There were two flyers on this column.

  Skulkens were giant chickens with bone armor on their faces. Unlike most of the monsters, who were a shade of green, brown, or black, these monsters were pearly white. The top of their head had them at six feet tall, making them impressive monsters to face off against.

  The reputation of her floating lights forced the group of Tanks to split in half, with each group darting towards either end of the wall, well outside her range. They beat their wings as they closed in, then leapt into the air, using their wings to carry them onto the top of the wall.

  “It’s just Tanks!” Patrick growled as he walked in front of the bunker. “Find the Assassin and take out as many of those Thorn Beetles as you can on your way!”

  Penelope Circe and Riva on top of the bunker, then headed into the square. Jeru, let me know if that Shadow Poisoner gets close.

  Silence answered her. Penelope wasn’t sure why Jeru was being so distant, but she trusted that he’d watch her back even though he was being quiet. There had been two Shadows with in 26A and he hadn’t said anything, but her life had never been in danger either. She wasn’t too worried about the Shadow Demon, but she was still trying to find some way to get the usually talkative Elf to say something.

  The other flying monsters, the Horned Ducks, were staying with the Nature Demons and the Thorn Beetles around a cluster of tree monsters. The Horned Ducks were Debuffers and the main thing Penelope wanted to avoid from them was getting hit with . The large ducks rivaled the size of the Skulkens but didn’t have any offensive spells or skills. Their bills were lined with razor-sharp teeth, and the curved horns on top of their heads would definitely hurt if they gored someone with them, but without a true offensive skill set, they were little more than a nuisance.

  The Thorn Beetles were a little more concerning with and . The former was a damaging beam of light that would cause vegetation to grow rapidly. The main concern was that both the Skulkens and the Thorn Beetles had , and if it made that spell grow rapidly, it could crush someone restrained by it. The latter spell was just a barrage of thorns, but considering the car-sized monsters were covered in thorns, Penelope was expecting a small explosion every time they used the ability.

  The Nature Demons were the column’s Healers. They sported the usual healing spells along with the elemental tag and a body covered in thorns. The vine elementals also sported a tail to go along with their horns, in addition to looking the most like a person of any of the monsters on the floor so far.

  Penelope made sure to stay away from the tree monsters, though. The walking trees moved slowly for being a Speed monster, but the black snake the size of her waist wrapped around the trunk of the trees promised to be anything but slow. The Amphent had a single snake arm with two heads. The bark of the tree cracked as the tree monster opened its maw and the giant snake lashed out. The snake arm extended over thirty feet in the blink of an eye and the twin heads bit into the tree behind where she’d been standing.

  It would have been nice to know the range on that thing. Penelope chided her parasite. Come on, you seriously can’t drop a bomb like that and then go silent on me for DAYS!

  Just like every other attempt for the last few days, her challenge was met with silence.

  Fine… where’s that Assassin? Penelope moved away from the circle of monsters and spread out her network of eyes in the sky. One of her eyes winked out as the blue-robed Shadow came within range.

  Not what I need to be fighting right now. Without a Healer, the Recovery primary Shadows would need eight full casts of to kill. Penelope could achieve that, but all of her would have to be active and that wasn’t going to happen against something that could cancel them out. She away, pulling all of her with her as she went closer to 27F on her journey towards the backside of 27E.

  Two more put her well out of range of the chasing Shadow. The other monsters seemed to recognize that she was a threat that could delete them and gave her wide berth as she popped around the square in search of her target.

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  She made it to the barrier between 27E and 27F without finding the Assassin, then turned back towards the wall. With the majority of the monsters turtling in the center of the square, Patrick had led most of the people out of the bunker and was cautiously approaching the grove of tree monsters.

  The Shadow Poisoner moved to cut her off as she back to the group. Before she could engage it, the Shadow collapsed into a pile of gear with Frederica standing triumphantly over it.

  “Give me a ride?” The blonde woman smiled as she twirled her blades in her hands.

  “Is their Assassin still up?” Penelope motioned behind her. “I couldn’t find it back there.”

  “It was waiting for us on the other side of the bunker, but Elliot has too and let Circe know. She took care of it.” Frederica pointed at the Armored Hares running at the main group. “Can’t you kill those pretty easily?”

  The rabbit monsters’ shells came up to Penelope’s hips and their bodies were covered in dark green scales instead of fur, but other than that, their entire body resembled a giant rabbit. The Power monsters were also fast and the only other thing that was leaving the safety of the grove.

  “One sec.” Penelope grabbed Frederica’s arm and the two of them towards the group. In a few hops, they were close enough for Penelope to unleash twice, eliminating all nine monsters.

  “Thanks…” Patrick motioned at the two Casters behind him. “Firebug one and two burn up all the meat.” He pointed his sword at the line of dead monsters. “White meat is too good to waste like that.”

  “You never let us kill the easy stuff.” Allis whined as she twirled her wands. “I could have wiped them all out like that.”

  “You can shoot anything that we aren’t going to eat.” Patrick pointed his sword at the tree monsters. “Burn up those trees if you want to.”

  “We’re on it!” Stephan saluted, then hurried towards the grove.

  “Their arms have a range of thirty feet!” Penelope yelled after them.

  “Archer, give them some cover.” Patrick pointed at the other earth affinity Tank. “We’ve still got a few Shadows running around, but this place will be done once we clean that cluster of trees out.”

  The other Tank plodded after the two fire Casters and erected a stone wall chest high for them to shoot from behind.

  The Thorn Beetles peppered the wall with thorns, then spit a beam of light out of their mouths. The thorns sprouted vines, which wriggled over the top of the wall.

  Stephan slashed his wand and the entire length of wall caught on fire.

  Allis cackled as she rained fireballs the size of basketballs down on the near-stationary tree monsters. Circe and Whitney moved closer to the burning wall and launched arrows at the Nature Demons, removing the Healers from within the grove of trees.

  “Caster.” Penelope around the burning grove and unleashed six casts of . The Shadow Caster tried to take out the with . One of her fell, but the other five were enough to finish off the Shadow.

  Penelope glanced around. The other two Shadow Poisoners were running deeper into the square, and they’d need to be hunted down. There was a Shadow Warrior somewhere, which would be her next target once they were sure that the grove was devoid of live monsters.

  The monsters that could get away from the fire scattered. Penelope recast to bring her back up to eight and arranged her spells in a semicircle behind the monsters. Any Thorn Beetle that ran in her direction was cut to pieces with a

  Her mana dipped into the 20s and her hand instinctively went into her pocket for a mana potion, but she didn’t pull the item out. There were three Shadows and a handful of little monsters left in the square. Nothing that was left was dangerous enough to require her to use a mana potion, so she pulled her hand back out and began walking around the burning grove.

  “We’re almost done here.” Patrick met her partway from the group. “If you want to go looking for the stragglers.”

  Penelope shook her head. “I’m almost out of mana. Give me a few minutes to regen some, then I’ll head out.”

  The Tank tilted his head a little, then shrugged and turned back to the group. “Elliot! Pen’s out of mana, so you’re on search and destroy!”

  The young man gave him a thumbs up. A small group headed out through the trees in the direction of 27D in search of the hiding Demons.

  “You’ve got enough to keep an eye on these knuckleheads?” Patrick gestured at the group of ranged attackers that was still shooting at the burning trees.

  “Yeah, I’ve still got the spell up.” Penelope twirled the overhead. “I just don’t have enough mana to and still be able to fight something.”

  “Then find yourself somewhere to sit and once they’re done, you can guide them.” Patrick twirled his hand in the air. “Nina, Freddy, Caleb! Let’s go!”

  Penelope watched the four of them head out as she sat down against a tree to watch the others finish clearing out the grove. Quite a few of the Horned Ducks got away, but most of the Nature Demons and Thorn Beetles were killed, as well as all of the Amphents.

  Jeru finally appeared next to her right as she was about to stand up. “I think I’m ready to talk.”

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