Penelope woke up in one of the rooms.

  “It’s okay.” Jeru floated over to the door. “You’re in 11D, near the front.”

  She remembered the room; it was in the middle of the square near the southern wall. The main room was a circle, with a single 20 by 50 room in each of the cardinal directions.

  “The leaders are getting the more private rooms, with this being the current HQ.” Jeru waved his hand through the skin that had been nailed to the ceiling with . “You even have a little bit of privacy.”

  Penelope rolled off of the skin that they’d used for a bedroll. The unenchanted black robe covering her had a couple holes in it, which made it unfit for protection, but it worked as a makeshift blanket. She gathered up her gear and walked out into the circular chamber.

  “Pea!” Marlow looked up from the map in the middle of the room. Someone had raised a flat square and drawn a map of the current safe zone. Names were scratched into the rock along with words like Bathroom, Kitchen, and Butcher. “How’re you feeling?” He met her halfway and felt her forehead. “No fever anymore.”

  “Better.” She glanced at the time in her menu.

  “How is Freddy?”

  Marlow pointed to the door behind him. “Oakley came out a few minutes ago. Said she was awake and moving around.” The graying man shook his head. “I’m no doctor, but I still would like it if both of you could take the day off.”

  “The timer—”

  “I know.” He held up his hand to cut her off. “I said I’d like it, not that it was reality.” He motioned to his left. “Patrick showed up about two hours ago, and we had a little power struggle with Abel, but it wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle. We gave him that room, though he hasn’t been in it yet.” He gestured at the room to his right. “And that one is mine.”

  Penelope nodded, then looked at the doorway out. It was diagonally to her left, which meant she was facing the western wall. Being able to orient herself took the edge off of the discomfort of the unfamiliar surroundings.

  “What about Bradley?”

  “Whatever that thing hit you with did a number on him. While you and Freddy taking the day off is a suggestion, he can’t stay standing when the zone blows. Patrick is going to have to go in with us today.” Marlow motioned for her to follow him to the map. “There are 109 people down here right now, with sixty more supposed to show up throughout the day.” He motioned at the map. “This is the only room with small enough rooms that we can give people their own room, but we’ve got a men's sleeping area here and a woman’s sleeping area here.” He pointed at the next two rooms that were north of where they were.

  “The air blasts come out of the middle of each zone, so the smells get pushed to the edges, so that’s where we’ve tried to concentrate the dirtier rooms.” He pointed at the northwest and northeast corners of 11D. “We’ve turned these into outhouses, though it’s not as convenient as the holes we had in the first floor.” He grinned. “We’ve been sending fire Casters in there to burn it every few hours. It’s not the best plan, but it’s taking care of the waste.”

  Penelope nodded. “Did you sleep last night?’

  “A little.” He held up his hands. “I know, I need to be ready to go when Freddy gets out here, but there’s a lot of stuff to set up, and the only clear chain of command is that we’re in charge right now.” Marlow glanced around the room, then lowered his voice. “The only reason we’re running things is because we’ve got stats and in control of the enchanted gear, but once that changes..." He shook his head. “There’s a lot of angry people out there, and that’s not counting the ones who stayed on the surface.”

  They’d really start fighting amongst themselves when there are Demons a few feet away? Penelope covered her eyes with her left hand, then sighed. “Freddy can figure that out when she gets up.”

  “I can figure out what?’

  Penelope jumped as their leader walked towards them. Frederica Riddle looked around at the circular room, then at the map in the center.

  “There’s contention between some of the level ones.” Marlow spoke up for Penelope. “We’re trying to get leaders to run things while we’re in the rooms, but there have been a handful of people who have openly contested us running things.”

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  “Round them up, and I’ll talk to them.” She looked over at Penelope. “Oakley told me that you helped clear the square so we could get out faster.”

  Penelope just nodded.

  “And he told me that you and Bradley got pretty roughed up.”

  Penelope shrugged. “The last Demon had a death curse. It hit us pretty hard, but once Marlow cleansed the poison, we got better.” Jeru, am I still cursed?

  “It was only active for half an hour. It probably could have killed Bradley, but you could have just slept it off. Painful, but not lethal unless you still had more to clear in the square.”

  “Are you still cursed?” Frederica echoed Penelope’s question.

  “No.” Penelope shook her head. “It fell off sometime in the night while I was asleep.”

  “Good.” Frederica took a deep breath. “After I talk to Patrick and get something to eat, we can start clearing rooms again. Only doing two yesterday has put us way behind.”

  “The others need only one more kill to get them to level five.” Penelope followed behind Frederica as the older woman headed towards the exit. “We’ll be able to start going faster the higher level they are and the better the gear we get.”

  “What type of items did we get in the last room?” Frederica walked into the open zone, then turned to her right to walk towards the place where she’d been stabbed. The monsters that had been there the night before had all been moved, leaving only black stains on the ground as any evidence that there had been a fight there.

  “There was a Power ring and a skill, but I left them with Oakley.” Penelope shrugged. “I’m not sure what the other two had.”

  “We got a green robe for Marlow and the warrior’s pants, though we don’t really have a melee attacker right now.” Cicre ran up beside the pair.

  ‘What about Kent? Penelope took a step to her left to put some space between herself and the excited woman.

  “You want to give Kent good gear?” Circe looked at Frederica. “We thought you might want it.”

  The older woman paused and looked at her menu. “You’ve got a point; I could use some more Power.”

  “Patrick took them and put them in his room with the rest of the enchanted gear.” Circe looked over at Penelope. “Hey, Pea. How’re you feeling?”

  “Much better, thanks for going and getting Marlow.”

  “Can’t have my bestie dying out there.” Circe grinned. “Anyway, most of the others are still asleep. Are the two of you going to handle some admin stuff, or are we about to head back in there?”

  “Are the entrance points mapped out already?” Frederica looked around the empty space. There were only a few people milling around, and everyone seemed to have a task they were in the middle of.

  “The tunnels are almost six hundred feet apart, but they are both angled toward the inside.” Circe looked at Penelope. “Eldri got the spell in her last level-up and used the one-hand-in-the-zone trick to see how far she could see. Her range in the tunnels is only about a hundred feet, which wasn’t far enough to see the intersection, but even if it was a straight line, we wouldn’t have been able to see it.”

  “Circe, was it?” Frederica looked at the younger woman.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Circe saluted.

  “Go wake up everyone else and tell them to meet us at the closest intersection in the safe zone.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Circe took off to the north, running down the tunnel around the command cave.

  “I’m going to find Oakley and something to eat; do you want...”

  Penelope nodded. “I’ll get something to eat, then meet you there.”

  Frederica waved, then walked away.

  Penelope stood in the open area and turned her thoughts inward. Any idea why Eldri got at level four and I got it at level eleven?

  “The system gives you what you want along with what you need.” Jeru watched the other two women leave.

  So you’re saying that I could get at level two if I focused on wanting it first?

  “No.” The blue Elf sighed. “Okay, short version is that there are minimum level requirements on the skills and spells. is a level nine spell. You’re not going to be able to upgrade it from Tier Zero to Tier One until you reach nineteen, even though you know it exists.”

  So because has a lower level requirement, I learned it since I was wanting a way to light up the area?

  “Exactly!”

  Then why did I get so many offensive spells on the first floor?

  “Because you were wanting a better weapon and not focusing on non-combat or buffing situations.” Jeru swallowed. “Look, I know you’re going to say that this falls under the category of stuff you should have been told, but you were focused on figuring out the runs. Throwing in the option of all of the different things that you could learn so you could start min-maxing would have only added to the variables, not to mention that people don’t start noticing that you can influence what you want to get until over halfway through the fourth floor!”

  Penelope took a deep breath. She was upset, but she was also too tired to be angry at her parasite. She’d slept longer last night than she had even before she’d been kidnapped.

  “Isekai’d.”

  Whatever. Penelope sighed. Let’s just focus on the passives that are going to help me out the most going forward since you don’t want to teach me any spells.

  “That won’t be too hard.” Jeru laughed as Penelope turned and walked towards the octagon where the kitchen was housed. “We already know what you’re going to want your next passive to be.”

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