Captain Jenno

The Redwatch

Hi all! Is it still alright to apply?

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

Right Tunnel Group

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 people. 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 and 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 was 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.
"MY POINT IS THAT BEANS GET A BAD RAP."
“Mhmm,” she replied, not truly paying attention. She had her eyes to the walls, inscribed with small markings she scarcely recognised.
"I MEAN. DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID TO THAT GHOST?"
“Mm.”
"HE GOT WRECKED, I WRECKED HIM."
“How long do those beans actually last?”
"Oh I came down about half an hour ago."
“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 (”Why did I just do that?”) 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 was 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 other 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.”
"What is this?"
“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?!”
”Literally no. What’s it say?”
“Mm. Well, I can’t read it perfectly – I’ve always said there’s no such thing as being fluent in the old tongue, but… let’s see here…”, Alyce squinted up.

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

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.
”Alyce—”
Clang! Thump.
”A-AAAA THAT’S PROBABLY FINE.”
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.

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

@Captain Jenno@jasonwolf@Dervish@The 42nd Gecko

Left Group: BY THE WAY... If any of those clowns fall onto the grid around the drum, they get zappy zapped. See Gohdan fight on youtube for ultimate clarity.

@Baklava

wHOOPS I WAS MEANT TO SPECIFY THIS. I am relegated to Co-GM jail.

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

Right Tunnel Group

"Th-thank you, brother," Hogarth hiccuped, accepting the makeshift bandage and holding it to his eye. Naviela approached, warily observing the room as she knelt beside the injured young goron.

"Here," she offered, tying the clothe around his head. "Keep it closed. We'll get it seen to when we get out."

Lethe remained abnormally quiet-- a detail that, with Hogarth as well as he was going to get for now, Naviela did not continue to ignore.

"This is the keystone, isn't it?" she quiried, standing.

Eyes still on Hogarth, Lethe was silent before responding. "Well,"" she mused, stepping forward, but giving Hogarth some obvious berth, "It. Certainly looks like it could be the keystone."

Zephyrus was strangely heartened by this Goron custom. Brother, to them, was a word that seemed to refer to all people amicable - but it carried a weight with him that lit some small, warm spark against the wet-cold of his gut. It wouldn't soon replace the knowledge that a child had been lost under his watch, but it was some small comfort to feel brotherly again. Although, with that sensation came a new, subtle guilt which laid itself across the back of his mind to niggle from the dark: what had become of his brother, in this torturous place?

The Sheikah raised his eyes, led by the observations of his companions. Then, he exchanged a brief look with Naviela - wrought with situational scepticism. This all seemed a little too convenient, for a place so deathly as this - a swinging blade and an army of ghoulish hands begot... a platform?
Anybody could have retrieved it from here. It didn't take a Sheikah - even a panicked Goron had managed to find it.

"If it's the real stone, it's almost certainly a trap," Zephyrus observed, after a few moments, "I think it only fair that we prioritise a leaving strategy for our Goron friend, before we try to grab it. You three should locate an exit, and I will do the honours."

He would lose nobody else today.

Naviela nodded in agreement before helping Hogarth to his feet and leading him away. Lethe silently followed suit.

Zephyrus stood before the pedastal with his feet shoulder-width apart, his weapon stowed away on his back. His hands hovered at either side of the jewel, reticent. This keystone, carved of a crystal as red as his eye.

"Is everybody ready?"

"Ready," Naviela confirmed when the loudest remaining member of their group now that Jillian was gone remained silent.

As the stone was removed, there was a delay almost long enough to accomodate a sigh of relief before, seemingly out of nowhere, metal bars fell over the exit. Naviela tugged Hogarth through the secret wall before they could be trapped in the room with Zephyrus. Lethe jumped back as well, but immediately gave the ring on her finger a twist. Transforming back into a fairy, she flitted back through the wall and between the bars, watching in horror as several glowing red spikes appeared along the walls and cieling. Slowly but surely, each row of spikes started to inch closer with the loud grating sound of stone upon stone. The room was, in a sense, shrinking.

A breath caught in Zephyrus' throat for an instant, as panic whelmed up from his chest, as an air bubble might, rising towards the surface of an otherwise still lake. He stared back at his team through the bars, as death approached him on all sides. For the first time visibly unnerved.
Then he exhaled, and began to breathe again. When the river bent, the water kept flowing - panic was a concept it had no need for. And so, he let it go.

"Should the worst happen, let it be known that at least one Sheikah died here with his head held high."

That was not admitting defeat, simply accepting the possibility with decorum. The reality waited to be seen, and Zephyrus set to work.
First thing was first - what would he do with this keystone? He stowed it in his bag, although the thing's size meant it took up all of the available space, and strained at his neck somewhat. Then he threw his eyes left, right and upwards - the walls were closing in. It would be wasting time if he tried to replace the keystone, if it didn't work it would be ten seconds less of thought.

Think. A Sheikah temple. This was a puzzle of some sort, wasn't it? Everything about their ways was encoded in riddle. They were Shadow People, after all.

"Shadow people."

He drew his gaze across the length of the encroaching walls. Two torches for every one of them. He inhaled deeply, and then found his stance, before throwing his arms out to either side - willing forth a blast of sharp, cold air to snuff their fires out, and coax the shadows from the approaching corners.

"Hmph!"

Whoosh! The flames went out. And the grating continued. With the exception of Lethe's fairy light, the room was engulfed in darkness but continued to shrink. "Great." Lethe commented, some of her brazenness restored as she flew forward, hovering by Zephyrus's shoulder, "Well, that wasn't a very bright idea, was it? Now it's dark AND you're going to be crushed to death."

"At the very least, I don't need to see the means of my demise in such stunning detail. I will admit, though, I had hoped that would solve some archaic puzzle and slow the springing of this trap. What do you suppose I should do?"

"Hell if I know!" Lethe griped, heaving a sigh as she squinted into the darkness. Being the only light source, she could barely make out the tips of the impending spikes. "Why'd you put out all the torches anyway?"

"I suppose I hoped it was some old Sheikah trick, and that by extinguishing the flames I would stop the spikes. I've heard legends of that sort of thing, and my options were quite limited: I can hardly fight the spikes, can I?", Zephyrus asked, removing his guan dao from his back in order to prod in the direction of the spikes at his left for emphasis.

Lethe frowned, falling silent for several seconds. "Maybe there's no solution," she said at last.

"You may be right. I regret only that I'm still holding the keystone, then: that my last action may well have been an inconvenience. It isn't in my nature to stand still in times of trouble, so I might well struggle when the spikes are too close for me to bare. But if I do, you will tell Archer I died with decorum, won't you? He should remember me as I was, and am: a sobering, some might say dull, point of reference."

Zephyrus replaced his polearm, slotting it back into the retaining ribbons of cloth on his back, and then sat down cross-legged.

"Wh--" Lethe flitted into his line of sight, "That's it?! You're just gonna... sit down?? And die? I only said maybe!"

Flying about the room in a panic, Lethe searched the walls in hope of finding a something they'd missed. A button, a switch, a riddle-- anything.

"I'm thinking. If we're meant to figure something out, we will."

Though she knew she could leave at any time, Lethe continued searching, grumbling under her breath. Her efforts were to no avail. The spikes were closing in. It wouldn't be long now before Zephyrus would die.

A minute at best, by a liberal estimate. But Zephyrus tried his best to keep his calm, his head low. It might have seemed a fool's death, but it seemed inevitable that one of them was going to be trapped in here - better it was him, he supposed.

The spikes were drawing in to the point of visibility, again.

"UGH!" Lethe exclaimed, ripe with frustration. Returning to Zephyrus, she grasped the ring around her waist pushed it down over her hips and legs. "Put this on!" she shouted.

Zephyrus didn't hesitate to listen, but he did quirk his brow at her as he took the ring. His expression, still clear and calm, turned momentarily towards a small, but thankful, warmth. Then he slid the ring onto his left pointer finger, and extended his hand with each finger splayed, in an attempt to interpet just what this meant - in doing so, giving Lethe access. She twisted the crescent on the crown face of the ring, like a dial, hurriedly, and the two were lost in the sudden bloom of a rushing plume of white smoke, billowing out and dissipating against the encroaching spikes. When it did, Zephyrus as he had been - tall and graceful- was gone. In his place, a ball of shimmering white, swaying left and right as it hung in midair. A fairy.

"Oh."

"Alright, hurry! Let's get out of here!" Lethe gave Zephyrus an impatient shove towards the exit.

Zephyrus lurched forwards, but the experience of flight wasn't quite like anything he had ever felt before. He pressed on, but his altitude would dip erratically. It was almost like using magic - almost. Innate but not necessarily comfortable.

"This is like nothing I've ever experienced," he remarked, in a muddled tone, as he slipped between the bars of the room, and out through the false wall again.

"Don't complain," Lethe replied sharply, gripping his arm as his inexperience nearly pulled him down again. The grating sound coming from the room left behind finally ended with a heavy slam. "You weren't supposed to experience this and if you're at all grateful to me for saving your life, you won't tell anyone. Understand?" As Lethe spoke, she spun around to face Zephyrus and gripped the crescent head of the ring, temporarily oblivious to personal boundries as she glared at him sternly.

Zephyrus hadn't been complaining, per say, but decided not to contradict her presumptions: she was, after all, his hero in this moment. It was better to pay his respects than argue arbitrarily. She had ensured that there was still a chance, at the end of all of this, that he might see Archer again, so if she had she told him the world as they knew it was a totally flat plain, in that second he would have agreed with her. He chose not to acknowledge the involuntary shock of red in his features, either, when she grappled the ring that was now about his waist. It was a peculiar embarrassment, but, again, not worth trespassing into disrespect over. Sheikah warriors were a dignified, discplined group, anyhow: they didn't blush.

How improper!

"You, of course, have my word - and my gratitude. I owe you whatever time I have left with what remains of my family, and it brings me incredible peace... your secret is safe with me."

A short pause.

"We are, however, accompanied."

Naviela and Hogarth watched the exchange in shocked silence. Noticing their presence, Lethe huffed in annoyance before turning the crescent every which way until the same spark of white smoke engulfed Zephyrus once more. "That goes for you guys, too!" Lethe exclaimed, "Not a word to anyone!" She yanked the ring off of Zephyrus's finger and perched herself on Hogarth's head. Stetching one arm above her head, Lethe slipped the ring back on, wiggling as she struggled to pull it over her shoulders and wings until it once again rested at her hip.

"Now," Lethe sighed, "We've got the keystone-- so I think it'd be best if we collected the others and got out of here."

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

Archer Anders

Archer stood and seethed, as in the mahogany of his eyes, reflected fibres burnt away about the knee. Beneath, the skin was reddened by the lick of encroaching flame, although Archer could keep that much at bay – and it was nowhere near as red as his face, swollen by his locking jaw. Teeth clenched so tight that it hurt. He squeezed his fists, and the heat in his palms subsided – the focus necessitated by magic gave way, instead, to a different sort of fire. He drew back his arm. He let out a short breath.

“Those were my good pants,” he explained, calmly. One by one he stretched his fingers, before balling them back into a fist. Then he was yelling again, as suddenly and loudly as though he had never stopped.
“Those!”
Punch.
“Were!”
Punch.
“My!”
Punch.
“Good!”
Punch.
“Pants!”
He brought his knee up, and caught its jaw – then extended his leg, thrust his foot through the exposed vertebrae, before bringing it down on the fallen skull.

It splintered beneath his heel, shattered like china. It sounded like that, too. A broken mess of exposed bone lay at his feet, and he stood panting, staring. Unsatisfied. For a few seconds the anger didn’t leave, it stayed and it broiled. Expected more – demanded it, even. It was something primal inside, something that throbbed with the beating of his heart, and threatened to consume him if he didn't do more. Hurt them worse. But after a few seconds of the bones laying still and truly dead, the fight left him.
Like hot metal driven into ice, he suddenly felt brittle. Weak. He swayed on the spot for an instant. Then he inhaled, and spat on the bones at his feet.
“They were my only pants,” he grumbled in the ensuing moment of clarity. He was warding the flames off, but he was quickly running out of pant-space. He turned to the others, overlooking the chaos as the endorphins started to spill in: “Anybody carrying water?”

ℤ𝕖𝕡𝕙𝕪𝕣𝕦𝕤 𝔸𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕤

Zephyrus didn’t break pace between crossing the threshold and making his way towards Hogarth, steps careful and silent. And although he moved lightly, his chest was heavy. He was filled with a peculiar melancholy; one he would not soon forget – he had made the worst of mistakes, and failed to save a child’s life. An undead child, perhaps, a wretch of the forest. But nonetheless, a casualty that might have been avoided if he had acted with more gusto and grace.
But that same feeling of loss drove him to help. He would not watch another fall quietly into this temple’s tenebrous grasp.
And so he kept walking, eyes forwards. And knelt, calmly. His face devoid of pain, of anger – a soothing monotone. His default, his greatest skill. He cut a length of cloth off of the shirt beneath his armour, and offered it as a bandage.
“Hello, my friend. We’re here, now.”

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

(Collab 2: The Immortal Door)

Left Tunnel Group

_{Collab with @The 42nd Gecko @jasonwolf @Dervish @Captain Jenno}

"I hope whoever designed this place had to find their way out when it was finished being built." Veitaru glared at the obstacle, as she was wont to do.

Noi was the last in the new room. He hadn't been nearly as concerned as the others, and his power remained strained to keep up. The metal man stumbled into the room before falling on his side. Groaning into the floor Noi began to rattle off information at a very high pace. He mostly
repeated numbers occasionaly adding in a word before going right back into another string.

Glancing at the rather unsettling robot for a few moments, Lev huffed, searching the walls for seams, false panels, or even more unpleasant surprises like they'd just survived. "We're in an undead nightmare tomb. Nothing about this is going to make much sense, take it from the ghost. I'm kind of an authority on undeadness." he replied, still feeling rather guilty for not being able to stop the wallmaster that snatched Felicia. Since he wasn't exactly familiar with how one dies and becomes a Poe, since Hyrule would be overrun with them if everyone became one, he'd rather not tempt fate that his new friend was on her way to becoming a Poe, or worse. She wouldn't retain any of her memories, anyways. It wouldn't be Felicia that came back, and that was just downright depressing.

And who was I? Probably some kind of rude idiot, like a town cryer. Lev thought, giving up his search momentarily before turning to the group.

"I'm really down for ideas, here. How do we get Felicia back and find the others? What about that stone thing Lethe sent us after?" he asked, mulling over their options.

"I do not suppose you can just float your hand through the lock and open it from the inside, eh?"

"Yeah, I'm sure whoever built the tomb for dead things didn't expect any ghosts in their dungeon."

Noi suddenly stopped talking. Then the consant whirl that eminated from his body stopped. Finally the robot fell flat on the floor making a loud clunk. It was entirely still lying there like a corpse. then it jerked back to life. The whirl began again, and Noi's voice came back in the empty monotone.

"System Failure: Number Four Hundred and Seven. Log file created. Movement systems 98%, Combat systems 50%, Energy systems 78%, Cognitive systems unknown. Estimated memory damage 10%."

He began to get up onto his feet and survayed the area. It was vaguely familiar. He had no clue where the rusty shield had come from or why he was getting high thermal readings from down the hall. Other things were hazy and fragmented. He knew he traveled here for a reason, and he mostly recognized the organisms around him. He remembered his core memories, but even then some old memories were completely missing now. He wasn't programmed to know how to handle this. Memories were there one second and gone the next. His combat systems began to switch on linked in some way as a response. He grabbed his hammer and charged at the door. He wasn't even sure why he wanted the door gone, but he raised his hammer and bashed it against the door over and over a constant cadence to his swings.

It fell from the ceiling, after the first strike. A cacophonous, clattering collection of ivory, beating sour notes arrhythmically into the ground, a couple dozen all at once. White blurs fell into the party’s view, out of it, and then bounced back up into it again, bones ricocheting back from the floor, spinning gracelessly and then landing with heavy, empty thunks.

There was a long, still silence.

Then, one by one, the bones began to shudder, quaking on the spot and slowly rattling themselves about the place, growing closer as though drawn by invisible threads. Fibulas to tibias, femurs to hips, one by one building themselves up, leaping into one another, parts to build a monstrous whole. Over the course of about fifteen seconds, its true design was to revealed: a skeleton, woven out of cracked old bone.

But this one was different, from those another team elsewhere were facing. For every bone was thick and sturdy, and comprised part of an altogether taller figure. An intimidating figure. A…
Headless figure.
It raised a steady hand, digits folded- impossibly- to form a claw. It raked the space about its neck, and across its shoulder blades. Then, it mimed panic. Threw its arms up into the air impotently, screamed inaudibly towards the ceiling, and then lowered its non-existent face into its hands before it crumpled to its knees, and began pounding at the stone beneath them with its quivering fist.

Bonk!
Down came its head, a near minute late, bouncing around, tuneless and hollow. The body scrambled to chase it, and then hooked it with its foot, and kicked it up onto its welcoming spinal column. It opened a pair of low, green lights, in the space within its sockets. Then it laughed: a dry, rattling laugh. One which shook the ribs in lieu of the lungs. It pushed its bosom out, and took a heroic stance, the backs of its wrists angled stylishly against its hipbones. Then, it raised a hand.
“Halt! No further, foolish mortals!”, he forbade, in entirely the wrong direction. He was making eye contact, of course, in suitably intimidating fashion. The only issue was that his head was on backwards, and his arm was stretched out at his hind, uselessly.
“… Er. Give me a second. I… hm.”

Lev approached, enough to appear to be social, but not enough that the skeleton could reach him. It would be hard pressed to reach something that was well above it. "Oh, don't worry, take your time. You're the first person in this place that is willing to chat, so let's start off with that!" the Poe replied enthusiastically. "See... well, maybe not while you're head's on the wrong way, but I'm Lev, a Poe, and the big machine over there is Noi. Neither of us could really be considered mortals, think of us as aspiring tourists to your, uh, humble abode!" he gestured to Veitaru and Jaege to go scurry off somewhere out of sight before the skeleton figured out his head situation. Maybe it just detected they were there without actually seeing? "So, c'mon, no need for that tone. We're all friends here! What Poe do you know that actually tolerates the stench of living flesh and the nasty bodily functions they perform? Abhorrent, I say.

"Oh, listen to me prattle on! I forgot to ask your name, sir...?"

Noi halted his hammer and turned around. This one he didn’t recognize as anything but a skeleton a moving skeleton. That didnt add up. Frustrated he grabbed the skeleton by the scapula and pulled him close.

"The ragged one may have patience, but I do not. My time may seem unlimited, but I won't have it wasted. Hylia demands my service, and woe be to those who meet my zeal!"

Noi pushed the skeleton back and made a stronger grip on his hammer. While some memories faded it made other move to the forefront. Memories of loss and pain that only pushed Noi further.

Veitaru did not need to be motioned to move away from the scary spooky skeleton, having taken cover behind Jaege.

Jaege on the other hand had some difficulty understanding Lev's gestures. "I do not think sweeping the floor will help, my friend. Also, it is not very nice to insult friends while they are standing next to you. Or at all, I must say. And whoa, Noi, if skeleton friend meant harm, he would have made with the surprise attacking upon us."

Lev buried his face in his hand, shaking his head in disbelief, or perhaps more accurately that he felt he shouldn't have been surprised at how this all was proceeding and was hoping against all odds. "I was trying to see if this guy was willing to help a fellow undead out in finding the stone and tell you two fleshies to hide away so he wouldn't see you. Now we get to watch our zealous robot manhandle our only lead for getting out of here."

Jaege nodded in appreciation of Lev's clarification, "Ah, that is what you intending. I was wondering about the sweeping of the floor.. This makes sense, and explains the insults, I see now the mistake was with me, my friend. I apologize."

"Well I mean," the Stalfos had began, lowering its guard somewhat, "That hardly seems fair, does it? We were all alive once! I think. I don't quite remember. Must have been, though, to have bones! And I- we- overcame that handicap, didn't we? Maybe they could-- hey!"
As Noi shoved him back, the Stalfos stumbled into a cartwheel, with a sort of drunkards grace: not quite an acrobatic prowess, but an impressive degree of tumbling. He rolled back up onto his feet, and dusted his scapula off.
"First of all, rude," he snarked dryly, squinting at Noi with a bitter skepticism, body still angled the wrong way. He took a few moments to lift his head up, turn it, and screw it on the right way, before turning around to face him with indignant body language, but a permanent skull's smile.
"Secondly, I wasn't even looking for a fight! I was trying to warn you. Can't fight you without my sword! I don't even know what sword I'm thinking of, but I know I had one, once!"

"Who needs a sword." There was a undertone as thought Noi was grinning after his words.

He dropped the hammer to one hand and slammed his free hand back into the door making an explosive boom.

"Oooh," the Stalfos threw his arms up in faux fright, "My bones are quaking! I'm already dead, you don't have to bore me, too. I wasn't even talking to you, I was warning the mortals! If I was looking to pick a fight, I would have come down on your head!"

"And we are so happy that you didn't, you look to be rather fierce, doesn't he?" Lev interjected quickly, shooting the others a stare so they'd behave. "Noi, could you please release the gentleman here so he can arrange himself properly? Now, I apologize for how my friends here have reacted, but in our defense, you're the first person or creature we've encountered that hasn't been immediately hostile so everyone is a bit on edge. One of those hands took another one of us, a young Hylian girl. Do you know where she went? And what's this danger you speak of?"

Noi was not amused by the skeleton, but it was right. If it was already dead it probably didn't care if it died. He tried to think and process a better plan, but most of them came down to grinding the thing to dust.

Jaege figured Noi was handling things pretty well and just nodded agreeably in the background. Veitaru continued hiding.

He puffed out his sternum proudly, and if he could have grinned, he would have.
"Why, it's me, of course! Dungeon keeper, human slayer! Servant of all things dark and deadly!", he declared in a tone of glowing pride. A quiet second passed, and then he wilted with a sigh.
"At least, that's the script. But if I'm real honest I don't have the energy. Fighting you guys seems like a real hastle, and I just want to do other things with my unlife, y'know? I've only been awake for a few seconds and I'm tired of all this dreariness. I don't know my own name, or who I was before, but I know one thing. I wasn't meant for a dungeon!"
He posed flamboyantly, one arm outstretched towards an implied sun, the other across his chest, his hand hovering about where his heart might once have been.
"I was meant... to be a star! ... as for your Hylian friend, if the Wallmasters got her, she's probably... no, dead isn't the right word... in the dungeon! Probably. But then, aren't we all?"

"I believe I mentioned not wanting time wasted." Noi grumbled at the skeletons theatrics.

The thing liked to talk more with its hands than head. It did give Noi a new tactical option. The robot lunged forward grabbing the skeletons skull and pulling it off the rest. He held the body at bay with one hand while holding the skull high.

"Get to the point."
Noi cared mostly for his task, but he saw no reason to risk his allies, "Why must the mortals beware?"

"Noi, is very rude to rip off new friend's head while having conversation. Boy, have never had to say that before."

The skull closed the narrow pinpricks of green it had for eyes.
"I don't negotiate with bullies. You're as bad as Ganondorf and half as likeable, do you know that?"
The body didn't fight. Just folded its arms, stubbornly.
"From this point on, I'm only going to talk to the Poe and the big fellow, they seem friendly gents! At least until I get an apology."

"I'm terribly sorry for his poor manners! Noi here's been allegedly asleep, or whichever it is that robots do, for thousands of years so he's a bit..." Lev suppressed a bemused snort. "Rusty. As I have mentioned, it has been a very trying day for us all, so Noi, you apologize to this nice fellow and replace his head. I suspect we'll all get what we want much faster if our new friend here deems us worthy of assistance. Isn't that right... hm. What do we call you? Take it from me, pal, one of the perks of being undead is you get to decide what you call yourself and not being saddled with whatever some irresponsible parent calls you. Like, what kind of sociopath names their kid 'Link'? Imagine all the torment in school."

The skull's eyes lit up again, and there was some spark of thought in their verdant shimmer.
"Hm, what do you call me? It's hard to say! There are so many to pick from, and none of them ring any bells! Do you have a recommendation?"

Name ? [________]

Frustrated as ever Noi pulled the skull close to his helm and growled, "Yorick. Your name is Yorick. We're done. Now stop wasting time or I'm keeping your skull."

The eyes died out again. Not a peep, not a shine.

"I don't think he took to that one. I'm partial to Mufasa." Lev interjected.

Name ? [Mufasa]

Noi shook the skull.

"Not like he was telling us anything useful anyway."
Noi shrugged and put the skull away in his hidden compartment.

Silence ensued. Loud, passive-aggressive silence.

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

ℤ𝕖𝕡𝕙𝕪𝕣𝕦𝕤 𝔸𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕤

“Don’t leave me! Help! Please!”
Zephyrus felt an icy horror about his chest, a cloying dark about his heart - truly, that scream haunted him more than any creature of shadow had. But it was already too late. He tried, in those last few instants, to turn and strike out - a gust of air broke against their attackers' knuckles, but there was too many of them, and no time to spare. He wasn't sure what it was that spurred him on towards helping this loud liability, but on some level deep beneath a carapace of feigned indifference and a practiced calm, the older brother in him cried out. But he could do nothing more than that. On the surface, Zephyrus was mute, save for his parting words. Quiet, soft. Inaudible among the chaos.
“I'm sorry.”
He leapt, backwards, into the false wall.

Archer Anders

Archer felt strange, when Felicia put her arm out in front of him. It was the first fight in a long time, he realised, in which he didn't have Zephyrus for backup. He complied with her, of course, backing away to give her space - waiting until he could stop shrieking and start fighting. But something about the protective gesture made him feel just a little safer, a little more willing to get back into the fray. So long as he had some backup.

He exhaled. Ran a hand through his hair, clotted with curls and sweat, now.
"Calm down, Archer. Where's your head at?"
He took another deep breath. Trying to find his calm, trying to find his fight.
"Alright... alright, I think I'm ready to-"

That was when something else fell out of the ceiling, something small, and strange, scuttling past him and up the bars.
Oh no, they were back.
"aaaAAAAAA"
Archer freaked out. Which might well have been the right move for him to make. Keeping calm, he realised, was something that worked when Zephyrus had his back. But without that rehearsed duality, he thrived best on pure instinct. No calm, running water. No gentle evening breeze. Fire. A huge, churning fire, building in his stomach, in the pit of his gut.
He was spurred on. By fear, by fire, by Felicia and her own display of strength and bravery. As they piled in on her, he jumped, and brought his elbows down on the tops of their heads.
"I'm gonna cremate you boney bastards!"

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

ℤ𝕖𝕡𝕙𝕪𝕣𝕦𝕤 𝔸𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕤

As Lethe took the lead of their journey onto the bridge, Zephyrus used the fabric rag he’d taken from his guandao to wrap his wound. It was red as blood, anyway – and useless indoors, as its only purpose was to guide Zephyrus to the wind.
He tied it tightly, and hoped that would be enough. If not, he would have to ask Archer to look at it later – rudimentary as his knowledge of healthcare was, it was more than Zephyrus was familiar with.

He brought up the party’s rear quietly, head raised and eyes sweeping, skeptical. This temple had partaken of his blood, and the blood of his ancestors, or their enemies, and yet he knew it not. Perhaps he was the first Anders to ever set foot in here, but it seemed just as likely that he was only the most recent.
He stepped past the first blade with ease, movements light and smooth, like a dancer. There was a surprising calm, in these first few moments, but he didn’t put much faith in it. Water can be still one moment, and cresting a wave the other, all at the whims of the wind.

"HAhahahAHAHaHAhAHahaHAAHAHaAHaAHAAhaHAahahahaha!!"
Oh. There it is.
Zephyrus didn’t look back after he’d seen the shadows. Whatever they were, it was irrelevant to him, what mattered was escaping.
He lowered his head, and started forwards at a pace, nearly colliding with the arc of the secondary blade, and blasting himself past it with a sudden rush of air at the last moment. Moving like a dancer, still – twisting around Jillian as he moved, in that instant driven by instinct.
He tried not to panic, he knew himself competent enough to survive in a place like this. He just needed to focus on his footfalls, on such a narrow bridge. Much of it was muscle memory.
He did pray, however, that Archer wasn’t in any sort of similar danger.

Archer Anders

Archer wasn’t sure whether he’d started screaming because of the skeletons, or because Felicia had come swinging at him with her eyes tightly shut, but he did know one thing: he was screaming, and it was loud.
In a sort of frenzied panic, and bouncing off the few moments Felicia had bought him by distracting the closest skeleton, Archer raised his arm and drove his elbow into its jaw with as much might as he could muster – which wasn’t much, given the prior ordeal- then chopped out at the skeleton’s elbow with his other hand, hoping to break its grip on Felicia.
He scrambled hurriedly to his feet, graceless but successful, which was the Archer way.
Then, as his long bout of abject, terrified shrieking passed, Archer jabbed his fingers accusingly at their new attackers, indignant and arrogant, "I am already sick of this place!”

He took a long, shaking breath, brought his arms up into a defensive position, and then threw them down to his sides again, as loops of spitting flame coiled themselves around his fists. Fear gave way to anger, anger at being made to be afraid.
"Bring it, I’m gonna kill you all again! Hya!”
Archer duked into the air, hurling bolts of flame in the direction of the other as yet unattended to skeletons and catching their dry old bones alight.
"Ashes to ashes, dust t- huh?”
However, they kept advancing, burning but unvanquished, each their own smouldering pyre of bone and fire.

Archer was screaming again.

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

I'm gonna say it's unlikely Zephyrus would be the one who gets snatched, given he's sort of on his home turf, on top of being a professionally trained and employed Sheikah warrior, with all the agility that entails. This said, if nobody else fancies it I don't mind going that route for the sake of the plot.

EDIT: Also if it IS Zephyrus then I get to write Archer being super smug about it later, so I'm really good either way.

.:: ℤ𝕖𝕝𝕕𝕒 - 𝕎𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕥𝕙𝕖 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ::.

#1: Chanda seems to be tied up with too many irl things at the moment, so he's out of the picture for now. Captain Jenno will be co-GMing with me again, so... yep! That's a thing.

@Baklava

Yup-yup! Don't touch the jar of jelly beans on my desk everyone, they're just for show.