We reached Jyscor without incident.

  Every bump on the road, every strange noise that came in through the broken window, and every shadow at the edge of the headlights was another reason for my mind to go on alert.

  On one hand, it was refreshing to reach the godless town without something attacking us. I spent the first part of the ride refilling my clips and made a note that I needed more than just one for each element. The damage for each bullet wasn’t great, but I was able to dump a lot of them in a short period of time. Plus, it allowed me to effectively cut the cost of each shot in half if I loaded the clips outside of combat.

  The black-clad Enforcer at the gate took one look at our credentials, then waved us to go inside without doing an inspection. That was a perk of being at one of the All-Temple owned cities. Since we were at a godless city on the other side of the Cathedral Ward, I assumed it wasn’t strange to see a group of students from the Cathedral coming to train in the Dungeon.

  “Where to?’ Aelin glanced over her shoulder.

  “Take us to the Temple.” Trent stretched as he stood up. “I can get a car there and the rest of you can go into the Dungeon to attune your return stones to it.”

  “Should we really be fighting if we’re all sleep deprived?” I stifled a yawn, but that was enough to set Fray off, who let out a big yawn.

  “The first-floor boss is a water slime.” Trent chuckled. “I would hope the five of you could beat that in your sleep.” He turned to Miel. “You’ve registered the floors here?”

  “Klix is the second closest city in the Cathedral Ward to here.” Miel rubbed her bandaged arm. “Of course I’ve got this place mapped out.”

  “Good.” Trent straightened. “Then take them down to fight the boss and show them how to attune their stones to the Dungeon. I’m going to take a car and talk to the harbormaster to make sure everything is running on time, then you can meet me at the harbor to get the RV loaded on one of the cargo ships.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “Are we going to get something to eat first?”

  “The Temple should have a kitchen where you can get breakfast.” Trent looked at his CB. “Hmmm, it’s barely after five, so it’s probably not open.” He looked out the window. “We can either find a bakery and grab some pastries or you can eat whatever rations you’ve brought—”

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  “There’s a Morning Matters!” Aelin turned the wheel of the RV to head towards the giant sign in the shape of a sun with the center of the sun being a donut.

  “I meant after…” Trent sighed as the RV pulled into the parking lot of a strip mall. “Fine, I’ll go get you some donuts.”

  “Can you get me one with sprinkles and jelly in the middle?” Aelin parked the vehicle, then hopped out of her seat. “You know what? I should probably go in there and see what they have.”

  “Which is exactly why you’re staying here.” Trent stepped in front of the door. “I’ll get an assortment and you can store what you don’t eat.” He looked over at our current teacher. “Make sure they stay in the vehicle.”

  “What if I have to go to the bathroom?” Aelin crossed her legs and held her hands against her pink skirt.

  “Use the bathroom?” Trent nodded down the hall towards the back of the RV.

  “But what if I want to use a real bathroom?” The blonde bounced a little faster.

  “Then wait until we get to the Temple.” Trent tilted his head just a little. “If you get off this RV, it’s going to take half an hour to get you back on it and we don’t have that kind of time for you to go window shopping.”

  “But—”

  “Aelin, he’s not going to let you pop in to one of the other stores.” Justia pointed at the sign in the window that read No Public Bathrooms.

  “I thought you were supposed to be on my side.” Aelin stuck her tongue out at her partner.

  “Reining you in IS part of being on your side.” The green woman took a deep breath and turned to our teacher. “We’ll be grateful for whatever you get.”

  Trent nodded, then stepped out of the RV.

  When this adventure had first started, I’d been living off the ration bars that filled a small portion of the inventory space in my CB. I remembered the food from last night that I’d dropped into my CB and knew that if given the choice, I’d eat that before the ration bars. While the ration bars weren’t bad, they were very bland, which now that I’d been eating a wider variety of food, didn’t make them very appetizing. Back when they were what I could afford, I’d loved them, but that was in the past.

  “Alright.” Miel poked Ether. “Come on, baby. Time to get up.” She looked at me. “Since the others already have their gear on, why don’t you go get changed and we can get Ether into something appropriate once she wakes up?”

  “Okay.” I stretched as I stood up. I had a feeling that most of us could use a nap before we went into the Dungeon, but I hoped that Trent was right and we wouldn’t need it.

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