Ancient Castle of Ikana [Tsubori and Blonde Panther]

Ancient Castle of Ikana
Curse of the Skeleton Kingdom part 2 of 3

Horus, Ikanan swordsman. (3/2/4, Hylian) [Blonde Panther] Reward: +10 Rupees. (Had none, now has 10.)
Luna, Ice Princess (2/4/3) [Blonde Panther] Reward: +40 Rupees. (Had 40, now has 80.)
Phiorra De’Maluin, Positive Priestess (1/5/3) [Tsubori] Reward: Light Priestess level 5, -10 Rupees.
Music for this Dungeon Thread.

Luna was second to crawl out of the well, after Phiorra. She didn't sense anything about to chop her head off, so she took her time standing straight and tapping her feet on the ground in a vain attempt to get the gunk from the tunnels off her boots. She heard Horus coming up behind her but ignored him for the moment being as she looked around.

The ancient, but not yet ruined, castle of Ikana stood at least three or four floors tall, the frescoes that had once covered the walls worn and chipped. The construction itself was more stable than its age would imply, although all that remained of its secondary defenses were the pillars which had once supported the wooden defense walls and a dried-out moat. At least the bridge over it was still intact.

"Still no Stalfos in sight?" Luna didn't turn around when she heard Horus' voice as he came to the surface. "This is just getting more frustrating with the second." He took his sweet time before walking past her, looking and pointing at the entrance. "Gate's open. Bridge's down. Almost a little too easy, don't you think?" In fairness, Luna (and if she knew him, Horus as well) thought they had right to have something go easily for them for once, but he was right. It was suspicious.

"I'm not sensing anything but that doesn't have to be definitive," the redhead said. "There's two things we can do. Go in or make a quick round of the premises first. Personally I don't care for being attacked in the back. What say you girls?"

"We're here to ask His Majesty why there are only Redeads in the valley lately," Luna said, "Not to fight his men." She had seen Horus had already put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Knowing the swordsman, he'd attack the first thing he spotted, alive or undead. "It'd probably be best to go in."

Phiorra climbed up with the others, looking around at the castle. It was in pretty major disrepair, though she supposed Ikana was like that in general. When her companions mentioned stalfoses, the priestess frowned. "Stalfoses? We'd better be careful then, I've heard they're very fearsome warriors..."

On the issue of the bridge being down, she only tilted her head slightly while giving her two cents. "Well, I more or less just want to get this done quickly. We're already tired and hurt, so I don't think we'd do well to be in many more fights."

Horus sighed. "Fine, so we go in. Don't come crying at my feet if we get attacked in the back." As soon as he gave the confirmation, Luna walked towards the entrance of the castle, not bothering to wait for her companions. They'd follow her- they always did. And sure enough, shortly after crossing the bridge, she heard Horus' voice behind her.

Probably responding to what Phiorra had said about Stalfos before. "Well, yeah. The main thing with Stalfos is that they're, you know? Dead. You can't really kill something that's not even alive. Fortunately they're civilized. It's Redead and Gibdos you gotta watch for, not Stalfos."

The redhead stretched his arms above his head, his fingers woven together, until he felt his back crack. "'s Why we're so worried, ya know? Nothing but Redead out there lately. We're kinda wondering what the heck is up with that, so we want to ask His Majesty about it." He followed Luna inside the castle. "If anyone knows what's going on in here, it's him. Luns?"

Luna didn't even bother correcting him this time. "Redead." She looked at the center of the hall they had entered. She'd ducked behind a pillar, and just in time, too. In the center of the room, in front of a block with a sun symbol on it, was a group of four Redead. She saw Horus following her example, pulling Phiorra into the shadows with him, but she feared it was already too late.

"What was their vision based on again?" Horus hissed to her, "Movement?"

"Shut up," she said. "They're blind. Redead locate their prey based on hearing."

Phiorra was befuddled from that statement Horus and Luna had made. "But... What? The king of Ikana is a.... Stalfos? Where i'm from, any Stalfos you encounter will kill you on the spot without a thought otherwise... Are they really that much different here?"

She stopped with the others though when they encountered the redeads. "I have an idea... It's a... Special technique." she whispered, drawing and arrow. She closed her eyes for a moment, light swirling to the tip of her arrow. When she fired it at the closest Redead, the light pierced it's flesh, a massive scream ringing out as the area around the wound began to ripple and pulse in burning.

All it took was that one shot to send the monster to the ground, it falling over almost immediately. The priestess repeated the process twice more, but on the last Redead, it let loose a terrifying scream before she could fire, freezing her as it crept closer. In truth, Phiorra found she wasn't afraid. She knew her companions would be powerful enough to stop it.

After Phiorra took out three Redeads with three shots, the last one moved to attack her. It had not counted on the solid one hundred and forty pounds of frustrated redhead that suddenly slung themselves at it, throwing it to the ground. Horus shrugged some rotting meat off of his shoulder, but prepared his sword while the Redead got back to its feet, moaning.

Just before he knew the undead would scream to freeze him, Horus released the power he'd built up in his weapon. Turning on one foot, Horus spun 360 degrees, sending waves of pure power extending from his weapon and pushing the Redead back. Then, using the strange capability to jump like a Tektite he had somehow acquired on his way here, he leapt over the monster, commencing a barrage of cuts and slices.

By the time the pieces of Redead hit the ground, he had already sheathed his sword and walked back to where he sensed the girls. "Good shots," he said to Phiorra. "I got the last one. Little light? It's freakishly dark in here." The block with the sun on it gave a little light on its own, which had been enough to tell the Redead apart with, but other than that the three didn't see much.

Phiorra smiled as Horus defeated the last Redead, then knelt and yet again prayed for their fallen souls. Afterwards, Horus complimented her, to which she replied with a tilt of her head and a pleased curtsy. "Thank you sir Horus, you certainly took care of your Redead as well." 

When the redhead asked her to use illumination, she happily obliged. Focusing on her magic, light soon flooded the room and allowed them to see the entire contents of it. "So I asked Lady Luna earlier but she err... Disregarded the question. I asked her how you two survived out here alone. Everything I've heard of this area is that those who live here don't for long. But you two have spent your whole lives here. Oh! And second question. I've been getting funny vibes since I saw you two, so it begs the question be asked. Are you two dating?"

Horus looked around as Phiorra lit up the room. It was largely bland, a generic entry hall to a castle in state of disrepair. He rested his hand on a pillar, testing its stability. Luna, of course, had long since determined that it had to be stable, because otherwise the ceiling would be falling on their heads now.

"We're not alone. Bertrand and Frederick live with us... but Freddy is wounded, that's why he's not here with us. And it's our policy to split up into groups of two. Make sure you're NEVER alone in a land like Ikana. If you ration yourselves, you can actually survive on what you can forage together... the occasional Guay tastes like a godsend... fighting Redead keeps you in shape, the Stalfos leave you alone and you only have to fear Poes if they feel like pulling pranks."

He looked around once more, noticing the ice-encased eye switches on the pillars near the center of the room. "Still, I hope Freddy's going to recover soon. You don't want to get infected around here..."

And that was when Phiorra asked him. He turned beet red, almost as badly as his hair. "Luna and I are most definitely not dating. You don't 'date' in Ikana. Even if the Stalfos are civilized, it's still dangerous and going out is not high on our priority list. T-the reason Luna and I always team up is because our abilities complement each other well and because Luna needs special attention she won't accept from Freddy and Bertrand."

"Horus," Luna said, drawing his attention, "If we can chip the ice off, I think the eye switch should open something up. You have your crossbow, right?"

"Luns," Horus said in response, happy to have some distraction from the embarrassed topic, "Do you know how many bolts that will take?"

With a short giggle, Phiorra tilted her hear and smiled kindly. "Well... In that case, why don't you move someplace safer? Hyrule Castle Town is a great place to live, and oh, you should SEE the food! It's so good! Well... I suppose I made an assumption. Is there something keeping you in Ikana that you want to stay here for?"

When Horus mentioned needing many bolts for the ice covered switch Luna was talking about, she simply waved her hand over his crossbow, giving it a light enchantment. "There! It will definitely add to the impact, if not actually melting the ice."

Well... he supposed. Taking his crossbow to hand and loading it, he jolted up as a shiver went across his back. Something was getting close. And it wanted to hurt them. He hesitated, but then shot a light-enchanted bolt into the ice. With the warm light shingin from it, it was all he needed to melt a path towards the switch and activate it. Most of the ice was still on it, but Horus' goal had not been to melt it all off.

The Ikanans' attention was immediately drawn to their left, where the sound of steel scraping against stone could be heard. Luna was the first to spot the door, although she, too, sensed that something was behind it that intended them harm. Waiting for Horus to roll the door to a side and go in first, she took his hand as she followed him into the room on their left.

This one was better lit than the hall, but there were also five Stalfos in it. Horus wanted to go towards them, undoubtedly to ask them the way to the throne room, but Luna squeezed his hand and tried to pull him back. "They're hostile," she reminded him.

Her assertion surprised him. "Luns, listen, my Sense is going through the roof as well, but these are His Majesty's men..."

"Will you stop talking nonsense?" she said, "there's nothing even touching the ceiling, and how many times must I remind you it's LunA?"

"Stop shouting at me-"

"INTRUDERS!" The two immediately shut up when the five Stalfos turned around. They drew swords and raised shields, a sign Horus interpreted as hostility. So his and Luna's Sense was NOT off.

"Bring them down," he said to Phiorra, putting his crossbow away and drawing his sword instead, "And separate the skull from the rest once they are down. Their bodies will waste precious time looking for the skulls, time we can use to get to the door at the other end of the room."

Phiorra hesitated when Horus said to take them out. She had just found out the stalfoses were intelligent, non-murdering people, and then everything the Ikanan said was reversed when the skeleton warriors drew arms and came to kill them. Phiorra drew back over to the door, trying to distance herself. The girl knew for fact that she wasn't powerful enough to even have a chance against a single stalfos in melee combat. 

With the knowledge that they were normally sentient, civilized beings, Phiorra couldn't bring herself to use light arrows. That would kill them, as undead beings, and she didn't want that. She fired a normal arrow at a nearby stalfos, drawing him over as she spammed more of her deadly projectiles. It was running towards her fast, blocking her shots with it's shield. 

Phiorra's heart rate increased, her breathing growing heavy as the skeletal warrior swept horizontally for a decapitation. The priestess ducked down, firing an arcane bolt up at it's head, popping the skull off. From there she rocked her leg backwards, gaining momentum as she kicked the head as far across the room as she could. Unfortunately, her footwear wasn't built for kicking solid objects and a loud sickening crack rang out from her foot. "Agh!" She yelled, immediately leaning down and clutching her foot. 

Seeing Phiorra's hesitation, Horus pushed back a shield with his sword and turned around. "Don't worry. The only way to truly kill them is to use Light magic or to somehow break the curse that keeps them moving. Taking their heads off only incapacitates them for a little while until they can see what they're doing again- I don't think it even hurts them."

At the same time, Luna pulled out her dagger and slammed it upwards into the skull of an enemy. The skull came off effortlessly, so she spun around, ice enchanting her leg and slamming it into the skeleton's shin to slow its progress in finding its head. "See?" Horus pointed, slashing upwards to block an incoming sword strike, as Luna's enemy started walking around looking for its head.

The redhead decided to just make short work of things, running at a Stalfos that targeted Luna, leaping up and landing a vicious -and the narrator does mean vicious- flying kick to the back of the skull. It was sent soaring, slammed into the nearest wall and bounced back slightly, where Horus kicked it to the other end of the room so his foe would take a while finding it.

"Two more," he shouted. "Luna, you handle the skull control! Make sure they don't find their head anymore, I don't care how you do it! Phiorra, you and I are handling the last two!" They could technically make a run for it, but the skeletons would just pursue them...

Phiorra looked incredulously at Horus when he said that she still needed to take more down. "Wh-what? Sir Horus! I think... I think I broke something!" 

Unfortunately, this brought the attention of one of the stalfoses, she came over for an easy kill. Phiorra grabbed her bow, firing three or four shots until she bit her lip hard. They had all deflected off of bones and done no damage. The priestess didn't want to die... Not here.  

"I'm sorry..." she said, focusing her power on the shot. Light energy swirled around her arrowhead and just as the stalfos went to slash her, Phiorra fired, the light hitting her attacker and making him collapse lifeless to the ground. If what Horus had said was true, she really felt horrible about what she'd just done. 

The last Stalfos didn't focus its attacks on Phiorra, but on the uninjured and more ruthless Horus. Dodging away from the sword, Horus threw his leg up but hit air. This Stalfos was more nimble and seemed a bit less sturdy than the others... a female? Did Stalfos have genders? Horus decided not to waste too much time on it, catching a blow on his sword and pushing back.

Meanwhile, Luna picked up the skulls Horus had thrown at her feet, not really caring which Stalfos they came from, and threw them to varying corners of the room. She figured that if she didn't know which head belonged to which body, neither did they. She saw Phiorra exorcising one of the skeletons while Horus' sword managed to connect with the last one and send it sprawling backwards. Horus kicked the skull loose, and when Luna stepped closer to him, she suddenly found her wrist grabbed.

"Let's go!" Horus shouted as he seized the priestess as well and dragged both girls with him, "I'm not going to linger here!"

Pain shot through Phiorra's leg as Horus made her run through the room into the next. "Ah! OW!" Every step brought searing pain into the girl, so the second they were in the safety of the next room, she let go of Horus' hand and collapsed to the ground onto her rear.

"S-sir Horus... I... I think I broke something..." She pulled off her shoe and even through her stockings, she could see that two toes were snapped by the kick. Taking off her stocking and putting it in her bag for now, Phiorra took out her first aid kit and tried to wrap the injury herself. Due to the strange angle, however, she kept messing up.  

Horus watched as Phiorra fumbled with her first aid, eventually clucking his tongue and handing his sword to Luna. "Hold this. And you, come here." He then knelt next to the priestess and batted her hands away, snatching the bandage roll from her hand and quickly rolling off a part that seemed long enough to him. Lacking something hygienic to cut it with, he just used pure strength to rip the part loose from the roll and pulled out a small bottle of clear water.

All this took just a few seconds, after which he pulled Phiorra's leg closer to him quickly, but carefully. "Seriously. For a priestess you're awfully slow with your first aid." He then quickly but securely wrapped the girl's toes and foot, using the water from his bottle as substitute glue for the bandage so it wouldn't come loose.

The result was an improvised but good pressure bandage that should suffice as long as Phiorra didn't overexert herself and she kept her shoe on. Horus leapt back to his feet, taking his sword back from Luna and handing the bandage back to Phiorra as the ice mage helped her up.

"Can we please get a move on now? In case you hadn't noticed, every guard in this castle is trying to change our race to Stalfos. Or worse, Redead."

Phiorra cringed as Horus took her foot. It was as she thought... Under that rough Ikanan survivor exterior was a sweet, kind man. He then commented on her being slow with first aid. "Oh... That's just on myself... I've never had to do that... I can actually make a full arm splint in forty seconds... Not that that's useful now... Sorry, I'm rambling again, aren't I?" 

She let herself get helped up, her leg feeling a lot better. She would still be limping a bit, but once she got back to the temple, the injury would be gone in no time. What they often did was take the injuries of one priestess and disperse it amongst many. An arm slash is only so bad when divided amongst twenty people.

She nodded to Horus, looking up the hall. "Where to now? We're just going towards the throne room, right? And what if the king is like this too?"

Phiorra brought up a... really good point. And one that neither Horus nor Luna had thought about. If King Igos was under the influence of whatever was driving his subjects to this hostility... "If that's the case," Horus said, "then we're pretty much screwed. His Majesty is an unusual kind of Stalfos and a pretty good swordsman. He'd give us a run for our money."

Luna gave him a confused look, wondering how much money they'd have to run for and what rupees had to do with Igos du Ikana trying to kill them. "The throne room was blocked by that block with the sun on it," the ice mage said, "So we'll have to find a way around that..." She then started walking towards a door leading outside, to a balcony. She hadn't even noticed they had gained altitude over the course of the past two rooms.

Walking outside and sniffing the fresh air once more, she looked around, orientating herself. "The throne room is there," she said, looking at the room making up the third floor. "It has a high ceiling. We could conceivably go in through there." However, there was a fence in the way, so climbing in through the window was impossible. Not to mention the fall would probably kill them.

Horus pulled himself up on the fence and pointed. "Hey. The roof's been patched up. Sloppy work though." After giving the mess on the roof a good hard look, he nodded and laughed. "If we can find an explosive of sorts or hit it with enough force ourselves, we can get down into the hall. Maybe we'll land on top of that block, letting us climb over it."

Phiorra followed the Ikanans aimlessly. All she had to go on was the direction the evil was in, and how close. That didn't help in how to get there. At the very least, it seemed as if Horus and Luna had been here, thus knew their way around. 

When they saw the fence, Phiorra just pointed to Horus' feather. "Sir Horus! Just use the feather like you did in the well!" She gently climbed onto his back for him to jump across, holding his shoulders tightly. "Oh wow... You've got such muscly shoulders!"

"Of course I do," Horus said after hoisting Phiorra up his shoulders, "You don't fight for years on an end without developing SOME muscles. Luna, will you be okay?" The mage didn't respond, having already set to clambering over the fence. As she swung one leg over the rusted, but still sturdy, steel, Horus assumed a crouching position from which jumping would be easy.

It didn't take either of them more than a few seconds to get over the fence and near the patched-up part of the roof. "Well, now what?" Horus said, realizing none of the three had anything on them to get rid of the stuff. "it's sloppy, but is there an easy way to get it off?"

Luna, meanwhile, had crouched and investigated it. It was sturdily attached to what of the roof was still intact, and it could actually probably carry the three of them. "The standard idea," she said. "I freeze it. You smash the ice with the boarding in it." Just as she directed her palm at the target, though, she heard cackling.

"I don't think so, lassie." Two Stalfos, bigger than the ones they had fought before, approached. They were on the other side of the fence, but both carried bows. "Yer trapped there now. I don't see you livin' people gettin' away anytime soon." The first Stalfos drew his bow, but the second took his time. When Horus leapt out of the way of the first projectile, Phiorra still on his back, he didn't really pay attention to anything else.

Luna, however, dodged in the opposite direction while looking what took the other one so long. And she saw that he pulled a small bomb-like item from a pouch around his pelvis, and proceeded to attach it to an arrow. ...that might be a simpler solution...

Phiorra was still on Horus' back as he jumped to dodge the arrow. She saw the stalfos archers and knew she had to retaliate. "Sir Horus! Keep jumping around! I'll hit them!" 

She put a hand forward, summoning her magic to it. Sparks gathered as an arcane bolt was fired, the ball hitting the stalfos with the normal arrows and blowing it's leg off. An arrow whizzed by the priestess' head as it toppled over, making her fear what would have happened if she hadn't hit there..." She then charged her next shot up, hoping the other wasn't a good shot...

((Bunny the spell for your own devious purposes))