R. A. T. H

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.