“The people living in this continent are some of the most creative you could find anywhere. Give them a pit full of water on the ground and they will find ways to make use of it for themselves, I tell you.” - Supposed boast by an Alcidean to the first visitor from Ur-Teros to land upon Alcidean soil.

“They sure made quite a bit of development since we were last here, Miss Aideen,” said Celia as she looked around at the small town oh so creatively named Südersee, old dwarven for ‘South of the Lake’.

The town was built on the southern shore of the crater now commonly called the “Great Gorge” or the “Crater Lake” by the locals, formed by the perfectly circular gap caused by the incident over a century ago. The resultant crater had been filled with water and turned into a deep lake by this point of time, and given how the town was built around the docks and port facilities, it was clearly not a recent development.

Like most of the topside regions, the inhabitants of the town were mostly therians, with a greater number of water-dwelling and amphibian breeds, which was to be expected given the proximity to the lake. There were a few dwarves who were typically on more supervisory roles, the rare cases that liked living topside, but for the most part, the town was left to the therians and other settlers to manage on their own.

As long as what they did caused no trouble for the Kingdom Down Under as a whole, they were left on their own to do whatever they wanted, pretty much.

It was a very hands-free method of ruling, but given the separation between those living above and below the ground, it was a system that worked out pretty well, especially since neither side had reason to envy the other. Those who lived on the topside were still considered vassals to the dwarves living underground and paid taxes, but they also received a home and protection in return, which was just about all they would ask for.

Those who lived on the topside typically paid their dues in produce rather than coin, as they delivered grains and vegetables that they cultivated on the fertile areas above ground to the underground Kingdom. Since the taxes still left plenty for the therians living above to survive on with excess to trade, they also formed trading relationships with their neighbors and even merchants from other nations.

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The ban on foreigners only applied to the underground regions, at least for the past few generations.

Other than the therians, small clusters of merfolks apparently lived in the Crater Lake as well. They had been “invited” there to help cultivate fish in the newly formed lake some time after Aideen had left the Kingdom Down Under back then. The merfolk who took the invitation brought the necessary seeds to grow various kinds of underwater plants as well as starting stock for several kinds of fish and other sea creatures.

Now that nearly a century had gone into the project, the plants and creatures that the merfolk once had to cultivate with care to ensure that they would be able to adapt to the local conditions already thrived. The lake was rife with several kinds of fish and aquatic plants, while shellfish like barnacles and oysters latched on to the stony walls on the sides of the lake’s rims.

In the first couple decades when the merfolk still cared for and cultivated the aquatic life in the lake, none of the nearby residents took advantage of them and left them alone. After the cultivation reached a point where it was self-perpetuating, however, the merfolk took their hands off and allowed the locals to harvest a limited amount of the grown fish, shellfish, and plants for their consumption.

By the present date, there was no longer any such inhibition, though for the most part, the locals only fished for the matured, larger fish, leaving the smaller ones to grow up and breed the next generation. They did the same thing with the shellfish and plants, which kept the whole lake’s ecosystem stable and sustainable, while at the same time providing the towns with a steady source of food as well.

As for the merfolk who were invited to help grow the lake’s ecosystem, many of them fell in love with the lake after living and caring for it during the years they spent there, and so decided to live there. They formed a small community in the depths of the lake and would occasionally surface by the towns to trade or hang out with their companions.

Of course, one of their favorite pastimes when hanging out on land was to enjoy the various kinds of cooked foods that were not possible to make underwater. Aideen heard that many food lovers amongst merfolk – Ptolodecca had several communities mostly by their shores – primarily went on land for that reason.

After all, cooking underwater was difficult for obvious reasons, and while it was possible to create a room that was enchanted to be free from water, it was a difficult task to say the least, with disproportionate costs if it was meant to be used just for cooking. Instead it was far easier and more affordable to just head over to dry land and enjoy themselves there.

Perhaps due to that reasoning, there were particularly many stalls that sold various types of food near the docks. Naturally, the vendors had not only targeted visiting merfolk, but also the travelers and merchants who came to use the ferries as well. There was a steady stream of such travelers going to and fro for most of the day, as the ferries traveled between the two port towns at a fixed schedule.

Other than food vendors, a large part of the towns were composed of taverns and inns that clearly catered to travelers. The residential districts where the townspeople themselves lived were further off to the sides and further away from the docks or the main road.