The island was its own community.

Circe marveled at the coastal buildings and how they all went underwater.

"About half of our community is underwater." Lady Husley gestured at the water below them as they approached the island. "Outsiders aren't usually allowed down there, as you have to be able to breathe underwater."

"They've got both spells and gear to get around that." Jeru quipped. "The real reason they don't like outsiders down there is because that's the REAL community."

Am I going to need to go down there to train? Penelope looked over the side of the speedboat. The water was crystal clear, yet about twenty feet down, it became hazy, like she was trying to look through a clouded glass window.

"They've got their own barrier around the main part of their community to block out trash or larger predators." Jeru chuckled. "And any divers who think they can make some easy money looting the buildings." He shook his head. "Seriously though. The Mebope are even more mobile underwater. Who in their right mind would think that they could walk into town and just break into a house in broad daylight? Because that's almost exactly what they'd be doing down there."

That didn't answer my question. Penelope let her hand drop into the water. The cool liquid rushed over the tips of her fingers. They weren't going very fast, but it reminded her of holding her hand out the window during a car ride.

"Their best people are down there, but it'll take days to get clearance." The blue Elf laid down on the water, propping himself up on an elbow as he floated beside the boat. "They have a very uneasy relationship with the High Elf Alliance and the Elders ever since their homeworld vanished. They're friendly, but keep more or less to their own, so they're not going to just let you down there anytime soon."

Why am I going this way instead of looking for a teacher somewhere else? Penelope glanced over at the other side of the boat, where Circe was peppering Lady Husley with questions.

"Because you're a Caster, that makes Cirdor pretty easy to get on your side. He's friends with Lady Husley, which will get you access to the Mebope craftsmen faster than anything else." Jeru shrugged. "Jeru can show you enchanting, but the council is having him evaluate the incursion. He's not going to be free to give you lessons for almost a week. Spend that time learning what you can over here and then you can branch out into the Elves' side of things."

Penelope glared at the blue man. I thought I was going to go straight to a teacher and have them show me everything they could about one of the jobs, then reset and continue with the next one.

"You're essentially an invader." Jeru scoffed. "If it wasn't for Cirdor vouching for you, they wouldn't have let you off campus until after he finished his report. More often than not, they send the crafting masters into the Dungeon to bring up people's levels while they're not clearing squares."

Which means that the people that can teach me the best are going into the Dungeon in a week. Penelope sighed. I thought you said that I wasn't going down to the fourth floor yet.

"Not all of them are going into the Dungeon. They still have to keep people on the surface to keep the town operational. So there will be plenty of people left behind to teach you. Plus, since most of the combatants are going into the Dungeon, you won't have as much competition up here for the teacher's attention." Jeru grinned. "See? Now you've got ten weeks that you can spend learning a craft."

Penelope took a deep breath. After six weeks of there always being a fight right around the corner, spending time doing something as mundane as skinning a fish sounded almost like life back home. Not that she'd ever cleaned a fish before, but it seemed like something as normal as getting up in the morning and going to work.

"PEN!" Circe boxed Penelope's arm. "Did you hear that? We're going to have our own place!"

"What?" Penelope blinked as she switched her focus to listen to the conversation between the two women.

"There are a number of vacant houses on the island and we've arranged for the two of you to stay in one of them for the duration of your time with us." Lady Husley nodded. "Though it won't just be the two of you in the house, we are going to group you with some of our Archers and Mages, I mean Casters, to learn from you. Then you will all spend time with a craftsman who will teach you about their trade."

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"How many people?" Caution filled Penelope's voice.

"The majority of our people are Tanks or Healers, so we don't have that many who are Speed or Magic oriented." Lady Husley tilted her head. "You sound displeased."

"Penelope doesn't do well with strangers." Circe chimed in. "Particularly men."

Way to slip that you don't want any guys staying with us and blaming me for it. Penelope glared at her friend.

"That does limit things even more." The silver woman ran her fingers through her wavy, black hair.

"Also, parties are capped at six people, so shouldn't we limit it to that many?" Circe shrugged like there wasn't any other choice, but the gesture was obviously forced.

"That does limit things." The Mebope woman hummed. "Cirdor tells me that you discovered a way to level up using the fluids of monsters, but it is very inefficient. He's confident that we can refine the process and have the two of you catch up on the next floor, but to justify that, we need you to train enough of our people to make up for having to earmark those resources."

"The Shadow Essence currently gives half a level to those a Tier below and a twentieth of a level to those at the same Tier." Penelope leaned forward. "How much better do you think your alchemists can do?"

"By refining it and mixing it with other monster parts?" Lady Husley shrugged. "We should be able to double its effectiveness at least."

"So how many people are you going to want us to train?" Penelope glanced at the floating Elf. This isn't what you talked about.

"What? Did you think that they were going to teach you for free?" Jeru chuckled. "You still gotta pay."

"The system that you were using to clear the zones was inefficient, but because of your limited population, it was the best you could do." She took a deep breath. "A better way of doing things will be for a forward team to clear the row straight to the boss room, then for there to be a dedicated team for each row. That allows for each of our factions to claim the resources within a single row, with a seventh row for the Humans and two rows left over for a collaboration."

"That's…" Penelope looked over at Jeru. Does that work?

"It falls apart on the fourth floor." He sighed. "Mid-bosses start showing up on a random square in each column, which requires the 'best' teams to defeat. That strategy would have worked on the second and third floors, but it's not going to cut it from the fourth forward."

So play along. Penelope rubbed her temple. "So you're going to want an extra two Archers and an extra two Casters to go with us to the fifth floor?"

"Twelve each." Lady Husley corrected. "We're putting together a team of eight right now, but we want the backups to be able to sub in the moment the Dungeon expands."

"It's going to be easier if we focus on the pair that will be fighting on the fifth floor, then train with the others on the floor before they're going to fight." Penelope swallowed. "They can work on the basics if they want, but they'll learn more from raising their job levels than they will from using a level-one skill over and over again."

"Not true, you profited greatly from casting <Light Arc> over and over again." Jeru teased.

Not helping. Penelope cleared her throat. "Look, I'm not against helping your people, but the main reason why Cirdor sent us here was to raise our job levels. If we have to give personalized instruction to a dozen people each, then we're not going to have time for our own studies."

"See? Six people." Circe grinned.

"You have a point, but I'm not sure how well I can sell that." Lady Husley stood up as the boat came to a stop at the dock.

"We can still give pointers to a class, but there should only be the two that you plan on sending down to the fifth floor with us, who should be shadowing us at all times." Penelope took a deep breath. "That should be more than enough to keep an eye on us, right?"

"We're not spying on you." Lady Husley bristled.

"I'm not saying that you have ill intent, but the people you were sending were supposed to babysit us as much as we were supposed to teach them." Penelope shrugged. "You can't let a pair of strangers go wherever they want without supervision."

"Pen!" Circe winced. "You can't be that blunt!" She looked at the silver woman. "Sorry, she tends to say what she's thinking regardless of how insensitive it is." She lowered her voice as she looked at Penelope. "You're going to get us kicked off the island!"

"You have a point, though we'll have to move you to different lodging as the house we'd intended for you to stay in is much too big for only six." Lady Husley took a deep breath. "Though, we could go and introduce you to your 'babysitters' while we get the housing situation sorted." She stepped onto the dock and motioned for the two Humans to follow her. "Come, we can walk there."

"One more thing." Penelope stood up but didn't follow Circe off the boat. "We get to pick the two we're going to work with."

The Mebope woman smirked as she looked down at Penelope. "You're going to work with all of them eventually."

"Yes, but these are the two that we're going to be the closest with." Penelope folded her arms across her chest. "We need people that we can get along with and everyone will do their job better if there isn't animosity in the house."

"Fair enough." Lady Husley looked over at Circe. "Do you have any additional demands?"

Circe's stomach growled. The brunette blushed as she covered her belly with her hands. "Um, can we eat when we get there?"

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