Chapter 86: Eighteen vol.2
There was a deep screaming in her.
It felt as if she had fallen asleep, submerged into a void of nothingness. An odd sensation a first for a being that should not be able to be placed unawake. She could not see. She could not speak. She could not feel. She could not hear. And nor did she taste. All she did was hold a near-faint sensation that she still existed. Somewhere, somehow, though even the hum of her core was nonexistent, she knew that she was alive; merely disconnected from the world. Then, when a time unknown passed, she touched upon a wall of pure mana. It was less as if the energy was solidified around or blocked her but more so that the sheer density of it rang alarms in her head.
"Woah woah, Rose! Calm your damn flames!" Elsa's yell reached her ears.
At that moment, Rose's eyes shot open.
She glanced around.
Elsa and Lilias stood in front of her, well, actually, a good distance away from her as the sword in her right hand burned with the raging red of fire.
". . .what?" She glanced at the weapon.
<Igris> was summoned on pure instinct. She had felt fear, a desire to escape the pull of the dungeon, but she had crossed over, Gear already in hand to slash at an illusionary foe that didn't exist.
It would seem, to her, the two had not experienced quite the same heightened reaction. They looked at her oddly and her mind spun. Perhaps, she had been afraid only because she felt what was known as 'slumber' for the first time? As if she had lost connecting with her being? She didn't know.
"Are you alright?" Elsa asked.
Rose took a breath to calm herself.
"I'm fine," She said, "Sorry."
The flames of her blade quenched and died, from a dangerous deep crimson of blazing red back down to the soft glow of ember, like a setting sun; then, finally, to the simple warmth of a thin yellow that merely radiated light more than any desire for heat.
'Yet, that voice called out to me as 'Rose Igris Blake', She thought mildly as she took a step forward, walking from a back of stone, and stood in the middle of the two while glancing ahead.
". . .this is the dungeon?" She asked.
"Correction, this is the first floor of the dungeon."
Her hair caught the wind of a soft draft.
In front of them, the brown ground sloped down until it met a ravine which bisected through two large canyons. The sky was a murky gray and a sun hung low and far into the twisting length of the darkening spine of the world before them. Rose blinked her eyes, wandered them, and squinted through crooked, dead trees, ravaged undergrowth bushes, and found that she could not make out the end to the length of the place. What she did spot, however, was the rumbling sparks of lightning deep within the dark premises of the space; flashes of white glimpsing down from the sky with the faint roar of thunder following them.
Elsa whistled by her side.
"The first floor's already a killer," She said, surprised and entranced.
Of course the three had researched the dungeon earlier in the day before they even rode the bus into Sector 0 of Alos. Who wouldn't? Yet, they really could not find much information worth their time. Supposedly, various aspects of Great Dungeons disappeared from a person's memories as soon as they exited and only reappeared after entering once more. More noticeably, there were some floors that no one remembered what occurred within. One of which was the first floor they were currently on.
Essentially, the mana web was largely useless to try and gather information for the dungeon. The first thing Rose did was try tapping her pad and Lilias shook her head.
"It won't work," The girl said, "No communication technology has ever worked within a Great Dungeon. At least, you won't be able to connect to the outside world nor across floors."
The dragonian was right, Rose noticed, her pad could only currently call either Elsa or Lilias because the two were similarly within the same dungeon floor as well. Everything else worked as it would, but communications were siphoned off from the outside world.
Nodding, Rose took a step forward.
"Do we have any specific formation we will be battling with? Any strategies?" She said, feet sloping down to climb from the small hill of a rock they had found themselves. Behind them, a cream-colored wall raised into the gloomy sky.
Lilias drew her blades from the straps at her back, sliding them vertically off. Her tail swung atop her blue shorts and her dark-blue jacket blew in the draft of the dungeon's wind.
"Formation? Strategy?" She asked. "I simply slash. I suppose you may come up with one if you wish."
Elsa agreed with her. "Yeah come up with some if you wanna."
Rose looked at the two with a raised brow. Maybe they were bred differently? When she wanted to fight a sandworm, she researched it and came upon the best way to use her abilities to defeat it. When she wanted to enter the war torn slums to retrieve her belongings, she acquired a map, chose the best route, stalked it, then walked in. Yet, did these two merely like punching things? Elsa. . .she couldn't bring herself to deny but, Lilias, she now realized, with the addition of their previous battle that wasn't needed, simply liked clashing against foes, sword spinning.
'Perhaps,' She thought, 'She's trying to break the bottleneck of her swordsmanship.'
Rose shook her head and brought her attention back to the present.
"Alright," She said, and decided she would take charge then, "For formation, I'll stay in front. Lilias by my side, and Elsa, you'll provide support with the pulse pistol at our backs. If a creature gets too close to you, use your fists."
She entered into the ravine, stopping momentarily to take in their location. It was a good thing she was what she was because, though they could use the scanning feature of their pads to create a map while they trekked the dungeon, it was much faster that she simply memorized everything. A glance here. A glance there, and a map was constructed in her head, a perfect recreation like live three-dimensional pictures folded upon one another and stored within her.
She glanced at Elsa.
"As for strategy. . .do you still have the one-eye we used in the slum?"
"Yup yup. I have two of them in fact"
"Good. Rotate them forward and check your pad. If they come across anything, let us know."
"A okay."
Just like so, a One-Eye was sent forward, its spherical body gleaming slightly from the sun ahead as its blue orb shined. As previously, it could realistically only fly for five minutes at a time before it would have to return or be ripped apart by mana, as Elsa was still an armature mage. Yet, simply rotating between two was good enough, Rose thought, because she herself would cover that weak point with her eyes, and her senses latching on to the surrounding mana with <Igris> in her grasp. In that way, there was very little that could catch them off guard.
The trio left the comfort of the entrance to the ravine and delved into the open mouth of the dungeon's first floor. There was a guardian to defeat, or there was a door to reach. The first floor was unknown to them. Whatever it was, however, the group wanted to meet beasts, for two of them came for mana cores, and the other came to chase a foe.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
LotsChrono
LotsChrono While writing this chapter, I realized a “major” error I now notice I didn’t even think of in volume 1. Rose’s flames shouldn’t be making smoke (when not burning anything else) as they, in their natural state, burn mana, a pure energy. Well, I’m not being paid for this story so I won’t be going back in volume 1 to fix all instances of smoke from her weapon alone, but it will be fixed in this volume as I continue to write and after finishing.
That’s all.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone