evidence that they can live with kobolds, it is probably safer overall, if they are at least somewhat separate, as is plain from the minders provided to the ogre by the kobolds. Given the number of apartments I have provided, eventually I am going to have to provide additional amenities in an additional space to allow for better quality of life, but hopefully that will be a few years away.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

For the main entryway, I put a half meter thick wall of my favorite blend of aluminum graphene and diamond, immediately behind the sliding trap door for the spiked rollers. The door in the wall, I made a bit distinctive in that it was a dual sliding door that had 10 centimeter tall fingers, 25 centimeters deep, intertwining for the full 2 meter wide gap of the door. When closed the doors were absolutely flush, not showing a single visual flaw, additionally, there were five 5 centimeter diameter holes in each of the door fingers, that when closed allowed the doors to be locked via a mechanism that rose from the floor. Behind the door itself, was a set of switch backs and just before the first switchback 5 meters from the door was a pair of additional doors that acted as airlocks. Those, were not nearly as robust as the main door, but they helped keep the germs out.

All told, when I finished the kobold and ogre area, 44 real-time hours after I started work, I breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief, I now had about 9 hours real-time to finish up the area for my translator wizard and his friends. The quick glance I took at both the kobolds and Felipe’s group, seemed to indicate that everyone was anxiously waiting on me to finish my work, so without further ado, I got back to it. Just behind the end of the pocket canyon where Felipe’s group was encamped, I laid out a rectangular cavern, 15 meters deep by 30 meters wide, by 6 meters tall. In the entryway to the cavern, I place a hidden sliding door at the beginning of the hall, and another at the door to the cavern itself. Near the start of the entryway I placed another hidden sliding door, this one I intended not for my guests, but for any game they hunted themselves, as it was only 1.5 by 1.5 meters in size, and was also a meter off the ground.

Much like the area I had designated for game for the kobolds, this too had a moving walkway style conveyer, in fact this one had three. Each of the conveyers had their underside sterilization system like the one I had for the kobolds, also the second conveyer had a pressure washer and hot air dryer, whereas the third had a high intensity UV sterilization system as well. The conveyers were separated by sliding airlock style doors, not opening until the previous door was closed, or the carcass was cleaned. The conveyers, led to a room attached to what would be the walk-in freezer next to the kitchen area, this room, I made cool, but not freezing and was designed to make processing the carcass easier, with meat hooks and large sinks and floor drains, and a track for the carcass on the meat hook to enter the freezer.

The kitchen area, was similar to what I built for the bunk room initially, although I laid things out slightly differently, from right to left, the walk-in freezer had a refrigerator just outside it, a large 2 meter wide countertop separated the fridge and the induction cooktop. Another 2 meter countertop separated the cooktop and the set of two ovens, although the cooktop itself had an oven immediately underneath it. Unlike the bunk room, I did not include a sink for processing game on the other side of the ovens, this time I included a sink in addition to cabinets to the countertop island that separated the food preparation area from the dining area.

The countertop island was large enough to be used for eating too, so I included a set of bar-stools for the dining room side of the island, the dining room I made large enough to seat Felipe’s entire group for a meal, the main table had 9 seats to a side, and one at either end, I included a smaller four person round table offset from the main table and countertop island, so as to make dining with only four people somewhat less awkward. The entire kitchen and dining area was 8 meters wide and 7 meters deep, the additional 7 meters on the side of the kitchen was for the walk-in freezer and the game preparation area.

I created a main hallway that lead to the dining area, on the eastern side of the hall I put four 4 meter wide by 7 meter deep hotel room style living quarters, each with a bed, desk and separate bath room and a western style toilet room. The 7 meter by 7 meter space just off of the main hallway at the entrance to the new and improved bunk room, I made into a large sitting area, on the other side of the hall in the remaining 5 by 23 meter space, I made in to a large shower and restroom area, containing 10 enclosed toilets, 5 sinks, and 20 showers, with a 5 meter by 5 meter changing room separating the two areas.

For the main sitting area, the main hallway and dining room, I retained the 6 meter ceiling height, but for the rest of the areas, I lowered the ceiling to 3 meters, and leveraged the remaining space for air pumps, water storage and heating, and some miscellaneous electronics. For the kobold area, I had built out a separate room below their cavern to manage all the plumbing, waste disposal and air handling. As I had 7 hours real-time remaining at this point, I started to add some luxuries to the living space of the translator wizard and his friends.

I spent almost 2 hours real-time to add LED displays to all the ceilings and to the eastern wall of the sitting room. I then found a good view of one of the eastern valleys from near the summit of the mountain I was in and set up a full camera array to drive the full detail display I had set in the sitting room wall, it took a while to get the cameras angled just right but the effect was worth it. I placed speakers just behind the surface of the walls of the sitting room, and in the ceilings of the four living quarters and the dining room. Depending on the groups reaction to the sitting room display, I might dedicate some time setting up cameras for the ceiling displays, it should be a really nice effect to have live sky displays setup underground, but who knows if they will freak out in a bad way or not.

It was 1:33 PM and 5 hours before my deadline and I was essentially finished with all my construction for my permanent and temporary residents, I decided to give everything a once over, just to see if I missed anything. Turns out I had, I forgot that the ogres light switches needed to be bigger, more sturdy, and not to mention higher off the ground than the kobold switches. I did keep the kobold switches in the ogre living quarters, but made them mirror each other’s state, so as to not confuse the ogres when a kobold turns a light on or off.

There were a few issues like that in several places in the kobold area, I added a few waste disposal chutes around the main street and two special ones near the herding area, large enough for an ogre if needed, for use when a resident needed to be cremated. Not the happiest of things, but it beats either burying them outside of the cavern, or trying to burn them in the street. It is also significantly better for me, in that if done correctly should preclude the possibility of spiritual contamination that I had seen when something died in an area under my influence.

I still had two hours real-time before my big reveal, all my time critical construction projects were complete at this point, but, as I had alluded to the others during my negotiations with them, I wanted to construct a more accessible dungeon, in a format that was more palatable to them. Additionally I wanted to build a tunnel that would cross the mountain range, hopefully opening up trade and bring additional visitors to visit my dungeon. Of course the problem was that my current location was a good 40 or so days hike from the nearest largish settlement of civilized races, at least according to Felipe and company.

The best thing would be if my dungeon, and my prospective cross mountain range tunnel were closer to that settlement, the problem I have at the moment is, I am not entirely certain what the best place to put the tunnel would be. I could put together a radio controlled drone, but I would have to worry about radio signal attenuation and transmission bandwidth, for the meantime, there is a less complicated solution, an observation balloon going up to about 8 kilometers above the planets mean sea level, should allow me to see just over 300 km distant.

Of course I would need some good lenses for the cameras but it should be doable. A decent size cylindrical helium ballon, and up to eight kilometers of graphene encased fiber optic cable and silver power cable going to four high end cameras, along with a set of temperature sensors at the top and bottom of the balloon. Those should in theory allow me to detect the tropopause, assuming the height of the summit of my mountain is more than 2 km above mean sea level. Earth’s tropopause is generally between 8 and 10ish km above mean sea level, barring weather, the distance at which the balloon crosses the tropopause will help me get an estimate of how high the summit of my mountain is, and will help me get some perspective of the truly tall mountain to my northeast.

As dusk fell, I opened up the living areas for the kobolds, and Felipe’s group, and as they entered, stunned faces on all of them, the kobolds were especially funny in that their jaws were essentially slack. I then launched my helium observation balloon from the summit of my mountain, and 5 kilometers and 54 meters of tether later revealed the lights of a large settlement to my southwest, not to mention the three largish campfires somewhat closer than that, two to my northwest, and one south. That one campfire to the south was going to be an annoyance, I just know it.