The floor began to tremble as soon as she walked in.
There was a lone Demonic Grasshopper, which let Penelope know exactly how many Demonic Moles were underneath her.
She started running towards the Demon and bug. Her fist clamped tight on her wand as she kept her eyes focused on the pair in front of her. The Demonic Grasshopper sprung across the distance at her.
“Light Blast!” Penelope flicked the wand in front of her and juked to the left.
DING!
Experience +6
The body of the giant bug rolled past her. Penelope ignored the squishing noise so she could focus on the foe in front of her.
The Shadow Warrior had the war hammer pulled back and swung, but she was just getting to her range of a hundred feet. Instead of a skill going off, the Demon let out a bellow and released the weapon.
Penelope tried to jump over the twirling projectile, but her right foot got clipped. She landed on her left foot, but with her forward momentum, she had to tuck into a roll because her right ankle was bending sideways.
“OW!!!” She pushed the sharp pain out of her mind the best she could and turned to point the wand at the Shadow Warrior. Except she realized that the Demonic Moles were on her.
The dog-sized monsters had smaller mouths than a dog, but that didn’t make the teeth hurt any less when the first one clamped onto her left forearm. She pushed away from it with her good foot as she stabbed the tip of the wand in its eye.
“Light Blast!”
DING!
Experience +6
The weight of the monster fell on her, then was compounded as two more were on top of it. The dead monster provided some insulation from the claws of the Demonic Moles. One of them slashed her down the right side of her face while she was pulling her wand out of the dead one’s skull.
“AHHH!!!”
The fourth one clamped down on her broken ankle and started pulling.
“Light Blast! Light Blast!”
DING!
Experience +6
Experience +6
Experience +6
Skrrrrrt!!!
Penelope looked around the pile of monsters that were on her to the south. The Shadow Warrior had run around her and retrieved its weapon. A Cheshire grin split its face as it dragged the head of the war hammer against the stone.
“You think you’ve won!” Penelope pointed her wand at it. “Ligh—”
WHAM!
The wooden weapon clanked against the stone behind her as the war hammer knocked her hand back. Her right hand throbbed; breathing was getting difficult, and she couldn’t feel her right leg.
The Demon was walking towards her like it had all the time in the world.
Penelope gritted her teeth and pointed her left palm at it.
“LIGHT BEAM!”
The beam clipped it as it tried to run behind her. The beam followed it, eating into her mana as it bit into the Demon.
DING!
Experience +24
CLANG!
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THUD
Penelope’s heart thundered in her ears. The temptation to just lay there for a moment was overwhelming, but she needed to heal or she was going to reset.
“Jer…” She shoved her left hand under the mole pile and rooted around in her pocket for a potion.
“You want me to reset it?” The blue Elf sat on top of the pile while looking down at her.
Jeru might not weigh anything or be able to interact with anything physical, but it felt like his weight was getting added on top of her.
“N-n-o.” Penelope began to tremble as she dug for the potion. “W-w-i-i…” She gritted her teeth and focused on the words in her mind.
Will it heal wrong if I take a potion and don’t set it?
The man on top of her shook his head. “As long as it’s still attached and there’s nothing in the wound, no.”
She got one of the vials between her index and middle fingers and pulled it out.
Penelope had to bite on the lip to hold it so she could open the vial, then she poured the spicy liquid into her mouth.
“You probably don’t want to hear this, but if you use another healing potion before you eat some protein and drink a bunch, you’re going to make yourself really sick.” Jeru hopped off of the pile and squatted next to her.
Penelope craned her neck and looked at the next room the best she could. There weren’t hidden monsters in the next two squares like there were here, but she might as well not have any more Healing Potions if taking one was going to make her too sick to continue.
Penelope pushed against the weight on top of her as she struggled to get free.
“I thought you’d see reason.” Jeru patted one of the moles. “Trust me, these things don’t taste that bad.”
“Ugh.” Penelope stopped struggling as her foot began itching. “AHH!!!”
The sensation of a sleeping leg waking up was multiplied by ten as she was able to feel her foot again. Penelope squeezed her eyes as tight as she could and bit into the hood of the robe until the sensation passed.
“Yeah, that takes some getting used to.” The blue Elf shook his head. “University mixes in something to provide some euphoria for as long as it takes to heal.” He sighed. “But Demons are masochists as much as they are sadists.” Jeru clicked his tongue. “It wouldn’t surprise me if they put something in there to make it hurt more while it healed.”
“Not! Helping!” Penelope opened her eyes to glare at him.
“Okay.” He held up his hands. “But you don’t want me to disappear either.”
“Since when has that stopped you?” Penelope strained to pull out from under the pile. She was getting stronger as the potion made its way through her system, refreshing her a little.
Once she was free, Penelope took a moment to catch her breath, then walked over to the loot pile, put the Shadow Essence into the empty vial, and looted the potions. She left the gear where it was and went to go get her second stash.
She hovered her menu over the gear to see how good the rare piece was. For this Demon, it was the war hammer.
Her muscles revolted at the idea of carting metal gear back, so she just grabbed the cloth gear, slung the longer shield strap over her head, and grabbed the copper dagger. Once she got back, she dropped the cloth items and vials off next to the leather gear to make a third loot pile. She laid the shield down face side up, then pulled one of the bodies off of the pile and sat down next to it.
Penelope looked down at the dagger in her hand. “Jeru, since this is your idea…”
The blue Elf sighed. “Fine, since you don’t know how to do it, I’ll help you.” He shook his head. “Not that it’s hard.”
“You say that, but I’ve never done anything more than cut up chicken parts from the store.” She let the dagger lay loose in her palm.
“It’s basically like that.” He grinned. “Just tougher meat and a lot bigger.” Jeru nodded at her hand. “Ideally you’d be able to hang it up and let the blood drain out of it, but since we’re pressed for time…”
“And we don’t have anything to hang it on.”
“That too.” The blue Elf knelt beside her. “Now, let’s see if we can’t do this while making the least mess you can.” He pointed at the shoulder. “It’s wasteful, but most of this will spoil before you can get someone down here to harvest the materials. Now—”
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘harvest the materials’?” Penelope looked around at the squares she’d cleared. “You mean for meat?”
“Meat, bones, fangs, claws, scales, hide.” Jeru bobbed his head. “There’s even some mana crystals in some of these things that could be taken out if you were skilled enough, but that takes a while, and you don’t have the right tools.”
“What do they do with them?”
“Weapons, armor, feeding people since the city has been cut off from the outside world.” He motioned down. “The floors keep getting bigger the farther down you go. Not to mention the resources that can be harvested off the floors themselves.” He looked around. “Well, not this floor, unless you like dust. I guess you could cut out the stone floor, but that’d take—”
“Jeru.” Penelope closed her eyes as she tried to process the implications of what he was saying. “So does that mean that there will be people coming into the Dungeon just to harvest the monsters that we kill?”
“Eventually.” He waffled his head. “When the city leaders figure out that the portal is a one-way trip until the floor is cleared, they start sending craftsmen and tools with the fighters. Though that’s not until the fourth floor.”
“Why?”
Jeru shook his head. “You can worry about it when you get there. For now, you need to worry about lunch.” He pointed at the shoulder again. “Now what you want to do…”
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