We all just stared at each other for a moment.

  I pointed at Astrid. “Is she breathing?”

  Gesai scooted over and blue light covered the unconscious woman. “I tried healing her before I gave her to Oz.” She nodded. “She’s breathing.”

  “What…” *Cough.* “Were…” *Cough.* “Those things?” Ether pulled her legs up into her chest as she clung to me.

  “River Arms.” I beat Gesai to the explanation.

  The silver woman’s face beamed. “You’ve been reading ahead.”

  “No…” I nodded at Oz. “We almost got eaten by one when Sipher took us.” I almost asked why she hadn’t remembered that, but she’d been unconscious at the time.

  “Oh.” Gesai shook her head. “Yeah. I knew the city had some down here to eat the bigger things, but I didn’t think we’d run into them this side of the reservoir.”

  “You KNEW those things were down here?” Fray’s outrage overpowered her shyness.

  “They should have been the direction that the Authority would have gone.” The older woman snapped her fingers. “Unless they fled this way and thought they’d found an easy meal.”

  Ether shuddered as she turned away from me and spit. “I’m going to be smelling and tasting that for a month.”

  Gesai moved over to her and ran her hand up the ivory woman’s back. “I can Purify most of the toxins and impurities in everyone, but I can’t do much about your clothes, skin, or…” She winced. “Hair.” The older woman touched her CB and took out a few bars of soap. “But these might help.”

  Ether grabbed one of the bars and pulled it under her nose. “You just keep stuff like this in your CB?”

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  Gesai turned so that she could show the other woman what all she had in her CB. “Once you hit level ten and get a new CB, your spacial limitations will be relaxed a bit and you’ll be able to carry around more things in case of emergencies.” She bit her lip as she looked at her mentor. “You might want to think about that.”

  “He strands us in the Dungeon again doesn’t he?” Ether tried to breath the smell of the soap in as the other three women hurried over to grab one themselves.

  Gesai bit her lip. “Expect everything to be an uphill struggle.” She spread her arms as she shrugged. “I don’t think I can tell you anything else.”

  “Can you tell us how we’re supposed to use this?” Oz waved the bar of soap she’d picked up. “Or is it just to smell?”

  Gesai got up and started using her earth skill to build a large tub around us. One almost the size of the one that had been in the luxury house.

  Oz stood up. “That’s great, but how are we going to..?”

  “I can fill it.” I could already feel myself running low on mana, but I had a feeling Gesai had a mana potion on her.

  The brown woman’s green eyes lit up and she began shedding her clothes.

  “OZ!” Fray looked over at me. “What are you doing?”

  “Getting out of these nasty clothes.” Oz looked at Fray, then over at me. “What? Nothing he hasn’t already seen.”

  Fray pointed at where Mive and Trent were lying unconscious on the floor.

  Oz paused, then shrugged and continued. “If one of them wakes up, then we’re out of this predicament.” She began picking up her dirty clothes and touching them to her CB to store them.

  Ether pushed herself up. “How safe are we here?”

  Gesai looked over at the other women. “Tres had Mavery send a group of Enforcers for Cere and we made a break for the closest tunnel out of the city in that direction. With the route we took to get here. I doubt anyone will be looking in this area for a while.” She went back to her task. “I doubt anyone even thinks of looking here for a few days. By then we’ll have handed them off to the Goddesses.” She tapped her fingers by her left eye. “And I sent two of those drones outside, so I’ll know if someone gets close.”

  The ivory woman began pulling the tent out of her CB. “Atlas, help me set this up.”

  Ren and Oz came over to help as well, while Fray moved Mive and Trent over to the back corner where we were setting up the tent. Once we had it up, the men were moved inside.

  “You can start filling it.” Gesai lit her fist on fire. “I can warm it with this.”

  I went over and started filling up the tub. Despite everything that we’d just gone through, at least we’d be clean.

  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