Dinner went without any issues.
First the women, minus Rix, showered in the Clinic to get cleaned up, while I had to use the RV. It wasn’t bad, just not as nice as the facilities inside.
Dinner itself was pleasant. There were stories and jokes, but no outbursts or people getting put on the spot. Once we finished I caught Trent’s eyes and motioned to him with mine to meet out of the room.
“Ladies, why don’t you help our hosts clean up the dishes, I have some calls to make.” Trent got up and walked out to the hall. I assumed he’d know where we were going to meet and the safest place was the RV.
Once I got there, it looked empty, but as soon as I shut the door, it locked and Trent appeared in front of me.
“You wanted to talk?” Trent turned the passenger chair around so he could see the whole back of the RV. I hadn’t known it could do that. I hoped Aelin never learned that it could do that.
“I’m worried about Justia.” I leaned against the booth. "She says she’s fine, but today during the boss fight, we needed another melee attacker and she froze.” I took a deep breath, “Fray got in the way, then took Justia’s sword and helped us out.”
“She needs time to process.” Trent folded his arms. "Everyone processes things differently and violence affects everyone differently. It tends to be worse for healers.”
“What do I do?” My shoulders sagged. "I can tell that Aelin is trying to perk her up, but I feel like she’s shutting down.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Trent looked at me. "Something else is bothering you though.”
“It’s about how many monsters we beat today.” I looked him in the eye. "It doesn’t feel natural.”
The old man nodded. "It is unusual that you’re running into so many monsters.” He rubbed his bare chin. "I’ll look at the numbers and see what I can figure out.”
“What are we going to do if I am a monster magnet?” I let out a long breath. "Won’t that give me away?”
“Not necessarily.” He looked at his crystal. "Paul told his daughter of your exploits and she grabbed her Buffer friend and headed into the dungeon early this morning, still there from what I’ve heard.”
“Heard or was watching?” I shook my head. "How much of what we did today were you watching?”
“What do you want to know if I saw?” Trent smiled. "You throwing the hunting challenge or getting pushed around in the Shopping Center?”
“So you know how much it affected Ether?” I balled my fists
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“That woman is stronger than you’re giving her credit for right now.” He nodded at my hands. "You care for her, that’s good, but if you try to fight her battles for her, especially ones that she can win, you’re going to make it so she can’t fight her own battles in the future if you’re ever not around.”
I wanted to scream, but I knew he was right. So I changed the subject. “What are you getting done if you’re watching us and who knows who else?’
Trent got up and motioned for me to follow him.
He led me into the Clinic, to a part that was covered with a sheet to keep people from seeing what was going on behind it. Trent pulled back the sheet and I saw construction equipment and gutted walls. The one thing that stood out was that there were no power tools, only hand ones.
“You’re remodeling this place?” I looked at him. "Who’s helping you?”
“No one.” He walked over to a cut piece of wood on the floor and tossed it to me.
It burned my hand and I dropped it immediately.
Trent mumbled and the burns on my hands were gone.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t try to hang on to that.” He nodded at it. "That’s a tier six piece of wood.”
“What?” I looked at the scrap wood. “How? Why?”
“Once we made that contract with Justia, I started to prepare to go back into the dungeon.” He ran his hands over the wood. "I knew that I’d need to do this, so once I handed over your training to Hayz and gave the Yellow Team their assignments, I went down to the Sixtieth floor and started to Farm.”
“And this is…” I looked around. "By yourself?”
“There are only a handful of people who could get to the Sixtieth floor.” He smiled. "The good news is that the sixtieth floor counts as tier six even though the monsters are only between tier five and six strength.” He chuckled. "What did you think I was doing? Sitting at the dorm drinking a smoothie through a straw?”
Actually, that was what I thought he’d been doing. Not that exactly, but something relaxing.
“How long is it going to take?”
Trent shrugged. "Could be a week, maybe more. I don’t have to worry about the trim, Paul can do that, so as soon as I get all the frames and walls replaced, they can finish the rest.”
“How?” I thought of a better question. "Why?”
“How is easy." Trent walked over to some sheets of wood. "Tier three lumber. They can’t nail it up, but once I hang all of this over with the tier six stuff, they’ll be able to do the rest.” He leaned up against the frame. "As to why…” He shrugged. "A tier five might be able to scratch this stuff, but really, it’d take one of the top Adventurers or a God to destroy this place once I’m done with it.” He smiled. "When the All-Temple endorses the Publians…” He ran his hand over the tier six wood. "There’s a chance that ‘someone’ might try to ‘accidentally’ destroy this place or even attack them. They won’t have to worry so much about that when I’m done.” He banged his fist against a board to emphasize his point.
I had thought he was just goofing off while we were here, but Trent had been working pretty hard from the beginning. “What do you need me to do?’
“Get some sleep.” He leveled his gaze at me. "Sleep. And then take your party back to the Dungeon and enjoy being young.” He shrugged. "If the new one doesn’t level tomorrow it’ll be fine.” He chuckled. "You’re all going to probably be level three before I’m done with this.”
I shook my head and walked away. I was starting to think things might just work out.
“Oh!” Trent called after me. "You can farm in the Temple all you want, but I want you to beat the Dispatcher’s floor one boss before you hit level three!” He paused. "Not counting Rix!”
I nodded and headed back to the RV. I already knew that Rix was going to be level three tomorrow.