Oakley and Ula were the only two with an Aura stat over ten. Oakley already had
The rest of the afternoon went smoother, with them spending about forty minutes in each square. After they finished 8F, they stopped for dinner.
8B was much easier. The Demon leading the monsters had a longsword and focused on Oakley with the three wolves. Ula and Frederica paired up to deal with one of the snakes while Penelope dealt with the other, and then they picked off the monsters swarming their Tank.
The Caster in 8C had a spell that knocked them back but no way to intercept incoming magic. Two
8D and 8E both had a Shadow Archer. Their range was wider than hers, but that just forced her to stay farther back and pick off the smaller monsters, and then the group was able to focus on the Demon in charge. Judah hit level ten when they finished 8E, giving him
8F was the last square that had more wolves than snakes. The Demon in command of that square gave the monsters shadows on their claws and fangs, which made the monsters more dangerous, but since they were going to stop to eat and it would be an hour before they resumed, Penelope dumped all of her mana into casting
Once they reached the camp, the others were still in shock over the scene of carnage that Penelope had rained down.
“How…” Judah’s eyes were wide as he watched her sit down. “How did you do that?”
“I practiced.” Penelope reached for more of the dry jerky. Without Judah to cast fire or water spells, the meat that Patrick harvested hadn’t been cooked, so instead of gathering more, he had continued to harvest monster parts while they had worked on the squares.
“I don’t think I could ever practice enough to be that good.” The young man offered her a helmet of water.
“Thanks.” Penelope kept her eyes down. The gaze of everyone felt suffocating as their minds still processed what she’d done.
“Have you been able to do that the entire time?” Frederica broke the silence.
“What do you mean?” Penelope swallowed the dry meat and washed it down with the helmet water.
“Kill everything that fast.” The blonde looked around for support. “Come on! You all were thinking it! We’ve been slaving away while Miss Precious over there could have been clearing these rooms by herself!” She touched the back of her head. “If she had, then we’d be out of here by now and I wouldn’t be disfigured!”
“I don’t think you’re disfigured.” Oakley put his hand behind the older woman.
“That’s sweet, but you have to say that.” Frederica patted his leg and looked at Marlow and Ula. “Seriously? Neither of you?”
The party leader cleared her throat. “You’re embarrassing yourself, Frederica.” She held up her hand as the blonde tried to argue. “Don’t.” Ula locked eyes with the other woman until the blonde broke the staring contest and backed down.
“Penelope…” The tanned grandmother turned to the youngest woman. “Sweetie. Frederica is being dramatic, but she raises a good point. How long have you been able to throw around spells like that?”
Penelope shrugged. “It takes me twenty-six minutes to recharge my mana, twice that if we’re in combat.” She swallowed. “I’ve been trying to hold some in reserve in case we run into trouble while we’re in one of the squares.” Penelope glanced around at the group. Their shocked faces were starting to fade. “So I could do that every other square, but that would stop me from being able to cover people. If you want me to rotate with Judah, so—”
“NO!” Frederica shot to her feet. Her face flushed when she realized that she’d yelled. “I mean, no.”
“What about how you blasted apart those monsters?” Marlow wiped his hands on his robe. “None of us have anywhere close to that accuracy.”
“I have good hand-eye coordination.” Penelope swallowed the last of her meal and tried to change the topic. “We still have four more squares left in the eights, and they all have more snakes than wolves.”
Penelope selected the button on her menu for sharing the stats of monsters.
“Here’s what we’re up against in the nines and I’d like to do at least one of those squares so I can see what we’re up against in the tens…” Penelope looked north. “9F looks like the only Caster in the nines. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a piece of gear, so I’d like to try that one.”
“Uncontrollable?” Oakley groaned. “What’s the point of being able to tank if I can’t make things focus on me?”
“But with a low Recovery stat!” Judah beamed. “Penny will be able to shred them!”
Penelope scooted away from her fan. “Probably, but they have
“Oh…” The young man’s face fell. “I can use my
Penelope nodded. “The main issue is going to be the scorpions.” She looked towards their Healer. “You didn’t learn any poison healing spells?”
The older man shook his head. “Not specifically, but I do have a
“Which means we’re going to have to try to keep from getting poisoned.” Ula looked over at the other older woman. “But there’s nothing to stop you from assassinating the boss, so we’ll be able to start doing that again.”
Frederica smiled triumphantly. “Maybe we’ll be able to get out of here before someone dies.”
Penelope winced, remembering how many times the first group had perished while she learned the basics. There had been too many close calls, and while she didn’t want to do a restart, she was determined to finish the first floor without anyone dying, even if that meant having to redo the floor fifty times.
“Well.” Ula stood up and looked east at the remaining rooms in the eighth column, then looked at Penelope. “How about we do 9F first, then we can finish up the eights?”
Penelope tried to hide her excitement as she thought about the actual helmet and not just a hood that was attached to her robe. She smiled. “Sounds great.”
“Finish eating.” Ula looked around at everyone. “We need to get started as soon as we can.”
Penelope looked at her clock as she walked towards the next square.
There was still a lot of time left, but they had twenty-four squares to go, and one of those was the floor boss.
What is the boss like? Penelope looked at the one square on the entire floor that was shrouded.
“It changes every time.” Jeru had a remorseful tone in his voice in her head. “There are ten different monsters that I’ve seen in there, and it’s always six different ones.” He sighed. “It’s one of the things that isn’t set on the floor, which is what makes it more difficult to gauge.” The blue Elf appeared in front of her. “If you triggered the boss right now, then you might get one, two, three, four, five, and six. But reset because someone dies and change a few things in your run and you might see one, three, four, seven, eight, and ten the next time.”
“Great.” Penelope stopped in front of 9F. So I have no idea what I’m walking into, and even if you reset, I won’t know because unless I do things exactly the same up until the boss room, then the monsters inside it will change.
She looked over her shoulder to see how close the rest of her group was. How many times do people have to reset against the boss? Penelope turned back to face the square. The others were less than half a square away.
“Some people have spent months on the first floor and never gotten past the boss. They usually get frustrated with the 151,200 different combinations that they can run into and quit once they get a string of difficult ones.” Jeru shrugged. “There have been some that have cleared it on the first go. But that was only a couple of loopers.”
Penelope took a deep breath. “No pressure.”
“What?” Judah walked around her.
“Just nerves.” Penelope tried to smile. “One more day, and then we’re done.”
“I know, it’s so exciting!” The young man was grinning from ear to ear. “Grandma Ula told us that once we open the second floor, we’re going to have to split up the party so we can level other people.” His cheeks flushed. “Since we’re both Casters, we probably won’t end up on the same team.”
“Oh.” Penelope realized that she hadn’t thought about how they were going to level all the people who would join them on the second floor. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Well…” He tapped the stone floor with the tip of his sandal. “Would you—”
“Come on!” Frederica grumbled as she took out her daggers. “I’d like to at least be able to try to get some sleep tonight!”
“Oh!” Judah glanced at the blonde before looking back at her. “We can talk tonight after we finish!” He hurried over to where Marlow was waiting to walk into the square.
“Puppy luv—” Jeru started singing.
Don’t. Penelope shook her head as she waited for Oakley to walk in.
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