Violet made sure to place the new pixie homes in appropriate places before retiring for the night. Most were hung high up on trees with the placement dictated by the pixies themselves. Iris and Orchid asked to be placed on the same tree, next to one another. Jasmine and Daisy were similar, but they wanted to be on separate trees. They were worried about the noise carrying too much and wanted to make it slightly harder for adventurers to find them. Cedar and Lily asked to be placed as high up as possible without their home being unstable. Lily liked her privacy, so that was hardly surprising.
After going to sleep for the night, Violet had a comforting dream about her husband, Lee. She still awoke with tears streaming down her face, but she'd rather continue to have the dreams than forget. It was even comforting to still talk to her husband during the daytime as if he was still with her. She felt less lonely keeping his memory alive, even if it did feel bittersweet to be reminded of him.
As Violet walked downstairs, considering what to work on for the day, she continued to be lost in her own thoughts. It was hard not to dwell on the fact that David would be returning again later in the day. Since time seemed to blur in the dungeon, the morning always seemed to slip away so quickly, easily becoming night in the blink of an eye. Without new adventurers coming through to keep things interesting, that fact was exaggerated even more than usual. No one was avoiding the dungeon anymore, but Tobias's party left and no new adventurers would be coming through until after the winter season officially ended.
Sighing in frustration, Violet rubbed her nose with her hand. Whenever she got too stressed, her nose started to itch like crazy. If she didn't try to calm down soon, it might even end up turning into painful, itchy hives across the entirety of her skin. Violet had always struggled with her mental health. Despite growing up in a happy family, she still suffered from anxiety disorder, among other things. The labels hardly fixed the problems she had, though, so she didn't think about it often, but that didn't keep her problems from affecting her day-to-day life.
Well, maybe some retail therapy would help? Violet used to love window shopping in her previous life. Adding things to her online cart and then never buying anything or, even better, going to antique malls with Lee and looking at everything. The actual antiques were the most fun to look at as it was fascinating to learn about what things in the past were like. However, even things like collections of buttons sorted by color or kitschy displays with cliche signs could be entertaining enough to look through.
There was, unfortunately, nothing like that to be found in her own dungeon. Well, realistically, Violet could create whatever she wanted, but that wasn't the point. Today, Violet wanted to spend lots of resources and really improve the dungeon. Her mana was still very much limited, though, so that was hardly going to be the way to go. Instead, Violet decided it was finally time to make some overdue changes to her rooms using her dungeon points.
Right now, she has 3,069 DP, which still felt like a drop in the bucket compared to what she used to have. Still, considering how much she had earned in a week, it was hardly a problem to spend some of it. Deciding to start on the koi pond room, Violet slowly walked through each of the rooms, checking their settings before taking actions.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The koi pond room was nicely decorated, but the room theme hadn't been set yet. So, 150 DP went towards setting the theme followed by 25 DP to make it always sunny, 50 DP to make it always sunrise, and 10 DP to make the temperature and humidity reflect the weather. Since the koi pond room was meant to be for peaceful fishing, it just made sense to make the time of day sunrise. Lee used to love going fishing with his friends and would always get up at four or six in the morning for it because he said it was one of the best times to go. Violet didn't know much about that, but she liked the idea of utilizing that detail in her room's creation.
A small portion of the rooms already had their room theme, time, and weather settings taken care of. Others Violet chose to just set the theme, make it always sunny, always mid-day, and set the temperature and humidity to reflect the weather. That meant the rainbow ball maze, giant Jenga, 3D slime-themed jigsaw puzzle, giant pick-up sticks, and slime-themed sliding puzzle all ended up costing 235 DP each to give it fairly generic settings.
The hay meadow room with the chameleon slimes already had most of its settings taken care of. However, Violet still went ahead and officially spent the 50 MP to make the time of day always mid-day. The other rooms, Violet went out of her way to make special additions for one reason or another.
The wooden lock puzzle room had the kodama in it. So, Violet decided to make the room have a natural day cycle. The wildflower meadow room was also like that and she didn't want the original kodama to feel like it missed its original room. She wanted it to feel at home in its new location so that it could just enjoy its new friend and the peace and quiet the room would offer. After all, it was unlikely as many adventurers would end up in this room as would end up in the rooms closer to the entrance.
On the other side of the first floor, there were mostly just older rooms. The garden meadow and floodplains room both already had their room theme set, but 85 DP still had to be spent to give them the generic settings most of the rooms now had. That then only left the hedge maze boss room left to take care of. The second floor rooms would have to wait another day since Violet's dungeon points were already getting lower than she wanted.
Since the boss room was a unique room that she only had one of for each floor, she wanted to make it special. 50 DP went towards giving the room spring weather patterns, which matched the apple blossom trees that were dotted through the maze. 100 DP went towards a natural day cycle, which would likely make the boss fight more difficult, forcing adventurers to slow down. Maybe she could even encourage people to not do the fight unless it was daytime, ensuring she would be able to relax at night. Soon enough, she'd have a third floor, putting even more obstacles between the entrance and the dungeon core room, but she would still utilize all that she could.
After setting the temperature and humidity to reflect the weather, Violet was left with 994 dungeon points. She had spent an entire 2,075 DP across the first floor to take care of everything. It felt nice to fix everything up and ensure the rooms were at their best, but soon enough her anxiety once more began to eat at her. Today was going to be a very long day.