The next morning, Violet was surprised to see she had someone new in the dungeon. Well, she didn't actually know if the person had visited her dungeon before or not. She hadn't always had her [Guest List] skill and she had chosen not to always greet her guests the previous fall. Still, she was overjoyed to see that there was someone in her dungeon! It meant that she could continue to work on her mad tea party room since she would have mana coming in.
Since the last part Violet needed to work on wasn't so much for the room itself, but for her pixies that lived in the room, she had to walk over to her new challenge room before getting started. When she arrived, the siblings were quick to greet her.
"Good afternoon Miss Violet."
"Good morning, Holly! Good morning Willow!"
Violet returned their greeting. Willow frowned before saying
"It is quite perplexing how time works in a dungeon. We didn't think you'd be returning until your usual time and it's nearly impossible to tell how much time had passed. The sky always looks the same here with no changes to indicate the time of day."
Violet frowned, looking up at the strange sunset sky with its pinks, blues, and purples. It was certainly true that all of her rooms here on the second floor still had their default settings. Still, as tempting as it was to change things for her pixies, that wasn't something she could prioritize right now. She simply didn't have enough spare dungeon points to waste on weather and time effects, especially since she needed to continue working towards unlocking her third floor. While she felt fine investing in researching new [Items], it just felt different to spend anywhere from 25 DP to 150 DP just to change the time of day from day to night.
"Yes, well, I'm sorry things have been so difficult. I still haven't gotten you a house to live in either, which can't be helping matters. I'll be working on that once I'm done with the challenge in this room. Maybe I can do that today? Assuming I can finish things this morning, that would be the ideal time to make them."
Holly flew closer to Violet as she reassured her
"It's alright, Miss Violet. I don't think my brother meant to sound like we were complaining. We know you have been working quite hard on our behalf and we really appreciate it!"
Violet smiled, nodding in acknowledgement before she got to work. Since she didn't know Joan or the young boy with her, she wasn't sure how long they would be in the dungeon. She had already had a full mana pool thanks to the daily 25 MP regen and the leftover mana from Avorn and Camellia's stay in the dungeon. So, she needed to quickly get to work if she didn't want any of her mana to go to waste.
Today's goal was actually to make appropriate tea party outfits for Willow and Holly. It would help to set the mood for the room and Violet just felt that it would be a nice gift for her new pixies. She did feel awfully bad about having pixie royalty in her dungeon without being able to treat them appropriately. Since Willow's outfit would include several [Items] she already had unlocked, she started by spending 26 MP to create brown leather boots, a brown leather belt, a decorative steel scabbard, and an iron sword. An additional 4 MP then had to be spent to shrink the [Items] down to the appropriate size.
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The main part of Willow's outfit would require research, though. Violet had drawn sketches up to better imagine what she wanted. She planned to make the outfit brown, green, and white so it would have very foresty colors. Of course, she also planned to use gold buttons as a nice luxurious accent to the outfit. There was a white silk dress shirt, a white lace jabot, a brown cotton vest, a green cotton tailcoat, and green cotton trousers, which would be work in addition to the boots and sword kit she had already created for him. Overall, the outfit seemed just right for a noble like Willow.
The research costs for everything ended up costing 86 DP, which wasn't bad at all. Violet was pretty sure the dungeon just didn't see basic clothing as very valuable since clothing was always fairly cheap. The mana costs were, initially, half the cost at 43 MP, but Violet ended up having to spend an additional 5 MP to shrink everything down to the appropriate size. After handing everything to Willow, he flew off to another part of the room to get dressed. While he was gone, Violet got to work on Holly's outfit.
While she had already spent 78 MP out of her 100 MP mana pool, time had also passed, so she had already managed to recover 10 MP. With two guests in her dungeon, that meant that she would quickly recover her mana. Still, 32 MP was definitely not enough to make another full outfit, so they would have to wait for a while.
For Holly's outfit, Violet chose to go with a red rose floral theme with green and white accent colors. She felt it would go well with her red hair and green eyes while still sticking to the nature-theme she had gone for with Willow's outfit. There was a lacey lolita-style dress with red roses and green leaves across a white background with multiple layers. The shoes were dress shoes with a strap and 3-D roses attached to them. Of course, the top layer wasn't the only important thing, so Violet had also ensured to design white lace drawers and to create a set of the white lace stockings, just like the ones she, herself, was wearing.
For accessories, she had designed a straw hat with red ribbon and red roses on it as well as lacey white gloves and a glass pearl necklace. While pearls made from glass weren't nearly as fancy as the real thing, Violet had to work with the materials she had available and she rather doubted the difference would be noticeable once everything was shrunk down to pixie size. Overall, the total research costs for Holly's outfit ended up coming out to 156 DP, which was a bit more than her brother's outfit. However, that was hardly surprising since there were more expensive materials being utilized for Holly's outfit. In fact, most of Willow's outfit was made from cotton and leather, which the system tended to charge a small pittance for.
It took about half an hour of waiting before Violet could afford to materialize the full outfit for Holly and then pay to shrink it. Luckily, it seems she ended up having just enough since Joan and the young boy with her left not long afterwards. It was a shame since Violet really would have loved to meet them, but she had to prioritize what she was doing now instead. Still, she did note she now had another 2 DP from their tributes, bringing her total up to 4,766.
While their tribute hardly made up for the amount she had just spent for her pixies' outfits, it was still nice to have visitors to her dungeon. Besides, they had clearly put some effort into their tribute, unlike David used to. Violet shivered, feeling glad that she no longer had to deal with the man. He hadn't exactly been that bad, but there was no denying that he wasn't good for her dungeon or her mental health.