TBATE: Art and Tess's Second Chance

Chapter 18: The Torrential Winds

Arthur Leywin's POV:

In all of my time as an adventurer, I had never come across a dungeon like this one. Luckily for us, over half of the Twin Horns were wind mages which helped them to adjust to the rapid, raging winds that constantly changed directions at a moment's notice. 

Adam and Durden were the odd ones out being water and earth attribute mages respectively. Adam had only recently unlocked his water affinity, possibly due to Tess and I's presence or maybe personal motivation from the threat of war but it was impossible to know for sure. 

Tess, Helen, Jasmine, Angela, and I had formed something akin to a pentagon or a pentagram around the two. We were constantly cycling our own wind spells to cut through or push back the cyclone level winds always bombarding us. 

Regis was currently nestled safely inside my core while Sylv was hidden and protected behind my cloak. I was hoping Sylv would be able to help since she learned Realmheart, but she's still only capable of manipulating pure mana for now. I should probably have Tess work with her to unlock more affinities.

With this party setup, our progress through this dungeon was mind-numbingly slow, as well as draining to everyone but Tess and I who had plenty of mana to spare. It didn't help that we had to be constantly on our guard so we didn't get pummeled by boulders, or other small flying objects that were essentially bullets in these winds. 

It was impossible to see any of the features that made up the dungeon due to the wind we were constantly fighting against being fully visible to the naked eye, it was like being inside of a rampaging tornado. Soon enough, the Twin Horns gave us the signal to stop so they could replenish the mana inside their cores. We weren't able to communicate verbally since the howling winds were drowning out all other sound. 

'I could probably speak to everyone using a specialized sound spell to project my voice even through this noise,' Tess gloated smugly. 

'I bet you could, oh mighty vessel of the Legacy's powers, but let's focus on finding shelter first,' I mocked. 

We slowly fought our way over to the nearest wall where I indented a cavern in the wall, a space large enough for everyone to fit inside. We entered the newly made cave and I closed it up before taking out some light artifacts I had packed with us due to Alaric's overprotective teachings.

"AAAAAH! How much longer till we at least encounter any type of mana beast!" Adam shouted while banging the blunt end of his spear on the ground.

"It is weird we haven't encountered any beasts yet. I can feel the mana signatures of multiple entities in this dungeon, including the boss, but it's still a long ways away from our current location," Tess informed. 

"There are two reasons I could think of as to why we haven't had to fight any beasts yet. Would anyone care to take a guess as to what those reasons are?" I asked. 

"Maybe the beasts aren't aggressive in nature. It wouldn't be the first time, especially for monsters on the first floor, they tend to be very docile," Durden guessed.

"That's reason number one, what about the other?" I quizzed and gave Durden an approving nod. 

"They're laying a trap for us further inside," Jasmine answered bluntly. 

"Yeah, and that's the one I'm leaning towards as well. I'm just worried how we're going to handle them and these winds at the same time," I wondered. 

"We should probably stay here until we figure that out, it will be safer that way at the very least," Helen advised, prioritizing our team's lives.

I responded with a nod as we prepared to camp out in this cave for the time being. I turned my thoughts to the aether that seems to be present in the wind as well as all around this dungeon itself. The concentration of aether seems to be getting stronger the further we traverse through this floor.