For the final challenge room for this half of the dungeon, Violet had something a bit extravagant in mind. She had always found the trend a bit silly, but she had often watched videos of sellers showing off what they referred to as "fairy treasure". Generally, they'd have tiny treasure chests full of things like seashells, crystals, painted mushrooms, fake flowers, etc. The random odds and ends would be mixed together and then scooped out and into a decorative bag for anyone who bought from them.
Violet couldn't replicate the idea in its entirety, but the idea did seem like a fun one for her dungeon. The only thing she really had to worry about, besides the lack of [Base Resources], was balancing the variety and feeling of abundance with the need to keep the [Items]' value low. She didn't actually care that much whether it cost her a whole night's worth of mana to set the challenge room up, but she didn't want the value of the [Items] outside of the dungeon to be very high.
Unlike the mad tea party challenge, she wasn't going to have an etiquette clause to keep people from taking the [Items] from the room with them. While the economy outside of the dungeon was unlikely to directly affect her, she still wanted to do her best to be careful that her decisions didn't hurt anyone. Still, it wasn't like the trinkets had to be valuable in order to fit her needs, so she still had plenty of options to work with. Before getting started on that, though, she needed to set up the room itself.
The first thing she set up was a winding pathway that led from one side of the room to the next, but took many detours through the trees. Still, since the stone brick pathways only cost 10 MP / 100 Square Units and the room itself was only 16-Units wide, she only ended up having to spend 10 MP to make the entire path. Next up, she made a slightly elevated platform from stone bricks along one portion of the path. This would serve well as a place to house the treasure chest the challenge would be based around.
While Violet already had quite a number of containers unlocked, she didn't have anything suitable for this challenge. A wooden crate and an engraved wooden box meant for holding fudge were hardly the same thing as a treasure chest, after all. This ran her 50 DP to research it and 25 MP to create one of them. It looked quite nice with dark, sturdy-looking wood and golden accents, just right for drawing one's attention at a glance. The chest was fairly big, but not huge. It was approximately the size of a proper drink cooler.
With the environment set up, she now only had to fill the treasure chest with [Items]. First she decided to get all of the research out of the way. A total of 108 DP allowed her to unlock weather iron keys, five types of painted stone mushrooms, smooth stones, painted heart-shaped stones, painted flower-shaped stones, and painted butterfly-shaped stones. Since she needed to mix things up and carefully layer everything, she had to create everything outside of the treasure chest as her mana slowly regenerated.
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The first thing she spent mana on was ten each of the seventeen varieties of buttons she had previously unlocked. There were iron snap buttons, flower-shaped ceramic buttons, gold and silver buttons, and tons of other varieties that ensured the chest had a variety of colors and materials in it. Next up was twenty five each of acorns, pinecones, and maple seeds as well as fifty each of pecans, black walnuts, and pine nuts. The size variances were good, but Violet mostly went with them since pixies actually had a strong connection with nature, making them a good, cheap option.
Finally, it was time to add the new [Items] she had just finished researching. The weathered iron keys she only put 10 of, but it still ended up costing her 150 MP. They weren't functional and couldn't unlock any doors yet the dungeon still insisted they were worth more than things like buttons or stones. The mushrooms were all fairly large and were based on button, morel, amanta, oyster, and chicken of the woods mushrooms. Violet felt it gave a good style variety while also making them more realistic since they were based on real mushrooms. These she only put five of each type into the chest.
As for the stones, the plain rounded stones, which were perfect for skipping across water, were cheaper than the painted, shaped ones. So, she put twenty of them while the others only got ten of each of them. The flower design was a very basic five-petaled variety and the butterfly was very generic as well. She didn't really want to spend all of her dungeon points on this, after all, especially when she'd likely have to come back and add new things later. She was hopeful she'd get things like non-magic crystals, different varieties of stone, rather than a basic gray, and also some seashells in the future, but she'd have to make do with what she had, for now.
Alder and Aspen, the two pixies assigned to this room, weren't actually required for the challenge. Violet just spent the 30 DP to research the challenge reward and then another 30 DP to set the challenge with its reward. Adventurers would have to find a random [Item] in the chest, dictated by the system, in order to earn a wish necklace as a reward. The jewelry was made from a steel chain with a glass and cork vial that held a dandelion seed hanging off of it.
The idea was cliche seeming back when she had seen something similar in her old world, but it seemed just right for this occasion. Honestly, Violet couldn't help but feel like a lot of things were like that now. Sticking within a theme based on fairies tended to mean embracing her own child-like wonder and letting her imagination run wild. Still, she felt pretty good about how things were progressing, so she was hardly about to let shame and embarrassment keep her from doing something "childish".
Finalizing the room, she spent 300 DP to set the room theme and lock the door. That ended up bringing her total down to 4,888 dungeon points. It was a little less than she wanted to be at, but she couldn't really complain about the nearly 500 DP she spent for the room when it could have been so much worse. As it was, she had to repeatedly cross out her own ideas while planning the room just because she had been worried about the cost. Thus, she could only be at peace with the results being as they are.