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“Ughn… nn… ah!” Estelle’s teeth clenched shut tight, as she gripped onto the dangling ropes with all her strength, her body wavering from side to side, precariously balanced over an abyss of orange that would gradient into blackness. As her body slowly jerked up thanks to Selan and Lucien’s efforts together to pull her, she found herself looking down, and then instantly regretting it as she scrunched her eyes closed tight, and then focused on the platform up above, just barely seeing the straining faces of Selan and Lucien. “Why did you do that, Estelle…?” The swordswoman chastised herself with a shake. 

When her body got close enough to the ledge, she swung her Fireblade up overarm, and buried the sword’s blade into the ground, using it as another tool of leverage to lift herself up. The climb was daunting, and many times she feared of dropping her sword into that awaiting abyss (it’d have been too soon to lose another sword) or of slipping from the rope entirely, but she had made it. Thanks to her friends. 

It was not only Selan and Lucien who had pulled Estelle up she noticed, once she climbed over the ledge. There, at the very end of the rope was both Aria and Lute as well, after the duo had crisscrossed over the suspended path of cogs and gears to land beside them. Estelle smiled. 

“Thanks you guys,” Estelle smiled, panting heavily as she strained to catch her breath. Her chest fell with a heavy ‘phew’, and with a slap of her cheeks, she psyched herself up to face that monstrous aberration above. 

“It’s got to have a weakness,” Aria hissed in distaste, her fingers strumming atop her sheathed knives. But what?

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“But what?” Lute ended up verbalising Aria’s own thoughts. He was still groggy and winded, first from Moira’s spinning throw of him, that ended up going off course and missing the Dream Eater to collide into the wall of a gently spinning house instead. The young virtuoso could barely see straight, and one hand held onto his dizzy head. He had had enough of ‘falling’ and hitting things today, thank you. Like Aria, he wanted to do something to help defeat the Dream Eater, but they needed a solid idea. Nothing else worked so far, and, well… if he was going to get injured again somehow, he’d prefer it being done whilst doing something [i]useful.[/i]

"I can distract it,” Lucien spoke, and Estelle automatically turned towards the summoner, reaching out to try and stop him, but before she could his cat summon had already began working it’s way up. 

“Damnit, Lucien,” Estelle scowled. She wanted to tell him to wait, to stay with them and actually think of a plan first… but she wasn’t any different then him. She walked closer to his lowered body, placing her hand on his shoulder, as she turned to her other three friends. “Selan, Aria, Lute… any of you guys have any ideas? This thing, it… damnit, if we can’t even [i]touch[/i] it, then what do we… woah!”

Suddenly the ground beneath them gave way, and with a jerk they fell. It wasn’t just them, but it was everything around them. The smaller pieces of floating debris, the cogs and gears, nails and screws, they fell slower, but the larger platforms such as this clocktower still dropped at an alarming speed. And then, just like that, they stopped, bobbing slowly back up. The Dream Eater’s chilling laughter echoed far, far above them. Even if they could think of a plan, they had to reach it… and Estelle didn’t know how. If she had Marcus’ wind magic boosting her agility and ability to jump, it’d be easier, but he… wait. Where was he? And where was Don?

Estelle was about to ask her companions, but then the clocktower fell into freefall again. The smaller pieces of debris, those floating cogs and screws, they plummeted too, again falling far quicker. And with such terrifying speed this time to rain heavily down upon them, crashing into the ground. 

“Everyone!” Estelle screamed, throwing her body over Lucien’s to protect him, her sword swinging up overhead to batter a nail out of the way.