Riva helped her with the magic paper.

  They didn’t have the proper tools to make the best quality possible, but they were still able to make thick sheets of brown paper. The blue-leafed trees on the surface were hard, so they were able to make smooth paper, which helped with transferring spells to the paper for people to learn.

  Once they had a small stack of paper ready to use, Penelope gathered up the people she needed to have the proper spells; most notably, she wanted Riva’s spell. The ability to grab the Cornmen and lock them in place kept them away from the group and minimized the explosive damage.

  The other thing she needed was from Fae Anna. was something they’d put on rings, and she could have put the two spells on the other ring and pendant, but many of the Casters had other jewelry they were wearing and wouldn’t want to swap it out for a single column.

  On the productivity front, she managed to convince Patrick to let everyone eat for free in the morning and reduce the coins' work requirement to ninety minutes. There was still plenty of grumbling, but a lot less than the previous run.

  The two weeks flew by and Penelope found herself in 26E once again.

  “This is the fight to take us to thirty!” Circe cheered as they waited for the monsters to come to them.

  “I think we’re going to have to chase them.” Judah leaned against the ledge. “That’s what they’ve been making us do the last few days.” He turned to look at Penelope. “It’s easier to beat them in small groups, but it takes a lot longer.”

  “I’ll go talk to Ula.” Penelope behind the wall. People nodded at her as she made the S to get to the front where the Tanks and melee fighters were waiting.

  “I don’t think they’re going to come at us.” Penelope looked at the six people gathered in the last curve of the building.

  “We were just talking about that.” Ula nodded at her. “If this was any other area, we would have already gone out there, but since you seemed so worried about the popcorn...” She glanced out the opening, then looked back at Penelope. “We thought we’d give them a little more time.”

  “I’ve got the Casters ready to handle them, I think.” Penelope sighed. “But we still will need walls up, so be ready on that.”

  “We can keep our groups closer together so we can overlap.” Oakley put his arm over Frederica’s shoulders. “Freddy can deal with any of the Shadows that decide to join the fight.”

  “I’m still worried that they are going to try to swarm us the moment we leave our fortification.” Penelope bit her lip. “I’f we’re all out there, it makes an easier target for them to bomb.”

  “And if we don’t all go out there, then it makes us easier to swarm.” Patrick growled. “We’ll handle the walls, you just take out the big threats, then Ula and Freddy can lead the clean-up.”

  “Okay.” Penelope nodded and back on top of the building. “They’re ready to go out there.”

  “Finaly!” Circe jumped down from the wall around the roof of the building and walked over to Penelope. “See you guys on the ground!”

  Penelope her friend in front of the opening of the building. The Healers and Aura mains were still filtering out as the rest of the ranged attackers came down off the roof.

  This time, instead of all the ranged attackers going out with a single Tank, each group stayed together. Penelope cast her red

  overhead with attached to it so she could keep an eye on things. Just like in the previous run, the first barricade held a spider-legged, shark-head Tank and a winged, stubby legged rodent.

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  She unleashed on both before they could leave the safety of the barricade. The moment she cast her spell, all the monsters charged them.

  “Make a wall!” Patrick shouted as a four-foot high stone wall rose out of the ground in front of them.

  “Lock the Cornmen in place, then drown them!” Penelope dropped the prism out of the air, letting it explode as it hit the ground. She’d contemplated using it as a bomb, but the explosion was barely had a three foot radius, which was bigger than a fireball, but not big enough to take out large groups of enemies.

  Without the prism to cast through, each of the floating overhead became her main focus. She cast through each one, grabbing a Cornman and lashing it to the ground. Once they were ripped out of the short arms of the Raptens, she cast through each of the , encasing the monsters in a large ball of water.

  The resulting explosion showered them with hot water, but it wasn’t hot enough to burn them, more like hot enough to make you want to get out of the shower, but after a moment, it cooled. It did turn the ground into mud, which slowed everything down.

  “We can’t advance like this!” Patrick added another wall five feet in front of the other, then cast his skill over the damaged wall.

  “Most of the Cornmen are dead!” Penelope scanned the square for more. She’d taken care of four of them, Judah had gotten two and Allis and Riva had each managed to take out one. Which left a single Cornman for them to neutralize.

  Without eyes on the last threat, Penelope recast

  so she could help thin the monsters. scorched the wave of charging monsters adding to the flames from Allis and Judah’s spells. The monsters that were able to get through the flames and arrows were met by the melee people and quickly dispatched.

  “It’s going to throw it! Ten o’clock!”

  Penelope looked through the prism in the air to her left. A Shadow Swordsman held the last Cornman by the legs and was spinning in place just outside of their range. She moved two of her in between the Shadow and the team on the left.

  The Shadow let go of the monster, sending it flying towards the left group. snaked out of two and gripped the monster, then her spell shot towards the fake sky ceiling as covered the monster. The explosion rained water all over them, but it was far enough away that it wasn’t very hot by the time it reached them.

  The two got destroyed, but they were easy to resummon.

  “That’s the last of them!” Penelope announced as she turned her focus on grabbing monsters with , then burning them with .

  The monsters turned and ran as they stopped gaining ground.

  “And now we have to clean up…” Patrick growled. He hit his stone wall with his gauntlet, knocking pieces of stone off. “If they hadn’t been dampened by the water, it would have blown the wall over us.” He swallowed as he looked at Penelope. “That would have been really bad.”

  “That’s why I had all the Casters learn .” Penelope smiled at him. She couldn’t see his face under the metal helmet, but she could imagine the gruff look he was wearing.

  “You keep thinking of everything.” The older man sighed.

  “Not everything.” Penelope scrambled. “You’re the one who came up with doors, plumbing, soap, the showers—”

  Patrick held up his hand. “That’s not things I came up with. It’s just using what I know to make life better around camp.” He hit the wall harder and a large section crumbled away. “We had construction back home. Are you trying to tell me that you spent a lot of time with explosives?”

  “I read a lot?” Penelope shrugged.

  A ding cut off his reply.

  “Well, there’s thirty.” Patrick announced. He shook his head. “That means it’s time to start swapping some of our people out to build up more fighters.” He pointed deeper into the dungeon at the Boss Square. “We’ve got to be as ready as we can be for that thing.”

  “I’ve already got a list of people for the four backup teams.” Penelope looked around at the other groups to see where she’d be the most helpful. The other two teams had already gone deeper into the square. Ula and Circe had each joined one of the teams, while Raelyn and Riva were walking around the mud pit.

  Penelope over to Patrick, then both of them to dry ground. Having mud on her feet made her skin crawl, but washing them off would only make more mud. It was one of the things she hated the most about sandals and it reminded her that she needed to get Eldri to enchant her a pair of boots.

  Patrick waved at the other two women, then turned to Penelope. “Alright, let’s finish this up.”

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