Twenty-Eight vol.2

There was a draft. Even with her hair tied into a ponytail, Rose Ausra still found it flapping about behind her as the hood of her green hoodie fluttered about. She frowned, taking in the scent of stone, her sneakers stepping on cobblestone, and her jeans scraping against the crude walls that forced her tight. The reason she frowned, however, was due to none of the above. No. She glanced around and realized a simple fact: Both Lilias and Elsa were nowhere to be found.

'Well,' Rose thought, finding herself calm, 'I have to look for them.'

Her brain operated at speed as she listened to the hum of her core and came to a decision within a second.

Though it was possible to move between floors by killing a Guardian or finding a doorway, you could only enter and leave a dungeon through the 'Leader Sigil'—the sigil only she had between her companions. Meaning, unless she found Lilias and Elsa, they would be stuck within the dungeon.

She remembered that, though pads couldn't access information from the outside world, as long as those whom she needed to contact were on the same floor, she could still call them. A quick navigating and a group-video call was started.

"Where are you two?" She asked. Then she clarified. "Describe it."

There was deep, rushed breathing.

"Okay, look, seriously," Elsa yelled through the call, "I'm gonna fucking die! There's a fucking obstacle course! In a dungeon! There's an obstacle course that's trying to kill me!"

"So don't move?" The more relaxed voice of Lilias chimed in, her face expressionless, but her voice hinting at bewilderment.

"Oh shit why didn't I think of tha—wait a minute, do you two see that?"

The video turned and Rose narrowed her eyes at an ever approaching wall of flames mere meters behind the girl.

"Friggin fire! Fire chasing me! Why don't I stand still and die?!"

The girl cursed several times and she jumped, form leaping through a tight squeeze, escaping the scorching flame-wall behind her, before landing as the video disappeared and thunder rumbled.

"It seems she shifted into wolf form to escape her predicament," Lilias muttered.

Rose frowned. "You look relaxed. Where are you?"

"I do not know, but it's a boxed room which seems to be a puzzle."

"That doesn't sound all that dangerous."

"The water level is steadily rising," Lilias replied, "I'm going to disconnect and focus on figuring a way out. Though I can survive quite a while without oxygen, I'm afraid my healing isn't omnipotent."

And, just like so, Lilia's feed cut off as well.

'Well, that was certainly odd.' As far as she could tell, neither of them knew where they were and none of them were facing the same situation. Either way, it seemed only she had the most breathing room to look for the other two.

Rose blinked her golden eyes as she took a step forward, feeling her full weight on the ground.

The path ahead was straight and narrow. Even through her own eyes, Rose determined that she currently couldn't see much further ahead than normal humans. That was to say, something was artificially keeping aspects of the area dark; forcing a distance past into darkness. As she didn't have the ability of night vision, she was victim to this.

'Mana channeling my eyes should work,' Rose thought. The ability, in the simplest sense, revitalized and boosted cells that were already within her. If a cell, like a neuron, was meant to transfer information, then boosting it increased that ability as well as repaired it if any damage came to it. That was how she could increase her brain power for a duration, or even increase her speed or strength by flooding her muscle cells with mana. 'But I don't know how long this tunnel is, so wasting energy might be needless.'

She was currently at 20% charge and had 6 mana orbs on hand. She debated and decided she would improve her eyesight if she reached a point when she felt she needed to as she took another step forward.

Behind her, there was a wall. And above, there was a ceiling that left room for a healthy jump. Fighting, however, was out of the question. The space, though wide enough to do some limited movement, was too thin for any swinging of a blade.

'Alright,' Rose thought of a counter to that, 'My body and flames will have to do.' Though it was the source, she didn't need to summon <Igris> in order to spark fire.

Rose took a breath through her nose, then took a breath out through her mouth. She stretched her body, reached for the sky, reached for the ground, and twisted her figure. Then, she was jogging in place, focused on the hum of her core.

She couldn't tire, so her being the one to look for Lilias and Elsa was best.

Her feet kicked off from the ground and she was running.

Several minutes later, Rose stopped.

'I've already passed here before,' She thought.

Everything looked the same but, as she ran, she had made a mental picture of the twists and turns she took. Yet, even as she had followed the path exactly, she realized she had formed a circle in her mind at this exact moment when it linked up with the beginning. A circle with many redundancies, but a circle nonetheless.

'So that's my 'challenge'. . .' It had seemed odd that only Lilias and Elsa appeared to have stepped into unkind situations. 'The original wall behind me was a false pretense.' If she was normal, she might have continued running or walking until she could no longer, or slowly spent time scanning her way with her pad if that was even a viable option.

Rose stood still and left her mind to wander.

'There's a draft in here, meaning wind is coming in, and, if it's a challenge that's supposed to be achievable, then this space can't be completely sealed off or a normal person would suffocate, so there's definitely a place that leads outside of here. Perhaps, a hole I missed.'

That naturally meant she had to head towards the location where she felt the wind originated. That was an easy thing to determine, she thought, her senses were sharp after all and she had an ace.

Rose summoned <Igris> to hand and latched onto the mana in the air, the passive ability of her Gear extending her senses. She stood in place and felt the drifting of wind.

A moment later and she kicked off from the ground, turning around as she ran.

Mana channeled through Rose's golden eyes, and she fluttered her gaze about the tunnel.

'There.'

As she was running at the maximum speed her pure body could take her, it took little time for her to spot a small hole a distance ahead and above her. It was small enough to be unperceivable unless one knew what they were looking for, and she was certain she felt wind rushing out of it. No, in fact, she was now certain she felt a sense of heat as well.

Mana channeled through her entire form.

Rose did not stop her run.

As soon as she was under the miniscule hole, she leapt up as the tip of her blade angled up.

An explosion of flames reverberated and stone became ash and dust and chunks of rocks that began to fall with her, widening the miniscule hole to a width enough to shoot through.

Her sword pointed down and another explosion propelled her further upward.

As soon as she came out, she turned her head, golden eyes blinking as her brain analyzed fractions of seconds.

'Ah, so it didn't matter at what point a break through, as long as I broke through the roof in the end.'

The tunnel this time was wider. To the right, an expanded unknown that annoyed her at the realization that she had escaped only to be thrown into soemthing else. To the left, a wolf flickering away from a wall of flames.

"Elsa!" She yelled.

A smaller spark left her blade and she was pushed, mid-air, until she landed aside from the hole she had carved out.

The wolf leaped over the thing and she followed after it.

"Rose!" It glanced at her as Elsa's voice came out of it, "In front!"

Rose narrowed her eyes forward.

She heard twips like the sound of strings being flung.

Then she saw the result as her weapon moved.

Her sword swung and a scattering of arrows were slashed down. With <Igris> in her grasp, shooting her with such slow projectiles was a useless endeavor.

She glanced behind her to see the wall of flames approaching them both, the road ahead still stretching for what seemed like infinity.

"This is bullshit," Elsa almost growled, four paws hitting the ground, "I thought I'd get to test my spirit on some actual beasts, not on escaping fucking lava and an obstacle course!"

Running besides the girl, Rose shook her head, "Not once did the dungeon say we would only be fighting beasts."

Rose took a moment to think as the heat of flickering flames chased them both from behind.

'Igris can absorb flames and make them useless against me, but it can't do the same for Elsa. I could shield her as it works, but I don't know just how much flames will come. It could be infinite, making my shielding useless once it covers us on both sides.'

She lacked too much information to make a proper plan.

'For now, we really can only run.'

She squinted as the wolf ran besides her.

In front of them, a good distance ahead, there was a rectangular stretch of a hole. Rose gleamed small, cylindrical, platforms surrounded by what appeared to be metallic spikes. Mana channeled into her eyes and she spotted, further ahead, that the stretch seemed to go on for meters upon meters. Far too large a stretch for a wolf with four paws to cross safely.

"Turn back to human," She spoke as <Igris> disappeared from her hand, "Now."

Elsa growled reluctantly but, Rose supposed she trusted her, as the girl flipped back to human form in the next instant. She was sweat riddled, running on two tired legs. Even before she had turned into wolf-form, she had clearly been busy escaping the flames behind them.

"What now?" Elsa breathed harshly, "I'm telling you, there's no way I'm making it through that. I'm already dead tired."

Rose remained silent and beside her.

"What the heck are you doing?!"

The homunculus scooped the slum-born girl into her arms and lifted, effortlessly cradling her in a princess-carry as she continued running.

"Put me down!" Elsa protested, a blush upon her features.

"For someone so muscular, you're awfully light," Rose commented as she smiled down at the girl.

"You cheeky little shi--"

Elsa's curses died in her throat as Rose jumped, figure leaping above a stretch of spikes and small platforms only a single foot could stand on at a time.

"Calm down," She said, eyes looking about as she landed, perfectly calculated, before jumping again from the wall of flames behind them, "And hold me tight."

Elsa gulped and did as she was told, arms wrapping around Rose's smaller frame. She swore this was the most embarrassing moment of her life. Yet, that was leagues better than death by a roast of flames.

Rose leaped once more, touched, and leapt again. In moments, she was in flow, golden eyes glancing around, leaping from cylindrical platforms to the next.

Ahead, she spotted a wall, and a hole fit enough to crash through.

"Brace yourself," She said.

Elsa hugged her tighter.

She leapt from the clutch of flames, turned till she was legs first and stretched a hand backward. An explosion of fire leapt out of her palm and the two flung forward, crashing through the hole, flames sputtering after them.

Immediately, they found themselves splashing into water.

Rose blinked her eyes and found herself flailing about, Elsa in the same boat, both holding their breaths. They were in a boxed room, water everywhere.

"Finally."

They cocked their head to see Lilias, the dragonian's leg fluttering below her, as she stared at a rectangular slab attached to a wall.

"I unlocked the path, but it can't be opened without a Geared; the leader sigil," Lilias spoke fast, barely audible to even Rose's ears amidst water as bubbles escaped her lips, "Touch the door."

Rose flared her arms and legs. Elsa did the same, face already turning red for a different reason now. Neither the desert-born girl nor the homunculus knew how to swim. Recognizing that fact, Lilias grabbed Rose's hood with one hand, and wrapped her tail around Elsa's limb before pulling them closer to her.

"Touch the door, hurry," The dragonian said once more, her complexion draining. Clearly, she had been in this water world of a boxed room for a while now.

Rose reached a hand and did as she was told.

The sigil at the back of her right hand shined.

The rectangular door glowed until it was blinding white in the shape of a door.

Lilias's feet kicked, holding Rose with one hand, and Elsa with her tail, as her free hand moved with her legs to propel them forward.

The trio crashed through the film of white and slammed against ground.

Elsa raised herself on all fours, exhaling a long held breath.

By her side, Lilias crouched her figure, coughing as water spewed from her lips.

Rose recovered quicker than the two, standing, at the realization that they were at the space between floors, the white room, a door ahead of them, their bodies rid of any wetness. She glanced back, recognizing that dangers from the previous floors could not follow after them.

"That was close," Elsa exasperatedly spoke as she stood, "I almost died."

Rose nodded. "Twice for you."

"Tell me again . . ." Elsa took a breath in, released it, and asked, "What floor was that just now?"

Back to form, Lilias glanced at her.

"Only the second," The dragonian replied.