Patrick wasn't happy.

The base coordinator stormed off without a word but left the bag of Demonic Essences with Penelope.

"All we've got are Demons." Frederica sheathed her weapons and turned to Penelope. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm fine." Penelope motioned towards where the others were resting in 16A. "We need to talk about the others, but first…"

"Nina." Frederica nodded. She walked over to the trembling woman. "Sit, we'll get you something to drink. Do you need something to eat?"

The tanned woman shook her head as the older woman sat down next to her and wrapped her arm over the younger woman's shoulders. Nina flinched but didn't move away.

"Your mom was the strongest person I know." Frederica cooed. "I see that same strength in your eyes. They're just like hers."

Tears flowed down Nina's cheeks as she buried her face in Frederica's chest.

Frederica held her tight as she looked at the others. "Oakley, take Circe and check on the guards. Make sure Derek leaves our territory. Riva, go find Patrick and make sure he's not building some doomsday weapon to get back at them."

"Knowing that old man, he's planning on building showers on the border just to taunt them." Riva snorted, then melted into the shadows.

"Pea." Frederica stroked Nina's hair. "What does this do to our numbers?"

Penelope looked around. It was just the three of them, but she still felt exposed, like someone was watching them. She cleared her throat. "If the boss room is on our side—"

"Always in the same spot."

Penelope ignored her parasite. "Then we have all the Es and Fs that we need to go back and do, and then finish the five 17s, six 18s and 19s, and five 20s. That's thirty-two squares to do in almost eleven days." Her shoulders sagged as some of the pressure vanished.

"We can do that." Frederica nodded. "Our backup teams can clear the lower-level stuff to get more experience, and we can take some time between runs to make sure that our people are up for a fight." She nodded at the door to her left. "Pat has been making the lower-level people work on their skills against the human-form Demon corpses."

Penelope grimaced at that admission. It makes sense, but that's just… She didn't have a word to finish the thought.

"Once we hit twenty, we're going to lose a lot of experience." Frederica groaned. "I wish there was a way to divert our share to the others, but we would have seen something like that with Jughead on the first floor."

"If we let the processing team clear the Es and Fs, then they'll be 19 by the time they get to 17." Penelope took a deep breath. "But they're down Cecil."

"Brad will have to come back in if Marlow can't heal Cece." Frederica tilted her head. "How long is that going to take them?"

"To clear the ten Es and Fs?" Penelope shrugged. "They could probably do it today, but I don't know if I'd want to rush them."

"Then we give them today and tomorrow." Frederica nodded. "Let them catch up to us in level, then we can finish off the rest of the Dungeon as a four team group."

"I'm still down two." Penelope swallowed. "And we have Nina."

"What about her?" Frederica leaned back and smiled. "She's out." She stroked the 27-year-old woman's brown hair. "She looks so much like her mother. I wonder if Ula knew she was down here."

"She did." Jeru motioned at the sleeping woman. "Nina is the baby of the family, and even with the shuffle, she got dropped next to her mom. That's one of the reasons why Ula went into the Dungeon in the first place. She wanted to put herself between whatever was in here and her daughter."

Observation or something you overheard?

"Both." Jeru shrugged. "You should also know that she's going to want to join as soon as she wakes up. Nina hates feeling helpless, and I have a feeling this is going to light a fire under her."

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Penelope looked at the bag of <Demonic Essences>. Each one of these is half a level for the Tier Zero?

Jeru grinned. "I see what you're thinking. Yep! You feed her the whole bag, and she levels to eleven!"

Eleven? Penelope scrunched her brow. Why not just ten?

"Because you're still technically Tier Zero when you're level ten." Jeru laughed. "So the system lets you still absorb the <Demonic Essence> for half a level worth of experience." He motioned towards the ceiling. "Once you go into town, you can get an Alchemist to teach you how to refine the <Demonic Essence> into an actual <Experience Potion>, which will give a full level to someone who is a lower Tier."

Once I get to the surface.

"It might be a backwater planet, but there are some decent craftsmen in the city." Jeru promised. "And once they see that you can handle yourself, they'll be very willing to teach you…" He paused as he thought. "Well, some of them are going to want to come down here, but there will still be plenty of people to work with and once you convince Cirdor to help you, it'll be easy from there."

Cirdor? Who's that?

"Cirdor Pengall, he used to run this satellite, but now he's what you would consider a high school teacher." Jeru laughed. "But he's still a respected member in Dinmar, so once you convince him that I sent you here, he'll open most of the doors for you, but…" The blue Elf bit his lip. "You'll still have to convince him."

Don't you have a secret phrase or something?

"Sorry, nothing quite like that. Most things can be extracted, so there really aren't many 'safe' codewords." Jeru lamented. "But I've gotten pretty good at feeding information to Loopers, so it won't be too hard." He motioned at Frederica, who looked VERY upset. "She's been trying to get your attention, by the way."

"PENELOPE!" The older woman fumed.

"Sorry!" Penelope straightened. "I spaced out there for a little bit doing numbers in my head."

Frederica shook her head. "Seriously… You need to learn how to focus. I'm counting on you." She nodded at the sleeping woman. "We're all counting on you."

"Sorry…" Penelope looked down at her hands, then hid them behind her back because her fingers wouldn't stop fidgeting.

"I asked you what you meant about Nina." Frederica repeated her question.

"If she's like her mother, she's going to want to fight." Penelope patted the bag. "We can get her to eleven with this. If you and Oakley work with her while the others are training, then…"

"A level eleven melee is going to get crushed in the 17s." Frederica shook her head. "It'd be better to stick her in the reserve and then give her the Tier Two essences first once we get to the next floor."

Penelope nodded. "Then what about my two holes?"

"If we can get Cece on his feet in the next two days, then he can flex into the processing team." She looked down at the sleeping woman. "Ula will come back from the grave if I let something happen to her kid." She sighed. "But if she wants to join the processing team, I won't stop her."

"Good." Penelope set the bag of vials in front of Frederica. "I'm going to go check on the Healers."

"After you get done, find Pat and tell him that you're going to train the ranged people for the next two days!" Frederica yelled over her shoulder.

"Will do." Penelope swallowed the lump in her throat. Her <Light Balls> made great targets, but she wasn't looking forward to setting up a shooting range, let alone having to interact with a bunch of people she'd never met.

"Think of this as a way to build respect." Jeru laughed. "And no, this isn't a punishment."

It feels like one. Penelope grumbled.

"Do you know how many people would be excited about meeting new people?"

Penelope let the emotions flowing through her answer that question.

"Fine, you aren't like most people, and talking to even people you know feels like torture half the time, but think about it this way: you'll get to see a lot of different abilities and have a better idea of who to bring with you when you reset back to the start."

Already making that list. Penelope added Nina's name to the list of people she was going to bring. Now all I have to do is figure out who the other two people are and how to dump Dawson.

"I'm sure you'll think of something." Jeru chuckled, then his voice took on a sour tone. "But Cecil isn't going to be ready in two days with a light-based Healer. There's only one electric-based Healer down here." He motioned at Derek's side of the Dungeon. "And Derek just took him."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.