Ancient Cistern [Blonde Tsuill]

It was like the carnival, only prettier and more on fire! Loft giggled and danced in place as the two parties clashed and twirled, cackling as Luna reluctantly entered the fray. "Kick him," he shrieked, waving his hands around madly and jumping from left to right. "Bite him, scratch him, kill the oppressor! Slice, cut, freeze, bad man bad lady bad bad bad!"

Suddenly, something slammed silently into the back of Loft's head. His unconscious body was sent hurtling away into the gloom, disappearing into the folds of shadows lying all around them. At the same time, two more distortions ripped through the air towards the backs of Horus and Chimera's heads. Bending the very air around them as they went, they would silently knock the two enraged warriors unconscious, leaving only the clear-headed still awake.

"Enough!" Marcus cried, even as he swayed and fell to the ground. He had known it was too risky, known that he was not yet recovered enough to cast such magic, and even if he had been fully rested, three blasts would have nearly depleted his reservoirs of power. His magic spent, his life-force reduced to the barest flicker, he collapsed into the cold earth floor. "Enough," he said again, the word slurring into non-being as his vision blurred and his spirit faded into the warm embrace of Farore once more.

((Just clarifying before I get a PM; no, Marcus is not *quite* dead, and no, those two blasts don't have to connect))

Chimera saw Horus come in with a counter attack, as well as seeing Luna making some sort of motion. Regardless, Chimera used helm splitter to jump up lightning fast, dodging over not only Horus, but also two incoming spells.

She landed back down, seeing Marcus falling over. She immediately ran to his side, looking around to make sure none of the others were going to attack him in unconsciousness. 

This time, it was Horus' turn to hit the ground. Marcus' spell had hit him in the back of his head, somewhere he hadn't had his guard up. It had been enough to knock him out, and Luna momentarily forgot there was still a foe ready to cut her up. Instead of seeing to it Chimera didn't attack Horus further, Luna dropped all pretenses of attack in favor of seeing to Horus. He hadn't fallen that hard, at least not compared to that time he'd chased a Poe of a small cliff near the river, but Luna wanted to make sure Marcus' attack hadn't done any lasting damage.

Inspecting the back of the red-haired head, Luna ended up concluding Horus was not hurt in any way- he'd succeeded in nullifying Chimera's opening blow and after that she hadn't gotten a chance to get another attack in. The ice mage sighed in relief, stroking her protector's face. Sometimes she wished he wouldn't be so very reckless and unreasonable. She was grateful for his dedication towards her, but he put himself at needless risk to protect her from things she didn't need to be protected from.

That being thought, Luna did know that there was really only one instigator in this entire conflict. Although unwilling to leave Horus unattended, she looked over her shoulder to glare at Loft, who had seemed very keen on watching at least one of the Ikanans die.

((Both of my characters are unconscious. You can keep going. I'll keep posting every cycle.))

Chimera glared at Luna, keeping her sword out. She placed a power beam as a warning a mere meter from her. She didn't know how to check Marcus' medical state, but she was sure he was okay. It was more important keep Horus in line. "If he try hurt Marcus again... I finish what start here."

Luna ignored what the savage said, turning back to Horus and stroking his hair. She now realized how fortunate they had been to have lived in Ikana with a small group. She didn't want to know how Horus would have turned out if he hadn't had company- a combined mental image of him and the Gerudo woman did nothing to set the Ice Mage's mind at ease.

Horus, in the meanwhile, slowly clawed his way back to consciousness, viciously pounding away everything trying to keep him asleep on the ground. "Oof..." he managed to utter, "Was that really necessary..." Remembering where he was and finding his head resting on Luna's upper legs, he sat up, grabbing her by the shoulders brusquely. "Luna! Are you okay? I've been out for a while- did anyone hurt you? I swear, if anything happened to you I'll- ow." Luna didn't have the immense strength the men usually in their company had, but her landing her fist on Horus' head had somehow managed to stop his stream of instinctive overprotectiveness. "Please don't turn into Bertrand."

"I'm fine, Horus. But you need to stay in control of yourself." It was the umpteenth time Horus had snapped, and Luna didn't want to worry about him anymore. "Bertrand and Frederick are not always going to be here to stop you from getting hurt."

"It'll be fine," Horus said, getting up. "I'm made of tough stuff. Did you say there was something dangerous?" Now that he had been out cold for a bit, it appeared that he was calm and sane again.

"Yes." Luna followed his example, standing up and taking his hand. "Do you recall when you said the skull and crossbones on the map meant danger? You were correct. I'm sensing hostility further down the road."

"What, in there?" Horus pointed at the tunnel leading deeper yet into the complex. Luna only looked at his hand blankly, before shaking her head.

"Down that tunnel," she said, unable to comprehend the meaning of his pointing as usual. "Should we wait for Marcus to wake up before we go in?"

Horus chuckled. "What's this? Have you suddenly gone soft because we have a healer in our midst now, Luns?" He shook his head. "We don't need them. I think Crazy Stacy proved that if anything they're a liability and they're going to go after our throats the moment we step out of line."

Luna wasn't sure she agreed on that as far as Marcus went, but for Chimera and Loft's cases, he was right. "You're right, Horus. Let's go, then." Letting him squeeze her hand a little harder and lead the way further down the tunnel, Luna glared at Loft's unconscious body and considered walking over him, only refraining from it because Horus was moving too quickly.

(( Makes me wonder what Luna would have done to Loft's unconscious body o.O ))

Bubbles. Bubbles everywhere! Floating and bouncing, glowing and dreamy and buzzing like a billion bees bzz bzz bzz and oh! oh! oh! The sword of ancient bed-times was stolen no dreams nightmare-moon and aaaaah! Loft save us! oh sure I'll be right there and mmmmm cocoa lots of chocolate Jell-O chocolate jell-O yes yes yes mmm...

Something cold nuzzled against his head. Chocolate jell-O shimmered and faded, replaced by cold hard ground and cold nuzzling. No, no, jell-O, come back!

Fire flared up in Loft's ear, and he screamed and jerked upright. Not all the flowers had been killed; one was gnawing hungrily into his earlobe! Loft's knife hissed through the air and severed the petals from the stem, but his ear was already bleeding.

"Marcus?" He asked, looking around blearily. "Can I get a healing here?"

Chimera looked at loft when he woke up. The Gerudo didn’t really understand that he’d actually been playing Horus and Chimera against eachother, so she helped him to his feet, picking up Marcus and putting him over her shoulder, following Horus and Luna. Chimera didn’t trust them at all, much less if they left her sight. She turned to the Hylian, motioning to follow. “Not wake up yet. May be while. Follow, we not let them try anything.”

She followed behind them by a couple meters of distance, one hand on her sword, the other holding Marcus stable on her shoulder. Her downright Amazonian strength let Chimera carry the boy with ease, not slowed down much at all. She was just waiting for something from the two in front of her… Some scheme, or an ambush.

Now, the cynical Horus was not easily impressed anymore. However, when he and Luna reached the end of the hallway, what lay at the end of it silenced him completely. Before the two Ikanans lay a massive, brightly colored wall, in greens and golds and even hues of pinks. The entire wall was painted in the resemblance of a lily pad supporting a lotus flower, not unlike several specimens they had seen on the upper levels of the dungeon.

However, in the middle of the wall, there was a hole. It wasn't very big, but leave it to Luna to notice small details while Horus was too busy gawking at the big picture. She walked over to the wall, touching her hand to the hole in the middle and tracing its outline. Retracting her hand, she took the statuette once more and turned it so she could look at the bottom. It was painted in the same colors as the wall, as well as a pattern that looked like it could complement that on the wall.

By now, Horus noticed what Luna was up to. "You think it's supposed to go in there?"

"Yes. We were distracted by the figure of the man, but the most important part is the pedestal he sits on..." She held up the statuette, aligning it with the wall, and started turning it clockwise until the painting on the bottom lined up with that on the wall, as well as the shape of the bottom filling the hole. "It should fit like this..." As she put it in, nothing seemed to happen at first.

"What the hell," Horus said, reaching forwward and grabbing the statuette, feeling that the entire section of the wall that it was in was unattached to the rest. "Huh." He slowly turned the statuette sideways...

And then the entire section retracted into the wall, causing the tunnel to rumble. Horus grabbed Luna, to the Ice Mage's surprise, but calmed down when he saw that the wall was in fact not a wall but a door, and the rumbling was caused by it opening. After the lengthy process of the door working its halves open, the two Ikanans simply stood there for a few seconds, staring into the depths of the void behind it. Without light, they didn't see what lay behind the door... but their Sense told them enough.

Loft squealed and clapped his hands with glee. He did a little dance and followed after Chimera. "I'm so excited, we'll be like... like... ninjas! Yea, that's it, ninjas! Isn't that cool, Chimera? Huh? Huh?" His head bobbed like a caramel apple floating in uncongealed jell-O, but stopped as abruptly as if a spider monkey had reached in and fwish! swiped it out. The wall before them must have been feeling that way, too; it looked like, like, like the wall WAS the apple! The spider-monkey had obviously taken a huge bite out of it, and now... now Loft could see the truth.

"That owl was wrong," he hissed to Chimera, "it only takes one bite to get to the center of a caramel apple!" He looked apprehensively ahead of them. "Time to enter the stickily delicious depths, Chimera?"

Chimera looked confusedly at Loft. Some... Mentioning of owls and apples? Chimera took a spot next to Horus and Luna, placing down Marcus. "Hold, healer wake up before continue." She eyes Horus before stting Marcus against the wall and bringing her head down towards his, looking at him from only a foot away.

She lightly smacked the side of his face, hoping to wake him up. "Marcus!" She tilted her head a little, hoping he'd wake up. Always she kept the corner of her vision on Horus. She didn't trust him at all. Any further provocation and she'd rip his throat from his neck. "What in next room?"

"With his build, it could take hours before he wakes up," Horus said to Chimera, pointing his thumb at Marcus. "I'm not waiting for that when my sixth sense is going off like a Redead's screech. Besides, every second I can shave off of the time I need to spend with the three of you can be the second that saves my sanity."

Luna didn't even hear him. She was too focused on what lay before her, in the abyss. She took her new whip to hand and lashed into the darkness a few times, finally feeling resistance. When she pulled the weapon back, the end was wrapped around an extinguished torch which flew straight towards her. Any other person would have been hit clean in the face by it, but Luna had been exposed to Horus' kind of fighting for a long time and she had been focused. She stuck out her left hand to grab the wooden club before it hit her face, breaking it free from the whip's grip.

Remembering that Marcus had a magical flame, she walked over to where Chimera had put him on the ground and started to search his pockets, soon finding the candle. It erupted into cold flame the second Luna grabbed it, and she idly noted that the flame appeared to be a little bigger than it had been when Marcus had used it. She used the candle to light the torch, and once the latter was blazing, she put the candlestand on the ground next to the healer. The blue flame died down immediately after leaving her hands, and she walked back to Horus, offering him the torch.

"Cold," he complained, but he took the thing. "Warn me when you sense anything. The three of you can follow whenever. Or leave us alone I guess. Whichever works." He then walked into the inky darkness first... and immediately learned that the torch did nothing to alleviate the darkness. He could vaguely see Luna's face, and she was right next to him, squeezing his hand. Maybe she didn't see anything either.

The dark tunnel could not have been longer than a few yards, but it felt like miles to Horus. When he finally emerged on the other side, he realized that he was back in a gold-plated, warm area, and the cold flame suddenly didn't feel so uncomfortable anymore. "Did we go up a flight of stairs in there?"

"We spent scarcely a minute in the darkness," Luna immediately retaliated. "If anything, we were transported up here by magic... But I sensed nothing. Do you think the area could have been muted?"

"Muted?" Horus repeated, sounding stupefied. "What are you talking about?"

"...nothing. Forget I said that." She decided to not pursue the issue. She seemed to remember someone telling her about muting- creating an area and casting magic over it such that all senses, including the sixth, ceased functioning altogether. That was why she had squeezed Horus' hand as hard as she could in there; it was the only way for her to feel his hand, and she had wanted the guarantee that he was still there with her. "...I'm sorry, Horus."

Horus brought his left hand up to his face, seeing that he was bleeding out of a number of small cuts, where Luna's nails had penetrated the skin. "That's okay. I just want to get rid of whatever is causing this headache."

"Hey!" Loft yelled at Luna. "Leave him alone!" The little thief was rooting around his pockets! How dare she? Loft started towards Luna angrily, intending to rip her away, but somehow, he was unable to interfere. It was as if the universe itself wasn't allowing him to keep Luna from getting that candle. He glared angrily at Luna as she walked pompously back to Horus- it must have been her magic tricksy little mage she'd pay yes she'd pay- and began a conversation.

He stepped through the darkness and emerged into a warm room, one covered with gold and shiny stuff. Pillars stretched up all around him, crimson snakes winding around bright gold. At the center of the room sat an unmoving statue made of-

Loft's breath hissed. Gold. Solid gold statue. Rubies for eyes. Axes inlaid with silver and jems. He rushed forward- he had to have it. He would take his knives and carve out those rubies if he had to.

Chimera saw the others walking into the large room, seeing the massive golden statue in the middle. It was.... So bizarre... Why would a person have six arms? But that material... It must have been hard and durable. Looking around the room, Chimera saw it was just as extravagant, with many pillars circling the room. Chimera walked in, carrying Marcus and setting him down near the entrance of the room. Still Chimera held her blade, staring at the massive golden golem.

"Not like statue. Loft, keep back from." She didn't leave Marcus' side though.

Out of the Ikanans, Luna was first to take note of the six-armed, golden golem in the middle of the room that Loft was running in the direction of. It was mesmerizing, but when Luna stepped forward, she suddenly found Horus' arm in her way. "It doesn't feel right," the redhead muttered to himself, but clearly audible to his partner. "Something's off about this place. I..." He interrupted himself with a curse when the golem sprung to life, throwing one of its axes at Loft.

Fortunately for the crazy Hylian, Horus was incredibly fast with his reaction, whipping his wrist up and conjuring up two needles to throw at the axe. The long and thin weapons connected, not knocking the axe back but slowing it down enough that it clattered on the ground in front of Loft. "Luna, analysis," he said, preparing his crossbow and stepping forward. Luna, on the other hand, stepped back, preparing herself to observe the golem and find out its weak spot so that Horus may tear it apart.

"Crazy Stacy!" Horus called over his shoulder, "My normal wall isn't here! I want you in the front while I shoot it! Make yourself useful!"

Chimera's warning floated like butterfly droppings all around Loft's ears. He ignored them; they were a lot less shiny than the golden rubied beautiful hunk of gorgeousness sitting before him.

Flash! Flash! Bink-bink! THUNK! Loft blinked, his mouth dropping open. "Thanks!" He called over to Horus, his voice a little shaky. The golden statue may be absolutely fabulous, but that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous.

"Wait," Loft said, glancing between himself and Chimera. "Which one of us are you talking to?" His feet dithered and dathered, wanting to act, but not wanting to act wrongly. Oh, he wished Marcus were awake! He'd tell him what to do, really plain-and-simple like. No messy words or mett-ah-fours to confuzzle his mind and turn his thoughts to pixie dust.

Chimera dashed forward, not really hearing much of, Horus' commands. Regardless of what he had said, she'd be on the front lines. As she reached Loft, he was turned back towards Horus, saying some thing or another. In that time, the great golden golem started bringing a fist down hard to crush the Hylian. Chimera put her shield up, catching the fist with all her strength. She gave a primal scream as she threw the massive hand back upwards, launching two power beams at the wrists.

Even the seemingly unthinking automoton Koloktos seemed to be surprised by this, hesitating for a moment before lobbing both axes at the Gerudo, who jumped over them, slashing her sword at it's torso. Unfortunately, she'd been right before. The surface was way too hard, causing her blade to just bounce off. Thinking quickly, she used a helm splitter to get onto one of the shoulders, then another to reach the neck, slashing at that. Again, same result. And this time, the thing grabbed Chimera, throwing her back over towards her companions. As she neared the ground, she stopped entirely in midair and pointed her foot down, cancelling all movement to zip straight down without much impact. "Skin.... Very hard. Cut not work."

"Nevermind," Horus said, groaning. The Gerudo proved to be as fearless as she was dangerous, rushing right into the fray so that Horus could stay back and shoot at the golden golem, instead. However, unlike Chimera, Horus did not attack blindly. While waiting for Luna to finish her analysis and tell him where to shoot, he himself observed the movements of the golem. He couldn't hope to match Luna's skill at observation, but something very glaringly stood out at him.

"It's covering something," he heard Luna mutter to herself, before jolting at the sound of her whip cracking against the ground. She then leapt forward, and Horus knew she was on to something. Luna never advanced until she was absolutely certain that her plan would work, so Horus advanced next to her, lowering his crossbow so he could run better. Unsurprisingly, Luna lashed forward with her whip... but surprisingly, it got caught on something.

Although one could easily be distracted by the four arms trying to kill the foursome, in her unperturbed calm, the Ice mage had seen two more arms that were covering something on its abdomen. Horus had seen this, too, but Luna had seen MORE. Where the automaton's elbows were supposed to be were cores of pulsating dark energy, on which Luna's whip had gotten caught. She jerked the weapon back, breaking the core in two, and sure enough, the next thing they heard was a lot of loud clanking of gold on stones.

One of the lower arms had fallen off, but the other hand was still covering the abdomen. To make matters worse, the golem now redirected its attention to Luna, throwing one of its axes at her and simultaneaoulsy attempting to punch her from the other side.

With a crossbow bolt to the elbow, Horus managed to stop the punch, but he couldn't stop the axe in time, and Luna screamed as she wasn't fast enough to dodge and struck in the left arm.

"Mine!" Loft screeched. He dashed forward and grabbed the fallen arm. "Oh," he cried, running a hand along its golden beauty, "oh, oh!" On the verge of happy tears, he turned and made to drag it towards where Marcus lay. However, no matter how he pulled and tugged, he couldn't budge it. "Stupid gold," he puffed, "move!"

Someone screamed, and Loft looked up. Luna's arm was bleeding really, really badly. Loft giggled slightly (the witch got what she deserved oh yes the Goddesses obviously loved him more) and turned his attention back to the golem thing. Its hand was covering it- why? Loft's amazing treasure-sniffer flared and he snif-sniffed for signs of golden goodies. Yes, yes! It was hiding something, something valuable! Loft like valuable things!

The witch had gotten the other arm down by snapping the elbow- maybe he could do the same and get to the valuables? Uh-oh, his warning senses were going off! He threw himself into a backwards flip, glad of his thief training as a fist slammed into the ground where he had just been standing. Looked like the golem had gotten uncomfortable with Loft being up in its personal space.

He dashed to the side a little, hoping that it'd be focusing more on the others than on him. The dark elbow of the hand covering the valuables was in sight! He pulled out a throwing knife, aimed, and sent it whizzing off into its center. It shattered, and another stupid golden arm clattered to the ground, leaving-

Oh. Oh. Oh. Was that an enormous ruby suspended in swirling black packing peanuts? Loft loved packing peanuts! And he especially, especially, especially loved rubies!

Chimera dashed back forward after she saw what they were meant to target. Four arms remained, all armed with their axes. Luckily, the others had noticed a weakspot, evidenced by the fact that they’d diverted all efforts to exposing it. She got in close, seeing the golem about to throw an axe at Loft, so she slashed another power beam at the thing. This time she knew to attack the weak elbow joints because that’s what her allies had done.

Now with a free way in to go slash at the ruby, Chimera jumped over a thrown axe, landing in a jump strike, sending a wave of energy all around the place she landed. It jostled the ruby within, but jostling was a bit under what she desired. Bringing her blade up, she lunged forward, stabbing the scimitar into the gem. Koloktos reacted, that was for sure, but not by dying. That would have been too easy. It slashed out with it’s axe, smacking Chimera back a bit before throwing a second axe, one that hit Chimera square on.

In this case though, square on didn’t imply the blades. It actually hit chimera on the side, and carried her to a wall, where it stuck in, trapping the Gerudo. Try as she might, the blade wouldn’t come out of the wall.