Seventh FloorLess than a minute had passed after Selan's eyes left the lifeless body of Dr. Dream before he suddenly began to speak and move. The last thing she remembered before everything shifted out of focus was Xan and Amy being swatted away, and Lisette and some of the others shrieking or yelling.
When everything stopped spinning, she was looking straight down at a sea of nothing, perched at the top of a tilted clock tower. She immediately sank to her knees, pressing her palms on its surface. She was afraid that she would lose her balance and fall. Lucien was nearby, having found a foothold on the tower's architecture.
Thinking that there was no time to get caught up in her fear of heights, she was taken aback by the monstrous patchwork of a creature that the dream eater had become, floating above them and armed with an enormous cannon. Every so often, parts of it would become a dizzying blur and become something else, and she wondered if the gigantic shards of glass sticking out of its chest were meant for her. "Oh gods..." she whispered, watching various members of The Pride hop from cog to cog to engage with the dream eater.
Estelle appeared just above them, falling past them and out of arm's reach. Dylan acted quickly, and a rope appeared at Selan's feet, the ends thickly knotted. "Use it! Catch her!" he cried, his eyes following the swordswoman's descent.
Selan scarcely had time to think, and quickly threw down the rope. "Estelle, grab it!" she called down, holding tightly above the rope knot. Estelle caught the rope with one hand, while the other held her ignited sword away from it. By herself, Selan would have been able to support her weight, but the added density of her armor caused her to nearly pitch forward over the edge of the clock tower, and her palms and arms screamed with pain. Lucien quickly ran over to grab onto the rope as well, and used the angle of the tower as support to pull the rope back towards him. Slowly, Estelle was raised higher and higher.
Meanwhile, Lisette was busy jumping from cog to cog, a safe distance away from the dream eater.
It's just like the rooftops, it's just like the rooftops... she told herself, finally landing on a cog that wasn't tilted at an odd angle. She readied her bow and began channeling magical energy into the tips of the arrows and began firing, although it was difficult to aim when she was constantly drifting in a clockwise arc around the monstrosity.