11 years ago. Valka's Crimson Chamber, Orario.
It was a quiet day in Orario, with almost the entire city in good spirits after the [Freya Familia] returned from an expedition to their middle floors.
Of course, such an expedition needed blacksmiths and who fulfilled that need was the [Hephaestus Familia], and by fulfilling that need, then there was a strong boost in the flow of local income by the Guild to the [Familia].
Now, Hephaestus herself was killing some of her free time in reading reports provided by the Guild on their recent income, making her think that perhaps she could expand a bit into the tourist markets outside Orario, a good way for new members of the [Familia] to sell their wares outside of the limited stores in Babel.
Her thoughts were interrupted when the door to her office opened and on the threshold, a girl around the age of 9 or 11 made her presence known, looking at Hephaestus intently.
The red-curled Goddess adored her daughter, but it would be a vile lie to deny that she was never sometimes confuse by her intense pale red eyes and/or stoic face. Although it had been many yesterdays since she had discovered where these expressions came from, whether it was because Flora decided to lose herself in her thoughts, because she was feeling sad, or... because she was unsure about something.
As her daughter approached, she could feel a slight tremor on her lips, telling her what she needed to: she was unsure.
"Flora? I was sure you were still training with Tsubaki."
"... That maniac keeps trying to replicate my Saw Cleaver."
"And you gave it to her just like that?"
Flora shook her head.
"I asked her for a date... she turned me down. But she said she can teach me how to make a scary expression, a Poker Face, she said" Flora's face morphed into something close to a childish pout. "I thought I could scare people already."
'Ugh, what the heck, Tsubaki?'
"W-well, a Poker Face isn't always easy honey. Though if you want to keep one so badly, then I'm sure you'll pull it off easily," she said carefully, trying not to let her words be misinterpreted.
"Huh..."
Hephaestus found herself surprised to see Flora struggle with words, as if she could find no way to express what she was looking for. From the time she was able to speak, her beloved daughter used to be very direct with her words, going from things like 'I'm hungry, I need soup please' (at 4 years old) to 'you stink, go take a bath' (Flora to Tsubaki, two days ago).
After considerable time, Flora finally seemed to give what she wanted.
"Mom, I know... people are afraid of my face. I don't need a Poker Face."
Divine Blacksmith body swayed; the dejected expression, the pessimistic tone. Seeing... seeing her beloved, strong and determined daughter like this broke her heart in so many ways, each and every time the girl was overcome with doubts and insecurities, her heart struggled not to break and stay strong for Flora's sake.
"But... this is my face, there's not much I can do... When we used to go to Monsterphilia some kids used to tell me that maybe I should change it, that..." Flora had no idea where she saw this feeling. Why did the words of strangers affect her so much? Was it because they were comparing her to... What haunted her in her dreams? "That I should have the face of a person and leave the face of a monster."
Hephaestus could take no more and wrapped her arms around her daughter in a deep hug. This was not the first and last time a group of children had verbally attack Flora, and that was all they could do.
Flora was 6 when a group of boys and girls slightly older than her tried to physically attack her, needless to say it didn't end well for them...
As Deméter had warned her, children can be very cruel.
The Divine Blacksmith came to a crossroads.
The longer she put it off, the more her beloved daughter would suffer.
And she was no fool, Hephaestus was certain that Flora was aware to some extent of her true origins.
The loss of Alfia and Meteria were already enough of a burden on her daughter's heart to leave her adrift with an uncertainty that, in the worst case scenario, would end up isolating her from people.
So the Blacksmith decided.
"Flora...," she said slowly in a mere whisper, "there is something you need to know..."
... ... ...
... ... ...
Present
Imprisoned in a prison that putrefied flesh from what was once her body.
This was how Cassandra felt in the absolute darkness in which she found herself.
Primordial blackness that enveloped her and deprived her of most of her senses, leaving only smell and hearing to function.
She smelled rotting flesh, blood and flowers.
She heard wood cracking, grass being trampled and the dripping of a liquid that she thought was viscous.
Cassandra, however, kept her composure. This... Something about this vision compelled her to keep it.
A time passed that could have been seconds, minutes, hours or hundreds of thousands of years, until the scenery changed. A blinding, pure white light invaded the vision of the shy girl.
Soon she could tell she was inside a cocoon of sorts, one that, to her pleasant surprise, was made of flowers and not that rotting flesh that had assaulted her sense of smell so long ago.
"My child, you look lost."
Cassandra hadn't even realized that in front of her cocoon stood a woman. She possessed a fine, stoic face with literal porcelain skin, as well as the finest, most faded clothes the girl had ever seen. Her pale, long hair complemented her perfectly.
As she crossed glances with her, she knew she was responsible for bringing her peace in this haunting vision, the location of which she now grasped: a garden of massive white flowers, illuminated by the light of the full moon and set to the sound of someone working in a workshop.
"Hmm... that's a shame, little Sibyl," the woman told her with honest sadness. "It's taken longer than expected, now you have to go back to the Waking World."
"What...?"
Cassandra could barely express her confusion as she felt herself losing consciousness.
"See you soon," the woman waved goodbye with her right hand, smiling slightly at her.
Before it was all over, there was one last thing Cassandra Ilion could hear.
"Say hello to my beloved daughter."
... ... ...
... ... ...
Dix Perdix knew when he had been outclassed, and this was one of those occasions when he recognized it.
A whole batch of Xenos lost... because they had committed suicide.
He had men watching them 24/7, whose sole purpose was to keep them in a state where they could still be of interest to potential buyers. As if that wasn't enough, he was there when it happened.
So focused was he on getting everything coordinated to conclude the most recent expansion of the artificial labyrinth Knossos, that he didn't notice when those Xenos went berserk.
To describe what they had done to themselves could be summed up as carnage.
Why the hell had it happened? That was what Dix wished he knew.
It was only now, on the very day Orario was fizzing at the appearance of a Lv.8, that he got the answer to his question.
"It almost sounds like a bad joke..." he grumbled, knowing he would have to resort to Ishtar's connections to see if he could figure out what the heck he had stumbled upon.
At that point in the massacre, a new entrance to the Dungeon opened up, connected to a section of the 21st Floor... However, it was an unfamiliar section...
Those in charge stated fiercely that from the same wall had spat a small sealed coffin, no bigger than an adult arm. It was already strange that this should be in a wall of the Dungeon, whose integrity was often compromised during great expeditions beyond Rivira.
Far stranger was its contents, the thing that so many Xenos went mad for.
A mummified hand.
The damn mummified hand of a woman resting in a thick liquid that Dix at first did not identify as blood.
Accompanying the hand was a papyrus sealed in a glass tube, whose message Dix did not even bother to try to understand, lest it be another of his ancestor's follies.
The message read; "Fear the Old Blood."
... ... ...
... ... ...
Things were getting hot in the city at the heart of the world.
The Messenger of Divinity and leader of a [Familia] with the same name, Hermes, had the task of giving the world its next and last Great Hero, the one who would bring a new era by putting an end to the One-Eyed Dragon and who would arrive at the end of the Dungeon.
Hermes was well aware of Apollo's growing interest in the boy and this presented him with a golden opportunity.
He might not be able to intervene directly, both for appearances sake and because Hestia would not allow him to, but he could very well use his specialty of pulling strings behind the scenes.
However, Hermes was very smart, and he noticed almost immediately when a new actor joined this play that already had Freya, Ishtar, Apollo and Kali.
A mortal.
Flora Leukos.
Oh, how naive the divine messenger had been not to take old Zeus' warnings about the young woman. About how she was something else, a wild card who would make her own moves when the time came, even from her position as Good Hunter.
Hermes knew he had to start giving importance to the girl not only because she was now the only Lv. 8 adventurer in the world, but because of what Asfi had brought him that night.
A famous resource unique to Orario, discovered in the Dungeon 11 years ago.
It could grow on any floor and possessed healing properties never seen before.
As soon as it appeared, it disappeared.
The last batch was harvested 5 years ago.
Its name was Lumenflower.