Frederica had to feed Penelope a healing potion before the two of them could roll the Demon off of her. Once she was free, Penelope dusted herself off, then sat down next to the corpse. She nodded towards the Dungeon. “We need to tell Patrick that…”
“OAKEY!!!” Frederica took off into the Dungeon.
“... it’s okay to come up.” Penelope shook her head. What about this am I not going to like?
“Well…” Jeru grimaced. “The save can be made at the exact moment that the last boss monster dies.” He looked at the headless Demon. “If you want to keep going with this run, every time you die now, you’ll revert back to right before the Demon head hits you in the face.”
Penelope groaned.
“Before you ask me to reset things back to the beginning, I have to tell you that if you go back, it destroys this save.” The blue Elf looked around. “Also, until you’re strong enough to force the monsters to fight in their square and win..." He motioned at the carnage that lay around them. “This will happen every time.”
“So what you’re saying..." Penelope stood up and looked around. “Is that until I learn how to use raw magic, there’s no way to save everyone?”
“That’ll help, but no.” Jeru walked over to the Demon and touched the necklace that was lying on the ground. “Huh, that’s an interesting item.” He turned back to Penelope. “What I’m saying is, you could revert to the beginning and try again, or you could keep going, and once you are strong enough that the Authority won’t detain you, go into town and learn job skills. The experience you get from there will stay with you, then you can go back to the first floor and save everyone.”
The image of Judah dying in her arms flashed in Penelope’s mind.
“I can reset if you want, but this is a question of power and you don’t have it.” He held up his hands. “Right now.”
Penelope took a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll stay, but I promise I’ll find a way to get stronger so I can go back and save him.” The image of another man flashed across her face, one that made her touch her lips as she remembered her first death. “What about-?”
“Nope, not going to tell you where he is.” Jeru turned away, “But you don’t have to worry about coming across him this run.”
“He died?” Pain gripped her heart.
“Yeah…” Jeru shrugged and turned back around. “You need to grab that necklace before someone else does.”
Penelope scooted back over to the body and picked up the necklace.
“That’s…” She was too tired to think about who it would be best for. Penelope put it in her pocket. “Let’s check the others.” Penelope glanced up at the timer above the open doorway to the Dungeon.
Penelope looked around for the Lupent Demon, but it was farther away from the middle of the campus where she was standing. The Scorb Demon was still in the north east alley, so she headed that way before looking for the other Demon.
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The scorpion/boar mashup had been beaten to a pulp, and if she hadn’t seen it when they first started, Penelope wouldn’t have known what it was supposed to have looked like. Now that it was dead, she could scan it with her menu and stopped on the tattered black belt.
She had to dig in the mush to free the item. Once she got the buckle undone, it was a lot easier to remove, but she still had to deal with the metal studs that kept getting caught on the loops of the loin cloth.
“Pea…” Jeru cleared his throat. “We have a problem.”
Penelope yanked the item free and flicked the gore off of it before rolling it up. She looked over at her parasite. “Wha-!”
She saw what he was talking about before she finished the first word.
Ula was slumped against the wall at the end of the alley with a big hole in her chest. Her metal armor had been torn off in chunks; the Demon had peeled her out of her protections, stabbing her in the heart with its stinger once her chest was exposed.
“NO!” Penelope ran down the alley and slid next to her friend. She pulled a healing potion out of her left pocket and poured it in the wound, using her left hand to force the red liquid to stay in the hole.
There was no reaction to the magic—nothing but blood mixed with a wasted effort that leaked over her fingers.
“She saved me.” A blond man in his late twenties wearing a brown leather jacket, a red t-shirt peeked around the corner of the building. He wrung his hands together. “Did you know her?”
Penelope wiped a tear from her eyes with the back of her sleeve, smearing something over her face. “She was our leader.”
“Oh…” He looked her over. “You’re one of the ones who went into the thing.” The young man stuck out his hand. “I’m Derek Chapman.”
Penelope just nodded at the offered hand. “Penelope Flynn.” She held up her dirty, gloved hands. “Probably don’t want to touch this.”
Derek took back his hand and nodded his thanks. “Yeah.” He turned and looked at the woman who’d saved him. “I tried using
Penelope noticed the other two men in the alley. At least she assumed they were who he was talking about. One was missing his head, and the other had a hole that went clear through his chest.
“Sorry about your friends.”
“I only knew them a couple days, but they helped me keep my head above water.” The blond man sighed. “You seemed pretty strong out there; you wouldn’t be looking for a couple extra people for your team?”
Fear tightened its grip around her heart. Penelope closed her eyes and counted to five before opening them to answer the eager man.
“I think I’m going to take a break for the rest of the day.” She tried to smile, even though her heart was still aching. It felt wrong to be talking about joining a new group while standing over Ula’s body.
“Oh…” Derek’s face fell. “Well, if you change your mind, there’s a bunch of us that are interested in knowing what all happened down there.” He nodded to the northeast. “We’ve taken over the Star Tower; just say that Derek asked for you and they’ll let you in.” He looked down at Ula and started to ask a question but stopped himself. He smiled at her as he turned to walk away. “The Star Tower!”
Penelope gave him her most realistic fake smile and waved as he walked away.
“And so it begins.” Jeru shook his head. “I’d hoped that things wouldn’t get so tribal so fast, but..." He sighed. “The factions always start early.”
“Factions?” Penelope looked over at the Elf.
“A couple of them…" Jeru taped his cheek. “It changes depending on who survives, but Derek is one of the faction leaders. They almost always hole up in the star dorm, so he usually survives.”
“What do you think of him?” Penelope walked to the end of the alley and looked around. There were a couple more buildings scattered on that side of the campus. People were starting to trickle out of the buildings, but there was no sign of the Lupent Demon.
“He’s one of the most apathetic of all the leaders. He’d rather just sit in his base and stay away from the fighting. Once he starts participating, he stays clear of the action, though since he’s a Caster, that’s not hard to do.” Jeru shook his head. “He’s not someone you should get involved with.”
“Gotcha.” Penelope walked back into the alley and crouched in front of her dead mentor. Despite the injury, Ula looked like she was just asleep; her face was calm and relaxed, which Penelope hoped meant that it hadn’t been painful.
“I wasn’t strong enough to save you.” She touched the woman’s cold cheek. “But I promise you. I’ll find a way to get stronger, and when I do, I’ll start over and make sure to save everyone.”
Penelope wiped a tear off her cheek and didn’t care that she smudged more dirt and gore over her face. She stood up and looked over at Jeru. “Alright. Let’s go get ready for the second floor.”
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