Previously:

'I can feel it. Something just happened…' thought Ren Gyokuen of the Kou Empire as her face twisted with distaste. It was far too similar to the one she had that day twenty-nine years ago for her liking.

"What's that?" asked the magi Judar , furrowing his brow as he looked up in the direction of the strange phenomena. "The Rukh are resonating with something…"

"The Rukh are resonating. They are resonating together with a great power!" exclaimed the Chancellor of Magnostadt Academy, Matal Mogamett.

"In the East… someone… no, two people with great power have come." said Lady Scheherazade of Reim when the mass of rukh split in two, gazing off into the distance as if she could see something no one else could.

Chapter 2: Her Name is Hope

When Hope finally came to again, she found that she was lying in the middle of an empty and deserted plain. For a moment she thought she saw something like a bright white butterfly fluttering past the corner of her eye, but there was nothing there when she looked. She must have imagined it. Night had fallen, the ground was cold and hard beneath the soft grass that was covering it, and she could see a great multitude of stars shining brightly in the dark sky above. That was her first clue that something was very wrong. Not only could she see a ridiculous amount of stars, which meant she was nowhere near a major city, but the constellations weren't right. She wasn't exactly an expert, but she knew enough to be able to recognize when something was wrong. As Hope stared up into the night in confusion the events that had led up to this moment came crashing back, and her eyes widened as she suddenly sat up and began looking around for her sister. She couldn't find Faith anywhere, but for some reason their carry-on bag appeared to have made the trip as well, because she found it sitting on the ground about twenty yards away from her initial location. Hope frowned and furrowed her brow in confusion. How had that happened? Nothing in it appeared to be damaged from the fall (aside from her cell phone, which had a strange message on it about needing to be reactivated), but then, come to think of it, neither was she. How could she have possibly survived all of that? Putting aside their magical little journey through space (where they should have died from lack of oxygen and frozen over like a pair of popsicles), shouldn't they have burned up from the friction of entering a planet's atmosphere? After being pulled away from Faith, she had lost consciousness and couldn't remember how she had managed to make such a miraculous landing at all. Was she dead? Was this Heaven? If so, it was pretty bleak…
Hope decided she must be dreaming. She and Faith had probably just been knocked out by a slight but sudden change in cabin pressure, and were still safely aboard the plane, being taken care of by a stewardess. Maybe she had even fallen asleep before that and the turbulence was part of the dream too. That idea made her feel better because it meant her real body wouldn't be in any danger, but she still had a niggling feeling that something wasn't quite right.

"Well, whatever." Hope said aloud with a shrug, rubbing her cold arms. 'Dream or not, this place is kind of chilly… I should probably start looking for some form of shelter.' She thought, taking another look around using her scrambled phone's glowing screen for a light source. It was then that she stumbled upon what appeared to be the entrance of a descending stairwell to some kind of underground structure. The inscription carved on the arch over the door at the bottom was in a language that she had never seen before, and the door seemed to glow with a mysterious light. Hope looked around, wondering why something like this was out in the middle of nowhere. Was it supposed to be some kind of bunker or emergency shelter? 'Well, whatever it is, it's probably my best bet for finding shelter for the night.' Hope decided, cautiously poking the glowing door with a stick that she had picked up while walking around. The texture of the door felt soft and gooey, like a mucus membrane… or pudding. 'Speaking of pudding, I could really go for some about now…' she thought, sweat-dropping, when her stomach growled rather loudly. "!" Hope gasped in alarm when the membrane suddenly shot up the stick and took hold of arm, pulling her in before she had a chance to react. "Whoaa!" She exclaimed when she felt a pulling sensation that was eerie similar to the one she had felt on the plane and found herself floating over yet another world. But apart from several pillars of light that looked just like the one she was in, this planet seemed dark and lifeless. The sight of it sent an ominous chill up her spine. Then the light surrounding her increased to such a blinding intensity that she had to shield her eyes. When she opened them again, she was standing in front of a deep, dark, and murky swamp with her back to a wall of solid stone. "I guess it didn't like being poked…" she mumbled with a sigh, wondering what she had gotten herself into.

Meanwhile, as a new day dawned on the Tenzan plateau, the sound of horse hooves beating against the ground rolled like thunder across land. Upon reaching the estimated landing site of the strange phenomena that they had witnessed the previous evening, when a mass of rukh had streaked across the sky like a falling star followed by the earth quaking, General Ren Kouen of the Kou Empire's Western Subjugation Army brought his men to a halt. He then ordered them to dismount and search for any signs that might give them a clue as to what it could have been. Kouen had never seen the rukh act that way before, and he wanted to know why. What had caused it to gather in such a great mass that even non-magicians could see it? Whatever it was, it had to be something powerful… Kouen stopped and stared down at the ground when he reached a spot where the grass had been noticeably disturbed and bent. There was a faint trail of footprints leading away from it.

"This way." He ordered his men, taking with him a small group consisting of his household members and a couple of foot soldiers. The person who left the trail seemed lost and confused, because the tentative footprints circled back several times before they suddenly became much firmer and sure and began proceeding forward in a straight line without any signs of hesitation. These more confident footsteps ended before a stone stairwell that lead down into the earth to what Kouen and his household members immediately recognized as a dungeon; the dungeon of Ipos, according to the inscription upon the archway over the entrance.

"Wait a minute, what's a dungeon doing in a place like this? How long has it been here?" Seishuu asked dubiously. It was rare for a dungeon to be in such a deserted place since people tended to build towns up around them once they were found.

"Was it raised by our country's priest?" En Shou asked.

"..." Kouen said stoically. Somehow he doubted that. They knew where all of the dungeons that Judar had raised were located, and this wasn't one of them. To think there had been a hidden dungeon so close without them knowing… Though he didn't show it, Kouen was surprised.

"Shall we enter, my lord?" asked Kokuton.

"That's right! If we follow the trail inside then we can not only find the one who left it behind, we can conquer another dungeon while we're at it. We can kill two birds with one stone!" said Gaku Kin. Knowing that the answers he sought lay on the other side of the entrance, it didn't take long for Kouen to make his decision. He ordered one of the foot soldiers to return and inform the rest of their plan to enter the dungeon and gave instructions on what their orders were to be if they did not return within a certain time limit.

"Now," he said to others as he took a step forward, "let us advance!"

Upon stepping through the archway Kouen felt the familiar pulling sensation associated with entering a dungeon and was once again transported to that strange world that all of the dungeons appeared to be connected to. When the blinding light that had flared up to obscure his vision faded, he found that they were standing before a very large and very dismal swamp. The footprints were much easier to read in the soft mud. As they moved through the swamp glowing eyes stared at them from the darkness, but none dared to approach them. The trail took many twists and turns, and there were signs of a struggle every now and then, but they followed after their quarry without incident until the trail suddenly stopped dead in its tracks, as if the one who had left them behind had simply vanished into thin air. The only other evidence left behind of someone having been there was a colorful bag that was laying on the ground a several paces away.
Kouen was about to move to examine it when a voice suddenly called out to them from above.

"Don't move!" Hope shouted, and not a moment too soon, for just at that moment, a giant frog suddenly burst forth from beneath the ground, rising up with its mouth wide open. If Kouen had taken one more step, he would have been devoured by the creature in one gulp. "Yaahhh!" Hope yelled, leaping down from her hiding place in the tree above to wedge a thick branch in the frog's open trap. "C'mon!" she said urgently, grabbing Kouen by the hand to lead him to safety, scooping up her bag as they passed it. "That thing won't leave its nest, but it's tongue has a long reach! If it touches you, you'll be paralyzed!"

Kouen let the strange girl lead the way, taking the time they ran to study her unusual appearance. She looked rather delicate with her soft, fair skin and slender curves, and her face was prettier than average, but her ginger hair was cut short like a boy's, and her amber eyes burned with a desperate strength and pride. Even while running away there was a certain grace about the way she held herself. Her gold jewelry was of the finest craftsmanship that he had ever seen, and the pearls she wore on her wrists, in her ears, and round her neck were of the highest quality. Had it not been for the shortness of her vivid pink and green sleeveless dress and her hair, he might have thought her a noblewoman. But strangest of all was her sandals. At first glance appeared to be gilded with gold and set with precious gems, but looking closer he could see that they were made out of some kind of material he had never seen before. The gems were also false, but they weren't glass. And the closing on the back of her dress and bag were equally strange. Hundreds of tiny teeth fit together so tightly that they almost appeared to be seamlessly connected to each other, and they appeared to be made out of a more opaque version of the same material as the fake jewels. He wanted to know what it was.

"Hey, you! Stop! Where do you think you're going with Kouen-sama!?" Seishuu demanded incredulously, indignant on Kouen's behalf even though their fearless leader didn't seem to mind in the least. Just then girl immediately skidded to a halt right in front of a wide patch of slightly lighter colored dirt. The general's household members managed to stop right on their heels, but the foot soldier was not so lucky. He ended up sliding straight past them and into the dirt, disappearing with frightening speed as the ground swallowed him up instantly. Before even Kouen could react, Hope had let go of his hand, dropped her bag, and was diving in after the poor man with a vine that was hanging from the tree next to them tied around her waist. Deeper and deeper she shifted blindly through the quicksand in search of the soldier, pulling tighter and tighter on the vine. When she felt her hand close around the soldier's wrist, she tightened her grip on the vine and started trying to pull her way back to the surface with him. But the Vine could not withstand their combined weight.

SNAP!!

"!" Kouen quickly grabbed their lifeline before it too could be swallowed up by the earth and ordered the others to help him pull, and together the five of them managed to drag Hope and the foot soldier out before they suffocated. For a moment all the two of them could do was gasp for air and cough, trying to clear their lungs and throats of the dirt they had swallowed.

"And that—koff—gentlemen—koff—is what lightning sand looks like—koff!" Hope said in between coughs, breathing heavily.

"Lightning sand?" asked Kokuton.

"Well, that's what I call it." Hope replied, clearing her throat. This place reminded her so much of the Fire Swamp from the Princess Bride that she just couldn't resist. "Once you step foot in it, it sucks you up faster than you can blink, and it's nearly impossible to get back out again. Learned that one when I unknowingly kicked an R.O.U.S. in another patch of it further back when the damn thing tried to attack me."

"R.O.U.S.?" asked En Shou.

"Rodent of unusual size." Hope explained with a sigh. "Those things were really vicious a first, but thankfully they haven't come near me since I burned the big one. I guess they learned their lesson… I had to use my hairspray with one of the flame spurts like an impromptu flamethrower. And before you ask, 'flame spurts' are little jets of flame that shoot up from the ground at random, but fortunately they make a popping sound before they go off, so they're fairly easy to avoid."

"How do you know so much about this place already?"

"Well, I've already been here for two days, and it's the kind of place where you either learn as you go, or you don't and you die. I spent most of yesterday stuck hanging up in that tree after that frog-in-waiting attacked me. Fortunately I had an open bottle of Tabasco in my hand when it swallowed me, because it had a bad reaction to the spice and spit me out right away." She had been so hungry that she had resorted to chugging hot sauce in an attempt to fill her empty stomach. "Unfortunately I landed very awkwardly in that tree, and the frog's saliva left me temporarily paralyzed for a long time…" Hope explained, pausing to massage the crick in her neck. That little near death experience had really freaked her out, because it felt way too scary, way too gross, and way too real for a dream, which could only mean one thing: all of this weird shit was really happening. Hope shrugged it off. She couldn't freak out about all this craziness now. She'd worry about it later. First she needed to get out of this place and find her sister. Hope took a deep breath, stood up, and brushed herself off. "Well, anyway, I'm just glad to see other people. It's a little late, but I'm Hope Dupont. Nice to meet you." She said, holding her hand out for a shake.