Did you know that it is rather difficult to attack something whilst attempting to scale a mountain?

Rosary's eyes were trained on the cavern King (so incredibly pretentious. The symbol was a crown, so what made him special?) had just erupted out of. As she had made her way up the mountain, she had noticed a plethora of these, being both platforms to take a break as well as a tunnel to another area in the mountain. The next one was merely twenty meters up (65 feet); twenty meters that felt much too far, what with the nightmarish bird quickly rising to gain altitude.

Rosary's heart raced as she began her ascent up the rugged face of the mountain. Her hands gripped the rough surface of the mountain, and she pulled herself upward with all her might. Her feet pounded against the hard ground as she leapt upwards with every grasp. She absolutely hated this feeling; that surge of excitement that she was experiencing was so inconvenient. Wasn't it easier to live a nice and simple life in the confines of your home, never leaving and simply enjoying the nice things in life such as food, books and sleep?

Rosary had entered Marshmallow Island for two reasons. First of all was that she was a private investigator, and she was assigned to find out the truth behind the island. The second reason was because it would get her away from the swarms of people hounding her daily. Being an investigator in the brutal area of the Western Bloc was not a favourable position to be in. Not like she cared, after all; anyone challenging her was never strong enough to take her on.

There would be no exception, not least for some idiot bird that couldn't hold its attention span.

A swing to the side evaded the swipe from Hugin's claws, and she grabbed the closest edge to swing herself upwards. There was always the option of jumping downwards and making her way to the entrance King had came out of, but going upwards was naturally more beneficial what with the water level rising, and so she put the platform as the goal in her mind.

Bright flashes of light erupted from behind her as King used his Aspect to blink forward. Flash remained to be one of the most convenient Aspects on Otherside, and it was a little unreasonable how much the Dreamer Merchants were charging for it. He flashed on top of Hugin, threads of spirit pooling around his hand as heavy, white gauntlets formed around his fists.

It was strike after strike after strike, and Hugin dove downwards to attempt to evade, but King continued whaling on the poor thing. Was this monster a joke? Rosary completed the climb with a final leap to the ledge, and bust out her Omni to take aim.

'Eye of the Beamer,' she whispered.

 

 

A ring on her left finger flashed silver as an unnaturally perfect eye materialized beside her. A nod by her directed it towards Hugin, and it began firing a thin beam onto Hugin, dramatically slowing it down. Hugin noticed it and got annoyed, swiping its claws to eliminate the source of the slowdown. It exploded in a cryo blast, freezing it immediately, whilst King took cover behind its body.

Then, it was just as simple as opening fire.

The Omni penalized your damage for three reasons. If your Omni fired multiple shots, if your Omni fired ranged shots (naturally, also depending on the exact range) and if your Omni shot a projectile that exploded. It was naturally annoying to soak the damage falloff, but Rosary always preferred guns and rifles to normal weapons.

After all that training, it would be a complete waste not to use it, after all.

With every bullet she sent out was a deep green shade behind it. Another one of her Aspects, something she was lucky enough to get in a particularly annoying encounter yesterday.

 

 

Bang, bang, bang... The constant noise of gunfire filled the air, accompanying King as he continued to bash down on Hugin. It finally seemed to understand what was happening and did a barrel roll in the air, yet King latched on to its fur and held on by the tip of his gauntlet.

The gauntlet that was suddenly gone; that absolute moron, did he forget the Aspect has a time limit?

A shocked yelp followed by a bright flash saw King teleporting towards the mountain, falling forwards before performing another teleport to land himself on a ledge. The water was rising faster and faster, and they needed to get to climbing or killing, and yet the damn bird still showed no signs of faltering.

 

 

Ridiculous. Absolutely everything in this realm was so healthy, and there was no reasonable way to kill it .Yet it continued the assault, chasing after King.

'Crownie, flash over here!' Rosary yelled. Why did she always need to help out these kids looking for death sentences? 'We're going to run through this tunnel to lose it. We need to get climbing, or the water level will reach us.'

And indeed, the water level was indeed rising. Rosary gave it no more than three minutes before it filled up the tunnel, and King wasted no time in slowly flashing forward into the tunnel to sprint alongside her.

'Well, hopefully someone else can take it down...'

---

Sariel and Pane were having a wonderful time.

It was nothing more than a leisurely climb. The bird was nowhere to be seen! It was nearly like it was just an awkward hiking trip with a co-worker from ma different department.

That was, until Globe swing out of a tunnel from below them and called out.

'Hey, you! How dare you just keep climbing! Don't you know we have to kill the boss to clear stage?'

There were two people above her, but somehow Sariel felt like she was referring to just him. He replied in a tired voice, 'Yes, and where is the bird? Am I supposed to be running through random tunnels hoping they take me to the killer bird?

Globe bristled in fury, but leapt off the tunnel entrance and began climbing. 'The two people who voted in your favour are fighting it now. Don't you want to help them?'

Sariel pondered a bit, and then replied. 'Not really, no. I'm not really even sure who you're referring to, but I can't hold their hand.'

'You yourself should know by now what type of place this is. Our objective is now to scale the mountain, and find out what lies at the top, and if nothing does, assist the others in climbing.'

Pane hummed in affirmation. 'We can't really kill the bird just by ourselves, and as such we'd need support from the other Dreamers. It would be optimal if everyone met up at the top of the mountain.'

'But how many of us are actually left alive?'

Sariel shrugged. 'Everyone important, probably?'

He refocused on his main task. Climbing. And if he was completely ignoring an annoying girl, oh well.

They had scaled nearly 70% of it already. It had been an estimated thirty minutes since the instance began. One of the longer ones, by far, but the end was close, with the peak in sight., What was actually at the peak?

The next tunnel was just overhead. A chance to take a break and regain some strength, but Sariel needed no such thing; with the power of Infusion, that nagging feeling of tiredness burned away with the cleansing flames. He picked up his pace, rising upwards whilst Pane trailed behind. Globe was too slow to keep up, fortunately, so Sariel finally got out of earshot of the constant accusations.

Then, he looked down.

---

Globe struggled with every step, attempting to gain more ground to climb upwards.

Wasn't it mildly reasonable that normal people wouldn't know how to scale mountains? Still, with the increased strength from transcendence, it was relatively easy to just keep leaping forward.

A shiver ran down her spine. She felt her instincts blaring, and she leapt to the side, falling down and grabbing a ledge, cutting her palm in the process. Beside her was Hugin, having just erupted from the tunnel nearby. It followed with another blow, and Globe once again swung to dodge it, falling down and leaping to the left.

Blood ran down her palm as she quickly pushed herself up to look for the nearest tunnel. There it was, above her! A leap upwards was met wit h a swing from the beast, and as she leapt upwards, her body was thrown to the side by the brutal nightmare creature.

A desperate cry as she as she fell in a freefall, unable to reach the mountain, and the blue depths of the water below seemed to be ready for her entrance. They looked so peaceful, so tranquil, so entirely innocent. They couldn't be that bad, could they? Surely not...

A chain slammed into her back as she neared the water, and she looked back. That man, Flower... She grasped the chain with her unbloodied hand and pulled towards it, dragging herself by the chain towards the mountain. a few seconds later, a tug pulled her roughly, sending her into the air and flying towards the mountain. She felt the warmth of the flames of Infusion course through her body twice; both Pane and Sariel sent forth their Spirit to assist the falling Dreamer.

Yes, this was wonderful; another chance to scale the mountain, dive into a tunnel and evade the-

---

Sariel watched the brutal sight of a woman's body getting slammed across the air twice.

A Deep Breath was on cooldown. It was never stated, but Aspects did indeed have cooldowns, and it was up to the Dreamers to guess approximately when they would be up. But cooldowns weren't the issue currently.

Pane averted her eyes, instead focusing on the climb ahead. Sariel, however, wanted to watch this.

Globe's limp body landed in the water, and sunk down into the depths. All seemed normal, and yet the darkness of the water below suddenly grew darker. The slowly rising water was interrupted by a brutal splash as a hand formed of Darkness grasped the body of Globe in the palm of its hand and dragged it down, taking it under.

In a flash, the hand snatched a falling body out of the air, wrapping its threads around them like a serpent. The body struggled and screamed as it was dragged down into the dark and murky depths of the ocean, disappearing from sight.

The threads of darkness slithered and writhed like snakes, dragging the body deeper and deeper into the abyss. The water churned and frothed as the hand dragged its prey down to the ocean's bottom, where no light could penetrate the murky depths.

As the hand disappeared beneath the waves, the ocean grew still once again, as if nothing had ever happened. And indeed, to the rest of the world, the universe, the galaxy, and even the other Dreamers, maybe nothing even happened at all.

Sariel sighed, and focused on the climb. It seemed Hugin hadn't taken much notice of them, and flew through another tunnel to find its next target.

It didn't matter who she was nor what she believed nor what she thought of him. The fact remains that she was in this realm, fighting just like he was, and together with him. Wasn't that enough to value someone?

Another sigh.

One more dream extinguished, after all.