"There's a what?!"
The Nightmare Spell had sent Smile Of Heaven into a narrow cavern completely devoid of light, even deeper than where Ki Song and Epsilon had ended up. Perhaps it was the very bottom of the expansive cave system, but that was not enough to stop her. She was able to easily navigate that darkness with a luminous memory, but her issues only began once she ran into a particular Nightmare creature.
When Epsilon first entered the Chimera creatures forest, he ended up near a freshwater lake that seemed to shrink and refill daily. He used to ponder where the water went when he was bored, but reasoned that it somehow flowed back to the start of the tunnel he almost drowned in.
As it turns out, it somehow flowed all the way to that deep bottom, and slowly gathered in an unfathomably large lake that was more like an ocean. There was a single, stone bridge that crossed its diameter, allowing one to travel over it seemingly easily. That was where Smile Of Heaven had come out too after traveling for half a day.
And that was where she made her first mistake.
"My father taught me better then that. I couldn't've imagined that there would be an Awakened Terror hiding in there."
Right when she began to cross to the other side, the singular arm of a colossal octopus burst through the surface of lake, and collapsed on the bridge right in front of her. It should've killed her right then and there, but strangely, once she escaped back to its entrance, the terror stopped attacking her.
"Maybe it was because I was too small or weak to be considered a proper meal, so it barely tried to chase after me. Either way, travelling across the bridge was hopeless, and climbing the circumference of the cavern to reach the other side was risky since I wasn't sure if the terror would attack me again."
She tried to explore the small section of the caverns she was trapped in for any other exits to the surface, but there were none. There weren't even any other Nightmare Creatures she could hunt for substance, and was instead forced to eat the cave moss which grew from the walls.
But on her first night there, she noticed something interesting. Water seemed to flood from the caves ceiling, steadily increasing the volume of the lake. Watching this gave her an interesting idea.
Rather than crossing the bridge with her physical body, what if she went with only her soul? Activating her dormant ability, she left her body behind, as she flew across the bridge far faster then she could've travelled with her normal body.
The Ocean Dweller noticed this, and tried to attack her. However, it was futile. It was incapable of interacting with the Soul, and so she was easily able to escape.
She was able to cross to the other side, and slowly she navigated as much of the caverns as she could, hopefully coming across any other of her recruited Cohort members. Unfortunately, there had been none.
After a couple days, she eventually came across two paths. Choosing to go left, Smile Of Heaven continued down, and ended up in the Chimera Forest. After wandering around for a short while, she thought that there were only Nightmare creatures here, and so she decided to leave until an explosion caught her attention.
And then, the rest was history.
"Despite how I look now, I can still fight if summon my own memories and possess them. I did that earlier to save you."
It looked like Smile Of Heaven would still be able to maintain her role in combat at least.
"Oh yeah! Have you seen anyone from our Cohort?"
"Well, I did see Feliz.. but as you can see, she isn't with us right now."
It wasn't hard to figure out that she had sadly passed away. A member of the cohort she had carefully formed had been lost, but it looked like there was a new member to replace her, Ki Song. Although their roles didn't line up properly, she was a welcomed force. Speaking of, there was another new addition to the cohort he had to check.
Shifting his attention, Epsilon asked,
"Hey Cassius. What's your Aspect?"
He flinched harshly, causing a bit of soup from his bowl to spill out. He slowly turned his head towards Epsilon, as bullet drops of sweat leaked from his forehead.
"Er.. it's... I don't think I should say."
Epsilon glanced at Ki Song, but she just shrugged her shoulders. It seemed she didn't know either. Smile Of Heaven also had no clue.
'They'd been living with this guy for a week now, yet they don't know?? Well... this area is relatively safe so I guess.. hang on! Ki Song should've check anyway???'
Sighing, Epsilon then asked,
"Listen, if we're going to leave this place to try and find a citadel, we will inevitably have to fight Nightmare Creatures. We can't do that properly if we don't give you a proper role in our cohort."
Although he said that, depending on what it was, he may not even get a role at all. He wouldn't be surprised if Ki Song pressured him into staying behind.
"..."
Despite that though, he still seemed reluctant to say. Epsilon was just about to press him more for answers, but then Smile Of Heaven intervened.
"If you don't want to tell us, then that's okay. There are plenty of other ways you could support us without fighting. Like being a cook! Well.. we already have one, but two is better than one!"
Epsilon looked back at the cauldron of soup, and saw a large bubble slowly expand on its surface before popping.
'That thing is breathing.'
Ki Song gently placed her empty bowl of soup on the ground, making Epsilons face contort in disgust.
'How did she even eat that??'
"Anyway, we need to plan out what we should do tomorrow. We've already scouted this place out quite a bit, and there only seems to be two exits out of this city."
Epsilons face lit up. So much had happened, that he almost forgot that reaching the surface was their ultimate goal.
"To the North, there's a massive stone door that's shut tight. There seems to be some kind of mechanism that functions it, but its broken. So we have no choice but to take the second way."
She looked over to Smile Of Heaven, who continued,
"There was a fork in the path I took to get here, we'll have to back track and go that way instead. Hopefully it will lead to the surface."
"But that means we'll have to go back through that forest."
Going through that place would be even more deadly than before. They burnt half of it to the ground, and so half of the cover they would've been able to hide in was now gone. Not just that, but all of the creatures would surely be even more agitated, especially the two tyrants that were commanding them.
'This is a pain.'
Ki Song got up, quickly stretching her back while yawning,
"Anyway, I'm going to rest now. Cassius, won't you wash up?"