Penelope took them into the admin building.

  The moment she explained how she used her menu to access the security lock, the crowd following her took off for the other buildings.

  “You’d be in trouble if there wasn’t someone here who could access all the buildings.” Jeru grumbled as they watched the crowd scatter.

  They would have figured out how to get into the buildings eventually and this way it gives us a place to start. Penelope accessed the building’s menu once she was inside and set the permissions for who was allowed to enter. The cage that Cirdor had put her in was a great place to keep those who decided to cause trouble and was strong enough that it could even hold Casters who had learned . If anyone who wasn’t on her list tried to force their way in, they’d find themselves trapped by the magic cage before they made it to the stairs.

  “This place is amazing.” Circe breathed as she took in the bare walls.

  Penelope looked over at her closest friend. The brunette Archer had been with her through the decades-long training sessions and while her friend didn’t remember any of that, Penelope knew that there would be bonuses to how quickly Circe could raise her job levels because of the time that they’d spent together in the loop.

  “Why can you get in here?” Fredderica Riddle huffed as she strutted up a few stairs.

  “I’m not sure.” Penelope shrugged as she headed up the stairs to the second floor. “There should be a meeting room somewhere in here.”

  “What we need is a supply closet.” Patrick pushed on the door under the stairs. It opened to reveal an empty closet. “Bah! We need weapons, gear, food, and shelter!” He opened the double doors on the back wall behind the stairs, revealing an empty conference room. “I thought this was Elf stuff. Shouldn’t they have a weapons room?”

  “It’s the admin building for a school.” Penelope shook her head. “I doubt there’s any weapons on campus.”

  “Technically, there were training weapons to teach students how to fight, but all of those got moved either into town or shipped to another campus that was active.” Jeru shrugged. “You’ll be able to find some containers to store water in, and there’s bedding in the dorms, but otherwise, you’re not going to find any food, gear, or weapons.”

  “There’s probably bedding in the dorms.” Penelope looked down at the group that had gathered at the foot of the stairs. She’d managed to get the other eleven people gathered together; now she just needed to convince them to follow her into the Dungeon.

  “I can see if anyone has managed to get one of the dorms open.” Marlow Bloomer offered. The graying Healer gave everyone a warm smile as he spoke. “Does anyone want to go with me?”

  “Take Judah and Oakley.” Ula pointed at the two men. “Between the three of you, you should be able to carry enough.”

  “Frederica should go too.” Penelope pointed at the tennis racket in the older woman’s hand. “We need someone to watch their backs.”

  “You think we’re going to get attacked by one of our own?” Ula turned to look at Penelope.

  “The moment the twelve of us walked in here, we became separated from the others.” Penelope sighed. “Whoever opens a building will be able to control who is allowed inside. That means there can be as many factions out there as we have buildings, if not more.” She swallowed. “And considering there are almost six hundred of us that were brought here, that is going to create a lot of little groups, especially if there aren’t enough resources to go around.”

  Someone’s stomach growled, driving home the point. A few people laughed nervously.

  “It looks like this campus has been shut down for a while, so I doubt there’s much here in terms of food or supplies, but we can grab what we can use to support ourselves through the first few fights, and then we should be okay.” Penelope looked at Nina and Circe. “Grab whatever containers you can find and see if you can find a water source. If we have water, then we can survive in the Dungeon for a few weeks, which is longer than we have on the timer for the first floor.”

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  The two nodded and took off up the stairs.

  Frederica’s group left to see which buildings had been opened, while Raelyn came over to where Penelope and Ula were standing on the stairs.

  “You said something about factions…” The brown-haired woman swallowed. “My nephew is out there.”

  “Go get him and bring him in here.” Ula looked over at Penelope. “Is that okay?”

  Penelope nodded slowly. “He’s not going to have much here in the way of supplies, but we could bring him into the Dungeon with us. Even if he isn’t participating in the fighting, we should have food after our first monster fight.”

  “You want us to eat the monsters?” Eldri made a face and stuck out her tongue. “Yuck.”

  “We’re cooking monsters?” Patrick came out of one of the rooms off to the side on the first floor. “Where?”

  “In the game, that was how you managed your hunger.” Penelope shrugged. “I have no idea what to expect down there, but unless we find a storehouse filled with forgotten rations, that’s what we’re going to have to eat.”

  “I’ve cooked just about every animal that you can.” Patrick puffed out his chest. “Don’t worry, by the time I’m done with them, you won’t be able to tell the difference between monster meat and chicken!”

  “It sounds like we’re putting a lot of faith in your experience with a game that no one else has heard of before.” Riva folded her arms. Despite being only a year younger than Ula, there wasn’t a hint of gray in her jet-black hair. The dark affinity Debuffer was dressed in black yoga pants and a black and purple compression shirt.

  “If it’s nothing like the game, then at least we prepared ourselves and we can adjust to whatever is different.” Penelope looked over at Ula. “It’s better than charging in blind, isn’t it?”

  Ula rubbed her chin. “Well, we could send in a group and let them come back through and tell us what is in there.”

  “Not if it’s like the game.” Penelope spoke quickly before Riva could agree. “In the game, once you entered a floor, you weren’t allowed to leave until you beat the boss.”

  “Oh, come on!” Riva threw up her hands. “Of course you’d have some excuse why we can’t verify what you’re telling us!”

  “I’m not—”

  Ula put her hand on Penelope’s shoulder, silencing her defense. The older woman cleared her throat. “What I’m hearing is that we need to approach this with caution.” She looked at the other three people who were still there. “I think all of us can agree that we need to prepare all we can, but we’re still under the gun because of the countdown.” Her gaze stopped on Riva. “If you want to be helpful, go figure out what everyone else is finding and meet us back here. Until we know what we’re up against in there, we don’t need to waste precious time.”

  Riva nodded slowly, then tapped Eldri on the shoulder. “Come on, we should probably use the buddy system.”

  The thirty-five-year-old Buffer followed the older woman outside, leaving just Ula, Patrick, and Penelope.

  “Thanks.” Penelope looked down at her hands.

  “I’m not going to pretend that I understand what’s going on, but taking a little time to collect ourselves is going to be better than walking in blind.” Ula patted Penelope on the shoulder. “We need to get ready ourselves.” She looked around. “There’s got to be something around here that I can use as a bat.”

  Penelope looked around the building. There weren’t any chairs to be broken and the windows didn’t have any curtains, so there were no curtain rods. There was a railing, but breaking off a piece of it was going to be more labor intensive than she had the strength for.

  “I’ll find something.” Ula shrugged as she came to the same conclusion that Penelope had.

  “There’s nothing to loot here.” Nina announced as she and Circe trudged down the steps.

  “Everything is bolted to the floor or part of the wall. There’s nothing just lying around.” Circe’s shoulders slumped. “Sorry.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry.” Penelope tried to give the other women her age an encouraging smile, but it didn’t have the desired effect. “This is an abandoned building; it was probably picked clean decades ago.”

  “Let’s go see if the others have found anything.” Ula motioned for everyone that was left to follow her. “We still have that countdown to consider and we don’t want to be caught unprepared if the clock runs all the way down.”

  Penelope brought up the rear, leaving her soda and peanuts on the stairs before locking the building behind her. Even though Nina and Circe had gone into Cirdor’s office, they hadn’t activated his console. Penelope didn’t know if anyone but herself and Cirdor would be able to access it, but she didn’t want to run the risk that one of the other people summoned might be able to find a way to take control of the admin building. The last thing she needed was to walk out of the Dungeon after they finished the first floor and discover that Derek, or someone like him, had taken over and begun jailing anyone who opposed him.

  She double-checked the door to make sure it was locked, then headed after the others. They were getting a slow start, but with two full groups, they’d be able to make up the time that they’d lost. Penelope just hoped that it would be enough to save everyone.

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