“You’re cold?”

“Yes master. Every day it grows colder and colder. First it was only those near the entrance that were cold but now more and more of us grow cold. Only the second floor is still warm enough. We’re so cold it’s getting harder to even fly.”

“Really? I had no idea. Is the cold dangerous for you?”

“Your presence means we won’t die but we’re still growing weaker. We need some way to warm up or we won’t be able to defend you.”

I send my awareness outside the dungeon. I can at least try to see what this cold is even if I can’t feel it. The world around me was covered in white. It seemed the rain had turned white and fluffy while I was focusing on expanding my floor. Lilly said she’d return before the winter became too cold so I guess this must be winter. Since Lilly hasn’t come back that meant it would get colder. This was a serious problem indeed. My Fae is almost all that stands between me and death after all. I can’t have them weakened.

“I understand children. I’ll find a way to make it better.”

I send an order to let all the Fae apart from Illona leave the first floor and go down to this floor. It leaves my top floor bare of defenders but at least those I do have can fight down here. For now. What if the cold just keeps on extending down here too? I need to find a solution before it’s too late.

I go through all my menus trying to find something. If my doors were more solid it might help but as of now, they’re useless at stopping the cold. Nothing else I can build even looks like it can help. I can’t trick the cold into a trap or plant flowers to stop it. Maybe if I had warmer clothes for my Fae it would help but as of now all they have is the leather armor and the thin clothes they’re summoned with. Good for warm summers I suppose but again, useless right now.

Nothing I could summon would help my Fae.

Finally, after much thinking I had found a possible solution. It was risky. Not because it was dangerous for me. More like I risked listening to another lecture by Lilly. Yes, I was looking at my single point I could use for an upgrade to my dungeon. That was the only way I had found that might be of use.

I am of course talking about having the chance to select another Tier 1 race for my dungeon. More specifically I was thinking of the ‘Elemental’ race. Fire is warm and one of the elements so I should be able to summon fire elementals and place them with the Fae to keep them warm. The only thing holding me back is the thought that maybe I won’t unlock the fire elementals at tier 1. If I got a useless element like earth instead, I would just have to keep spending points upgrading the ‘Elemental’ tiers until I could make a fire one.

Still it was the only thing I could do. Lilly might not like it but I valued my Fae and me far higher than obeying Lilly when we were at risk.

With my intention clear I select the upgrade from the list.

Upgrade gained: More combat races (1)

The list of all the Tier 1 races showed up after that. The ‘Elementals’ race is still at the top so I select it.

You've selected the ability to summon: Elementals You can now summon Lesser Earth, Lesser Air, Lesser Water and Lesser Fire Elementals for 15 mana/individual.

I look stunned at the blue box the system gave me to read. I could already summon all four elementals? I didn’t have to upgrade to Tier 2 to unlock more than one of them?

Clearly, I was right to want Elementals as my first combat race. Stupid Lilly, forcing me to pick ‘Fairies’ instead. Not only was I given four different kinds of elemental options to summon at Tier 1, they were even 10 mana cheaper per summon compared to my Fae.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve grown to like my Fae a little but not enough to make up for the fact I could’ve had four different kind of creatures to summon compared to the one I got with the Fae. Sure, now I had two different kinds of Fae at Tier 1 but I had to create a whole new race for that to happen and it was still worse than my new Elementals.

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By now, three points of my upgrades were committed exclusively to my Fae race so it wasn’t like I could turn back time and undo that. For better or worse the Fae was my main combat race. It would take a long time to replace them if I didn’t gain a lot of upgrade points very fast. Points that could be used to grow instead. Considering I was now on day 13 since my last upgrade point gained it didn’t seem very likely that I would gain them all that fast.

I summoned one of each of the lesser elemental to see if the fire elemental could be used to warm my Fae and the other three mainly because I wanted to see what they all looked like.

The four elementals quickly formed from my mana. The fire elemental was a 20-centimeter high yellow flame that hovered slightly about the ground.

The air elemental was a ball, that looked kind of white, of wind that always moved around in the air. It was the only one of the elementals that never stopped moving around. I wonder if it had to move to keep alive or it just liked moving?

The earth elemental was the most like me. At least I thought so. It was a brown stone that rolled around. I might have been jealous of its size had I not been placed on a pedestal so I could look down on it. It was 25 centimeters high. Far bigger than I was. It wasn’t completely round though, so its movements were quite slow depending on what way it wanted to go.

The last was the water elemental. It was just a slightly big blob of water on the ground however, about the size of the fire elemental, and it seemed very reluctant to move even when I ordered it to. I figured out why that was pretty fast. Every time it moved the blob became a little smaller. It left a trail of water behind it.

I tried to think of a solution. The water elemental was the only one of the four that didn’t seem to be able to maintain its form. I suspected that if it lost all the water it was made of it would die. Something I clearly didn’t want. If I spend mana creating a creature, I can’t have it just die on me just by moving. I would be ashamed of myself as a Dungeon Core.

I decide to test something. I order it to the pool of water in my future boss room. It was touch and go for a while there. The water elemental shrunk to half its size before finally reaching the pool. Thankfully once it moved into the water it restored its former size and seemed to move around quite happily after that.

So, the water elementals can’t really be used outside of water while the others seem to at least not need any special environment to survive but I can’t be sure of that until some time has passed. My curiosity momentarily satisfied I call in a few of the closest Fae to me.

They all fly in and look amazed at the three elementals still in my room. Quickly, they gather around the fire elemental laughing.

“Master, this is amazing. You’ve made something that makes us warm again.”

“That is a ‘Fire elemental’ children. I just learned to summon it. Tell me, if I give each group on the first floor a fire elemental each do you think you can return up there and still not grow weak?”

The group of Fae talk amongst each other for a little bit before answering.

“We think so. It's very warm but we would need to stay close to it. If we’re not close the warmth doesn’t reach us and we would soon be weakened again.

“Excellent. Then I’ll summon one for each group. Take that one with you and leave it to Illona, she’s the only one left on the first floor and she should be the first to get warm, don’t you think?”

The Fae look at each other awkwardly. I can tell they want to say something but are too afraid to say it.

“What? I can tell you want to say something. Go ahead.”

“How can we take it with us master? We can’t carry it, it’s too hot.”

“Well obviously the elemental will...”

I focus on the elemental again. I check its status and find something I maybe should have checked before calling in my Fae.

This creature lacks intellect. As a 'Lesser Fire Elemental' it can only perform two functions, 'Guard' and 'Move'. It will only obey orders from you or another of your creatures that gain the ability to order it.

Well that makes things slightly more annoying. I have to summon and order each of the elementals to the spots I want them to be. None of my Fae can order them around since I haven’t seen any that has that ability meaning I’m forced to do it by myself. At least with the Fae I can tell them to figure out things like that on their own. I guess some drawbacks are expected with this new race.

At least my gamble payed off. I just have to summon enough fire elementals and order them to where each group is guarding on the first floor and we should be ok.

I send the Fae away and order the fire elemental to get to the boss room on the first floor. I send the air and earth elemental to join the water elemental in the room down the hallway. I’ll figure out where to place them later.

I start summoning more fire elementals and ordering them to where the groups had been on the first floor before I had pulled them back down here to the second floor. I end up having to summon 22 more just to make sure even the Fae that guard the hallways alone have one to warm up next to.

In the end I solved the problem, it just took a while. I wondered what else might happen next. Hopefully nothing that demanded an upgrade though.

I was all out of those now.