It took her five loops.

On the third loop, Penelope took <Carry On> as a passive instead of <Overstock Mana>, which let her <Blink> while holding onto someone. This allowed her to rescue Frederica and move the melee attackers around to take care of the Healers. The third and fourth attempts ended with her spreading herself out too much, so she stuck to only moving Frederica and Nina around the square, which was more manageable.

She also had them bring all of the burn squad into 22A, which helped chew through the close-ranged monsters that charged the Tanks. Her ability to travel with someone also allowed her to move the entire group over 240 feet in a few minutes. The squares were 1,500 feet wide, but being able to travel four times farther than anyone else and to bring another person with her gave the whole team a lot more mobility.

It also made her the main target for the Shadow Demons, but none of them had the range to catch her. Having her <Light Balls> in fixed positions gave the Demons an idea of where she was going to pop up at and she always had to go back to the one in the center before she could go to one of the outer ones, but she could just set the orbitals back up if the monsters congregated under too many of her <Light Balls>.

The barrier fell, signalling the end of the fight. Penelope dropped to a sitting position, then fell on her back.

"PEN! You okay!" Circe ran across the burning square.

"I'm fine!" Penelope waved at her friend. "Just tired."

"This smoke can't be helping." Circe coughed as she reached the other woman. "Why do we have to burn them like this?"

"Fae can put out the fires." Penelope closed her eyes. "And it's the easiest way to do it." She opened one eye as her friend sat down next to her.

"Easy for you to say. I never get to shoot anything anymore; it's just locking the monsters in place so they can burn up." Circe pulled off her hood, then straightened her brown ponytail. "Ugh! The soot is worse than sand!"

"We'll get through this eventually." Penelope groaned as she sat up. "What about the loot? That always perks you up."

"Already scouted that." The younger woman sighed. "We're chasing items with two stat lines, and there was only one of those in this square and it was a Healer weapon." Circe motioned at Raelyn. "So you can guess who got that."

"You make it sound like it shouldn't go to her." Penelope raised an eyebrow.

"We're the main squad. Caleb should be getting first pick of the Healer gear!" Circe lowered her voice, but she was already speaking loud enough for those closest to them to be able to hear.

"We're all the main squad." Penelope sat up. "And while Raelyn might not be in our group, she's one of the leaders, so I don't see the problem with letting her have an upgrade."

"So you're not going to get upset if the next piece of good Caster gear goes to Aly or Fae?" Circe folded her arms in front of her.

"The only thing I really need is a hood." Penelope pulled the black hood off her head and looked at it. "And I know that they're wearing stuff from the first floor as well, but that's going to be one of the few things that would be a significant upgrade for me."

"You don't get it." Circe groaned. "Look, if we start letting them take their pick of the gear, then how long before someone else takes our place on the main team and we're stuck with nothing but scraps after they've claimed all the good stuff?"

"You want to be on the main team?" Penelope chuckled as she stood up and dusted herself off. "Look, if someone else wants to take my spot and can do it without getting themselves or everyone else killed, then I'll head over to the crafting team right now."

"I wasn't talking about you not being on the main team." Circe reached out and grabbed Penelope's arm. "You'd never get put on the backups."

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Penelope glanced down at her friend's hand, then back up at the other woman. Circe pulled her hand back and wrapped her arms around her chest.

"Sorry." Circe looked down at her feet.

"It's okay." Penelope looked up at the sky overhead. There was a ceiling, so it was nothing more than a pretty screen, but after spending over two weeks underground, it was nice to be reminded that the outside was still there. She looked back at her friend. "You're still in charge of training the archers, and I doubt Whitney will be able to ever do a better job at that than you, so your place on one of the main teams is pretty safe."

"But what about the extra teams?" Circe pointed at the gathering group of people in 21A.

"If things keep expanding the way they are, we're going to need a new main team on every floor." Penelope motioned at the others. "And with all the experience we're getting, we can run a main team on the east and on the west sides. Just for this place alone, we could have twelve 'main' teams and still have room for more people to hit level thirty before the boss room."

"But that means there's going to be seventy people who want gear." Circe frowned. "How do we not get lost in the crowd?"

"First of all, that's only twelve people that you'll need to share gear with, not seventy-two." Penelope turned and pointed deeper into the Dungeon. "Second, there are 873 Shadow Demons out there. Which means about 145 Shadow Assassins or Snipers. There are eleven gear slots, which means there are twelve extra slots for duplicates."

"But not all of that gear is going to have double stats." Circe grumbled. "Even with all that gear, it'll be hard for one person to get a full set of double stats and Frederica wants Speed gear too!"

"Double stats are showing up about 20% of the time, which means there should be enough for two people to have a full set of double stat gear with five pieces left over." Penelope sighed. "Look, I get that you're worried about being replaced, but there's nobody else out here that is going to take your spot on my team…" Penelope braced herself. "Or as my best friend."

"Your…" Circe squealed, then threw her arms open. "We're besties!"

Penelope <Blinked> to dodge the hug.

"Doesn't change you having to keep your hands to yourself." Penelope shook her head. "But, yes. You're the best friend I have."

"Even better than back home?" Circe's eye filled with tears.

"I…" Penelope's shoulders sagged. "I didn't have any friends back home, so yeah. Even back home."

"What I am?" Jeru failed at acting insulted.

The parasite in my head that I can't get rid of. Penelope smirked as he tried to hold a look of shock. Easily disqualifies you in the running as a friend if you're here whether I like it or not.

"You're my bestie too!" Circe grinned from ear to ear. "My dad never liked me having friends, so I never got a chance to have a bestie." She made a rude gesture at the ceiling. "You can't stop me now!"

Oh boy… Penelope glanced over at the floating Elf. Her dad is really here?

"Always joins the Star Tower and now that Derek and Dawson are dead…" Jeru let the sentence finish itself without words.

That's a problem for future me. Penelope forced a smile. "Hey, why don't we find Patrick and see who we're going to have on our team?" She glanced towards 22B. The monsters were gathering in a group just outside of her range. "Looks like we're going to get swamped as soon as we walk in."

"They must be learning!" Circe laughed, then stuck her tongue out at the monsters. "But it's not going to help! We're going to kick all of your butts!"

The blue-robed Shadow Healer moved closer to the front of the monsters. Its glowing blue eyes found Penelope's, forcing her to look away. Circe didn't notice the loss of the staring contest as she continued to taunt the Demons.

The Shadow Healer roared orders, rearranging the monsters into rows with the Horned Bears all in front and the Reberus right behind them. Minothorns carried armfuls of logs, dumping them in a pile on either side of the L-shape of the Horned Bears line.

Penelope shook her head as she followed the bubbly woman back to the group.

"They're getting ready for an attack." Penelope thumbed at the monsters.

"I saw that." Patrick grumbled. "Whoever we put at the edges is going to get swamped."

"So we put our two strongest teams on the edges and meet in the middle?" Frederica pointed at the gathering teams. "We've got more than three teams' worth of people."

"We've got enough essences to bring two people up to twenty, so I'm going to bring up Elias and Dominic." Patrick pointed at the two men wearing metal armor. "If this is going to work, we're going to have to have more Tanks to stall out the middle." He pointed at Penelope. "Pen can teleport people once they get close, but that means the edges teams are going to have to fight their way through whatever splinters off."

Raelyn glanced at the people behind her, then nodded as she turned back to Patrick. "We can do it."

"Good." Patrick pointed at Frederica. "You're taking command of 21B.9, Rae can have 22A.9." He shooed them. "Grab your teams and go. The longer we wait, the more ammunition those monsters are going to have!"

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