The second floor's theme had been decided upon when she first unlocked the floor. She now had a swamp that she could fill with goblins and brownies for her inn and tavern. However, that didn't mean she had to stop there. During the downtime she had to plan things for the dungeon, Veronica tried to consider interesting ways to differentiate the second-floor hotel from the first, to make it more interesting.

Now, she was hardly an expert on such matters, but she had also studied some basic geography in college as well as learned a bit about various countries in her international cooking classes. One of the things she was aware of was the fact that Indonesia was known for having swampland. It wasn't exactly the largest swampland in the world as there was supposedly one that spanned across two countries, something Veronica had never bothered to look further into. However, Indonesia was another Asian country, which would allow it to be similar enough to still feel familiar and comfortable to the Elven people of Rosefall Empire, based on what she had seen of their tributes.

There was, of course, also the matter of obtaining the ingredients she would need to prepare the menu and the building materials to create furniture for the tavern side. That had put a bit of a damper on her enthusiasm after she had realized just how long she had to wait before she'd be getting any new tributes. She couldn't actually start on the second-floor inn and tavern side until after she received the materials she needed to do so. Well, some things were possible, but others not as much. So, she decided to focus on the dungeon half first.

Veronica wasn't exactly overly creative and she found comfort in reusing a layout that she knew worked, so she chose to reuse the one she had used on the first floor. However, instead of the stairs to the next floor being at the back of the dungeon, they were now overtop of where the entrance on the first floor was. This made it so she had to flip the layout to its mirror opposite. The second-floor boss room had to be at the front of the dungeon instead of the back and the first challenge room had to be in the backmost corner instead of the frontmost one.

Of course, in the process of setting up the empty 'rooms' Veronica had also discovered that Seraphina was right to call her dungeon an open floorplan hybrid dungeon. Where the first floor had walls of sorts made from trees, even if adventurers could cut them down, the swamp had nothing but water separating landmasses. A small bit of land connected each landmass wherever she designated a door as belonging and deep water surrounded each landmass where there would normally have been trees. It was even to the point of the size she had designated each room to be being reduced in order for the islands to appear more rounded and less uniformly rectangular in shape.

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It felt a bit ridiculous, but any adventurer who could swim could easily swim from the entrance of the second-floor dungeon to the exit. The only door she could lock was going to be for the boss room, which meant they'd only have to defeat the boss [Monster] before they could move on to the dungeon core room. Veronica had to wonder if challenge rooms could even be 'locked' on this floor and even more so whether it would be worth it. Would it just temporarily remove the landbridge connecting the islands? Would thorny vines grow to cover the entire island, similar to how the entrance had been closed on the first floor? It was hard to say, but it certainly seemed like it would be a waste either way.

Veronica couldn't help but feel her heart sink when she first discovered it and she was still feeling rather down about it all. She had been so hopeful that this floor could prove useful as an extra layer of protection between her and adventurers like Bo who thought of her as just another dungeon entity to defeat in the process of conquering her dungeon. She didn't even understand why he was being so cruel! Did he get some sort of experience bonus for killing her or was it just some sort of sick pleasure he couldn't help but indulge in? She wasn't sure the brute of a man would ever give her a satisfactory answer, so she certainly wasn't going to bother asking.

While it had taken far longer to complete the layout for the second floor than she would have liked, Veronica was just happy to see some progress. It meant she hadn't wasted all of this time for nothing. As it was, she had to dispose of nearly all of the ingredients she had prepared for the first-floor tavern. Just because something was made with dungeon magic didn't prevent the passage of time from causing it all to rot. Some things could sit for over a year without a problem, like flour or the drink, but there was no preserving fresh puffball mushroom slices and ground boar meat. Even her efforts to try and eat some of the dishes as she practiced cooking them, in the beginning, didn't do much to make a dent in it all. Mostly, it just served to kill time and increase her cooking abilities enough that she was more confident in preparing the menu.

As adventurers began to trickle into the dungeon, Veronica smiled. She'd finally be able to make some progress! In preparation for their return, she had actually added a corkboard to the tavern and inn wall. She planned to write a list of materials she needed for the second floor on some paper and pin it to the board for all to see. Listing off their value in points so they could see they were worth more than a single point each would ensure that there was something to entice them into cooperating with her. If that didn't prove to be enough, she'd consider offering some sort of extra bonus for them. Even if the dungeon wouldn't give her extra dungeon points, that didn't mean she couldn't give away a few extra dishes to reach her goals, after all.

Veronica could already feel the excitement bubbling up as she headed over to the [Staff Elevator]. She would wait for Elora and Eldrin to arrive in the first-floor reception room. Hopefully, they showed up quickly as she was excited to get started on her new plans for the dungeon now that she'd have the resources to fund it!