She pulled off the gloves and tossed them towards Bradley. “Put these on when you’re feeling better.”
“Is there anything I can wear?” Robert walked over to the corpse.
Penelope pawed around on the belt until she found the potion sling.
“Got it!” She took the sling over to Marlow and held it out. “You’ll need these once we hit level eleven.”
“What about you?” Marlow took the sling and put it in his yellow robe’s pocket.
“I only got thirty-five experience out of that fight, so I’ll need two more before I can’t use the potions I have.” She looked at the three wounded members of her party. “They can’t go with us, and we can’t leave them here.”
“Wait, us?” Robert’s brow scrunched as he walked back over to the group. “You’re going to split the party?”
“If we wait here, then they’ll swarm us.” Penelope pointed at the three doors. “We can’t defend all three of those and if there is a Caster in this square, it can just pick us off, especially if their groups start working together…” She held up her hand as she walked over to the doorways and peeked inside.
“What are you doing?” Robert followed behind her.
“Light Torrent!” With four more balls of light, she was able to see even more. Jeru, can we get more people in here? There’s no way I can clear the square by myself.
“The barrier can only be permeated by one team every 528 feet.” The blue Elf looked around the empty room in front of her. “This one’s clear.”
“I’m checking the rooms to see if there’s somewhere more defensible.” Penelope pointed at the three openings on the other side of the 80-foot wide by 170-foot long room. “The opening on the left leads into the other room, and the one on the right looks like it goes back to the walkway.”
She walked deeper into the stone room, keeping her
“Four doors here are going to be ever harder to defend.” Robert stayed closer to the door on the eastern side that they’d walked through.
“We can’t stay here…” Penelope walked over to the opening on her left and sent her lights into the empty room. The stone floor was uneven but smooth enough that she could tell nothing was hiding in the square room. “150 by 150 with only two doors.” She moved to the middle of the room to make sure that there wasn’t a door on any of the other three walls.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
WHOOSH…SCREECH
The blast of air wasn’t completely unexpected, but it was uncomfortable. The air itself had a cold bite, and the noise was as bad as nails on a chalkboard.
Penelope rubbed her jaw. “I need some ear plugs.”
“That’s actually a passive you might get." Jeru shook his head. “No, you’re light-based.
“What did you say!?” Robert yelled as he caught up to her.
“Just talking to myself.” Penelope looked over at the older man and swallowed. “I need you to stay with the other group.”
“You’re going alone?” The muscular man flexed. “Don’t you trust me to protect you?”
“No.” Penelope headed towards the entrance closer to the base camp. “Your Power is eight, but that wasn’t what increased when you leveled. Since you’re a Caster class, Power is useless to you right now, and of the two of us, I’m the better Caster.”
“Hey!” He grabbed her shoulder from behind. “Don’t walk away from me!”
She twisted out of his grip and put a few steps between them. “You might be stronger than me, but I’m faster, and I’ve got my spells.” Penelope pointed her wand at him. “Don’t touch me again.”
“Whoa!” Robert held up his hands. “I was just trying to talk to you.”
“You can talk to me without putting your hands on me.” Penelope turned back towards the door. Jeru, watch him, please.
“A please?” The parasite inside her gushed. “Hey! Why are you calling me a parasite again?”
You’re my parasite. Penelope made it to the doorway and had to slide over the jiggly body of the Wulf.
“Until you decide to give up.” Disappointment laced his words.
I’m not giving up, so stop thinking about that. Penelope frowned when she looked at Marlow.
The graying Healer had helped Bradley out of most of the armor the other man was wearing. The metal equipment lay scattered on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Penelope moved a few more steps to her left to give Robert plenty of room as he tried to jump over the pile of pudding.
The older man’s foot caught on the corpse, and he almost face-planted on the stone floor. He managed to shift to his side but took the brunt of the fall on his right shoulder.
“I’m okay!” Robert scrambled to get to his feet.
Green light covered his arm as Marlow pointed at the other man. “At this rate, I’m going to have to take a potion.” He narrowed his gaze. “Please don’t hurt yourself if you don’t have to.”
“I was fine!” Robert swung his arm while clenching his jaw. “See? No need for healing!”
“The spell won’t activate if there’s not a wound.” Marlow dismissed the light with a wave of his hand. He turned his attention to Penelope. “I heard a yell. Is everything okay?”
“We’re fine.” Penelope cut in before Robert could answer. “Just ironing out the chain of command.” She nodded at the armor. “What’s up with this?”
“The armor made him feel like he was still being crushed. I thought it wouldn’t hurt for him to take it off for a bit.”
“There’s still at least one monster out there, and there would be eighteen more besides that.” Penelope motioned at the man standing a few feet away from her. “Robert is going to help you move Kent and Whitney back to the entrance.”
“Why does this sound like you’re doing something foolish?” Marlow stood up and motioned at the others. “You have a party now; you need to use them.”
“Our options are to hunker down and wait for the Demons to come to us or for me to try to find a way to the other entrance and bring another group back here.”
“Wait, you think that a second group can get in here?” Marlow eyed her.
“Careful…” Jeru didn’t have to repeat the warning of just how distrustful the humans could become.
“The squares are twice as long and twice as wide.” Penelope pointed to her left, towards where they’d entered the square. “So it stands to reason that twice as many people would be able to get in.”
“Why can’t they just come in the same place we did?” Robert crossed his arms.
“Two entrances.” Penelope kept her focus on the man she was more familiar with. “Each one of the squares off the safe zone had two entrances.”
“That’s not how that works, but hey! You’re right.” Jeru smirked. “You got lucky.”
The men looked at each other.
Marlow shrugged. “I didn’t notice that. Good catch.” He cleared his throat. “So you’re going to go get four more level ones?”
“No.” Penelope had a feeling that what she was about to say wasn’t going to go over well.
“I’m going to get Freddy.”
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