Another funeral.

Penelope Flynn steeled her freckled face as she watched the people stack the sticks for the funeral pyre. Her mind wandered to how the last floor had ended in so much death, including the deaths of people she never would have thought to consider friends. The same was holding true with the conclusion of the second floor.

Is every floor going to be like this? Penelope turned her voice inward, addressing the spirit of the Elf who had summoned her and the 624 other humans to this foreign planet where Demons were attempting to gain a foothold and given them the impossible job of finding a way to stop the incursion before it spread to the rest of the universe.

For the others, it was just that: an impossible task, but for Penelope, she held a connection that allowed her to reset time to the end of a previous floor or all the way back to the beginning when they were first summoned. This power was supposed to help her defeat the Demons, but considering she was the 42nd person to wield that power, it was looking ever more like an unreachable goal.

"Each floor has its own challenge that you have to find a way to overcome." Jeru Bannen, the blue-skinned Elf floating beside her, spoke into her mind instead of out loud. She was the only one who could hear the man in the purple robe, but they'd decided that if he spoke only in her mind, she would only respond back the same way. It made it easier for her to remember that no one else could see the black-eyed Elf. A secret that she needed to keep to herself.

Why is that? Penelope chose to distract herself from the unfolding events by asking a question that she hadn't had a chance to focus on. You said that people would think I was working with the Demons or possibly was one, but I would think that eventually, I'd be able to share my connection with you with the others.

"Well, you see, when a mommy and a Daddy love each other very much—"

JERU! Penelope glared at the grinning Elf.

"Fine." Jeru waved his hand as he took a deep breath. "The magic that allows you to reset time is very fragile. The way the spell is supposed to work is that two mages with enough magical power will create a link by connecting their souls. They then bestow the power onto a third person who can continue through the loop until one of the anchors decides to end the spell or the time constraint reaches its conclusion." He gestured at the timer above the door. "In this case, that's the five years that I put in for the incursion to be stopped."

And the other person you used as an anchor is the ArchDemon at the end of the Dungeon? Penelope guessed.

"Exactly!" Jeru grinned. "Except he doesn't know that he is being used as an anchor for a time loop. Because of all of the souls that he's wearing like armor to draw power from, he's not noticed the piece of me that I've attached to him, but if he becomes aware of what we're doing, he can detach that part of me, which will end the loops…" He ran his hand through his short, black hair. "I did put a rider into the spell that if that happens, it'll force one last reset all the way to the beginning, but having a piece of your soul destroyed like that…" Jeru grimaced. "Anyway, that's why it's important that nothing gets said about me. We don't want to only get one last shot to stop this."

Penelope looked around the room as what he hadn't said sank in. And you think that there are people here that could be working for the Demons.

"Kinwell engineered an entire assault on Earth so that he could steal a soulstone that had been left there and he used worshippers to do it, so yeah, the odds that there might be some Demon worshippers hidden in the humans is a possibility." He motioned at the ceiling. "And once you get topside, that jumps to a certainty…" He paused. "We'll have to talk about how you want to deal with the cult members the other loopers have managed to uncover so far."

I'm guessing it's not going to be as simple as just outing them?

Jeru shook his head. "Nope. You'll need proof, along with a reasonable justification for how you got the proof or decided to look into them." He grimaced. "A few of them are pretty well connected."

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Of course there would be agents in the city that was used as the entry point. Penelope sighed. But that's something that isn't going to be as important until I actually get into town and start interacting with the locals.

"Right." Jeru pointed at the brunette approaching them. "Time to get back to reality."

Penelope looked at Circe Scofield. The 18-year-old archer was quickly becoming her best friend, not that Penelope had ever had someone she'd called that before. Back on Earth, Penelope had been more of a loner, preferring to keep to herself than to socialize. It had made things simpler, but she'd learned on the first floor that she couldn't beat the Dungeon on her own. Now that she'd begun to let people in, it had unleashed a roller coaster of chain reactions. Some of the people, like Kent, Abel, and Robert, had taken advantage of her kindness and tried to take over the group, undercutting her every chance they got. There were others like Frederica and Patrick that she had believed were going to be antagonistic but had become someone who she had grown to care about.

Then there was Circe and Jeru. While the Elf was essentially a part of her, which meant she had little choice about letting him in, the human woman had grown on her, managing to slip around Penelope's defenses despite her efforts to keep everyone at arm's length.

While reading people was one of the things that Penelope had trouble with, she recognized the look on Circe's face.

Fear.

"What's wrong?" Penelope pushed off of the stone wall she'd been leaning against.

The younger woman gulped in a lungful of air. Circe's high Speed stat meant that she recovered Stamina faster than almost everyone else. For her to be out of breath from running, Circe had to have used her movement skills multiple times in a row.

"Freddy is trying to go after Derek!" Circe wheezed, pointing deeper into the second floor. "Pat is trying to talk her out of it, but, Pen, we need you!"

Penelope glanced at the pair of portals against the wall to her right. The yellow one, the closer of the two, led back to the surface. Penelope hadn't used the portal yet, but some of the others had to let the people on the surface know that the second floor had been conquered. The one with a timer over it led down to the third floor.

Derek had fled through the one that went to the surface. The leader of the other group had locked himself and his followers inside their tower, which their team hadn't been able to break into.

Penelope swallowed as she glanced at the funeral pyre. Okaley's body was being laid on the logs that had been harvested from the surface. Patrick had taken Frederica back to the headquarters on the second floor so Frederica could mourn in private. Considering that Frederica had gained 4 levels when she'd executed Dawson after he'd tried to kill them, their leader was the strongest person in the Dungeon. If the older blonde woman wanted to push them out of the way to chase down the rest of Dawson's allies, they weren't going to be able to slow her down much.

Penelope to the yellow portal, ignoring the glances from the people that Patrick had left to process the Demons and those who were preparing the funeral pyre. The look that Raelyn Dixon gave her was the most painful. The leader of the Healers was collecting a following that had already been strong enough to force Penelope to give up her leadership of one of the main groups. Now that they'd lost almost half of their main team, Rae's faction was poised to be the strongest faction in the Dungeon.

There was nothing that could be done about how their influence on the majority of people was waning. The group that went first shouldered the majority of the risk and as their numbers dwindled, so did their influence. What mattered to Penelope right now was stopping her friend from recklessly charging into danger in the name of vengeance.

Using her <Blink> ability, Penelope was able to cross the open area of the boss square in just a few moments. Once she reached the swirling yellow light, she stopped, pausing as her hand touched the cool energy that served as a barrier between the boss room and the surface.

Her heart hammered against her chest and not just from the exertion that she'd done. Most of the problems that she'd run into so far had been solvable with spells. In the past, Penelope had done her best to avoid people and especially had tried to stay out of leadership positions. Being here had changed everything.

Penelope had no idea how to proceed.

All her life, she'd avoided conflict where she could and as far as being able to give a pep talk went, she had no experience to pull from. She was walking into a situation that she had no reason to think she could make better.

The unease that she felt didn't go away the more she stared at the portal between her and her friend. As much as her mind pleaded with her to walk away, she couldn't turn her back. Her fingers trembled as she walked through the swirling yellow magic.

She stepped into the square where they'd first been summoned. The building behind her that had been destroyed when the portal to the Demon incursion had ripped a hole The square was empty, save for the two leaders of their group.

Frederica's shoulder-length hair was a mess. Stray strands of hair were glued to the older woman's wet cheeks as tears freely flowed down her cheeks. Her brown eyes narrowed as the 47-year-old trophy wife turned her attention to the newest person in the room.

Frederica sliced her finger in Penelope's direction. "And you're not going to stop me either!"

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