After the fight, a lot of things happened.

I for one managed to get enough experience from the fight alone to get up to level 5! Apparently the Greater Scorcher Salamander, as I found out, was like three evolutions higher than the sizzle salamanders we were fighting! I can kind of see why it would be considered strong though. If this dungeon wasn’t built for indirect kills and nullifying fire attacks, it would have been devastating. On the plus side, it gave me enough points to get a regular salamander if I wanted to. I haven’t yet but it's on the top of my mind.

On top of that, I got a new skill during the battle. By combining my other skills and attributes, I learned cold front!

[Cold Front: Creates a sudden chill in the air. Can be effective at lessening or putting out fires.]

And with the level ups, I got two other skills. Bestow power and Elevate. Along with the second floor!

[Bestow Power: Surrender a large amount of mana to give a copy of non dungeon skills to those close to the dungeon.]

[Elevate: Elect a monster to become a boss monster to grant them new powers and forms.]

[Second floor available! 0/2000 mana invested]

I hadn’t been able to afford any use of any skills yet, but I was excited to give some skills to either my clothling or some of my new and improved fishes. Of which, all of my upgraded fish were upgraded again! 8 of the spitters turned into splashers but 2 of them became misters! My bitter became an icebreaker!

[Splasher: a fish monster with some water magic. They are small, hard to hit and the spouts of water they produce can hurt! Although they’re small, don’t underestimate what a school can do! Education’s important!]

[Misters: a cousin to the warmer splashers. While their control over water is weaker, they make up for it with a nasty combination of ice and poisonous skills to cover the air above the waves in a somewhat deadly mist.]

[Icebreaker: a cousin to the dangerous breaker fish. While still retaining its cousin’s defining bone breaking jaw, the icebreaker turns it up to eleven by adding a freezing effect to their teeth. If the first bite doesn’t kill, it's sure to chill!]

That upgrade also improved their size a decent amount. While, aside from the bitter, they weren’t that much different from the nibblers which were the size of minnows, they were now a full foot long! And the icebreaker was a monsterous two feet long whopper of a fish! The nibblers also got in on the action, rather literally, as they, um, celebrated after their rescue, and now there were nearly double the amount of nibblers. In that boom, three of them evolved into another new fish!

[Bernardfish: A merciful fish that saves those drowning in their waters. With healing and minor water breathing magic, they’re a wonder to see.]

They even looked like little st. bernards! With little soggy heads and fishy tails, they were a weirdly adorable combination at about one and a half feet long.

They were busy too, as they attended to the girl and her burns with my clothling, who hadn’t evolved yet. They wrapped her arm and leg in cool kelp, which would work better than bandages when fresh due to magic apparently. Since the salamanders were super fire based, her wounds were considered burns, meaning the kelp’s healing was improved.

With the Bernards dosing her with healing magic and the clothling swapping her bandages, she'd be just fine. She’ll smell like fish for a while but she’ll live. The plan now was to go over the decision for new stuff the system would let me make. Some of the things that were on the list are now gone but new options had taken their place.

[Basic monsters: next unlock at level 10

Spiders

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Slimes

Goblin

Freezerat

Wolf

Dazzle Koi

Craymon

Jellyfish

Shadeling]

[Basic creatures: next unlock at level 10

Pill bugs

Small rat

Fluffy Rabbits

Char

Crayfish

Koi

Harmless jellyfish

Sea angel]

[Basic floria: next unlock at level 10

Common red mushroom

Cave root

Tropic kelp

Common Coral

Common brown mushroom

Common cave flower

Oftengreen

Common Fern

Cold potato]

I was kind of sad to see most of the choices I had been considering last time off the menu but that was whatever. I’m sure I’d be able to get them somewhere else…hopefully.

Kind of cool how the selection seems to lean a lot more into the fish category. [Wet thoughts] must be inflicting this segment hard. Although I’m already pretty sure which ones I’m going to get, I did look at the descriptions for the one I did think about.

[Dazzle koi: a monster version of a koi fish. They are much more colorful than their calico cousins and use that coloring to hypnotize people to drown them. Due to the shallow waters they live in, this tends to be unlikely.]

While I’m sure the dazzle koi would look incredible, I don’t think they’d mesh super well with the style I’m starting to go for with my other picks. Same goes for the oftengreens. I love evergreens though; I’ll be keeping them on my radar for another floor.

The ones I did end up choosing were the jellyfish, sea angels and ferns.

[Jellyfish: while no longer harmless, their only attack is their long poisonous tail. With paralyzing poison and small electrical shocks, those who touch it may have a hard time moving afterwards. They lack brains, so they likely won’t chase enemies down.]

[Sea angels: A very small yet graceful sea slug. They have been described by many as both beautiful yet alien. Their skittish nature and refusal to take bait leaves them a fisherman’s far away dream.]

[Oftengreen: A weaker version of an evergreen. It’s smaller and less resilient to the cold but it is still a wintertime tree.]

Admittedly, these three were just my personal favorites out of the bunch. I loved seeing jellyfish and sea angels in aquariums and always wanted to own them. This really was more of a dream grab rather than the most tactical of the group.

And while oftengreens weren’t evergreens, with the way my other stuff was going, I'm sure I’ll get those beauties soon. Although, they probably wouldn’t fit in well with the underwater theme I was planning on for the first floor. I was definitely going to use them on the second floor though. With the options I’m gaining here, I had a good idea in mind.

With zero retrivations, I purchased all three and summoned some of the aquatic ones to just let loose in my dungeon just to see what they’d do. (I realized I said I couldn’t afford to give my monsters skills of mine, but I could afford this stuff. Skill bestowing was really expensive!)

Two jellyfish plopped into the water alongside about 20 sea angels. They were both about what I expected, mostly clear bodies with hints of colors and a little colored core for the sea angels. What the system didn’t tell me was that these particular species were bioluminescent! It wasn’t exactly enough to see in the dark, but in the mostly dark room (not including my core glow) it was certainly noticeable.

While I could have spent more on covering the room with kelp or more fish, I decided to try something different and purchased a regular salamander and slime. The slime did exactly what you’d expect, it just kind of jiggled. The salamander actually tried to run for the door! I had to call it back to force it to remain in the dungeon; it wasn’t safe out there. Although the poor thing was shivering as it dove into a fern patch. Aw well, I'm sure it will get used to the cold. Most folks who knew me did.

I did wonder though, what did the girl think of the cold. The dungeon was starting to get to a nice temperature but she wasn’t exactly dressed for the cold. It's what I would dress for the cold but I'm pretty sure there’s either a desert or a volcano outside, so she might now be accustomed to the good type of chill. I’d have to ask her when-speak of the devil, the girl looks like she’s starting waking up.

That’s cool.