Penelope woke up back in her cubicle.

Jeru, what happened? Penelope rubbed her eyes, then scrubbed the salt lines off her cheeks.

"You cried yourself to sleep." Jeru chuckled. "While I'm glad you finally let yourself feel loss and touched that you cried for me too, it had the effect you were wanting."

The Dungeon got cleared? Penelope chuckled as she realized how much sarcasm filled her thought.

"No, but Frederica postponed the fight." He opened her menu for her. "She thought you were crying about Marlow and didn't know what to do with you, so she had Circe put you back in bed and decreed that everyone was done for the night."

Penelope glanced at the timer.

Day 7 - 6:54am

Time Remaining 11:01:00:41

"It's MORNING!" Jeru raised an eyebrow. "Probably the longest I've ever seen you sleep."

Then why do I still feel exhausted? Penelope stretched as she stood up. Where is everyone?

"Frederica said something about making this the new command center, but as soon as they put that skin over the door, I was blind."

The walls were no longer just six feet high anymore. Stone went all the way to the ceiling, giving the feel of it being an actual room and not just a cubicle. Penelope walked over to the skin and pulled it aside. The other cubicles had been converted as well as the room to the east. The two trapezoid-shaped rooms were mirrors of each other. 150 feet wide at the base, they shared, and 150 feet long at the longest wall, with the other running 100 feet parallel. The angular slat on the outer wall was the one part that hadn't been converted into individual rooms, staying instead as a large storage space.

Penelope glanced into Marlow's room. The gray-haired man's skin was back to his natural color, and he wasn't wincing when he took a breath. Content that he was improving, she went to check on the others.

"You're up!"

Penelope jumped as she closed the fur that had been put over Cecil's room. She turned around to face Circe. What happened to giving me a heads-up?

"Oh, come on. That was funny." Jeru chuckled.

You really are a parasite. Penelope grumbled as she looked at Circe. "I was just checking on them."

"I know." Circe smiled. "Always trying to make sure we're all doing okay." The brunette eyed her. "The better question is, 'How are you doing?' you scared Freddy more than she'll admit last night!"

"Sorry." Penelope crossed her arms in front of her and rubbed her hands on her arms. "It was a lot."

"I can imagine." Circe frowned. "Robert was…" She paused as she thought of the right word. "Well, he wasn't Kent, which made him tolerable." She chuckled. "But he still didn't deserve to die like that."

"No, he didn't." Penelope sighed. "What did Frederica do to Kent?"

"Patrick and Oakley stripped his gear and locked him up in the jail." Circe's smile faded. "Cecil can't feel his legs, so we lost most of our team."

"Didn't one of the Healers cast a spell on him?" Penelope turned her voice inward. Wouldn't a healing spell fix that?

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"Different elements are more effective at fixing different things. Marlow is nature-based, so he can accelerate healing faster than the others. Skylar is earth, so she can mend bones better than the others." Jeru took a breath. "If there's nerve damage, then he's going to need an electric-based Healer to regrow them. And…" He cut off her question. "They would need to be Tier One or else it's not going to work on his improved body."

Can you tell me who down here is an electric Healer?

"Uh, Penelope? Are you okay?"

Penelope blinked and turned her attention back to the woman standing in front of her. "I'm sorry, I spaced out for a moment. What were you saying?"

"Skylar cast her healing spell on everyone last night." Circe motioned at the room beside her. "We were going to have Marlow try when he wakes up, but it doesn't look good."

"Caleb might be able to do it." Jeru interrupted Penelope's response. "Light can technically heal everything, but it is slower than the specialized healing elements."

"Has Caleb tried?" Penelope looked at the other doors as she tried to math out which one they would have put the other Healer in.

"Caleb is still pretty out of it." Circe motioned at the room behind Penelope. "Marlow woke up last night, but he was too weak to move, which is why we thought that he would be able to do something this morning." She bit her lip. "Caleb got beat up pretty good while all of you were running around."

The memory of the overwhelming fear loomed over her, but Penelope pushed it down. "How about the others?" She glanced at the other doors.

"Eldri was fine after she took a Mana Potion. She just went into 'exhaustion' or something like that." Circe motioned at the next door to her right. "Rockwell was touch and go, but we dumped a couple potions on him, and he stopped thrashing. Can't find any marks on him anymore, and he curled up in a ball to sleep, so Patrick thinks he's fine."

"Doesn't that mean Frederica's group is going to need a Healer if she wants to head out first thing?"

"Skylar is going to sub in for them." Circe headed towards the exit. "Patrick is going to come on our team, and Fae-Anna and Aly are going to sub in for the guy permanently."

"Aly?"

"Ailis." Circe motioned down the hall. "Let's get you over to 16C for some breakfast, and you can talk to Freddy once she wakes up."

Penelope followed, listening to the noises of people working early in the morning. The consistent rush of air the Dungeon released every ten minutes had helped to insulate her from noticing every noise. It also helped that there were only around a third of the people down there. The area that they'd cleared was almost a square mile, which allowed everyone to spread out, even though many congregated around the places where the facilities were. The showers and toilets were a big draw, as was the food storage.

The two walked into the large room that took up almost half of the square. The processing areas were kept on the As to keep the smells down to a minimum, and the Ds were reserved for guards on the lookout for Dawson's group. That left the Bs and Cs as the places where most people lived, constructs were built, or food was kept.

There weren't many people at seven in the morning, which allowed the two of them to walk right up to the tables where the meat was laid out.

"No bugs." Circe grinned as she snatched up a piece of jerky. "At least none that will get on our food." She pointed at stone vats. "They keep the water over there." She sniffed the air. "And some people have been trying to make stew, but with only monster parts, it's really just broth with chunks."

"Thanks." Penelope took a piece from the table with 'deer' scratched into it. The ones with 'rat' and 'bug' looked untouched, while 'frog', 'chicken', and 'lizard' held significantly less meat.

"When did we fight a chicken?" Penelope scrunched her brow.

"They used to have 'bird' on that table, but nobody would touch it, so they changed it to 'chicken', and people started eating off of it." Circe grabbed a piece off the 'bug' table. "Nobody likes the bug meat. I don't know why. It's kind of spongy."

"Probably why." Penelope glanced around the room.

There were tables made out of different materials; most were made out of stone, but there were a few metal and wood ones mixed in as well.

"Casters and Tanks are the best at creating raw materials." Circe popped another piece of white jerky into her mouth. "Patrick has been having the other classes put stuff together. He thinks that he'll have things figured out so that we can make our own little town down here by the time we have to move to the next floor."

"Cool…" Penelope took a deep breath as she thought about Kent. "I just wish everyone worked together like this."

"Oh, don't worry about Dawson. He's probably dead already." Circe sat down on the edge of one of the tables. "Besides, we've got guards at all the barriers, and we've walled them all off. We'll know way ahead of time if he somehow survived and tries to attack us again."

Knock, knock, knock!

Penelope turned to her left, putting her back to the door leading towards the rooms in 16A. The man knocking on the metal table on the other end of the room towards the 16C side smiled at her. He took a step back and leaned against the doorframe, the guard that was supposed to watch the door unconscious at his feet.

"Hey there, Red!" Derek Chapman yelled from the other side of the room, almost 500 feet away. "Heard you wanted to talk to me!"

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