Making the decision to nobly ignore the skull kid that had leaped over his shoulders rather then reduce the little bugger to an ashen smear on the floor for it's insolence, Magus watched as the hooded man that had been curled up on the ground before due to... who knows what attempted to make conversation with him and tempt him with a deal that required they kill the Poe. In truth the idea of experimenting with the essence of a poe in relation to magic did peek Magus's interest somewhat, but there was something about the hooded creature opposite him that seemed to make him... weary of any offer he made. All the man would get as a response was a 'Hmm' noise of thought, betraying none of his thoughts in the slightest.

As the fairy did her thing Magus remained silent (merely moving out of the way in order to not burst into flames) before following through the now opened door in order to enter into the... tomb. It wasn't the first word that came to mind, but it was the closest thing that Magus could think of at the moment that seemed to fit. As they reached what appeared to be a split in the road, a chance to test a theory presented itself.

Raising his hands, Magus started muttering under his breath, raising his gloved hand a little as a circle of what appeared to be some kind of dark light started to form. Focusing fully on the circle, he turned on the spot ever so slightly in order to perform a proper sweep in order to maximize his results. After twenty seconds, the circle faded away as Magus stopped putting power into it. What he was looking for wasn't there.

Looking towards the rest of the party, he simply said with a tone of voice that suggested that he would have been using a poker face with it "I was attempting to locate this keystone via magical means. There is too much background interference to get an accurate reading."

The warrior's stride, the elders of the Tribe called it. Walk with purpose and with a goal in mind, but always be weary of all that transpires around you. Navi had always been good at it. She has a pair of eyes at the back of her head, that one The elders had whispered during her training. It was this that made her slid back and crouch, avoiding most of the fire and only left a deep frown marring her forehead in response.

It was a strange guide that risked incinerating her chosen champions without warning. Yet, it was not to Navi to say how this pixie should be leading.

The silence she had wrapped herself in stayed for the moment, while she scouted out potential partners in the fight ahead. Oh, there would be a fight, there always was. Perhaps not one where her spear would be readied and blood drawn in violence, but a fight nonetheless and it had already started.

The moment Lethe had spoken of forming groups, conflict was inevitable.

"Win?" The Gerudo finally spoke again. She ignored the others and her attention was solely fixed on Jillian. There was an intensity to her glance, like she was probing the likeliness of the statement. Then the summoned entities was given some scrutiny, but only for a moment before Navi shrugged.

"You have my interest, Skullkid." With that done, she leaned against her spear and looked at the others. "Anyone else who wishes to win?"

In the meantime she completely ignored the little Gerudo hiding behind the legs of the giant Hylian. Curiosity a plenty, but if she demanded the child back into her custody... it would surely inspire some form of strife here and now. This wasn't in any of their interests.

To Lev's surprise, Lethe was something of a magical powerhouse and from her tiny body came a burst of intense flames that extended outwards in a wide radius, not unlike something he read in a book one time. The Poe floated backwards, keeping out of the wall of flame with about as much effort as one stepping out of the street to avoid being trampled by a horse. What he wasn't expecting was for the room to begin shaking, and after watching those who weren't either hefty or well-balanced get knocked around from the seismic activity, Lev found himself thankful that he had no real need to ever touch the ground. As such, the Temple's angry vibrations were not felt by him, but the effects were observable enough.

The words that followed definitely caught his attention. Lethe recounted the tale of the reincarnating Hero, the whole Ganondorf returning bit, and most importantly, the reason for them being in the Shadow Temple. Somewhere within its creepy decaying interior was some sort of object, a keystone, that could apparently help stop arguably the most powerful being short of the Goddesses in Hyrule's history. It almost seemed laughably absurd, but exciting all the same. Here was certainly where his story could find its legs. With the book suspended in front of him, Lev scribbled away with a quill, gauging his companions.

The only question was, who would make for a good protagonist of this tale?

Jillian was certainly out. Creepy undead children didn't sell books unless it was for a bedtime story about why kids shouldn't be brats.

Graham was giving him strange looks that he didn't entirely trust, and the... what exactly was he? Was either under the influence of something or already out of his mind. He wasn't writing a documentary about the horrors of substance abuse and mental illness.

That clanging machine that spoke peculiarly at best was far too alien to play more than a supporting role for the readers. He'd have to portray Noi as a Goron, since even Lev was having trouble understanding exactly what in Hyrule he was staring at.

Archer came across as something of a lovable rogue, but hardly someone you could depend on. Comic relief? Maybe he'd be put into a green unitard and have a fetish for balloons. Hmm. Better not, people are supposed to hate the villains, not the supporting cast... Lev thought, crossing that off as quickly as he had wrote it.

Oh, Gerudo lady! Naviela had all the right qualities, she looked strong, she was spirited, attractive, represented a marginalized segment of society that people latched onto... and she was volunteering to go off with Jillian. Another stroke of the quill.

Lev's eyes locked on the old hulking Hylian man with a Gerudo of his own. A doting father caring for his adopted daughter, saved from raiders in the desert and taking her to be his own. Compassionate, powerful, a presence that brings comfort and security to those in his presence and fear into his enemies, a man who has personal stakes in saving the world.

Him. He was perfect.

Lev floated over to Jaege, holding his lantern up to observe the crags and laugh lines that came with advanced age of mortal humans. He wasn't too old to be senile or decrepit, and not too young to be brash and stupid. Excellent. "Hello, Jaege, was it? Name's Lev. You look like you're ready to take on whatever undead horrors lurk in these corridors, and I can get you through them without stumbling into any hidden traps that would just not do for a big adventurous type like yourself, and hello!" he called, tilting to the side to get a better look at the child-Gerudo, Veitaru, who could not have been more out of place if she were a Stalord attending a toddler's birthday party. The innocent in peril angle was going to work out stupendously. "I'll help you, too! You'll both breeze through here without a single hair on your head being ruffled, unless it's by your giant guardian, eh?" he said conspiratorially, elbowing the man in the ribs. A thought crossed his mind, he turned to face Felicia.

"Heey, Felicia! Would you describe yourself as someone with adequate maternal instincts? I'm, uh, asking for a friend."

There. The seeds of the "will they, won't they" angle were sown. First few moments of this grand quest and he was already putting all the pieces in place. Lev turned back to Jaege and offered a hand, as it was apparently something mortals loved to do, hold hands and pull their arms up and down like a pair of jackasses. For some reason, it was a sign of respect and willingness to trust. Maybe it's because of the shared embarrassment.

"Whaddaya say, pal? Lev and Jaege, and of course our little firecracker Veitaru, partner champions of the Shadow Temple? Honestly, it's a good deal. I'm already dead, and so is everything else outside of this room. They'll think twice before dismembering us."

"Why would you make key out of stone?" Jaege joked, "I kid, I kid, this is like stone at top of arch, yes? How is it special? Would be silly if we all got tricked by decoy and you had to send us in again."

"Also, any reason we should not retreat and prepare properly for this? Torches and lanterns for those who do not already have them? Weapons for those who left them at home?"

"You heard the message-- time is of the essence!" Lethe flipped her hair over her shoulder. "You guys look well equipped enough to me."

Although the argument was certainly there, Lethe didn't leave any room for it. She went on to answer Jaege's first question-- though that answer was less than satisfactory as well.

"You'll know it when you see it." she said flatly-- just before the giant robot, Noi, approached Jaege with an offer to team up. Jillian also seemed eager to amass her temporary team.

“Ooh! Ohh!” from the entrance of the far right tunnel, Jillian waved her hand enthusiastically, “I’m really good at finding lost stuff! People pay me all the time to find their junk.”

“Whoever is on my team we’ll find the keystone first. I’ve got a lantern and I can guarantee we’ll win!” She stomped her foot. “I’ll even get my puppets to help!”

Ah, yes. This was good. In all the realm, nothing pleased Lethe quite so much as people doing as she said. She watched with feigned apathy as the skullkid summoned two puppets. The day she complimented a skullkid-- by word or facial expression-- would surely be the day she became a spark. She nodded her head in approval as Naviela the Gerudo agreed to join her. She seemed like the level-headed sort-- certainly well equipped to deal with the aggravating personality of a skullkid as well as any foes they should encounter.

Magus, the being whose origin still remained shrouded in shadow (as well as a good deal of attitude), began casting some sort of spell as well.

"Cute," Lethe muttered as he raised his hands above his head and twirled around. She recognized it as some sort of sweeping spell-- one she could have told him wouldn't have worked to find the keystone. She didn't much feel like indulging in the satisfaction of correcting him in that moment, though. She'd already gleaned a good deal of satisfaction by watching the him fall over after the torches had been lit.

She thought for a moment about who might work well with who. Some were already gravitating towards others. Unsure of what else to go on, she simply decided to put people who had previously conversed with each other together... with a few exceptions.

"You're all taking too long to pick teams!" Lethe stomped her foot impatiently, though the sound of it was barely more than a light slap! on the ground. "It only makes sense to ensure each team has a light source!" She pointed towards Navi and Jillian, staring at those she addressed as she barked commands.

"Hogarth and Zephyrus go with the skullkid and Naviela!"

"Archer, you're a fire mage, right? Go with Griz, Magus, Graham, and... uh... Alyce. Go down the center hall."

"Lev is the only other light source, so the rest of you guys should of course go with him!"

Now, of course, there was the questions of which team she herself should go with. Looking between them, she wrinkled her nose-- forgetting for a moment that she was no long a small fairy whose face couldn't be seen. Lethe took long strides towards the right entrance, standing as far from Jillian as she could. As much as she abhorred skull children, they did offer a certain amount of familiarity for the small amethyst fairy. Enough that she would rather accompany one in place of a blasphemous mystery man or suspiciously mousy woman who apparently had a hand in the fairy trade.

Not that she was afraid or incapable of handling herself.

She grimaced as she edged around Jillian's puppets to take her rightful place at the head. "Let's get going," Lethe huffed to the rest of her group as she began walking-- and then promptly stopped. She'd forgotten that her current , while stronger, didn't glow. Lethe was silent for a moment as she stood there, obstructing everyone's progress.

"Lead the way, Imp," she said grudgingly, folding her arms across her body and still facing the dark unknown stretched out before them.

-

Each hallway seemed endlessly long as well as endlessly high. After no more than a few tense minutes of walking (whether in silence or discussion), the glowing eyes of a flock of roughly twenty keese up ahead flickered into view. From their unseen perches, they cried and swooped with a vicious hunger. Anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves on the wrong end of one would suffer from a painful bite.

Felicia scrambled to get out of the way of the encroaching flames-- narrowly managing to press her back up against the wall as she watched the blue flames pass over where she had been standing not but a moment ago. As the ground began to shake, she tried her best to hang onto the wall, but ultimately fell onto the cold hard floor with which she was starting to become quite acquainted. The floor shook so violently that for a moment Felicia feared something was terribly wrong-- was the ceiling about to come down or what? She threw her arms up over her head and closed her eyes.

This was it. She was gonna die. This had all been a ruse and she had fallen for it and was gonna die....

Seconds passed and nothing happened. She lowered her arms and opened her eyes, realizing then that everyone was gravitating towards the now-cracked-and-crumbled door. She quickly joined them, trying not to bump into anyone in her haste. She listened to the fairy's tale with eyes wide. The longer she stayed, the more out of place she felt. Of all the unlikely heroes present, she felt the least likely-- even beneath the young girl named Veitaru. The Hero of Time was said to be a boy when he first began his journey-- so at least she had that going for her.

The fairy's sudden transformation came as a shock almost as grand as the burst of fire from earlier. Who knew fairies could do all these things? Or was Lethe one of a kind?

Felicia lingered near the back, itching her shoulder as Lethe spoke of a keystone. Her eyes darted between the three different corridors before them. All were pitch black and reeked of bad news. Mid-scratch, Felicia gripped the fabric of her sleeve and chewed her lip. Teams? She surveyed the others. Who could she possibly team up with that made her feel the least uncomfortable? More importantly, who could she team up with that wouldn't be too angry upon finding out how utterly useless she was?

"Heey, Felicia! Would you describe yourself as someone with adequate maternal instincts? I'm, uh, asking for a friend," Lev, the poe she'd spoken with earlier, called out to her.

"Uh," Felicia paused for too long and the Poe went on to offer a handshake to the hulking Hylian man-- Jaege. He was inviting her to join them. She briefly considered his offer. The sheer largeness of Jaege certainly did seem like a comfort. And Felicia did quite like children. Now that they were somewhat acquainted, the Poe definitely scared her far less than before.

Then, however, there was the massive metal man that seemed to match Jaege in both height and girth. She wasn't given enough time to stew over the long list of insecurities he provided, however, as Lethe quickly assigned those who were without a team. She felt a sense of relief wash over her. If that was her initial feeling, perhaps this was the right team for her.

"Uh, hi" Felicia said lamely as she approached with a weak wave of her hand.

This plan seemed swell by Archer, who frankly hadn’t heard anything further than "Go with Griz," and honestly didn’t need to anyway. He also liked being referred to as a ’fire mage’, as it rolled off of the tongue with so much more regality than ‘fire-throwing asshole’.
Zephyrus, however, seemed less enthused. Not to say he resented his team mates at all- although, he was a healthy amount of concerned about the presence of a skullkid- but he wasn’t entirely sure how much he trusted Archer in this, a sacred and terrible place to their mutual people, alone.
He spoke up after a brief, thoughtful silence.

“Actually... perhaps it’s best if-”
"Sorry Zeph, you heard her!”
“It’s just that…”
"Have you no faith?” Archer recited, theatrically, insulting monotone and all.
“It’s just that you clearly have no idea where we are. This is a place of evil, even the Sheikah don’t stray here.”
"Because you’re afraid?”
“Because we’re smart.”
That gave Archer a momentary pause.
"What did you guys… do, here?”
“I can’t… it’s not… I don’t know. But I can feel it in the air, this is not a place in which we are welcome. And for a Sheikah that is not an entirely new feeling, we are quick and nimble when we pass through danger. But you are…”
"Loud and heroic?”

“An idiot.”
Archer looked into Zephyrus’ eyes, and through the usual serene red he saw a shimmer of something new. Fear.
Enough talking back for the moment.
"I’m gonna be with Griz, I’ll just follow their lead.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”
"Hah, well I mean, I can promise all you want but I won’t keep it.”
“An idiot,” Zephyrus repeated. Archer gave him an awkward, appeasing smile, before Zephyrus finally relented. He sighed, begrudgingly, and the two exchanged a firm handshake, although Archer sensed Zephyrus wanted much more comfort than he was able to provide at the moment.
Archer didn’t do public manhugs. They were grown men, right? Grown men just sort of grunted at each other until one of them gave the other their respect.

Zephyrus watched on as Archer then drew away, and with the flicking of his wrist, conjured a ragged flame about his hand, which burnt fierce as he was able. The eye of the fire danced restlessly on his opened palm. He waggled his eyebrows at his brother, "I’m a fire mage!”
Then he began moving towards his assigned group, his enthusiasm towards his unwilling team mate overshadowing his natural instinct towards self preservation, even just for this instant.
"Anybody else cripplingly afraid of the dark?”, he asked, in jest Zephyrus prayed, before moving out of immediate earshot.

A collab between Dervish, Baklava, Gecko, and Jason

"Hah, thank you for your offer and your confidence! I'm not actually sure what use I will be without any sort of equipment unless you need something heavy moved." If Jaege had some sort of beliefs about the strangeness of the cultural rite of a handshake, he showed none of these things as he accepted the handshake with a firm but not harsh grip. "Is the elbowing in the side a greeting of your culture?' He also said as he attempted to elbow the ghost in the side back.

"Wouldn't say I even have a culture, I just pick up on what Hylians do and repeat it so there's less of an unfamiliar ominous air to me." Lev explained. "Figured that, y'know, people might trust the spooky specter that's made a few people soil their birtches over the years if he started using their mannerisms... or at least let their guard down enough to talk instead of immediately swinging whatever what was at hand to smite me." he said, gazing down at Veitaru, his eyes narrowing somewhat. "Gotta say, after getting kicked around by a Gerudo one more than one occasion, I'm not a fan. Being undead just means you don't get to look forward to the sweet embrace of death when someone starts smacking you around."

"I see. I guess I have not met Hylians who enjoy hard pokey bit of the arm into the soft part of the chest. And you, big... Oh, you already left." Jaege spotted that Noi had already left before waiting for a response.

If Jaege had heard Lethe over everyone else's shenanigans, he didn't appear to respond to her, simply staring at one of the torches stroking his chin.

"Are there people you have enjoyed getting kicked around by?" Veitaru responds to Lev with a suspicious raise of the eye.

Noi was greatly disturbed by the floating rags. Perhaps it was the way it messed with his thermometer. Maybe it was the fact that the thing was completely unlike anything he saw. There wasn't enough data to determine the truth. Though now that the gas bag had interrupted him Noi was leaning more towards a negative view. He stomped off towards the tunnels and selected the left most tunnel. Purely because it was the first one and he wasn't going to deny that logic. It was darker than first analyzed, so he opened the compartment on his left thigh from which he retrieved a medium sized water skin. Inside was a viscous, but slick liquid. Pouring it over his hammer it began to form globs and surround the weapon's head. With a glancing strike against the ground the oil lit. The entire hammer head was consumed in flames that were an off green to the naked eye.

"Sentinel: Online. Directive: Obtain the Keystone." Noi announced before turning his head towards the other beings, "Do not stall me. I have waited long enough." His voice again morphed from its cold monotone to one with hints of actual anger.

Felicia stared after the massive metal guy as he went on his way. She couldn't blame him for not acknowledging her. There wasn't much to acknowledge anyway. The tone of Noi's odd voice was not lost on Felicia. She made a mental note to stay well out of that guy's way.

"O-oh. Looks like we have two light sources. That's, uh... that's good," she chuckled nervously, scratching her shoulder as she looked between Jaege, Veitaru, and Lev.

"Is less than I would like." Jaege responded, before wrapping a strap around the base of torch and attempting to see if he could twist it off its base with proper leverage.

"So, is it bad that that guy makes me seem mundane in comparison?" Lev asked, staring after Noi with a certain perplexity. "Well, unlike the suit of armour with a bad attitude and the peculiar way of talking, I'll stick around with you guys so you can see where you're going. Because, y'know, teamwork."

Noi began to make a low rumbling sound. He was becoming agitated. There had been enough waiting, enough watching, enough of everything. It was time for action, but he didn't move. Noi didn't need these other beings. He knew he would be fine alone. Yet he didn't want to leave them. As strangely as they spoke they were the first conversation he had in over a century. They were squishy and small, but intriguing. They certainly weren't smart like the masters, but maybe there was more to them.

Felicia chewed her lip, lost in thought. It was true that having more than one-- or even two-- light sources would be better. Ideally they'd all have their own lanterns, but for some reason Lethe seemed to think they'd be fine without all that. She stared past the others at Noi as he began rumbling. Was it because he was impatient or was that just a sound he made? She took a step towards him, but stopped. Felicia had never been the leader sort. She resigned to wait until one of the others went ahead to join Noi.

Noi's head snapped downwards towards the hylian woman. She was by far the most strange of the lot because she was the least strange. What in the world was a person like that doing here. Noi slowly moved towards the woman careful to keep his flame away from any of the flammable beings.

"Directive?" He asked simply.

One step was all it took to attract the mighty Noi's attention, it seemed.

"Uh... d-... directive?" Felicia's eyebrows knit together in confusion.

Noi pointed at the woman and asked again, "Directive? Why are you here?"

Lev leaned towards Felicia from the side, blocking his "mouth" with the back of his hand as he whispered conspiratorially toward the young woman. "I think you have an admirer."

"I did not question you Rags. You have interrupted me enough." Noi rumbled pointing his flaming hammer at the ghastly being.

The Poe huffed at the indignant mannerisms of... whatever it was Noi was. "Y'mind pointing the burning anvil grinder somewhere else, Rusty? We got plenty of things to worry about in this Temple that's more troubling than you or I or pyromaniac fairies, so how 'bout acting like more of a cooperative fella and less like whatever it is you're doing." Lev said, gesturing to himself in a decidedly exaggerated manner as he slowed down his speech. "Me friiieeeeend.. Felicia friend, Jaggy and Veitaru, also friends. Make sense? We all find the keystone or whatever it is and get out of here without getting our souls eaten or whatever. Sound dandy?"

Noi lowered the hammer, but raised his other hand. Electricity arced between the fingers.

"[color=cyanb]Do not delay me further. My designation is to fight powers greater than yours.[/color]" Noi carefully left out the fact he was not designed to win that fight, "Time has wasted enough. Hylia demands our service. We all move now."

Noi pounded the pommel of his hammer on the ground as if to officiate his order. He marched towards the hallway before looking back expecting the group to follow.

Oh dear... had she said something wrong? Felicia took a deep breath, glancing at Lev with a light shrug. "I, uh, guess we should get going," she tried to compromise, "L-looks like everyone else has already started." She spared a look towards the mouths of the two empty halls-- the voices of her teammates could faintly be heard. That must've meant nobody was dead yet. It was a small comfort.

"I think we let the big guy go forward and he will be happy. No amount of small talk will make him so." There was a slight hint of humor in Jaege's voice as he said big guy. Perhaps because he did not get the opportunity to say it often.

Noi began stomping down the hallway his hammer raised high. If the others were to be of any use they'd be following close behind. If not there was no need for them.

Lev began to follow after the robot, beckoning to the others to follow suit. "I won't argue with voices in my head telling me that time is of the essence as well as the living embodiment of that sentiment. Stay close; I can make my lantern a bit brighter, but I wouldn't fall more than a few meters behind. Just... watch the floor and the walls, and the ceilings. In fact, just don't touch anything." he said, heading into the tunnel with the group. In his notebook, he wrote, Noi, Goron, result of several consecutive generations of inbreeding and tragically suffered as a result. Extremely powerful simpleton, grunts simple sentences, incapable of reasonable thought or speaking in an indoor voice-

Felicia, satisfied that someone had finally started to follow Noi, quickly followed suit. She kept her arms crossed in front of her-- determined to do as the poe said and not touch anything-- on accident or otherwise.

The eerie chill that followed Lev was not lost on Noi. Even the light cast from his lantern felt cold. Noi never actually felt cold, but the thermal readout around the poe and his lantern were frigid. Noi did not turn but he began to speak,

"While the presence of the small hylian is stranger, I do not know why Hylia would becon one as twisted as you Rags. What even are you? Nothing in my logs come close to you. Well I guess you kind of look like a really messed up peahat."

Noi began grumbled gabled words about his hatred for the plants.

"I, uh... what? Do I look like a plant?" Lev demanded, bewildered. "I'm a Poe. Y'know, a ghost, haunts grave yards, torments the living? Something jerks in green underwear stuff into jars for kicks? Did you live under a rock?"

"I have lived in the depths of Lanyru for centuries. All of my kin are machines. We do not leave ghosts, so I had no clue they were so ugly. But yes you do in fact look like someone threw a bunch of rags on on blue peahat."

Lanyru... centuries? Something wasn't adding up, Lanyru was an ancient region, the term predated Hyrule, and Noi was claiming to be a machine that lived back then? The whole statement momentarily made Lev forget the ordeal he was in, until he thought he heard something that sounded like flapping coming from further down the passage. "I'm glad that the strange appliance apparently has a concept of what ugly is. Whoever made you certainly had the right priorities." he retorted sarcastically, lifting his lantern to try and see what's up ahead.

"Silence," Noi demanded.

He leaned forward turning so his audio receptors were aimed towards the dark tunnel before them. all over Noi's body very tiny intricate lines began to light up.

"Combat Protocol: Online. Prime Directive: Defend the Lanayru facility." His voice was empty and cold as death.

With that Noi charged into the darkness all other thoughts overridden by his protocol. Of the twenty keese that descended upon them, a good six flocked to Noi while the remaining fourteen went on ahead. The swooped low, aiming for faces and throats.

It was not the terrible threat Lev had been expecting. Some kind of ghoul, or a Wallmaster, perhaps, but keese? Sure, the bat-like creatures were a reasonable threat in swarms such as this, Lev understood, but it was almost disappointing in how... mundane it was. It was not unlike a rancher having built up the mental expectations of her cows being abducted by visitors from another world, only to find out it was a disgruntled ranch hand making off in the darkness, one animal at a time.

With the situation at hand, Lev had rather decided he didn't much fancy the idea of them deciding a Poe was something worth chewing on, and for all he knew, whatever lurked in the Shadow Temple was personified evil, so he made ready to defend himself. His lantern roared to life, flames jutting out the sides like a blowtorch and he began to twirl the lantern around on his chain, creating a ring of fire and steel that would have absolutely incinerated any keese caught in the way. "Watch my back, yeah?" he called to the others. "I've got this side." he said, punctuating the point with one of the keese getting struck by the lantern, forcing it to the floor, body burning and bones broken. A second didn't veer off in time and had its wing engulfed in flame, causing it to crash, shrieking in agony. The remainder, however, managed to avoid the worst of the flames in the somewhat narrow corridor without harm, but their momentum was certainly interrupted.

Jaege stood his ground, and whacked Keese as best he could with the torch he had pried loose. If he hit, the force would shatter the Keese like a bird against a window, but hitting was another thing. Meanwhile, Veitaru was significantly below the face level of the majority of the party, and had difficulty reaching with only a dagger. Three of the keese fell victim to Jaege's mighty torch. They crumpled to the ground with pitiful shrieks. One impending keese managed to dodge Jaege's attack and deliver a painful bite to his arm before kicking off of his flesh with it's tiny claws-- returning to the air.

Felicia forgot all about the existence of the sword at her hip as the four keese descended upon her. She held one arm up over her face and shouted out in alarm as she uselessly waved her other hand over her head. If she hit, the force would merely push the keese a bit to the side. As the first keese sank it's tiny teeth into her forearm, she screamed and tried to rip the creatures off of her as they bit and scratched.

Of the five remaining keese, three remaining in front of Lev-- flapping and screeching in annoyance as they tried to find an angle to attack without ending up like their two unfortunate friends. The other three were instantly drawn towards the loud wreck of a woman standing between Jaege and Lev. They beelined for her with gleeful chittering at the prospect of an easy meal.

"Surprise!" Lev shouted, his arm angling forward and directing the lantern towards the keese, which then began to eject flame in an intense torrent towards the three flying annoyances in front of him. The sudden change in attack and the narrow confines of the corridor all but assured that escape would not be possible for the keese, who were quickly engulfed in a flesh-rending blaze. When the fire died down, three charred lumps were left smoldering on the floor. "Well, that's... oh." he began to say cheerfully before realizing the predicament Felicia was finding herself in. Already covered in bites, Lev swooped in to try and shield her with his own body, swinging his lantern at anything that was physically away from the young woman.

In the distance all that could be seen of Noi was a vague silhouette. His effectiveness wasn't clear, but his rage was. He swung his hammer in every direction seeking only to destroy the monsters. Every now and then the hammer would be driven into the wall making the entire tunnel shake. With a furious roar Noi dropped the hammer and began to glow blue. Electricity arced off of him zapping all the keese left in the air around him. When the light faded Noi toppled sideways into the wall, six dead keese convulsing on the floor around him.

"Energy levels: Uhhhhhhh..." His voice transitioned back to its more human tone as he spoke.

Meanwhile, Lev managed to swat all but one of the keese off of Felicia, who had since fallen to the ground, quite thoroughly covered in bites and scratches. With two hands, she gripped the furry body of the last keese, which had locked it's tiny fangs onto her cheek. She pulled, grimacing painfully as the creature tore through the skin before losing it's grip. She pushed it away and held her cheek, suddenly realizing why her assault had ended.

"L-Lev!" she shouted with her new-found cognizance.

The four keese flapped angrily above Lev and his lantern-- some of them managing to scratch at the poe's already-tattered hood.

"Hang on, Fel-OW, GAH!" Lev shouted, suddenly aware of the flying rodents clawing away at his head. For an entity without nerve endings, it turned out the afterlife still let you feel a considerable amount of pain and discomfort. He swatted at them with his free hand, not wishing to bash himself with the lantern or set himself ablaze by accident. "Stop! Geez, I have no nutritional value, you little-"

And success! Managing to grasp one of the keese by its wing, Lev pulled it away and began to swat at the other creatures with their friend. Whether it was effective or not remained to be seen, but it felt good.

Veitaru managed to finally make herself useful by stabbing one Keese while it tried to get a lower angle at Jaege away from flamey hitty thing. It was a kinda weak stab, but fortunately a keese is kinda weak too being built like a bird. Jaege finally managed to swat the last of the Keese attacking him, but not before it got in a nasty bite that someone should probably clean out. Keese bites probably got infected like none other.

Felicia winced as she watched the keese attack Lev. He'd stepped in to help her and now he was in trouble! Surely there was something she could do....

Reaching around her waist she grabbed hold of the small metal tackle box dangling from her hip, unfastening the buckles. With as much strength as she could muster towards another living being, she swung the box towards the keese attacking Lev. It was so preoccupied with dodging it's captive comrade that it failed to get out of the way. Unfortunately, Felicia's heart, in spite of her desire to help the poe that had graciously saved her, wasn't in it enough for her to do anything more than knock the keese onto the ground.

The creature quickly began to recover, but before it could raise up from the ground, it found itself consumed in a torrent of flame. The remaining Keese didn't fare better; now they were separated from Felicia and dislodged from Lev, the flying rodents were easily dispatched with another quick burst of flame. Soon, the tunnel fell silent, save for the cackling of flames and the arcing of electricity. Lev pushed a finger through a newly formed hole in his hood, tisking at his misfortune.

"For our first time out, I'd say that went pretty well. Pretty well, indeed. Hey, Jaege, can you go check up on ol' Rusty up ahead? He seems like he's overexcited himself." He called to the man. Instead of watching to see if Jaege or even Veitaru reacted, Lev floated over to Felicia, looking over at her wounds. "Y'know, if someone told me that you could fight off a bunch of blood sucking monsters with a tacklebox before today, I'd call them a liar. Thanks for showing me something new. C'mon, our adventure's still ahead. Hard to look heroic when you're sitting down in the dust." he said cheerfully, offering a hand for Felicia to pull herself up, hoping she understood that she'd have to do most of the work. Symbolic gestures counted for something, right?

Jillian climbed to sit on the shoulders of one of her puppets, giving her more vantage that a tree or rock face could afford the skullkid. The twine suspending the puppets shot forward into the seemingly endless darkness of the ceiling. Jillian listened, waiting, the moment stretched and finally the twine found purchase. Jillian directed the puppets to use the walls instead of the ceiling for better mobility. Or they would be waiting that much longer to simply move forward. The Skullkid held her lantern high peering into the darkness.

She turned her small body around Lethe calling her an Imp and allowing her to take the lead. There was no other place Jillian belonged anyway, these weirdos didn't stand a chance navigating the darkness let alone even with half of the confidence Jillian exuded. The now normal sized Lethe, no longer glowed. The light did it's best against the oppressive darkness. Her other puppet was a few paces ahead, just hovering ahead of where the light was casted. The clicks and twine shooting out were the only sounds coming from the puppets.

Jillian looked over the voluntold members, Naviela was the only one that choose to accompany her. Warrior type, Gerudo, while the muscles along her arms and the spears she had on her were telling signs. Naviela wasn't particularly fazed by Jillian's antics nor her puppets. As much as Naviela had been interested by Jillian, she had in turn grabbed the skullkid's. It wasn't often she was close enough to talk to a Gerudo. Through her years of wondering and travelling she rarely approached the scorching sands where Naviela's people called home. Adults were weird like that, why live in the awful dry sand when you can live in a forest instead? It made no sense.

Then there was the young Goron and one of the two Sheikah brothers. The serious one, Zephyrus. They didn't have the huge robot or the big Hylian but she figured they were well equipped with fighters. Giving Jillian some wiggle room, she wouldn't have to rely solely on her puppets for defence if they ran into trouble.

"As defacto leader of the right tunnel group, even though half of you were told to come with me, you'll be glad you were. I wasn't lyin' when I said that I can find this keystone junk fastest." Jillian pressed her hand flatly against her chest, speaking with an irritating amount of smugness. "What's it look like anyway? Is it a key made of stone? A stone that looks like a key? Does it open a door? Is that door made of stone too? Or did all the stone doors in this place get all dusty when you did that..." Her blue fingers waggled to emphasize her point Lethe using magic. "Shake the ground and lit up the torches. Magic or whatever."

She looked at Lethe, beneath her mask she was grinning toothily. Lethe was a fairy, while most choose often to ignore her. Lethe's already shown she's had a bit of a short temper. Easy to rile up. In Jillian's mind, Lethe was a well of opportunity.

Lethe sighed defeatedly, staring at the plethora of nothingness up ahead. She would grace the skullkid with an answer, but certainly not a look. She didn't deserve Lethe's full attention.

"You'll know it when you see it," she said flatly. Of course, what she meant to say was that she didn't know. But good luck getting a fairy like Lethe to admit that, "And no... all the doors don't do that... probably."

The Skullkid tilted her head at the fairy, "When your head got bigger I guess that didn't mean you got smarter huh?" Jillian pointed out.

Lethe pursed her lips and didn't respond. Was she really that rusty? Of course-- how could she forget the most essential rule about dealing with a skullkid? Don't acknowledge their existence. At all. Without fail, they will always make sure you regret it. It was like some peculiar talent.

Ultimately, Zephyrus was not displeased with the team he had been so suddenly corralled into. Although he would much rather have been there to watch over his brother himself, he took comfort at least in Griz' alignment with him. He trusted that, mute or no, they were Sheikah enough to ensure he didn't do anything too foolish. He imagined Griz's enthusiasm to be less so than his own, though - a feat in itself.
Archer's assignment aside, Zephyrus was at least confident his new peers would be mostly agreeable. He was actually, on some microscale, pleased to be given the opportunity to work with a Gerudo - with them, he had always felt some strange form of kinship. His golden eyed cousins, another race forced to live in Hyrule's shadows, albeit in a different, less literal sense.
Both their kinds were surrounded by myths which attacked their character, and legends which incriminated their culture. He hoped that would be enough common ground for at least an amicable partnership.

Then there was the Goron - Hogarth, was it?

Small for a Goron but reasonably sized for literally anything else. His (presumed) natural strength and tough hide would lend itself handily to whatever hardship this forboding den of dark and death had to offer them.
The only problems he could foresee, then, were with the Skullkid.
As defacto leader of the right tunnel group...
He wasn't so certain he took great comfort in their presence. Skullkids were inherently chaotic, or so he had been led to believe. Certainly not the sorts of beings he would follow into battle, and especially not when the battlefield was an ancestral relic of his people, mysterious even to themselves.
He intervened in Jillian and Lethe's discourse with only a softly uttered sentence.

"Perhaps it would be best if I take point? I have practiced, in the past, a means of blowing myself backwards and out of harms way - I don't doubt that in narrow passages such as these, I could move us all a short distance if need be."

"Sounds handy, but is your windy trick gonna work on boulder brains over there?" She stuck her thumb at Hogarth. Hogarth seemed surprised and then ecstatic that he was being acknowledged.

He smiled modestly.
"Without them resisting? I'm optimistic."

"It's alright, brother," Hogarth chortled, "I'm sure your magics will work great!" The young Goron turned back towards Jillian, shyly scratching his cheek as he addressed her, "You come from the forest?"

Her attention honed in over to Hogarth, boulder brains. Her bright eyes peering through sunken eye sockets of the skull mask. "Lost Woods. 'S where all skullkids come from. What brought you outta your caves? Didja hear the voices too? How come you're wonderin' where I'm from? Wouldn't it be obvious?" The puppet walked on, the twine shooting out to continue moving forward.

An aggravated Lethe rubbed her temples-- not everyone seemed to know the first rule about skullkids. Hogarth raised his eyebrows and his grin grew all the wider. He seemed to be thrilled that a creature such as Jillian took such an interest in him. Or perhaps he was simply the happy sort. "I heard the voice, yes! She sounded so beautiful, I had to listen!" he sighed, revelling in the memory, "I've never seen one like you, sister. Actually, I've never seen one like you, either, sister."

Hogarth looked to Naviela as he spoke-- just as eager to acquaint himself with her as he was Jillian.

For all intents and purposes Naviela stayed quite quiet throughout her group's antics. This wasn't so much an anti-social streak, as much as her training kicking in at the best (or perhaps depending on perspective worst) time. When the others seemed strangely relaxed and at ease here, the Gerudo's body was wound up tight, like the string of a balalaika and just as sharp as one.

Her eyes shifted from shadow to shadow, spear resting easily in the palm of her hand and waiting to be drawn for battle.

"This does not surprise me, Brother Goron." Navi responded quietly, without bothering to make eye contact. They could make this a social event any other time of the day. "The tribe does not stray far from the desert... usually.

The last bit was added grimly. If there was one thing certain, it was that she did not seem happy about her travel here, at least not entirely.

Unabashed, Hogarth smiled. "I'm glad you're here, nonetheless. I'm sure you'll be more helpful than someone like me. Especially if we run into trouble. I wonder if--"

"Watch out!" Lethe interrupted, drawing everyone's attention to the distant and glowing red eyes of incoming keese. She swiftly drew a long, elegant rapier, slicing through the air as she did so.

Kark. Navi thought to herself, before readying her spear. This was one of the troubles of being one of the few genuine warriors of a party - you got a huge target on your back or in this particular situation... on the front.

Where first there was only one Keese, now more appeared as they spread through the hallway like wildfire. A small knife appeared within her hands. Like magic how it emerged from thin air, yet, it was the magic of swift hands and even swifter fabric. It was send flying, swooshing in the air, before hitting its mark.

The first of many screeches yawned through the corridor, but this did little to halt the other Keese in their tracks. In fact the dying screams of their brother beast only seemed to embolden them further into action.

Jillian cranked herself back around oblivious to her second puppet being overrun with Keese. It swiped fruitlessly at the creatures, the Keese simultaneously being wrapped up in the strings dislodging them from the walls. The puppet crumpled under the weight, no longer able to hold itself up. The skullkid got her feet beneath her then pushed off the back of her puppet. Backflipping away from the danger, she shouted, "Defend!" The puppet paused acknowledging the command moving swiftly taking swipes at the ones unfortunate enough to fly too close.

Two keese fell victim to the swiping puppet, pathetically falling to the ground. Lethe skewered one unfortunate keese as it swooped towards her, slamming it's body into a second, which spiraled sideways before deciding to target someone else.

Zephyrus' magic was a little tricky to use when the path was too narrow, and other people were in the way. But whining was the lazy's lot, his father had told him once. Fluid, like water, Zephyrus almost seemed to dance his way forwards in flowing, drawn out movements, until he could find a less compromising vantage point towards the front.
It was hardly feasible that he should kill them in a hallway this narrow, with a weapon the size of his, but it wasn't his way to not try and adapt.

Extending his fingers outwards and flattening his palm towards the floor, Zephyrus gathered the air about him into a more tangible, visible essence - a twirling, silver chiffon which shimmered in and out of perceptibility on every other rotation.
Then he raised a hand, and- once he had tapped into the air above a few Keese's heads- he brought it suddenly down, bringing a bolt of air towards the ground with it, and pinning three or four of the closer bats down. He then reached out with his polearm, and made sure to end their suffering with sharp, sudden jabs.
He did not maintain a non-lethal position against animals, but it still pained him to see them struggle.

Poor Hogarth tried to swat at the overhead keese but his movements were too slow. They dove towards his face-- one of them managing to scratch his eye. The young Goron shouted out in frightened alarm as he watched his blood fall on the ground with his good eye. These sorts of battles were a Goron's worst nightmare. Too fast. Too sharp. Too high.

Hogarth curled up tightly into a ball as four keese flocked to his back. They tried to bite and scratch, but the exposed skin was too rock-hard to penetrate. If anything, it provided an ideal distraction. Lethe caught sight of the Goron child out of the corner of her eye and sighed dramatically.

"Somebody help the goron!" she ordered as she slashed the wing of one keese, skewering it as it flopped to the floor. "For Nayru's sake...," she muttered.

She shouted orders like any teacher Zephyrus had ever served under, and it almost startled him how automated the change in his approach was. A graceful pirouette toward his own flank, as Zephyrus held his guando low and then raised it into the turn. Another gust of sudden wind, tethered to the polearm's blade, surged upwards and swatted the Keese sharply into the ceiling. Not a kill, but at least a stun.
The attached fabric scrap fluttered in the newfound breeze. Zephyrus lowered red eyes unto quivering yellow stone.
"Move."

Hogarth complied by arching his body, bouncing in the air once and rapidly rolling forward... too forward. Clearly still in a panic, he nearly bowled over Zephyrus as he went recklessly shooting off into the darkness further ahead.

Zephyrus contorted himself into the wall of the hallway as the goron surged by him, taken momentarily off-guard.

Jillian whipped around and shouted another order pointing at Hogarth, "Puppet! Defend the goron!"

She took a swing at a Keese swooping low to attack her with the iron lantern, she ran beside the puppet ducking to avoid another attack. By now the keese had once again descended-- at first attempting to follow the fleeing Hogarth. The puppet wrapped the wooden fingers around one of the Keese harassing Hogarth and swinging with unprecedented strength into the wall. Jillian scrambled back out of the way while the puppet turned to face two more Keese hissing angrily attacking the painted features of the puppet, scratching away. The sharpened fingers dug into the soft bodies of the Keese tearing them away.

If there was one thing Naviela knew from experience, it was the sheer madness and chaos that reigned in combat. Once the blood started running, the spears were out and sweat trickled into your eyes... there was little in the way of order and organisation. It was the song in your blood that guided you, propelled you forward.

She had long since moved forward, giving wide berth to Zephyrus and his magicks, while her spearhead swished in the air and killing the beasts by the way of a thousand numerous cuts. Only luck caused her to move briefly to the side, when the young Goron burst past her and further into the dark.

Three of the five Keese she had been fighting where unceremoniously splattered to the ground. Their remains grinded into gore and slurry blood by the sheer weight of Hogorth, not quite the fightless spirit he professed, Navi thought to herself.

With a roar, her blood singing for more, she launched herself at the two remaining Keese.

Her experience in battle saved her from having her throat chomped out, but still a talon racked over her skin, just as she cut off the wing of the left Keese. The pain filled her, but it only kept the fire going. A lung of the spearhead punctured straight through the remaining Keese, which Navi used to batter the slowly dying beast against the wall. A swift death for a worthy opponent.

Lethe skewered two of the remaining keese on her rapier, cursing as Hogarth rolled by. Her lithe frame twisted as the final keese swooped towards her, delivering a powerful kick that sent the poor creature flying into the wall and onto the ground. She put an end to it's fearful whimpering with a swift stab through the neck. "Come on," she sighed, already beginning to move forward as she slid the dead keese off of her rapier and returned it to her hip, "We need to catch him before he sets off a trap or gets himself killed."

"Brother Goron has great inner strength, his death will not come easy." The words came swift and clear as she cleaned the spear from the excessive blood and started wrapping her arm into a cloth, to stop the bleeding.

"Yet, in his current state his thoughts are singular on escape, I agree."

The Gerudo nodded in agreement to Lethe, before turning around and eyeing the darkness that came and the sound of heavy rolling in the distance.

"Skullkid, fearless leader, your light will ensure our success, come." Then she started into a jog after the rolling Goron in the distance, hopefully with the Skullkid and the rest in tow, towards the darkness and their companion in need.

The skullkid let out a breath of relief, the puppet shook the bodies of the keese off its fingers. Their blood splattered at it's feet, staining the wood. Jillian climbed back to its shoulders and lifted her lantern up again. "Fearless leader is right! Follow me, we'll get boulder brains back before long. He can't roll forever..."

Jillian regarded Lethe once again holding the lantern up. "Traps? What sorta traps are we talkin' about here? Deep pits? Sharp spikes? Falling rocks? Heavy logs? OH!" She snapped her fingers, "Quick sand! Of course, how could I forget a trap staple like that."

The puppet stepped by the crumpled body of its companion, disregarding it. The painted features nearly all scratched away. Jillian gathered up the pieces she could carry. She grumbled, "It took me two days to build this one... Stupid bats. The twine is all tangled... What a mess." In her small arms she balanced the logs then pulled out her spell book again. A very small portal opened and she tossed the wood through it, it opened where she had stored her puppets back in the Lost Woods. She closed the book with it the portal closed as well.

Climbing back to the shoulders of her puppet they carried on.

Zephyrus followed after taking just a brief moment of pause to consider what had just happened. In any other environment, Keese were child's play. Dozens were as easy as a sharp gust of wind, the quick and sudden breaking of their necks.
But in this hallway there wasn't the space for even one of them to fight to their full capacity, nevermind five. He could only suppose Archer was having an even worse time of it. Somebody could be badly hurt if they stepped errantly into a wind blast, but a fireball? That would be total chaos.
He followed silently at the flank, now. Feeling out, with mind and magic, into the dark, trying to sense whatever was hanging on the air. A deep pit of dark resounded in his stomach - the temple knew that these were not the conditions a fighter was oft prepared to battle through. It thrived on it, the fear and the uncertainty.
He hoped that Hogarth hadn't run too far, too fast. The danger was pressing, and far greater when anxiety overrode reason.

He tried to overlook the 'fearless leader' comment the Gerudo made, but it uneased him to hear it. What was leadership among the Gerudo? Being the front of the helm in a disorganised chaos?
Leaders were noble, strong and just. Sheikah society was rigid and mysterious, to be a leader required a special spark. One that he might not have possessed, either, frankly. Perhaps Lethe did. The Skullkid did not. To hear them so flippantly use phrases like 'boulder brains', racial epiphets. What was he, then? Just another red eye?
What leader was so casual as to insult their team, he wondered. It didn't breed any sense of loyalty in him.

Zephyrus didn't make a point of mentioning it, though: one didn't need to be a good leader to know it wasn't prudent to start discourses in the midst of danger. And he didn't need the reputation of having an attitude, if it came to the point that he should require somebody else's help. He suspected people would not be so quick to run to the aid of, for example, Magus.

Once he saw Naviela gather momentum in pursuit, he picked up his pace a little, just enough to keep their back in view.
He did wish, silently, that they would slow however. Making haste in a place as deceptive as this seemed a good way to rapidly raise the body count.
"Brother, I hope your journey is so far smoother."

Felicia looked from Lev's hand to his glowing eyes, recalling his remark earlier about not being capable of helping her up. It was a polite gesture-- one she didn't feel she deserved. She hesitantly accepted and got to her feet. She couldn't bring herself to muster any sort of expression other than devastated chagrin at his well-meaning compliment.

"Are you alright?" she asked Lev, her eyebrows knit together with genuine concern. She swallowed hard. She might've had her face ripped off entirely if he hadn't stepped in. Her? Heroic? A laughable thought given how fantastically she'd just handled those keese.

With her mind beginning to rid itself of the blinding fear she'd it had been hosting, she realized she hadn't so much as touched her sword. Certainly that would have helped. She pressed her free hand against her face in aggravation. "I'm really sorry about that, Lev-- I panicked. This isn't really m-my element."

As she pulled her hand away from her face, she noted a coating of blood smeared across her palm. Those flying vermin had done a number on her face. She sighed through her teeth.

Lethe rolled her eyes as the skullkid once again started to noisily rattle off questions. Although she knew it to be in jest (it HAD to be), she was slightly annoyed by the prestigious title Naviela chose to bestow upon the malformed child. The only reason the little imp was in the lead was because of her lantern.

Sure, Lethe could transform back into her smaller and much brighter form (brighter than some tainted lantern), but she wouldn't be as useful to the others that way. Not to mention, she didn't exactly trust any of them to have her back just yet. Self preservation was important. She hadn't lived to be over 300 years old by playing in the front lines whenever things got dangerous. Surely that's how Navi the fairy managed to live through helping the Hero of Time... right?

As the light from Jillian's lantern illuminated the way before them, a dead end came into view. Hogarth, however, was nowhere in sight. Instead there was only a wall-- slightly lighter in color to the surrounding brick. Two lit torches glowed on either side of a small red-painted alcove, which housed what appeared to be a human skull.

As everyone drew near, the top half of the skull rattled and chattered before repeatedly tilting back and away from the jaw bone. In a harsh whisper that sounded much like a man's wrathful dying breath, the decrepit old thing spoke words:



"You hylians sure do love your riddles," Lethe sighed as she approached the wall to more closely examine it, "Hmm...."

She held her palm near one of the torches, furrowing her brow.

"There's something strange about this fire," she muttered, "It doesn't feel very warm."

Jaege examined the situation, "Hmm... It seems most of us did not come out of that scratch-less." He paused for a moment, noticing his own and Felicia's wounds, and Noi's... Not doing anythingness.

Veitaru meanwhile was not bothering at all about Noi. If he had charged ahead and gotten himself whatever passed for killed for him, not a big deal to her.

Jaege continued, "I don't suppose anyone is of the having of medical supplies? I am not particularly fond of the idea of these wounds getting infected. If we have many places to get to after this one, then losing two of us on this one would be less than ideal." He glanced at Felicia at the mention of "two of us". On the subject of medical supplies, Veitaru shrugged with hands raised her general uselessness in that regard.

Then he turned back to Noi, and cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled,"Are you alright up there?"

“Are you a peahat? I hate peahats.” Noi babbled.

He shook his head producing a loud rattling. He groaned trying to push off the wall to get up. Instead he just slid falling flat on the ground. He groaned again. The poor robot lied there unable to do anything.

“Energy levels: limited. Secondary databanks: disabled for memory protection. RAM: Online.” His mechanical voice went off.

It took him some time in the small hallway, but eventually Noi got onto his front and then pushed himself onto his feet.

“When am I?” Noi grumbled digging his hands into the walls to stay standing.

"Hurt?" The question caught Lev off guard, both because he could not recall a time anyone had thought to ask a Poe how it felt, and also he wasn't entirely sure he felt pain like a Hylian would... or anything with squishy bits, for that matter. "I... I don't think so? It's complicated. Like, it's not like I can bleed or anything to be like, 'Oh hey Lev, you should stop letting that thing do that thing to you'. I don't even know if I can take lasting harm. Best I figure, something can hurt me enough to break the bonds of my physical form, and whatever binds me together eventually puts the pieces back in place and I can come back. Happened to me once before... I don't think I cared for that particular sensation." he said, rubbing the back of his head, suddenly feeling awkward. Apparently having someone to talk to for the first time in ages made you spill your life story.

He cheered up a bit at her apology, finding it something ridiculous for her to fret over. "Look, I don't think any of us are in our element here. I know I basically look like this place is my summer home, but this place even creeps me out. Last thing I was expecting was flying rodents. It just so happens I'm particularly good at dealing for this kinda situation. I'm sure we'll run into a situation where you'll be the best suited for it! Maybe we'll run into a big, scary fish you can wrangle. Don't worry; I'll make sure you look good in the end." he said, gesturing to the tackle box before plucking out his notebook, scribbling some notation.

The Great Fairy had bestowed upon the travelers a great responsibility, for they would all be tasked with rising to Hyrule's need in this most dire hour with the absence of the Hero who had vanished when the world needed him most. The travelers found steel in their hearts after watching the Sheikah receive their blessing from Farore, and each in turn received the blessing to bestow upon them aspects of Courage, Wisdom, and Power in equal measure; they would need every ounce of it for the perilous journey ahead.

...

Deep into the maw of the Shadow Temple lay a precious artifacts that Farore had left in the care of the Sheikah Tribe for when the Royal Family needed salvation, and it would be their responsibility to fetch it, but the paths were many and winding; there was no choice but to separate the travelers down each separate paths according to the blessing they received from Farore. Down the left path went the bearers of Power, the essence of Din, and with great confidence they plunged into the darkness, knowing they had the strength to overcome any obstacle. The travelers

Jaege, a humble Ordon rancher who found his adopted daughter Veitaru floating down a river when he was grazing his herd of goats, carried within him the strength of a great warrior from his decades of service as a Royal Guardsman, skills he would pass on to Veitaru in time... although the time he thought he had had quickly arrived with the Goddess' mission.

Noi, a Goron who had suffered greatly at the hands of Wizrobes had had crude metal plating bolted to his body as he was tortured to the point of muteness in an effort to create a weapon so devious it could breach any fortification's walls. They had succeeded in that; Noi's strength was unparalleled by any in Hyrule, including others of his kin and the mighty Darknuts of the Western mountains. What they had not anticipated was Noi's resolve; he broke free of their ensnaring curse and broke his way out of their dungeons, freeing himself in time for Farore to find him. In his journey, he would find salvation from the darkness that had ensnared him.

And finally, there was humble Felicia, and orphan girl who raised her younger sister alone, keeping them fed through little more than a fishing line and a hope for a better future for both of them. Not a warrior like Jaege or Noi, or even young Veitaru, Felicia nevertheless answered the call, knowing that if she did not have the strength to act now, there would not be a tomorrow for her sister, so selflessly she pressed forward, knowing she may never see her again.

As the travelers of Power traversed the crypt-like halls of the Shadow Temple, they knew something was watching them with malicious intent and hunger. When they were their most vulnerable, ghouls most foul, the damned souls trapped forever in the halls of the Shadow Temple as ReDead descended upon them, intend to dine upon the flesh of the living that dared trespass in their domain. Noi and Jaege struggled valiantly, crushing them with hammer and greatsword alike, tearing their putrid bodies asunder, but still they came.

When things looked their most dire, it was Felicia who knew what had to be done; bravely tuning out the ghouls around her in prayer, she called upon Din's strength to deliver them from evil so they could complete their quest, knowing that the real battle was still to be had. Suddenly, from her clutched fists emerged a great wall of flame, engulfing the tunnels and the ReDead within, but leaving the travelers untouched. Soon the way was clear, and the travelers pressed on, knowing that more dark things awaited ahead...

Felicia mustered an awkward smile in return before watching the poe pull out a notebook and begin writing. Her brain seemed to be suddenly playing catch up with her face. It was going to be alright, he was going to make her look good. ...wait-- what?

Her mind wasn't left to linger on the what sort of implications that statement could have as she heard Jaege mention something about needing medical supplies.

"I- I have some stuff in my tackle box! Hang on!" She left Lev to his writing and rushed ahead, fiddling with the latch on her box as she jogged. "Ohh," her forehead creased with concern upon seeing Jaege's bite. She held out a fresh bandage along with her water skin, shaking the latter as she spoke. Her voice seemed much more self-assured this time.

"Clean it out with this first."

After freeing her hands, she turned to face Noi, who was making odd noises. He seemed a little... broken.

“Energy levels: limited. Secondary databanks: disabled for memory protection. RAM: Online.”

She fingered through her tackle box before sighing. Out of her element again. She doubted any of the this stuff would help a creature like Noi.

"Yes. I will, but do not forget to take care of yourself either." Jaege seemed concerned with Felicia's lack of concern, but did not push the matter further than this.

Veitaru skulked forward to be behind Noi and try and peak around him, but she didn't want to get too close to him for his antics."You're today, now. Of course." She snapped at Noi, apparently disliking Noi more than even the others.

Jaege took some time to care for himself, trying to keep an eye out for both Veitaru and Felicia, to make sure Veitaru stayed clear of the uncoordinated bot, which she fortunately had the good sense to do, and Felicia, to make sure she took the time to take care of herself.

Still riding high on the bean, Graham watched in awe and amazement as the shrill fairy summoned forth a dazzling display of blue flames to light the torches. He was so awed, in fact, that he failed to realize he would surely be engulfed by the ballooning ball of flame if he continued to stand there with his jaw agape. In the end it was the strange Sheikah woman from before, Alyce, who yanked Graham aside by his arm, pulling him back against the wall mere moments before the two were badly burned.

"Fool! Keep your wits about you!" she hissed, squeezing his forearm tightly as she chided him. She quickly pulled back her hand, wincing in pain; it would appear that she had not anticipated just how hot a Subrosian's real body was. Rubbing her palm in stunned confusion, she rattled off a rather perturbed "...what are you?" in Graham's direction.

Her question would remain unanswered, however, as the antechamber began to shake furiously, sending the already woozy Graham hurtling to the ground once more. While the others quickly regained their footing, one such Subrosian found it a little more difficult to find his sea legs (in a manner of speaking). Moaning in a clump on the dusty stone floor, Graham had already missed much of Lethe's history lesson by the time he pulled himself upright again, but he did catch the end of her little transformation act.

"Yikes! Did you see that?" asked Graham, marveling once again as the small spritely fairy had now adopted what appeared to be a humanoid form (mind you, the realization that a hulking automaton from an ancient civilization had joined their fold appeared to be completely lost on him). He looked over at Magus, expecting him to validate his surprise, but instead the cloaked fellow went forward and began casting some variety of magic. Graham managed a triple crown of over-the-top reactions as a ball of dark light formed around the cloaked magister's hand, eliciting an excited gasp from the hooded thief. Subrosians were raised to be wary of sorcery from a young age; what limited interaction the Subrosians did have with wizards came in the form of the feral Wizzrobes who made their homes in the volcanic caverns surrounding the mines. Such folk were not to be trusted, and they were often the subject of ghost stories in which curious children who wandered too far from home were captured and turned to stone forever.

Since moving to Hyrule, however, Graham had slowly begun to develop an interest in the arcane arts, and the bean's calming effect on his psyche turned that burgeoning interest into full blown curiosity.

"Gosh, that was a pretty neat trick there!" gushed Graham, striding up alongside Magus with wobbly legs. "You really gotta teach me that one some day, pal. Super cool," he added, sheepishly.

Alyce interrupted Graham before any other fawning praise could tumble out of his drug-addled maw. "Cool? There's nothing cool about shadow magic. It's an unnatural perversion of Nayru's sacred laws and it stands in opposition to everything pure and good about the arcane arts," she snapped, turning her nose up at the two as she produced an old tome from her bag and began flipping through it furiously, straining to read it in the dim blue torchlight.

"Pfft. And since when are you the arbiter of cool and not cool? Nice book you got there, dork!" sneered Graham, smacking the old journal out of her hand rather immaturely. He had apparently misjudged just how old and frail the text was before doing so, however, as the tome immediately fell apart upon landing, sending an almost comical flurry of yellowed parchment in every direction as the pages came loose from the binding. Graham felt a pang of guilt as the Sheikah shot him the coldest of all possible death glares before bending down to collect the materials as best as she could.

"This book has been passed down in my family for generations. My mother bequeathed it to me on her death bed, and it's the last thing I have to remember her by. Touch it again and I will end you, Graham," she spat. It seemed Alyce's contempt for the Subrosian only grew with each subsequent interaction.

Double yikes. Well. I guess, uh, well. You know, there's no backing down now. Better to just own it and ride this one out.

"Yeah, whatever, bookworm," he scoffed, shaking his head sarcastically. He turned to the other fellow in their group, Archer, as they approached the middle hallway. "Ha, totally got her. Got her good. Am I right, bro? Up top!" he exclaimed, cheerfully extending his hand upwards for a hi-five.

Archer stared back at Graham with a mixture of bemusement and fear, but still returned the hi-five for no other reason than instinct. First he motioned to do it with his hand aflame, and then at the last moment switched to his inactive one.
He had been raised on the streets, after all: he knew a hi-five to be a social contract broken only by jerks and weasels.
Never leave a bro hanging, it was a law or... something. Besides, Zephyrus was still within visible range, and would never let him live down a perceived rudeness towards a total stranger.
He'd probably say something like, “Water doesn't... discriminate between rocks or... something."
Nailed it.

"Haha!" he'd laughed along, "... what? And, uh, who are you guys, again?"

Graham managed a surprised "Woah!" in response to Archer's flaming hi-five. So there were two mages in his group now. What a trip!

"The name's Graham! I work as a trail guide usually, but I also dabble in strategic acquisitions from time to time," explained the Subrosian, with a curt but polite bow. "Strategic acquisitons" happened to be Graham's favorite euphemism for thievery. It sounded so official and legitimate!

Since his spell had failed to come up with the results that he wanted, Magus had simply gone back to doing what he had been doing before; Trying to filter useful information out of those around him without actually having to listen to whatever they had to say. Outright ignoring them would have been easy under most circumstances but the fact that against all odds they might have had something useful to say forced him to not just tune them out.

The scattering of paper caught his attention. Turning towards the source of the noise, he noticed what appeared to be one of the Hyrulians (a woman from the looks of it) who was gathering up scattered pages that had been knocked to the ground by the 'business man'. He was honestly surprised by the fact that not one, but TWO of the sheep from the Goddesses flock could actually READ... and one of them was a Poe.

In an honestly rare show of favor, Magus slowly walked towards the mess that the other hooded moron had made and was so happy about before bending down (with a strangely wooden creaking noise) to help gather up a couple of the scattered pages before offering them back to their rightful owner. "Do not fret. It is likely that the hooded fool will die first and free us of his company."

Alyce eyed Magus with a great deal of suspicion as she snatched the pages from his hands, shoving the last of the tattered parchment hastily into the worn leather binding and shoving the mess into her bookbag with a sigh of disgust and frustration. "At least fools are usually too stupid to do significant harm," she noted, rather brusquely. "Evil magic in the wrong hands, however, is much more worrisome. Please keep your hexes and curses away from me as we move forward. Shadow magic in the den of shadows is only asking for trouble."

The glowing lights that seemed to represent Magus's eyes seemed to roll at the woman's statements about his magical ability. "Evil is a logical fallacy my dear; A matter of perspective that depends largely on where you are currently standing on an issue, your cultural upbringing and what you stand to gain or lose. I am sure that before this 'quest' is over, you will either ask me to use my talents... or reprimand me for not acting sooner."

"These goofballs over here?" chuckled Graham, gesturing towards Magus and Alyce as he continued the introductions for Archer's sake. "Well, I don't know the Sheikah's name, but the other hooded fellow is Magus. We've recently become business associates as well as good friends," he added. If he had the ability to wink in Magus' direction, he would, but sadly, a nonchalant head nod would have to suffice. Alyce rolled her eyes as she turned to face the two of them.

Archer raised his hand, a curt greeting to Alyce. Then pretended not to hear anything pertaining to Magus - they had already been introduced, and Archer had decided it was in the expedition's best interest that they spend some time apart.
"Hey, another Sheikah, that's great," he said, although he wasn't quite sure to what extent he believed it. Sheikah tended to be a dry lot, from what little he knew of them beyond his own brother - the driest of them all.
"That puts us up to two and a half. That's a pretty good number for a place like this, right?"

"You can call me Alyce," she explained, reluctantly. She didn't seem to be the social type to begin with, and apparently the thought of working with such a strange group appeared to frustrate her even more. "It's good that you can wield fire magic. I am certain we will need it to combat the darkness ahead. Speaking of which..." she trailed off, looking over to the middle hallway that stretched out before them as the sound of a flock of keese grew nearer. "I believe we may have need of it sooner than expected."

Archer followed her gaze, down into the stretch of black before them, and laughed nervously.
"That's great, because there's nothing I love more than responsibilities and unpleasant surprises. Ask anyone."

Graham's bean induced courage was at an all time high, and that drugged up confidence only appeared to be bolstered by his need to demonstrate his worth to the group early on. Dashing forward to meet the bats head on, Graham's gloved hands moved with astonishing speed to quickly to unclasp the seed satchel on his waist. "Just watch!" he exclaimed, before tossing what appeared to be a small seed into the blackness of his hood. Graham's white dot eyes smoldered to a flickering orange-red as the keese converged on him, eager to take a bite of finely roasted Subrosian.

Instead, the bats were met with a burst of flame exploding out of Graham's mouth into a swirling, cone-like shape. The bats closest to Graham immediately caught flame and fell to the ground, defeated. However, it would appear that a good three quarters of the flock still lived, and thanks to Graham's fire breath, now took the form of much more imposing Fire Keese, flapping around angrily with their dark wings wreathed in flame. Although it was now much easier to see all of the bats, it would appear that Graham's Ember Seed had done more harm than good.

"Pretty neato, huh?" beamed the Subrosian, turning to his comrades expecting a shower of praise. Instead, they all rather occupied with the swarm of fire bats descending upon them. He would have to wait until after the skirmish to receive his accolades, apparently. Graham's disappointment was fleeting, however, as he found the trails of flame left behind by the Fire Keese to be quite striking and brilliant, at least to his own bean-augmented vision. He seemed content to sit back and watch rather than aid his comrades in any significant manner (aside from encouraging shouts of "Wow!" and "You can do it!" when appropriate).

" You were saying something earlier about fools not doing much harm? the hooded Twili asked with an imperial mocking tone to his voice as he shook his head at the fact that due to the short sighted nature of the idiot, they now had flaming keese flying towards them, looking for a cooked meal.

Muttering in his native tongue, Magus raised his right hand up before spreading his fingers, allowing a small ball of what looked like dark magic to form up at the tips of each finger... before firing each of them off at five of the flaming flying rodents that were now coming towards them.

Whilst it was within his capacity to hurl a fireball or two, certainly, Archer felt that maintaining magic after it had left his hand was an effort he didn't feel like expending this early into the journey.
Keese weren't exactly taxing targets, after a-- oh sweet Goddesses they're on fire.
Well, that made killing them with fire alone a little trickier. But fortunately, Archer was no two-bit one-trick pony. He had several tricks! He was a pony of plentiful, magical tricks.
He reached into his card satchel, slung low on his belt, and pulled out a small handful of printed cards which read:



Any excuse to get rid of them, he supposed. A birthday present gone horribly awry, he'd never expected Zephyrus to keep track and use them so sparringly. He took five or six cards from the deck, and then slid the rest back into his pouch. Holding them in his still burning hand, Archer wreathed them in fire. Then, with a strange, panicked grace to him, he tapped into his magician's experience, and slung them off into the dark, where four struck their marks.

Four fire keese collided with Magus' shadow orbs, giving a final screech of pain as they crashed into the cold stone floors below and withered away into dark embers. The fifth orb missed its target, however, as the flaming rodent executed a surprisingly sharp turn at the last second. The concentrated orb of darkness burst upon impact with the wall, sending midnight-black spores of darkness flying in several directions. Along with the fifth keese from Magus' group, only three of the original flock seemed to remain, all of whom appeared rather content to ignore the competent fighters who had bravely stepped forward in favor of converging on a rather helpless Alyce in the back.

"Back, you beasts! Get away from me!" she huffed, angrily smacking one of the bats aside with her hefty book bag. Unphased, the keese continued to harass the bookish Sheikah until a startling sound cut through the shrill cackling of the winged beasts. A bluish metal boomerang whizzed past Magus and Archer, spinning so quickly that it was hard to make out the appearance of a glowing red jewel inlaid in the crook as it moved. Graham's boomerang sliced through one of the keese closest to Alyce, but it had been thrown so carelessly that she had to drop to the ground to avoid taking a hit to the dome.

"Hey! Watch it!" she shouted, fumbling to escape the two remaining keese in a terrible awkward looking half-crouch half-run. As she scuttled towards Archer and the rest of the group waiting further down the hallway, she seemed woefully unaware that the boomerang had made an unnaturally sharp turn after hitting its mark and was now speeding back towards its wielder at an alarming rate. Hearing the whirring sound of spinning metal once again, Alyce ducked down once more, barely avoiding the weapon as it continued on its path, slicing another keese in half as it passed by. Finally it returned to Graham, who caught it with a finesse-heavy flourish. He cupped his hands to his mouth and bellowed a fairly smug "You're welcome!" in Alyce's direction.

The Sheikah only's response came in the form of a very frustrated yet still oddly restrained quasi-growl. The kind of utterance that one might let loose on someone who knocks a whole bookshelf over in a quiet library. With a final grunt of stressed exertion, Alyce swung her book satchel at the last keese who still lingered around her, slamming the bat against the wall and flattening it with a satisfying crunch sound. Drastically misreading the reactions of the others in his group, Graham gave a cheer of excitement, clapping his hands excitedly to celebrate the group's quick and breezy dispatching of those pesky bats.

"Great job, you guys!" he beamed, spinning his boomerang on the tip of his finger before flipping it end over end and clipping it to his belt in one smooth motion. Graham wasn't normally one to show off, but then again, he also wasn't normally one to take psychoactive drugs and screw up everything for his companions. "I always knew we could do it! As team leader, I couldn't be more proud!" exclaimed the Subrosian, patting Magus on his creaky wooden back as the rest of the group began making their way further down the hallway.

"From now on, you don't talk. Or breathe fire. Or try to take my head off with your silly toys. Or do anything really. Just stay out of my way and try not to ruin anything else, you... you... stupid dumb idiot!" fumed Alyce, rudely bumping into Graham as she hurriedly stormed to the front of the group and continued down the dark hallway in a huff.

"Jeez. What's her deal? If it weren't for me, we'd all be bat food right now," smirked Graham, turning to Magus as if he was expecting some kind of support or validation.

Magus said nothing as he simply turned away from Graham and followed after Alyce and the rest of the group. Despite her flaws, the woman could at least be spoken to without suffering a headache.

"What did I say about talking? It's barely been two minutes since we've set out and I'm already weary of your prattling!" scolded Alyce, speaking gruffly over her shoulder as the group walked on.

"That's no way to talk to the team leader, y'know," added Graham, in a quieter, slightly more defeated tone.

As the dark hallway stretched on, an unsettling stench started to permeate the walls; decaying flesh. As a dim light appeared at the end of the hallway, the stench grew even stronger and Alyce slowed her annoyed, aloof pace until she was moving at a rather timid walk, running her hand along the wall with caution as the group approached a wider, cistern-like chamber. She motioned for the rest of the pack to slow down and approach carefully, as it appeared as though the hallway terminated at a ledge with no protective railing. Graham inched forward carefully, peering over the side fearfully.

The first thing to catch his eye was a large column in the center of the room, connected to the ceiling by a series of gears which seemed to be causing the column to rotate rather quickly. As Graham's gaze followed the column from the ceiling down to the floor, he spotted several ghoulish reaper statues attached to the column, each perched back to back in pairs holding long, razor sharp scything blades as they spun around in circles. There seemed to be about eight pairs of blades altogether, staggered in height and varying in speed to create a big spinning fan chamber of death. Anything unfortunate enough to fall over the ledge would likely be sliced in half several times before it would even hit the bottom. What little light there was in this hellish death trap of a room came from a chandelier-like arrangement of eerily floating lanterns towards the top of the room, none of which seemed to be held in place by anything other than magic. One larger lantern carrying a blue flame hovered in the middle, bobbing up and down unnervingly. Given the dim setting, it was hard to make out exactly what lay at the bottom of the cistern, but judging from the awful stench, Graham guessed it was a big pile of dead bodies.

"I've read about these before. The Sheikah used these rooms for mass executions. For all the good my people do, their history has its darker parts," explained Alyce, quietly. "There should be a crystal switch somewhere that will stop the blades from spinning. Anyone see it?" she asked, scanning the room. Although neither Graham nor Alyce spotted it, the switch could be barely made out in the darkness towards the bottom of the room, attached to the lower section of the spinning column beneath all eight pairs of whirling blades. Although seeing the switch was possible, how one might manage to safely activate it without the scythes getting in the way was another matter altogether.

"[color=FF5733]Hold up. We- you mass executed people? With [/i]whirling death scythe[/i] statues? Ten for style but aren't you guys meant to be level headed and subtle?[/color]"

While the light blinded races might have had difficulty adjusting to the dark places of the world, Magus's gaze zeroed in on the crystal hidden beneath the spinning blades of death that had been designed with an artistic flare when it came to an instrument of execution. An idea of how to get past it to shut it down did come to mind, but it would require most of the people he was with to look after his frame for a bit without doing something stupid like damage it or set it on fire.

As amusing as the idea of watching them try and die on the blades below might have been, he wasn't going to waste his meatshields so easily...

"[color]=a0410d]Watch my body for a moment. I'll take care of this.[/color]" was all the warning that Magus gave before his cloaked form sat down on the ground with the clear sound of wood being placed on stone... looking for all the world like a puppet that had its strings cut. Alyce gave a startled yelp, paralyzed in shock for a moment. "H-hey! What is this demon's trick, you, you... foul creature!" she half-sputtered, half-shouted.

From under the cloak, a black ooze seemed to seem out as he slid towards the edge of the ledge before sliding over, clinging to the surface as it slowly made its way downwards. Granted Magus didn't actually think that the drop would hurt him in his current state, but there was wisdom in the old saying 'look before you leap'.

"Don't bother coming back! I hope you get torn to shreds, or worse!" shouted Alyce, backing away from Magus' lifeless husk until she found herself up against the cold stone of the hallway. Her back to to the wall, she slid down to the floor, thoroughly spooked and still a little bewildered. She had her suspicions about Magus, but to have them all confirmed among this ghastly scenery was simply too much.

Archer squinted into the murk beyond the exposing glow of his fireball, which he instinctively intensified to reveal more of the room and its ominous workings. He more or less overlooked Magus altogether, for the sake of party harmony and bliss.
"I always figured big, elaborately punishing temples like these were just fairytales. What sorts of people did you feed into the meat grinder?"

Alyce hesitated for a moment, her panicked expression changing to one of grave seriousness hidden behind a glazed, somewhat distant exterior. Her eyes drifted to the floor, clearly holding something back. "Well, you see, that's actually been the subject of my research for quite some time. The Sheikah's early history is one of strife and struggle, and is known to only very few. My ancestors were among the first scribes of the Sheikah people, and through my study of the ancient dialects, I have slowly been transcribing their notes over the last twenty years," she began, producing the (now thoroughly mangled) old tome Graham had so recently torn apart. "Had a certain idiot not ruined the binding, I could just point you to the proper passage. But I suppose my memory will have to do," she sighed, leaning over a bit to peer down into the cistern as she resigned herself to spilling what appeared to be a rather distressing secret.

((Music.))

"Although the Sheikah now serve the Royal Family dutifully, the Sheikah and the Hylians began as warring tribes in the early years of man. The Sheikah were people of the earth, who drew power from blood, strength, and cunning. They practiced dark magic and were known as crafty warriors who won many battles under cover of darkness. The Hylians descended from the sky, and believed in deities of light and law. When the wild nomads refused to accept the will of the Goddesses, the golden-haired skyfolk condemned the Sheikah as heathens and set out to conquer them," she continued.

"The Sheikah fought bravely at first, but the Hylians were many and better equipped. As many Sheikah began to perish in the war of faith, a council meeting of Sheikah elders was called to determine the fate of the tribe, and it was to be held here, in the Shadow Temple, the birthplace of dark magic. While most of the elders believed surrender was necessary to avoid extinction, sixteen still saw fit to fight to the death rather than face servitude at the hands of foreign missionaries. As the council adjourned for the evening believing their discussion to be inconclusive, the elders awoke the next morning to find that all the dissenting councilors had been murdered in their sleep in an act of widespread betrayal. That's why the Eye of Truth cries of a red tear. It used to just be an eye, but after the assassinations at the council, the symbol was changed. To quote the first Impa, 'We mourned our fallen brothers, though we could cry only tears of blood. They died along with our freedom. Shadow Temple... here is gathered Hyrule's bloody history of greed and hatred.'"

"What followed was an unabated massacre from within the tribe. Shortly after the news that the separatist elders had been killed, all Sheikah who refused to submit to the Hylians were killed en masse. What we now know as Gossip Stones are the graves of ancient wild Sheikah who died a warrior's death in the cleansing, still serving as faithful spies even in death. Others would run and hide instead of die fighting... this chamber is where they were sent when they were captured," she finished, gravely. "At least, that's what my research suggests. Sources from that time period are scarce and unreliable."

Hugging tightly to the wall to avoid being sliced by the sixteen reapers, Magus inched his way down the side of the wall until he found the dimly lit bottom. The dim glow of the crystal switch provided some light, allowing the night-eyed Twili to slowly take in his surroundings. The cistern's floor was not solid ground, but rather, a rusty metal grating underneath which a dark and festering pond of greenish, clearly poisonous water lay stagnant. The toxic pond reeked of rotting flesh, as did the entire bottom of the chamber. The stone walls closer to the bottom seemed coated with some of the same poisonous green rot, although it was dried and thick now like old mud. Four unlit torches arranged around the outer edge of the grating also appeared to be caked with the stuff.

Graham mostly kept to himself as he took in the horrifying nature of this room and Alyce's story. The bean's effects only exacerbated how utterly unnerving the derelict and downright demonic torture chamber appeared, and with absolutely no positive imagery to draw on, his drug-addled imagination was going to some dark places. As he sank to his knees and felt around inside Magus' shed cloak in a shocked stupor, the room seemed to be spinning around him.

"Where'd he go? He was... he was right here! Just a second ago. Where is he? Where did he go?" mumbled Graham, absently, as he frantically searched around the folds of the black robes hoping to find any sign of his recently disappeared friend. In his mind he seemed to be splashing around in a thick black puddle of oily blood, and as he finally began to come to grips with the ridiculously frightening situation he'd wandered into while on hard drugs, the Subrosian practically went catatonic. Crawling over to the edge of the cistern on wobbly limbs, Graham leaned his head over the side of the ledge and puked up a sooty black mixture of gross weird food and burnt ember seed husk, the bulk of which seemed to be speeding down the side of the wall on a collision course with where Magus was perched.

Noi rumbled trying to move forwards. He began to fall, but again caught himself digging into the walls.

“I cannot deceive. My systems are below nominal.I need to recharge.” Noi groaned.

The robot leaned against the wall grabbing a waterskin from his compartment. With his other hand he pulled off the metal case that covered his sensor array. Beneath was a bizarre conglomerate for metal and crystals. It vaguely resembled a face if one squinted. Pressing a hand to the side of his face his chest cavity began to glow. Parts of it began to separate before opening to reveal his inner structure. A skeleton of steel guarding even more intricate workings. A few random pieces of metal fell out onto the ground along with a lot of sand.

Pouring the waterskin’s contents into a port the liquid was filtered into the systems. A loud whir began to emanate from Noi’s chest. He began to produce energy at a greatly increased rate. The liquid cooling his system allowed him to overclock the production.

“ETC: Half Hour.” The robotic voice called.

While his chest was open Noi began to inspect himself.

Graham's frantic searching of Magus's cloak would quickly result in the discovery that underneth said cloak was a wooden body; It seemed much like a strange looking scarecrow or some larger then normal puppet with it's strings cut... Exactly how this would come across in the idiot's bean rattled brain was unknown to all but the idiot himself.

.....................................

As a puddle of black goo, Magus was free to avoid the spinning blades of death and clung to the bars of the grill under them in order to further his travel towards the crystal that would in theory turn off the blades of death... as evidence but the dust and grime that he was crawling over in order to reach the stupid crystal in the first place. "You are aware that all you need to kill someone is a knife through the ribs, right? Even an axe to behead them with would have done it. This seems... rather a gross waste of time, money and effort." Magus called up, more then happy to remind the lesser races of their position in the grand scheme of things... Only to have a foul bile that he would rather not know the origin's own land on top of him, coating him alongside the rest of the grime.

It took a little while, but sooner rather then later he was able to tap the crystal in question in order to see if that would be enough to trigger it. After that... there was going to be a reckoning.

Who truly knew the mind of the Gerudo?

She was a creature made of sand and dust and iron edges. Even the inflection of her tone was dusty scratch, like Naviela had seen too much to truly be capable of taking things too seriously. So perhaps the huntress had been jesting with the title or perhaps she had been as serious as one could be, while running around in cramped hallways with fresh blood still painted on her skin. A question that was perhaps best left unanswered.

The Gerudo arrived only seconds after the skull kid and Lethe herself.

Magic was clearly in the air as the skeleton head animated and left them a curious message. Sadly, there wasn't much that Navi could do about it or the puzzle itself. She was no mage and barely had any experience in it- other than being able to almost smell it when it occurred.

An interesting knack, but not something that helped them here.

"Perhaps the wall is an illusion? It has a different color then those opposite of us." She finally observed, while studying the wall holding them back from going forward. "It could be that our friend simply passed through it in his roll?"

It was simply a suggestion, her mind was that of a warrior and sometimes of a thief, riddles... Navi had little patience for them.

Even on the back of her puppet, showing more confidence than the others the dreadful claustrophobic feeling weighed down on the skullkid. Her shoulders sagged, she fidgeted under the metaphorical weight. The shine and sparkle of new uncharted territory wore out pretty quick. Jillian stared down the creepy and sort of neat lookin' skull as it (quite literally) rattled off its rhyme and riddles. Lethe noted the torches held no heat and Naviela commented how the walls didn't match up. They figured out more than she had any right to figuring anything out.

If there was one way the skullkid could contribute it was testing the waters and the theories. Fearless leaders showed no fear.

She spit on both of her palms, rubbing them together she jumped off the back of her puppet. She held up the lantern squinting at the wall before them.

"If the wall is lookin' like a fake and the torches too, then may as well test out the theory."

She pointed at the wall giving the command, "Puppet! Forward!"

Without hesitation the puppet stepped up to the wall, the twine shot through the wall and the puppet disappeared to the other side.