Penelope was ready for bed.

  “That was tough!” Circe looked down at the red robe that had been wrapped around the last Demon of 12D. “Maybe it’ll have something else for you!” She bumped her shoulder into Penelope.

  Penelope looked at the red wand in her hand. It feels so weird to be using two of these. Her right hand touched the on her belt that she’d been using since almost the beginning of the Dungeon.

  “The good news is that you don’t have to dual wield; you can just leave it equipped.”

  “Happy Birthday!” Circe tossed the red orb to Marlow. “You got an upgrade!”

  The graying man fumbled the item but managed to not drop it. He pulled one of his hand crossbows off his belt and put it in the tied-up red robe that contained the rest of the loot they’d gathered.

  “If you’d say ho-ho-ho, you’d look a lot like Santa.” Circe grinned.

  “I need to gain fifty pounds and grow a beard.” Marlow straightened and grabbed his back. “I don’t think my spine or my knees would appreciate the extra weight.”

  “Well, I appreciate you the way you are.” Circe tugged off her brown hood, letting her brown hair fall over her shoulders. “I can’t wait until I can replace this thing with something enchanted.” She looked at Penelope. “It’s the only thing I’ve got that isn’t enchanted.”

  “You’re going to have to wait on that for a bit.” Penelope assured the younger woman. She glanced at Frederica, who was talking to Oakley and Eldri. Their leader wore a black metal helmet, which would work for Circe, but a leather hood would be better. “Kent gets the next upgrade we find for Frederica; then you get the one after that.”

  “I know…” Circe groaned, then her face brightened. “I leveled up again! I’m level eleven now! My upgraded to Tier One too!”

  “You’re powering up.” A smile that Penelope thought she’d been too tired to have tugged up her lips. “You’re going to catch up to me soon!”

  “Just a few more zones!” Circe beamed. “I can already hold my own with these monsters. She picked up the . “I wonder how much experience this would give me.”

  “Five.” Jeru answered in Penelope’s mind. “It’ll give a Tier Zero fifty, so don’t let her eat it.”

  “Let’s just pick it up and take it back to Patrick.” Penelope put her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Those are supposed to be rewards for the non-combatants.”

  “I know…” Circe put the into the vial while Marlow gathered up the gear. “It sucks that we have to pick up the gear now.” She looked at the barrier between 12D and 12E. “What’s-his-name hasn’t beat that one yet at least.”

  “Dawson.” Frederica walked over with the others. “We were just talking about him.”

  “What about him?” Penelope swallowed. She didn’t have any positive feelings for the man but also didn’t want to see them go to war against him. I’m supposed to be getting everyone out alive, not killing people!

  “Some people might not give you a choice.” The sad voice in her head reminded her.

  “This barrier isn’t down, which means he hasn’t cleared 12E, and I don’t know about 12F, but if his group can’t clear their half…” Her voice trailed off as the implication hung over them.

  “We’re going to have to do their side too.” Circe finished.

  “No.” Penelope shook her head. “At some point, we’re going to have to talk to them.” She looked at Frederica. “Either to figure out if they’ve died or to broker a truce and work out who is going to clear how much of the Dungeon.”

  “Robert’s not going to like that.” Marlow gathered up his bundle and flipped the bag over his shoulder. “He wants blood for what they did to Abel.”

  “He’s not the only one.” Frederica growled. “But these stupid things…” She jabbed her finger at the stone wall separating them from 12E. “Want to kill all of us!” She turned to look at the others. “If we go for blood, they’re going to kill some of us; then what?” She eyed them. “How many of us will be left after we get through killing ourselves? Huh? You think there will be enough to take on whatever is hiding in the boss room of this floor?”

  “Never enough.”

  Not helping. Penelope tried not to let the others see her reaction to the voice in her head.

  “I’m just the messenger.” Marlow held up his hands. “I agree with you that we should be working together and not against them, but he’s not going to agree to it.”

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  “Babe.” Oakley put his arms around Frederica and pulled her close. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.”

  “It’s a tomorrow problem anyway.” Penelope looked at Frederica. “We’re all tired, and there’s nothing we can do about it now. Let’s go back to the base, and maybe we’ll think of something in our sleep.”

  Circe yawned, throwing her arm across Penelope’s shoulders. “It’s way past my bedtime.”

  Penelope checked the clock on her menu, but Marlow commented before she could.

  “It’s not even nine, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be nearly eleven before I get a chance to rest these old bones.” The gray man sighed. “Tree-man, why don’t you carry this thing back?”

  Frederica’s hands slid across Oakley’s arms as he untangled himself to take the big red sack from the older man.

  “You’re not that old.” Oakley adjusted the sack over his shoulders. “Something like this is just a warm-up.”

  “For someone your age, maybe.” Marlow chuckled. “You forget, I could have a kid your age.”

  “You’re only like forty!” Circe laughed. “That’s too young to have a kid his age!”

  “Forty-four.” Marlow corrected as the group headed towards the other end, where they’d left the rest of the team. “Not unheard of for a sixteen-year-old to get pregnant. You don’t hear of the sixteen/eighteen split often when it’s the guy, but that’s how it was with me and Jane.” He tilted his head as a grin crossed his face. “Not that we had a kid right off, but we were high school sweethearts.”

  “What happened to her?” Circe put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Car wreck, six years ago.” A tear welled up in his eye. Marlow wiped it away with the back of his sleeve before it had a chance to fall. “Anthony took it hard. Don’t know what I would have done without her parents.”

  “You sound like you were a great dad.” Circe gave him a hug, pausing their procession. “A lot better than mine.”

  “You seem like you turned out okay.” He tousled her brown hair.

  “Hey!” Circe swatted his hand as she pulled back. She ran her fingers through her hair in an attempt to fix it. “We don’t have brushes down here! Do you know how hard it is to get the knots out!”

  “You forgot the monster blood and dirt.” Penelope quipped as she touched her own hair. The red locks between her fingers were dirtier than she’d ever gotten, but without soap, there was nothing more she could do than just rinse it out.

  “Yeah!” Circe pouted. “Patrick should figure out how to make soap out of those monster parts that he’s always playing with!”

  “If this had been the nature floor, then you’d have plenty of wood to burn, and you could have made some soap out of that.” Jeru laughed. “But that doesn’t happen often.”

  Penelope hung back so she could talk to her inner voice without it being drowned out by the others. You told me that the floors are different for everyone, but have you figured out why?

  “The other you theorized that the system restricted the ArchDemon to only using a single element on each floor. That he can tell what elements are used in the boss fights and then stacks the floors so that the people who did the most work on the previous floor will find their element restricted on the next one.”

  I’m guessing air restricts both light and dark?

  “Only light. Dark actually does more damage to air.” Jeru appeared in front of her. “That’s why I’m confused. Nature takes no damage from light while still being weak to dark. For the theory to hold water, this should have been a nature floor.”

  But I still have my ice and air spells. Penelope countered. How do those fare?

  “Nature is weak to both; good call.” Jeru chuckled. “I guess it makes sense in a way, but still, that’s not your primary weapon.”

  It was against the Cabbit. Penelope quickened her pace, not that it mattered if she fell behind the others, but if Circe noticed her lagging, the younger woman would fall back to walk with her, which would interrupt this conversation.

  “Which means the floor bosses are able to report to whoever sets up the floors, but not the square bosses.” Jeru mused. “I still think there’s more to it, but that’s something that we’ll probably never fully understand.”

  You mean you don’t know how the Dungeon works?

  “I copied a very large system spell that required an enormous mana anchor to run. I then wove that spell into the very fabric of the incursion so that the only way to remove it would be to destroy the incursion itself. But that also allowed the ArchDemon to put pieces into each floor. As you get deeper, it’ll figure out that it can replace a group of minions with another Demon leader and you’ll even run into rooms where the Demon in charge is the same type as one of the bosses you can run into in the boss room.”

  And you were going to tell me that when?

  “It’s never happened on this floor, so you’ve got two weeks for me to bring you up to speed on what you might face on the next floor.” Jeru huffed. “Would you rather hear about the next floor or the one you’re on?”

  You’re right. Penelope held up her hands. I just feel like you’re still not telling me something.

  “I’m not telling you a LOT of things. I’ve got fifteen hundred years of memories, and I’m trying to decide which of them is relevant for you.” Jeru sighed. “Look, the system I copied was a training program where the person who cast the spell also had control of the anchor. My original goal was to just create a funnel so I could burn through the beachhead without getting overwhelmed, but that didn’t work. Which is why I’ve been running through like this with you loopers. Going back in time is hard enough, but bringing your magic with you costs even more.”

  “Penelope! Hurry up!” Circe waved at her from the doorway of the room where they’d left Patrick.

  “Go.” Jeru motioned with his head. “We’ve got plenty of time to talk about this later. Right now, you need some sleep.” He winked out of sight.

  “Coming!” Penelope hurried down the tunnel. She still had a lot of questions, but Jeru was right. Those could wait until later. Right now, she needed to focus on this run, and that meant getting some sleep.

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