Patrick raised his voice as he began the briefing.

  “We walk in, make a bunker, and wait for the monsters to come to us.” He looked over at Penelope and Circe. “Both of you will probably want to stay inside since there’re a couple flyers in there.” He pointed at the large flying demon. Instead of skin, it had vines that were twisted together. Its face was that of a bird and even though it had feathered wings on its back, it also had arms with sharp claws poking out of the vegetative fingers.

  “Eleture is an elemental, so fire is going to be very effective against it.” He nodded at the burn squad. “Try not to burn the whole place down while you’re clearing the skies.”

  The three fire Casters all grinned.

  Patrick turned back to the group. “They’re the Power monsters, so expect them to hit hard if they get close to you.” He pointed at the flying tigers mixed in between the elemental monsters. “Winged Tigers are the Speed monster, so expect it to be what gets up in your face. Also…” He raised a finger. “Tigers weigh about five hundred pounds and those look bigger, so try not to let one of them crash into you, because it’s going to hurt.”

  “How are we supposed to keep the air clear if we’re inside the bunker?” Circe grumbled.

  “I’ll make you a wall to hide behind without a roof that you can shoot at the stuff in the air from, but if you’re up on the roof, there’s no way you’re going to be able to shoot down all of those things before they get to you and Pen isn’t going to be able to get you all down. Plus…” He pointed at the giraffe with a rainbow mane. “The Prisaffe has the passive and its only spell is

  . He scrunched his brow. “Pen tells me it’s able to change the element of its spell, which means whoever it hits is going to get hurt.” He pointed at the tall creatures. “It’s also tall enough to see you on the roof, which means all three of their damage dealers are going to be able to stay out of the range of the Tanks and go after you if you go up there.” He shook his head. “Sorry, but this one is going to take a while.”

  A collected groan ran through the group.

  “You want to die? Be my guest!” Patrick motioned at the barrier. “I’ll stay here and wait for you to get eaten, then we’ll get someone else to take your place and you can know in your final moments that everyone is going to hate you for ruining their party before we fight the boss!”

  The group quieted down.

  Patrick glared at them for a few more moments, then continued. “The Tanks are pretty fast, but they’re stuck on the ground, so we can stall them out with walls and force them to attack us from behind.” He pointed at the seven-foot-tall purple reptilians. “Aspitiles is what those lizardmen are called.” He looked over at the Casters. “I want the burn squad to see how flammable that green stuff on their back and shoulders is. We might be able to take them out before they ever get close.”

  “He’s going to be really mad when he figures out that you can eat that growth.” Jeru laughed. “It’s a moss that they wear like living armor. It’s not very flammable, but more so than their scales.” He shrugged. “Still, it’s something to eat.”

  You want us to eat their clothes? Penelope had to bite her cheek to keep from making a face.

  “It’s a parasitic plant that the Aspitiles got on them from where they came from.” Jeru raised an eyebrow. “That’s worse than complaining about wearing wool.” He pointed at the large monsters. “They’re also going to get on all fours once the fighting starts, even though they walk around on two legs. They can move faster on all fours.”

  Noted. Penelope turned her attention back to Patrick’s speech.

  “... has and , so expect that once those fox things get in close, they’re going to be able to keep everything up. We’ll focus on holding the monsters off, so call out your targets and burn them down.”

  A chuckle came from the burn squad.

  “Alright, settle down.” Patrick scanned the crowd. “Everyone know their assignments?”

  Did he skip the Delmin? Penelope glanced over at the pink Demons. They stood upright and had the head of a dolphin, despite also sporting a pair of curved horns out of the top of their heads. Their clawed fingers were webbed, while the rest of their naked bodies were covered in smooth, leathery hide.

  “You were too busy talking to me.” Jeru grinned. “He covered their web breath and told the burn squad to focus on them but doesn’t believe they’re going to be much of an issue.”

  Okay then. Penelope watched the other two groups head over to their positions. Isn’t having this meeting in front of the Demons a really bad idea?

  “It’s a flex.” Jeru nodded at the Tank, who was adjusting his helmet. “He’s letting them know that even if they know what he’s doing, there’s nothing they can do to stop it.” Jeru shrugged. “The Demons are trying to get creative and acting rashly, which is making things somewhat easier to pick apart, but eventually, that chaos will mean they’ll get lucky.”

  I’ll just have to reset if that happens.

  “This close to the main check point?”

  Penelope sighed. Maybe not. It depends on how bad things go. She looked over at the crowd that was gathering to watch. The last floor had made it difficult for people to watch them fight, but with the more open layout of this floor, a few people had always been present. Now that they had twelve teams, most of the other higher-level people were there to watch and see how the ‘main’ team handled the fight and what they could learn before they had to go into the fight themselves.

  “Pen.” Circe nudged Penelope’s arm. “You okay?”

  Penelope blinked and realized that Patrick and Nina had already walked through the barrier. “Sorry…” She hurried through behind them and cast her floating spells.

  The monsters split, ignoring the middle, and ran towards the two groups on either end.

  “Stupid…” Patrick banged his armored hand on the wall and turned around. “I’m going to make a barrier towards Peter; that of his is only going to slow them down.” He pointed at the two ranged people. “Pen, take Circe and help the others; we’ll go and bring Rae’s group back this way.”

  Penelope didn’t wait for Circe to acknowledge the order; she just grabbed the other woman and cast . While it was disorienting for a moment at the end of the teleport, she was sending her towards the other group as fast as they’d go. A moment was all she needed to adjust where she was and where she wanted to go, then she would again as far as she could. Using her spells that way allowed her to clear the distance in four jumps.

  “Patrick sent us.” Penelope blinked her eyes as she focused on the other Tank. “He said to keep moving towards the center.”

  “That’s going to be a problem.” Fae-Anna pointed at the monsters. Mixed in with them were two axe-wielding Shadow Warriors. Following behind them was the Shadow Poisoner and Caster.

  “Okay, we’re going to lock those Casters down—”

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  A silver beam blasted a fist-sized hole through the stone barrier, knocking Penelope off her feet. Her brain barely had time to register the pain before a brown glow covered her body.

  Skylar Mansfield knelt down next to her as she sat up. “I got you.” The blonde woman touched her arm. “Is anything out of place?”

  Penelope stood up and rotated her shoulders. “I’m good.” She nodded at the Healer. Skylar had been the main Healer on her team after Marlow had died. She had been the first one to object to Penelope leading a team, which had eventually led to Patrick stepping into the leadership role. While Penelope didn’t fault Skylar for speaking up about being afraid, she was still wary of the other woman.

  “The Prisaffes have extended range!” Penelope glared at the floating blue Elf. How come our extra range is a few feet and they get to double?

  “Because that wasn’t in the description and you don’t need to magically have weird information like that?” Jeru shrugged. “But now you know that just because their skills have the same name, they don’t have to have the same effects.”

  Great. Penelope to avoid another beam, this one green. “I’ve got to take out those beams!” She looked over at Fae-Anna. “Lock down the Casters that are getting close and I’ll be back.”

  She before anyone could argue with her.

  Right under a Winged Tiger.

  The huge monster was even bigger than any tiger she’d ever seen in a zoo. It was one thing to see the size of its mouth on a screen, but completely different as the jaws opened wider than her head as it swooped down.

  Penelope zapped it with two as she away, but that wasn’t enough to bring it down.

  “You lost another ball.” Jeru pointed at the line of five Prisaffe. Each one of them tilted their heads towards her as another beam charged between their short, fuzzy horns. Penelope as the different colored beams shot through the space where she had been.

  “You’re going to need to hit them with all three at once.” Jeru pointed at where the Sune were fanned out at the far range of where they could heal the tall monsters. “Those things will full heal them before a second burst.”

  Great, so all I have to do is get close enough to them to hit them while also resummoning the that they keep shooting out of the air. Penelope huffed as she again.

  “Don’t forget that you’ve got the melee units coming back.” Jeru pointed at the flying elemental monster.

  Penelope resummoned her , then made them scatter as she close enough to the middle Prisaffe that it could kick her. The large monsters were too big to readjust to something behind them quickly, which allowed her to blast two of them before the tall creatures began charging their beams.

  Ding!

  Experience +.33

  Experience +.33

  If it had been just one monster, it would have been easy to maneuver the balls away from the beams. The beams took a moment to charge and the monsters didn’t move their heads much once the beam was charged. But there were three of them left. Thankfully, Penelope only needed three of her to survive to be able to kill one of them.

  One of her winked out, but the other three dodged the beams.

  “See? The target practice training is paying off!” Jeru laughed.

  Ding!

  Experience +.33

  If you’re not going to help me keep an eye out, please save the commentary until after we win. Penelope to avoid the Eleture’s claws, then recast because she was down to two . With only two Prisaffes left, it was easy to keep three away from the beam. She focused more on avoiding the lone Eleture and Winged Tiger as she burned down the two remaining monsters. The cluster of four Delphin stayed between her and the other Humans, more intent on spitting their sticky webs through the holes that the Prisaffes had made in the wall.

  Ding!

  Experience +.33

  Experience +.33

  Experience +.33

  Penelope smiled as the notification let her know that someone had killed another monster the same time she’d taken out the pair she was working on. Without their ranged attackers, she was free to over to the Delmin. Each one went down with only two hits, allowing her to wipe out the whole group of four with two casts of through her floating balls.

  Alright. Penelope looked over at the group of four Healers.

  “You don’t fight the Healers.” Jeru reminded her.

  I know. Penelope turned back to where her friends were fighting off the group of monsters that was trying to tear their way into the box that Archer had made. She dug a mana potion out of her pocket and downed the minty liquid. Alright. Let’s finish this.

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