Stephen and Fae Anna both downed a mana potion.

  Penelope ran her fingers over the glass containers in the potion sling in her right pocket. She could end the fight a lot faster if she relied on the quick recovery of her mana, but she could already feel the urge in her mind giving her all the reasons why it would be okay in this instance to take not just a potion, but as many as she needed.

  The logic of that urge sounded warning alarms in her head. She pulled her hand out of her pocket. What? No comment from Mister-With-A-Thousand-Opinions?

  “You’re more likely to do whatever I say just to prove me wrong.” Jeru shrugged. “I gave you the information. Continuing to preach to you about the danger is only going to make you curious if you can resist it and where that line is for you.” The blue Elf let out a defeated sigh. “You already know that you have an urge to take them, but you were able to resist it this time. You’ll take that as a sign that you’re not fully addicted, which will give you confidence to push the number you take a little further next time. Or maybe you’ll resist that time too. But if you keep thinking about it like that, then eventually you’ll categorize the urge as a win-loss on the times you were able to resist instead of just not doing it unless it is absolutely necessary.”

  Penelope looked at the army of charging monsters. We’ve got people buried under rubble behind us. Injured allies that can’t defend themselves. We don’t even have a Healer right now. What could be more dire?

  Jeru locked his deep, black eyes on her. “Would a reset be that bad?”

  The question stunned her.

  Resetting now would send her back over three weeks. That was three more weeks away from the fourth floor. Three more weeks away from the full reset to rescue Ula, Judah, Marlow, and Oakley. But it was only three weeks. Compared to the over thousand years that Jeru had been in the loop, that was a blip of time.

  “No.” The admission hurt to say out loud. But it was the truth. She needed better technique, control of her spells, and mana management. She needed to train the others to support her better instead of just drinking a potion and smashing her way through things. She realized that she’d been using the mana potions to avoid the one thing that she didn’t want to work on.

  Teamwork.

  A grin crossed Jeru’s face as the realization dawned on her.

  Not a word. Penelope grumbled, then turned her attention back to the approaching monsters. There was a single Shadow Knight in front of the Natiles and Fae Dragons with the Shadow Casters hiding behind those. The five-foot-tall Army Ant Coordinators brought up the rear.

  The Aura monsters were one of the reasons that the Natiles had been able to cause so much damage. Their skill had highlighted the places for maximum destruction of the wall, while had allowed the monsters to act as one.

  I wonder if that allows the Knight to control the monsters better? Penelope mused as she searched for a way to turn the tide.

  “Archer! I want you to get in closer so Fae Anna can lock down the Shadows. Stephen, burn anything that gets close. Those Natile are elementals, so they’re not going to close in where you can hit them with your fire spells and they only have so any attacks are going to have to be closer. Nina, help Archer take down that Knight if it decides to close in. Circe, take out as many of those dragons as you can.”

  The others moved into position, but Circe hung back as they advanced. “What are you doing?” Concern filled her friend’s voice.

  “I’m making sure nothing tries to slip around us.” Penelope glanced back at the destroyed wall. “They should be okay for a little bit, but we need to end this as fast as we can.”

  The brunette grinned. “You’re going to take a couple potions and smite them?”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Penelope took a deep breath. “I’m starting to think the potions might be addictive.” Her fingers tapped on the pocket of her robe. “We’re looting these things off of Demons and then taking them like they’re candy without any thought to potential drawbacks.”

  “What drawbacks?” Circe laughed. “It’s a mana potion. You take it and get your mana back. Simple as that.”

  “Nothing down here is that simple.” Penelope shook her head. “The system gives us stats, skills, and spells based on what we’ve done and what we want to improve ourselves. We get buffs from the food we eat and the more experience you get with cooking, the better buffs the food you cook will have.” She looked over at the two warring sides. “What if continuously consuming the potions eventually turns us into one of them?”

  “That’s not going to happen.” Circe bumped her shoulder into the other woman. “But if you do start growing horns, I promise to love you anyway.”

  Penelope bristled at the declaration.

  “You know what I mean…” Circe smirked. “You’re my friend and you’ll always be that, no matter what happens.” She pointed her bow at the monsters. “I need to thin out some of these bugs, but don’t be so hard on yourself. And don’t worry so much!”

  Penelope watched her friend move into range and let black arrows loose at the other side. She guided her closer as well and focused on the closest Caster.

  The Fae Dragons moved back as the Shadow Casters came forward. The more powerful Demons threw , a , and while the Natiles added to the mix.

  The sent a bolt of electricity at the closest , shattering it. Penelope tilted her head as she thought about how to deal with the area that the cloud covered.

  What is it? She looked at the yellow-clad Shadow who had cast the spell.

  “Recovery sub stat.” Jeru tilted his head as he read the rest of her question that she hadn’t put into words yet. “Yes, you could learn something like that because Recovery is technically one of your sub stats, but it wouldn’t be conducive to your fighting style because it doesn’t move much.” He gestured at the twenty-foot-wide cloud. “Sure, you could learn how to move it, but once it’s set, you don’t have a lot of control over what it targets and in a wide-open area like this, it’s not going to be as effective as if you used it to block off a tunnel or something.”

  Wait, it can’t choose its targets?

  “That’s what I just… Oh, yeah. That would be a good idea.”

  “Archer!” Penelope pointed at the cloud to his right. “Get closer to that thing!”

  “I’m a little busy!” The armored man yelled as he smacked a vine away with his shield.

  Stephen was releasing a steady stream of fire, but that wasn’t enough to burn up all the vines. Circe had managed to take down a few of the Fae Dragons and Nina was busy fighting the Shadow Knight. Fae Anna was only able to keep one of the Shadow Casters from using spells and her attempt to cycle between the three Shadow Casters was letting them all cast spells.

  Her moved closer to the Shadow Knight and unleashed a barrage of . The streaks of light zapped the green-armored Demon until it collapsed into a pile of armor.

  “Go cover Archer!” Penelope pointed at the Tank.

  Nina wobbled but found her footing, then trudged over to where the Tank was advancing towards the other monsters.

  We need Archer to ground out the cloud so we don’t have to go around it. Penelope looked up at the storm cloud between the monsters and her allies. Why hasn’t Fae Anna dispelled it?

  “Countering a spell while it’s being cast takes a set amount of mana, but tearing apart a spell that has been formed takes a lot more. If it takes more than you have the mana for, the system lets the spell fizzle.” Jeru sighed. “She probably got a headache when she targeted it and decided it wasn’t worth it.”

  Great… Penelope contemplated behind the group of monsters now that there weren’t any physical attackers. Her low mana gave her pause. There might not be a lot of physical threats, but she was close to empty again.

  I can’t just sit here and watch everyone… She looked at the floating blue man beside her. What do I do?

  “That assassin is still out there somewhere.” Jeru offered her. “You can watch everyone’s backs. Sometimes that can be the most important job of all.”

  Penelope spread out her as she moved closer to the destroyed wall. It felt like she was being lazy. Her pocket felt ten times as heavy as she stood in between the wall and the others. They were wearing down, but it was pretty clear that the Demons were going to lose. She just hoped the others would understand why she wasn’t using any more potions this fight.

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