Judah was too enthusiastic.

  He stayed in his corner but felt obligated to provide a running commentary the entire time.

  “Penny cast a spell that lets her control four fireballs! Now she has eight of them! Look at them go! Wait! Look at that! She directs them after she’s thrown them! Talk about talented! Whoosh! You should’ve kept your tongue to yourself and maybe you’d still have it, aye froggy! You can cut spiderwebs with a fireball? Of course, you can do that. Is there anything you can’t do? Hey, I leveled up!”

  Penelope took care of the four frogs. She had to use two on each of them, then all four from her spell to deal with the lone spider. The Shadow Warrior managed to get close enough to throw its hammer, but it telegraphed the move, giving her plenty of time to move out of the way. A burned a hole through its chest.

  She was getting better at ignoring the experience notifications, leaving them to consolidate until after combat was over.

  DING!

  Experience +27

  “Why doesn’t it always do that?”

  Jeru shrugged as he watched her pick up the metal helmet. “People like when the numbers go brrr. They can’t get that warm fuzzy feeling if they don’t see it every time it happens.”

  “And if a notification in the middle of combat distracts me?” Penelope shook her head.

  “Then you reset and get to see all the numbers all over again!” The blue Elf sighed. “Do you want me to change it so that you don’t get the notification until after combat?”

  “I need sixty-four more experience until I don’t see that pop-up and now is when you offer?” Penelope growled, then sucked in her lips when she realized that she’d used her outside voice.

  Judah looked like he was torn between saying something or pretending that he hadn’t seen anything.

  “There are settings in these stupid menus and I just realized that I can consolidate the experience notifications.” She tossed him the helmet as she walked east. “That’s for Ula.”

  The young man nodded and tucked the helmet under his arm. “Are we going to do another one?”

  Penelope looked at the clock. It was almost three. “Ula strikes me as the type of person who gets up early, but I think we have enough time to do a few more.” She nodded at 5B. “It’s another warrior.”

  Judah followed behind her like a puppy, which was not an image that Penelope wanted to hang on to.

  5B only had two frogs, which made the initial charge easier, but the spiders tried to get around her to reach the other Caster, while the Shadow Warrior charged her with a War Hammer.

  One round of was enough to take down the Demon. Judah started casting when the webs shot at him. He still couldn’t hit the inside of a submarine, but the flames served to keep the webs off of him and slowed the spider's charge enough that Penelope cut them down with two rounds of .

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  DING!

  Experience +27

  “Did you see me burning the webs? I was like, Whoosh!”

  “Yes, I did.” Penelope motioned at the item pile. “Go get the potions and the special item.” She watched him run off to his task with more enthusiasm than she’d seen in anyone else since the Dungeon started.

  “You’ll want to skip 5C.” Jeru shook his head. “Stun Caster with frogs and spiders is going to be impossible for even you to solo.” He looked at the happy man. “And he’s not ready to do any actual fighting.”

  “It’s only 3:36.” Penelope looked south. Everyone else was in the 3D square and walking around meant getting closer to camp and possibly waking someone up.

  “I think you’ve done about everything that you could solo.” Jeru shrugged. “You’ve cleared almost half of the squares in less than twenty-four hours! You should be proud of that.”

  Penelope turned to look at 6B.

  “No.” Jeru floated in front of her.

  “That’s a warrior though.” She pointed at the Demon with a greatsword. “Those have been easy.”

  “That one has a counterspell.” He shook his head. “It’s on a cooldown because it’s part of its gear, but that doesn’t change that you’ll have to get feedback in order to make it waste the cooldown.” The blue Elf pointed at the monsters. “The Demonic Turtles have and the Demonic Lizards have . You won’t recover fast enough to counterattack.”

  Penelope sighed and looked at 6A. “A Shadow Knight. That should be doable and there’s only one turtle in there.”

  “That Demon knows . Any projectiles, physical or magical within its area of effect are redirected to it.” Jeru shook his head. “You’ll have to burn through its shield while the Lizards swamp you.”

  “Fine.” Penelope threw up her arms. “But I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”

  “We’re not doing the next one?” Judah stopped behind her. The wiry man had the War Hammer over his shoulder and was trying to carry the robe and helmet in his other arm, but it wasn’t working well.

  Penelope motioned at 5C. “We can’t solo a stun Caster.” She waved north. “And I don’t think trying the sixes is going to be a good idea.”

  “So we go around.” Judah took off.

  “We…” Penelope shook her head. “Fine, we’ll go around.”

  It had been taking her about three minutes to walk to the next square, but Judah was laden down with gear, which ended up taking over ten. When they got to the middle of the barrier to 5D, he dropped the gear and sat down.

  “I need to rest for a few.” He wiped his brow with his palm. “I don’t see how you do it.”

  “You don’t have a Speed stat of two, so you recover your stamina a lot faster.” Jeru provided the answer that Penelope couldn’t repeat.

  “We’ll take a break until four and then start back up again.” Penelope took a deep breath and started walking east.

  “Hey! Where are you going?” Judah started to get up.

  “I’m just looking at the other squares. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.” Penelope motioned for him to sit back down.

  “You mean you’re going to ask me for information on the next squares.” Jeru scoffed. “Am I just some encyclopedia to you?”

  “If there was a hint of actual distress in your voice, I might believe you.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s what I could call you. My encyclopedia.”

  “I like parasite better.” Jeru huffed as he appeared in front of her.

  “Parasite it is.” Penelope looked at the next few squares. “Assassin, Warrior, Knight…” She strained to see 5H.

  “Knight, Caster, Knight.” Jeru finished.

  “Anything out of the ordinary about them?”

  “Considering it’s going to take you half an hour to clear this square. You’re skipping 5E because it has a crossbow, so it’ll take even longer to clear the Warrior?” The Elf shook his head. “No. You’ve seen the Caster’s tricks and the Warrior just has a big sword.”

  Penelope nodded. “Then it’s back to the party.”

  “Yeah.” Jeru shook his head. “It’s going to be a party.”

  Rating, Review, Follow, Favorite, or Comment does wonders to boost my morale. If you want to help support my writing or check out advanced chapters, head over to my .

  Immersive Ink

  RR Writer's Guild