[center][i][h1][color=#886f9a]R[/color][color=#9077a2]i[/color][color=#987faa]g[/color][color=#a187b2]h[/color][color=#a98fba]t[/color] [color=#b99ecb]T[/color][color=#c2a6d3]u[/color][color=#caaedb]n[/color][color=#d2b6e3]n[/color][color=#c9adda]e[/color][color=#c0a4d1]l[/color] [color=#ad93bf]G[/color][color=#a48ab5]r[/color][color=#9b81ac]o[/color][color=#9178a3]u[/color][color=#886f9a]p[/color]
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Alyce tried to be angry at Griz, truly she did. It was a cruel, foolish thing for her- them?- to have done. A betrayal of what they had come here to do, the Goddess’ own [i]people.[/i] For all Griz had known, they had left the rest of them to their deaths: and this had been true, for one irritating clot of pompous shadow at least. Yet, Alyce’s irritation was tainted by worry. Griz was a capable warrior (frankly, she suspected, more capable than her [i]and[/i] Graham, given their combined talents included a finite number of seeds and a rather heavy tome), but now they were alone, somewhere in the bowels of this ancient and terrible place. Plus, Alyce couldn’t help but appreciate the irony, it was almost straight out of one of her books: where better for one Sheikah to betray another, than here, the darkest mecca of their history?

She might have laughed if she wasn’t so miserable. But she had no time to meditate on it: she had to press on. Literally, she had to. Graham was already several feet ahead, skipping and cheering at his own brilliance. So she hastily followed suit, clutching her papers to her chest. Wherever Griz was, Alyce made a note to give them a stern talking to when next they crossed paths. If Griz didn’t get themselves killed, first.

She found her centre again, as the pair made their way through a shorter corridor, dark but not quite so foreboding as the one that had preceded it. Bookish though she may have been, Alyce was no coward – she [i]was[/i] a Sheikah, after all. Graham was making big talk, which is how she had come to describe his “small talk”, given he yelled most everything he said.
[color=fff79a][b]"MY POINT IS THAT BEANS GET A BAD RAP."[/b][/color]
“Mhmm,” she replied, not truly paying attention. She had her eyes to the walls, inscribed with small markings she scarcely recognised. 
[color=fff79a][b]"I MEAN. DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID TO THAT GHOST?"[/b][/color]
“Mm.”
[color=fff79a][b]"HE GOT WRECKED, I WRECKED HIM."[/b][/color]
“How long do those beans actually last?”
[color=fff79a]"Oh I came down about half an hour ago."[/color]
“oh.”

Then they passed the threshold, and she saw it – and it filled her with wonder.
She shoved past Graham, who stumbled back into the corridor, and emerged into a new room: a veritable treasure trove of lost history. She kicked up dust beneath her feet, and squeezed her papers tightly. What was this great jewel that they had found?

The walls of this room were made of dark, grey brick: a heavy sort of stone that seemed always to have a dull, wet sheen to it. Although, when she reached out to touch them ([i]”Why did I just do that?”[/i]) they were dry, and rough as sandpaper is. Ancient, clearly, older perhaps than even some other parts of the temple, this stone seemed to be bound into place not only by ancient concrete, but by a thick red moss, equally sodden to the eye and dark as dried blood. She touched that, too. That [i]was[/i] wet.

“Ugh.”

But it wasn’t the room itself that had amazed her (although its seemed age did spark all sorts of theories) so much as its contents. The stones across which she had run her fingers were not plain, but instead inset with deep, chiseled words. Writing that was strange and abstract, at least to the uneducated eye: twisted, eldritch lettering in a bold print. Not Hylian by any stretch of the imagination, certainly Alyce couldn’t picture this sort of writing gracing the face of a sign (as much as that pained her, in a way). 

And it was so strange because it was ancient Sheikah, something she knew only from fervent study. The older dialect, from about the time this temple was likely built. It was thought that precious little of it had survived the bloody history of their people, but it was all about this room. Not only on the walls, but on artifacts scattered about the floor, and leaning on the walls. Shields that bore red eyes sans their tears, lengths of cloth not unlike the one that [i]other[/i] Sheikah had been wearing, in the entrance hall. Polearms, small blades, broken pieces of armour. Small coins (whatever could these have been used for?) scattered about around Alyce’s feet, alongside savaged books with torn pages but discernible symbols. Everything here bore the old word. But the thing that drew her eye more than anything else was on the other side of the room. A long, velvety wall hanging, a deep night blue and embroidered with silver thread. It depicted the Eye of Truth, flanked by a familiar looking crescent shape, and something about the design peered into her very heart. Spoke to her on some primitive level. And as she approached, she noted writing in that same, familiar script, orbiting the eye in a perfect circle. 
She walked lightly, and without a sound. Graham thundered behind her. 

She looked up, awestruck, as she met the banner’s bottom.
“By the Goddess.”
[color=fff79a]"What is this?"[/color]
“It’s… it’s history! It’s a beautiful, perfectly preserved moment in the shadowy past of The Sheikah! Do you understand how big this?!”
[color=fff79a]”Literally no. What’s it say?”[/color]
“Mm. Well, I can’t read it perfectly – I’ve always said there’s no such thing as being [i]fluent[/i] in the old tongue, but… let’s see here…”, Alyce squinted up.

Oh. Oh this was [i]big.[/i] This was really, [i]really[/i] [i][b]big.[/b][/i]
“Goddess’ grace. It’s…” 
[color=fff79a]”Whatsit? Lemme see,”[/color] Graham stepped forwards to peer over Alyce’s shoulder, and felt his foot sink suddenly. There was the sound of grating stone.
[color=fff79a]”Oh. That’s. Probably fine.”[/color]
And then the sound of creaking metal.
[color=fff79a]”probably still fine, though.”[/color]

The pole that was suspending the banner Alyce was lost in reading was suddenly ejected from the wall above, and began to plummet. It was a heavy, rusty cylinder of (presumably) iron, and Graham barely had time to jump back before he realised that Alyce was still in the line of fire.
[color=fff79a]”Alyce—”[/color]
[i][b]Clang![/b] Thump.[/i]
[color=fff79a][b]”A-AAAA THAT’S PROBABLY FINE.”[/b][/color]
Then, the red moss that looked to join the wall together began to peel away, seemingly by its own volition, tearing itself from the cracks like scabs and dropping to the floor. In the moments following, green light began to seep from the open wounds they left behind: and through them squeezed small, hovering shapes, which then inflated themselves into ominous spheres of green, and then burst into verdant fires. From seemingly nowhere within, their cores burst into splintered white, and then formed the ominous, universal face of death: a skull. Green bubbles, several of them. He counted, and once he had reached the number “nope”, he turned, and without another thought he ran. 

Alyce, barely conscious on the floor, and listening to the retreat of his footsteps, was beginning to notice a trend today.