Ula took the first group down.

  Penelope followed with her group of Casters. Circe and Frederica came as well with the group of six people with Speed as their main stat. There were three melee and three ranged, which made it one of the smaller groups, though it was right there with Aura. The Buffers and Debuffers split half of the Aura main stat group, though that group had stayed behind to help finish setting up the processing on the first floor.

  Circe walked over to the entrance to 11D where Penelope was standing. “It’s dark in there.” The brunette shivered. “How are we supposed to see, Pen?”

  Penelope stuck her hand through the barrier and sent a as far as she could down the hall. “I can light the way with this.” She dismissed the spell and turned to her friend. “And Eldri should be able to light things with her barriers.”

  “So we have to what? Stay close to the two of you when monsters can jump out at us at any point?” Circe shivered. “I don’t like this floor.”

  “We both have .” Penelope took a deep breath. “So we’ll be able to see when there are monsters close and we’ll know what types of monsters we’re going to face.” She turned to her right and motioned at 12E. “It looked like the length and width of the squares doubled in size, which means there’s probably quadruple the monsters in there…” She let her voice trail off as she faked thinking. “I wonder. Circe, I’m going to kick you out of the group. I want you to run down to the other entrance over there and stick your hand through the barrier.”

  “Why?” Circe’s brow wrinkled.

  “Because we tried sending both groups in on the last floor, but it wouldn’t let two people who weren’t in the same group go into the same square.” Penelope gestured at the barriers. “But if the squares are four times as big, then maybe we can send in more groups than just one.”

  “Okay!” Circe ran down to the other entrance and stuck her hand through the barrier. “IT WORKED!” The young woman cheered and pumped her fist in the air as she ran back towards Penelope.

  A small group filtered over from where they had been setting up the makeshift tents.

  “What worked?” Ula looked between the two women.

  “Pen figured out that we can send two groups into this zone!” Circe pointed at the barrier to 11D. “We’re going to whoop the Demons so hard!”

  “I was curious why the entrances were spaced about five hundred feet apart, so I decided to see if we could both cross the barrier at different places while not being in the same group.” Penelope focused on Ula’s chin so she wouldn’t have to look the older woman in the eye. “And it worked.” She took a deep breath. “And if I’m right, once we open up another side to enter from, we’ll be able to send in four groups into a single square.”

  “FOUR?!” Circe gasped.

  A murmur went through the group as the level ones digested what this could mean.

  “We’ll need to wait until the rest of the teams get here before we think about taking level ones into the zones.” Ula smiled. “But if we can get that many people geared up, then maybe this won’t be so hard.” She pointed at the lone building in the safe zone. “Oakley has the building for you and Eldri to start enchanting the rest of the gear. He tried his best to make you a stove as well so you can try brewing some of those potions you wanted to try to make.”

  “Thanks, I’ll get the circle drawn for Eldri so she can start enchanting once she gets down here.” Penelope took off to the building on the F side of the portal.

  “PEN!” Oakley waved at her as she got close. “Patrick said that a building for enchanting, a supply room, and then bathrooms were my top priority.” He gestured at the building without a door. “What do you think?”

  Penelope cast a as she walked into the building and sent it towards the ceiling to give them light. It was about twenty feet by twenty feet, which would give the two of them plenty of room to work and store gear and potion supplies.

  The stove in the back right corner was a simple stone box with a chimney in the back. The front of the box had two stones with handles on them that could be pulled off so wood could be put in the box to feed the fire, then the stones could be replaced. A metal plate was on top of the box instead of stone. It looked like it had been a shield at one point but was cut into the rectangular shape to serve as a cooking top.

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  “It’s crude, but it’s good.” Penelope gave the man a smile. “Thank you.”

  “That stove is going to fill the whole zone with smoke.” Frederica pointed at the stove from her place in the doorway.

  “The fires that Judah made didn’t give off any smoke.” Oakley turned to look at the older woman.

  “Yes, but Judah wasn’t burning wood; he was only holding the spell for as long as he could.” Penelope nodded. “Frederica is right; using wood in this is going to create smoke and the smoke doesn’t have anywhere to go but the safe zone.” She bit her lip. “If it starts making too much smoke, I’ll have to stop using it but I’m curious how much smoke it’ll make if we just burn wood that the other Casters make.”

  “Who knows?” Frederica sighed. “Just don’t suffocate us because you go all mad scientist in here.”

  “I won’t.” Penelope promised as she turned to look at Oakley. “Oakley, can you make a table on that wall?” She pointed at the wall closest to 11F. “I don’t want Eldri to have to work on the floor.”

  “Easy!” Oakley pointed at the wall and a shelf of stone grew horizontally about waist high. Every two feet a divider connected the wall to the floor, reinforcing the shelf and giving them places to store things on the floor. “How’s that?” He grinned as he looked at Penelope.

  “Perfect!” Penelope glanced over at Frederica. “That’s all I need him for. Thanks to both of you.”

  “That’s my man, the town builder.” Frederica wrapped her arm around Oakley’s left arm. “Let us know if you need anything else built in here.”

  “I’ll have to ask Eldri when she gets here, but I think we’re good.” Penelope smiled. “Thanks!”

  The pair walked out of the building, leaving Penelope alone.

  “You already know that magically created wood won’t create smoke when burnt.” Jeru clicked his tongue. “But you also only have one person who can make you any fuel.”

  And it’s going to be difficult to get the heat right in a wood-burning stove this crude. Penelope shook her head. But I still should be able to make some elixirs.

  She walked over to the corner of the table by the outer wall and began tracing the enchanting circle. It wasn’t long after she finished that Eldri walked in with an armload of gear.

  “This is nice!” The older woman dumped the gear on the end of the table by the door. “It’s going to get really hot in here with that stove, though.”

  “We can get Paul to make a block of ice.” Penelope pointed at the floor. “We’ll need to make gutters in the floor to take all the water out, but I have a feeling Patrick can whip something like that up for us.”

  “You can use ice like that?” Eldri raised an eyebrow as she looked at Penelope.

  “I put frozen gallon jugs of ice in front of a fan for a couple days when my AC died and the heat and air place was backed up.” Penelope shrugged. “It’s not a perfect system, but it’ll keep you cool enough.”

  “That’s cool!” Eldri walked over to the enchanting circle. “You’ve already got things set up for me.”

  “Patrick is wanting everyone to work on camp today, so we aren’t going to start the squares until tomorrow.” Penelope shrugged. “I figured since this is where we’re going to spend most of our downtime, I might as well start getting us what we need.”

  “What happens when we get so far into the dungeon that it takes us hours to get back here?” Eldri twirled her finger through her short, black hair.

  “I’ve been thinking about that.” Penelope bit her lip. “You know that portal that took us from the end of the first floor back to the surface?”

  “Yeah.” Eldri nodded.

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about trying to make one of those down here. Obviously the runes are a lot more complicated than the enchanting circle, but I think I can set up a circle so that you can choose which portal you want to connect to.” Penelope shrugged. “I’ll have to wait until we’ve beaten a few squares to try it, but I think it’ll work.”

  “How would you even do that?” Eldri gasped. “That would be way too complicated.”

  “Like I said, I’ll have to wait until we beat a few squares, but I think I know where the runes I need to change are to create my own portal network.” Penelope shrugged. “But it’s just a theory until I can try it.”

  “Theory.” Jeru used air quotes. “You do a really good job of selling your talents short.”

  Just trying to have a natural progression of how I’m learning to do the stuff I already know how to do. Penelope shrugged.

  “Just don’t progress too fast. People are already getting suspicious.” Jeru clicked his tongue. “You beat the first three floors without any of this stuff.”

  And lost over a hundred people. Penelope sighed. A little quality of life upgrades aren’t going to derail everything.

  “You hope.” Jeru shook his head. “You hope.”

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