Violet ended up finding out the panicked pixie's name was Clove while the more grumpy one was Basil. Well, maybe he wasn't that grumpy, it was still a bit early to tell. Clove still seemed to be worried about his family, but he accepted Violet's proposal easily enough. It wasn't really like he had a choice, anyway, and she just hoped that he understood that she was trying to help. Sending him back to his village now wasn't guaranteed to make things better. He might end up dying in the fire without ever getting the chance to help his family. Otherwise, even if they did escape, how long would it be before they'd end up in danger again? At least, in the dungeon, they could worry about their safety a little less.
Since it was possible that she'd end up having to make more rooms in quick succession as well as summon several pixies back-to-back, Violet got to work planning out her next steps. She'd have to save working on new challenge rooms for tomorrow, more than likely, but she needed to be efficient with her mana now to ensure she could still assign the new pixies to a spawner. Luckily, she didn't have to make a spawner for the flower hunt challenge room since it already had a nice 100 MP one in it, something she had upgraded to quite a while back. However, any new rooms or ones without challenges in it, would require her to spend an entire round's worth of mana to install new spawners.
Violet hadn't really wanted to do things this way and she hated feeling rushed. The pixies would all need homes too, which meant she'd end up having to spend a night or two's worth of mana on that before she could move on to bigger and better things. Namely, Violet wanted to start working on things like a new room meant for adventurers to rest in exchange for tribute and a new boss room. As for what she was going to put in the boss room, that was still something she still needed to work out. Pixies weren't ideal for battle and Al-mi'raj couldn't evolve either, so neither would really be able to put up as much of a fight as the emperor rock slime on her first floor did. Yet, it really seemed necessary to have something even more impressive to pit intruders against before letting them move on to the next floor.
When her mana finally started to refill, Violet sighed a breath of relief. Things would still be left up to chance, but she'd know soon whether her efforts were worth it or not. When her mana finally reached 100 MP, she took an anxious breath and then summoned another set of pixies. More than a little surprisingly, she ended up with another two male pixies.
"Greetings, Madam. I am Briar and this is my husband, Moss."
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss."
The two pixies spoke in turn, sounding rather formal, but just as polite as the rest of her pixies had when she first met them. Violet smiled as she replied
"It's lovely to meet you as well, Briar and Moss. I do apologize, but I'm afraid I can't celebrate your arrival as I usually would. Normally I would have tea and sweets for everyone to share before showing you to your new home, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Still, I hope you enjoy socializing with the others."
Violet had already gone around and gathered her pixies into the mystery falls challenge room where Hawthorn and Aster lived. Everyone had been a bit disappointed by the nightly tea party being canceled, but they were still in high spirits as they socialized with one another. Due to the number of them now residing in the dungeon, Violet noted, it was almost like she had her own pixie village. She had heard that most villages only had a few dozen of them living there at any one time, so she was certainly well on her way.
While two male pixies being married to each other definitely would have been a hot topic back home, she didn't really find it her place to question it. In fact, most species in nature had been proven to have instances of same-gender coupling in the wild, so it made sense that the same would apply here. Violet herself wasn't really interested in anyone but her husband, but she also didn't find it worthwhile to cause pain and suffering to others for no good reason. She just hoped that all of her dungeon-dwelling inhabitants could live happily.
In fact, of much bigger concern to Violet was the fact that she hadn't ended up summoning Clover's wife and child this time around. She had been hoping that it would be the case. That perhaps Basil was the first in line and that was why neither the mother, nor daughter had come alongside Clover. However, either that wasn't the case or something else had happened to them. Another Dungeon Master might have made a contract with some pixies in the time she had been waiting to have enough mana to summon more of them. It was also, unfortunately, possible that the mother and daughter had perished. Shaking her head, Violet tried to calm her nerves as she waited for her mana to refill once more. She wasn't going to give up until she ran out of mana for the night!
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The next round of summoning also ended up coming up short, but had also ended up far more interesting than the last.
Bowing his head, the newest male pixie introduced himself
"Thank you for summoning me, Mistress. I am Chief Alder, the previous head of my village."
Quickly flying over, Clove looked worried as he asked
"Chief Alder, I can't believe you're here! What happened? Do you know if my wife and child are okay?"
The gruff man seemed tired as he replied
"Yes, Rosemary and Juniper managed to make it to safety. Unfortunately, others did not. My wife personally oversaw the evacuation of the women and children, but many good young men lost their lives today. It is a relief to see you aren't among the casualties."
Feeling relieved, Violet turned away while the two continued to speak amongst themselves. Alongside Alder, another, much younger male, named Aspen had joined her dungeon. From what she could understand from his excited talking, she had come from a desert village and he was quite happy to have been brought to such a beautiful dungeon with more moderate temperatures. Violet got the feeling Aspen was going to be quite popular with the young pixie girls in her dungeon. All four of the single women were quite excitable, enthusiastic in their youth, and she could easily see them getting along.
The next attempt ended up with two siblings named Willow and Holly joining the dungeon. They were both quite young, barely adults by pixie standards, but they were a lot more serious. Apparently, they were from a pixie kingdom buried deep in some mountains, near a dragon's lair. They were considered royalty where they came from, but they weren't the firstborn, so it was better for them to join a dungeon and live their own lives free from politics than to continue residing where they were unwanted. Violet felt bad for the siblings, but found it quite fascinating to hear there were kingdoms with hundreds of pixies in the less well-known parts of the world.
It did make a good bit of sense that the aether in the atmosphere would play a role in how the world developed. If Humans could only safely live near dungeons while [Monsters] could safely live in areas high in aether, then it would make sense for any larger settlements to be hidden away like that. Still, it kind of made Violet wish that she too could leave the dungeon. She wanted to explore the world and see what things were like for herself, not just hear stories about it, no matter how fascinating they might be.
Once the siblings drifted off to socialize with the others, Violet's anxiety began to set it once more. She hadn't bothered to waste any mana on spawners or new rooms to place said spawners in, thus far. Yet, she had already spent an entire 300 MP on summoning pixies, which was a lot, even if it wasn't quite half of her nightly mana. She didn't quite feel comfortable leaving her dungeon [Monsters] vulnerable, though. Knowing her luck, if she did, she'd end up regretting it. Even despite no adventurers coming up to explore her second floor, thus far, she knew it was only a matter of time. The last thing she wanted was to have her pixies die while not being assigned to a spawner, it had already been bad enough with her first slime. It would be even worse with sentient creatures who could talk and whom she had grown accustomed to having around.
Bowing her head, Violet decided to try praying to whatever deity would accept her prayers. She wasn't really sure that the goddess of love and beauty would hear her prayers without her being at the altar, nor that she could do anything. It also wasn't certain whether the system or any other deities would accept prayers from her. However, she couldn't help but feel the need to try something, anything, to try and salvage the situation.
"I don't know if anyone is out there, if you can even do anything to intervene. However, I still have to ask. Please help me reunite Clove with his family. I'm doing my best here, but I think I can only summon two more groups of pixies, at most, before I have to switch priorities. I don't want to be the reason this man suffers and loses his family, but I don't want to send him back to a warzone either. I don't really have anything to offer you either and I know I'm being selfish, but please just help me."
Violet winced at herself as she finished the prayer. She would happily offer an entire night's worth of mana in the form of tribute to a deity if it meant she could keep her pixies happy. However, since she wasn't even sure who she was praying to, she could only ask for help without offering anything in return. She did feel lighter after praying, though, and then she went to summon another group of pixies. By some divine intervention, a miracle occurred and, finally, finally, Clove was reunited with his wife and daughter.