They started on the squares the next morning.

  They only needed to clear six squares a day to beat the timer and with two teams, that gave them each a responsibility of only three squares. They weren’t confident enough to split the teams just yet and sent their two level ten teams to clear 11D-11A. That took them to level twelve and gave them a lot of potions to work with.

  The first thing Penelope noticed was that the Shadows were different. While the monsters in column eleven were the same, she couldn’t predict where gear was going to drop. Since Eldri was getting better at enchanting, gear was less of a problem, but gathering the right enchantments for the gear was going to be an issue. had been invaluable for Penelope and she’d gotten it from a scroll drop in the seventeenth column. Without knowing for certain that she was going to get the scroll, she had to take matters into her own hands.

  After lunch, she brought the extra potions to their enchanting building. Each of the spell users had a mana potion for emergencies and everyone had a healing potion, which gave them a supply of ten mana potions and four healing potions to work with.

  Eldri looked at the potions and shook her head. “Fae asked me if she could come see how we do things in here, but I don’t know if we should bring her in when we’ve got so little to work with.”

  “I could make another enchanting circle on the other end of the table and we could let her work on things from the first floor.” Penelope looked at the stove and sighed. “I really want to see if I can infuse mana into the infernal water and make potions of our own; then we wouldn’t have to worry about a supply.”

  “That would be great!” Eldri beamed. “Everyone wants gear from the second floor, but I’ve only got enough stuff to gear out one person, and even then, they won’t have any bonuses on the gear.”

  “I was thinking about how we could get around that, but…” Penelope shook her head. “I have a feeling we’re only going to be able to use the air affinity right now.”

  “But if everyone had air resistance on their gear…” Eldri twirled her finger. “We wouldn’t have to worry so much about the monsters.”

  “I’ll see what I can do…” Penelope walked over to the other end of Eldri’s workbench. The table ran the entire twenty-foot length of the building, which would be more than enough room for multiple enchanters to work at once. “You go and get whoever wants to learn how to do this and I’ll get you started with a couple circles.”

  Eldri ran through the doorless entrance of the building, leaving Penelope to her task.

  Penelope made four more enchanting circles, spacing them about every five feet to give each person enough space to work. They still had quite a few potions from the first floor and considering the main team was all level twelve, those potions weren’t going to be of much use if they had to use them.

  “Pen.” Patrick walked into the building. “I need you to use that spell of yours and make me some nails.”

  “I’m a little busy right now.” Penelope looked up from the third circle she was working on. “Weren’t you going to try to get Caelyn to make a bunch of firewood?”

  “I’ve got Dora making vines too so we have some rope, but what I really need are tools.” Patrick shrugged. “Metal tools.”

  “Eldri is trying to get enough people to raise their enchanting high enough so we can start cranking out gear for people that is on level with this floor.” Penelope pointed at the circle she was working on. “I need to get this finished before she gets back and we really need to start trying to figure out how to make our own enchanting agents because we’re going to run out of what we’ve got before the end of the day.” She motioned at the stove. “If you want to try your hand at brewing…”

  Patrick eyed the stove, then shook his head. “I’d love to, but we need to get places for everyone to sleep. We can’t have people sleeping out in the open with that blasted wind hitting them every ten minutes. It’s a wonder anyone got any sleep last night.”

  Penelope didn’t bring up how he’d tried to put an over the hole in the middle of the safe zone. The air had blasted the plug off like a bullet, blasting a hole in the stone floor below it and raining dust and gravel on everyone within a hundred feet of the impact.

  Now that they had four squares cleared, that gave them pre-made rooms to put people, but they still needed doors. The last loop, hides had been used at this stage, but that had only tempered the wind blasts. They’d been able to make boards and nails later and Patrick had figured out how to make hinges, but it hadn’t been until the third floor that they had a Tank who could make them metal plates using .

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  Should I tell him that we can level up Jerry until he learns ? Penelope looked over at the blue man lounging on the table beside her.

  “You could use two of the second-floor Shadow Essence to get him the skill, but then everyone is going to want Shadow Essence to level.” Jeru shrugged. “Which means less for you to make elixirs out of.”

  There’s just too much to do and not enough people I can delegate things to. Penelope sighed. “We should have brought a metal Caster down here.”

  “Live and learn and there’s nothing we can do about it now.” Patrick shrugged, then pointed at the half-drawn circle. “How long is that going to take you?”

  “I’ve been at this for almost half an hour already, so at least that much longer.” Penelope put down her wand. “I thought Eldri would be back by now.”

  “I sent her with Circe to get a targeting range set up for the others to practice on in case you’re right about being able to have four teams go into a square.” The balding man scratched his head. “Even if we can’t, we need to think about cycling in some of the level ones to get them experience so we can use their skills and spells.”

  The older man stayed in the doorway, watching her. Penelope recognized that gaze. She’d seen it on dozens of people who were going to linger until you gave them what they wanted. While Patrick was at least polite enough to watch her in more or less silence, having him looking over her shoulder was going to slow her down.

  “Fine, I’ll make you some metal.” Penelope picked up her wand and cast

  . While she hadn’t needed to take the spell at level twelve, it did make things much easier being able to just directly cast the spell rather than having to transform into it.

  The prism floated to the floor. Once it was in position, Penelope cast and used , the passive she’d earned at level eleven, to cast the spell through the prism. Her time experimenting with on the last loop helped her split the balls into dozens of finger-length metal slivers. Each cast was making about forty nails and after casting it a few times, she was satisfied with the amount of nails on the floor.

  She shifted her focus to make the balls into long poles, then flattened one end. It was a very crude shovel and only three feet long from end to end, but it would also be able to be used as a large chisel on the stone in the dungeon. She dropped eight of those on the floor next to the pile of nails.

  “You’re going to have to use hammers from the weapon pile.” Penelope gestured at the pile of metal. “I can flatten or sharpen one end, but I haven’t been able to make a hammer head and I don’t really have the time to experiment to figure it out right now.”

  “This works.” Patrick picked up one of the nails. “You couldn’t make them with a head?”

  “That’s what you got.” Penelope turned back to her circle. “I need to get these finished before Eldri gets back with the others.”

  “I’ll make it work…” Patrick grumbled, then he looked at the door. “KING! GET IN HERE AND HELP ME GET THIS STUFF!”

  The brown-haired young man hurried into the building. When he saw the pile of nails, he grabbed one of the plain robes from under the enchanting table and laid it on the floor next to the pile. Once he’d scooped the nails onto the robe, he wrapped it up and threw it over his shoulder.

  “I’m going to need boards too and some metal plates.” Patrick rubbed his chin.

  Penelope shook her head. “You’re going to have to make do with that until I can get caught up on my list of tasks.” She shook her head. “I can’t be your only material creator.”

  “Caelyn can only make sticks the size of my thumb.” Patrick grumbled. “You can’t build anything with that.”

  “We’ll figure out a way to get her levels tomorrow.” Penelope turned back to her circle. “Go help set up the processing area; there’s lots of Wulfs that can be butchered.” She sighed when he didn’t move. “I need at least two hours in here. So can you please find somewhere else to be useful for that long? Then I’ll come make you material until my mana runs out.”

  “We’ll be in the far corner of 11A.” Patrick nodded. “Good luck with all this.”

  The two men left her building, leaving her alone with her parasite.

  “You’re like the perfect hardware store.” Jeru laughed. “Don’t worry. Once you get the Tanks some experience, he’ll be bothering them for materials instead of you.”

  We have two dark, a fire, a water, and an earth. Penelope shook her head. “How long is it going to be before Caelyn can make boards?

  “Not too long actually.” Jeru grinned. “Her secondary is Defense, so her spells will all be eruption-types. She’ll be able to get at level five, which is basically a pole the size of my arm that shoots out of the ground.”

  It’s going to take the entire top half of the twelfth column to get her there. Penelope sighed. Which we’ll be able to get done tomorrow morning so I just have to put up with this for this afternoon. She resumed drawing the circle with her wand. Just one more day.

  “That’s how I’ve been keeping myself sane for the last two thousand years.” There was a hint of sadness in Jeru’s voice. “Just one more day.”

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