The Whispers weren’t as much of a problem the second time around.

  Penelope felt a burden lift off her shoulders as the barrier around 17D went down. The others hadn’t understood her insistence that the small monsters be targeted first, but with she was able to see where the little threats were coming from long before they got in range of anyone. Coupled with her , she was able to mow the Whispers down before they could hurt anyone.

  “We can take a break for a while to let you get the gate up.” Ula twirled her finger in the air. “Stay near the safe zone, or let someone know which gate you’re going to stay close to.”

  Penelope nodded, then headed down to 17D.3 to draw the ring for the gate. She’d already drawn the one back at the safe area the day before, so all she had to do was get this one drawn and activated, and then she’d be able to go back to the safe zone at 11E. She looked towards 17F, where the other team was fighting. It was too far away for her to know if they had run into any problems and she wouldn’t be able to check on them until the barrier went down. Since the other group was supposed to clear 17G and 17H that morning, she doubted that she’d see any of them unless they ran into a big issue. In this case, no news was good news.

  “Whatcha thinking about?” Circe touched Penelope’s shoulder.

  “GAH!” Penelope on instinct, taking her farther down the tunnel, away from her friend.

  “Wow, you’re jumpy today.” Circe teased as she ran to catch up to where Penelope had landed.

  “I’m just worried about the other group.” Penelope took a few slow, deep breaths to calm her heart. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “I wasn’t using any of my sneaking skills.” Circe held up her hands. “I know how much that freaks you out.”

  Penelope shook her head. “Sorry, I guess I was deeper in thought than I realized.” She looked over the other woman. “Why are you over here? You should be taking a break with the others.”

  “I am taking a break.” Circe chuckled. “I’m just spending my break watching you draw.” She waved her hand back the way they came. “Besides, if I stayed with them, Pat would have me carving up a monster.”

  “You do level up your skinning and butchering faster than anyone else.” Penelope smirked. “It’s only natural that he’d want his best carver to take apart the corpses.”

  “Well, someone else can have that title today.” Circe looked around. “Which room are you going to use for your portal thingy?”

  “There’s a single room just up ahead.” Penelope pointed down the tunnel and to the left. “We want rooms that are just for the portals, so there won’t be any congestion with people walking through.”

  “You do realize that when we’re fighting, there’s only six people walking around?” Circe snorted. “If they can get into a traffic jam, they deserve it.”

  “That’s…” Penelope sighed. There had been 185 people on the second floor during the last loop. This time they had only 54. “We really need to recruit more people to come down here and help with camp.”

  “Gotta give them something to care about.” Circe shook her head. “We kept the bosses from getting out and spent our days down here sleeping on the floor and putting our lives on the line fighting monsters every day. Who would want to leave a cushy bed, shower, and relatively safe buildings for that?”

  “The girl has a point. Jeru laughed. “Nobody died, so there’s no threat or urgency for people to come down here and rough it.”

  I’m guessing this was the case with Nate’s runs? Penelope walked into the room they’d chosen and stopped in front of the wall opposite the door. She pulled out her wand and started drawing on the wall.

  “Pretty much. I’ve got a list of Humans who have never set foot in the dungeon during any of the runs. But before you start bashing them, I’ve got a much longer list of locals who never even came on campus, so…” Jeru shrugged. “Not everyone is cut out to be a hero.”

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  There’s nothing heroic about fighting. Penelope grumbled as she got the blueprint out of her pocket and laid it on the floor beside her. She’d never needed it, but having it there felt comforting in a way.

  “You still don’t have that memorized?” Circe teased as she picked up the blueprint. “How many times have you drawn it?”

  “This makes number twenty-nine.” Penelope shrugged. “I don’t have to look at it often, but if I draw something wrong, I’m going to have to…” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve not messed up yet. I don’t know if there’s a way to erase a rune that’s been drawn wrong, so I don’t know if I could draw over it or if I’d have to start all over again.”

  “Why don’t you find out?” Circe tilted her head. “We’ve got the time, don’t we?”

  “I’m not going to make a mistake on purpose.” Penelope suppressed a shiver. “I’ll find a way to experiment when it won’t put us behind.” She looked over at her friend. “Everyone else is on break until I get this done, and then we still have one more square to do today. I’m not going to take extra time away from our chores this afternoon.”

  “But it would make you a hero.” Circe clasped her hands together, sandwiching the blueprint between her hands. “Come on, if you won’t do it for everyone else, do it for meeee!”

  “No.” Penelope shook her head. “What are you even trying to get out of, anyway? Don’t you have target practice this afternoon?”

  “Everyone has .” Circe shrugged. “The only thing they need to work on at this point is not backing down when a monster is charging at them, but there’s not a lot of volunteers to run at a ranged attacker and get shot at.”

  “Oh.” Penelope nodded as she moved on to another section. “So what are you supposed to do instead?”

  “UGH!” Circe dropped the blueprint face down in front of Penelope and dropped onto the stone floor. She pulled her feet in, sitting in a crisscrossed position. “Pat wants me to help with the butchering!”

  “So this isn’t about me learning the extent of what I can do with runes; this is about getting you out of cutting up monsters.” Penelope shook her head. “At least you only have to do that for a couple hours.” She looked over at her friend. “One pot of elixir takes me two hours to finish.”

  “I would pull out my haaaiiir.” Circe grabbed her brown ponytail and pulled on it. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “It’s almost like meditating.” Penelope reached down and flipped the cloth over so she could see the blueprint. “Maybe you could get Pat to move you to cooking instead.”

  “Pass.” Circe stuck out her tongue. “They won’t let you eat the meat and I mean, how many different ways can you brown meat?” She shook her head. “One of the earth people needs to learn a salt spell.”

  “I know the Debuffers were experimenting with adding debuffs to water. Ula had it all confiscated.” Penelope smirked as she remembered how they’d run into the same issue on the last loop. Except for that time, Patrick and Frederica had allowed the debuffed liquid to be passed around once they cleared the floor. Considering they weren’t moving much faster than what it was going to take, they had a day, maybe two, where the only square left would be the boss square. Which was still more than enough time for people to celebrate, but it would all depend on what their leader decided.

  “I know, but it’s not like adding debuffs to the meat is going to make it taste any better.” Circe leaned back so she could look up at the ceiling. “What we need is one of the nature people to be able to make fruit or something like that.” She chuckled. “Tomato bomb or pumpkin bash.” She laughed. “What about a cucumber sword!”

  “That would give some variety to our meals.” Penelope shrugged. “You don’t have to tough it out too much longer.” She looked at her menu. “We’ve got five more days before the boss fight, then I’m guessing forty-two more days on the next floor.”

  “Forty-two?” Circe sat up. “Why’s that?”

  “Because the barrier around the campus had sixty days on it when we came down here.” Penelope shrugged. “Based on the progression, it tracks that we’d get six weeks to finish the third floor, then the barrier separating us from the town will go down.” She looked over at her friend. “You’ll have variety in your food when that happens.”

  “You’re assuming the town isn’t full of cannibalistic demons.” Circe scoffed. “Also, that’s six more weeks of eating bland, dried meat.” She stuck out her tongue. “I think I’m going to be a vegetarian before the end of this.”

  It’s actually just six more days before you’ll get some variety. Penelope took a deep breath and turned back to her drawing. There are fruit trees on the third floor.

  “Yeah, but you can’t tell her that.” Jeru looked over at the pouting woman. “She’ll survive.”

  I know that. Penelope paused. “Look, maybe the next floor will have a chocolate monster or something.”

  “Seriously? They had that kind of stuff in the game?” Circe’s eyes widened.

  “Who knows?” Penelope shrugged. “The main thing is that we have to keep our spirits up.” She took a deep breath. “Because we’re going to be here for a while.”

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