Eastern Palace (CJ, Idarian, and Ultra5)

Wilhelm walked up the steps to the entrance of the Eastern palace, proceeding through the passage that was the front gate to the dungeon. From within, he could feel a dark power waiting to be purged, and the spirits of the Palace spoke in cryptic whispers in his head. He gripped the Strandräuber ever tighter, fully expecting to be assailed by a host of demons in the first hall of the palace, but this was not so.

Instead, he found himself within a large, dimly lit room lined with braziers mounted on old, rusty iron mounts on the walls. There were statues of demonic creatures lining the hall before him, and as he began to step forward, he began to hear footfalls. In his anticipation, Wilhelm released the great length of steel chain, only gripping the leather-wrapped wooden handle of the whip, and spun around, raising his fist high over his head in preparation to strike.

However, instead of monsters, his eyes were met with the forms of two adventurers who were to be his companions.

Nicholas walked up the steps calmly, not even a thought on his mind of the dangers he might be walking into. As he got to the top of the steps, he stopped for a moment to adjust his jacket before stepping inside. His footsteps echoed off the ancient walls of the palace and the smell of stale air assaulted his nostrils. He scowled for a moment before continuing forward until he found himself in a poorly lit room, a man already standing in the room with his weapon raised.

"Hold, friend," Nicholas said calmly, lifting his left arm with his palm open. "I am Nicholas, Nicholas Walker. I assume your likewise here to deal with the shadows that haunt this place?" As he spoke, his ears picked up on more footsteps, another person he assumed.

Harry walked casually as he neared a very large building that loomed ominously with demonic carvings on the outside of it. "Hm. Interesting architecture. It gives the place a very ominous feel. A little out of the way for my tastes, but worth looking into anyways I suppose." As Harry drew nearer to the palace he noticed two figures talkinging in the first room. "Hm. I wasn't expecting company on this little adventure, but they doesn't seen like the monsters carved into the outside of this place so he can't be too bad."

"Ahem. Gentlemen?" Harry said as he walked into the first room analyzing the two Hylian weaknesses for future reference if need be. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Harry Massey. I am here on behalf of myself and have come here to investigate recent reports of disturbances here. I suspect you two are also investigating the Palace as well? Good, I could use some company. Based on the carvings on the outside of the palace I'd hate to face what ever is in here alone. Well shall we then?" Harry motioned towards a set of stairs leading to the lower level of the dimly lit room.

"Greetings to you both, then. My name is Wilhelm von Arnhem, and I am here to destroy whatever evil rests in this crypt. It's nice to have some company. Who knows what we'll find in here?"

As Harry motioned to the staircase, Wilhelm grunted in agreement. Gracefully coiling the chain links of his whip, he took the lead down the staircase, soon finding himself gazing down a long, dark hall, lit only by small braziers along the sides of the massive space.

Suddenly, a two long rows of free-standing braziers lit up brightly, spreading light across the whole of the hall. The light revealed a wide, stone path down the middle, flanked by bare soil that was littered with bones and remains. At the end of the long hall, there was a reinforced wooden door, covered in chains fastened with a heavy padlock.

He took a few steps forward, expecting to be able to find a key somewhere in the room, when, suddenly, there was a great rumbling, and the earthen stretches of dungeon floor burst open. Bones and remains linked together as groups of Stalfos spawned themselves, and ReDeads began to shamble from the earth in disagreeable numbers.

Wilhelm stood fast, letting Strandräuber uncoil in preparation for the fight. However, he soon noticed a high ledge accessible by a ladder near the far end of the hall, and at the top of this ledge was a small, wooden chest with a bronze frame. The problem was, this ladder was planted in one of the areas of dirt currently spawning enemies. Nevertheless, someone would need to get to that chest.

"Nicholas, Harry, one of us needs to climb up that ladder over there! The other two will have help clear a path, and then make sure our volunteer isn't pursued up that ledge! I can do the climbing, but that would mean both of you can handle the fighting down below on an up-close and personal level."

With that, he prepared to draw first blood. He moved in close to the growing horde of monsters, and one of the stalfos made a move to charge him. He raised the handle of his trusty whip high, cracking it down on the beast's shield. As the stalfos had its guard knocked away, a second follow-up strike sent the iron ball at the end of Wilhelm's weapon crashing through the thing's skull.

Nicholas listened to the two strangers, both of them coming off as a tad odd, which should be expected of anyone who willingly travels to an ancient palace known to be infested with darkness. Shrugging his shoulders, Nicholas merely kept his mouth shut and followed the others down the stairs and into another room. Spying the remains spread across the earthen ground, Nicholas launched forward once Wilhelm starting calling out suggestions about dealing with the trap.

"Good idea, best you climb, I'd rather handle this anyways!" Nicholas called to his new ally as he grabbed at the face of a Stalfos who was just reforming, then swiftly drawing his blade with his left and and slicing his undead foe in half. Releasing the skull as the body dropped, Nicholas turned partially around to parry the blade of another Stalfos. Parrying the sword back, Nicholas lunged forward with his fight and slammed through the ribs of the creature, pulling his arm back as his fingers caught on the spine and snapped it in two.

Turning about, Nicholas swiftly rolled out of the way of a Stalfos with a battle axe as he moved closer to Wilhelm so the man could begin climbing to the chest where the key for the door hopefully would be.

Harry followed the two other Hylian through the doorway and saw the remains on the floor. "Hm. They might have gotten farther in here if they only had the guts," Harry smiled as he poked at the remains. Suddenly the pile of bones he was poking at started to assemble into a Stalfols right in front of his face. Harry immediately shot a fireball in the Stalfols skull knocking it off and setting it on fire. "Hm. Guess he didn't like my joke," Harry joked as several ReDeads and a Stalfols closed on him. Harry sword fought with a Stalfols while shooting any close ReDeads with fireballs. "As much fun as this would you kindly hurry up with that...um...whatever it is you're doing and get some of these piles of bone and Nayru knows what else?"

"Keep killing them! I'm almost to the ladder!"

Wilhelm moved forward more, continuing to slice through the hordes of monsters. Just between himself and the ladder, however, was an especially dense line of redeads and stalfos. Needing to remove all of them as a threat, Wilhelm performed a spin attack.

Instead of spinning, however, Wilhelm simply began swinging his whip from behind his right. His right fist glowed with a white aura as power coursed through the steel links of Strandräuber. The chain whip lashed out in a wide arc in front of its wielder, and then continued the circle as Wilhelm swung the whip around his head. He finished the move with a second lash forward, and the chain sped toward an ending point actually curling around Wilhelm's back. The whole move was accompanied by a flash of white light, and the enemies in front of and behind him were destroyed brutally. One redead was even severed at the midsection.

Satisfied with the destruction, Wilhelm rushed through the gap and clung onto the ladder before any of the stalfos could catch him. However, as he neared the top, three stalfos began to climb in pursuit of him.

Unaware, Wilhelm mounted the ledge and hastily opened the lid of the chest, finding a small, iron skeleton key within.

Nicholas showed up mere seconds after Wilhelm managed to drop a few of the undead with a spin attack. Nicholas had never seen such a technique executed with a whip before, more akin to seeing it done with the swords that most Hylian guards train with, himself included. Crashing into another Stalfos, he blocked a downward swing from the undead menace with his metal arm before slashing upwards, cleaving away a part of the creature's lower body. Once the Stalfos staggered Nicholas took that chance to finish it off with a horizontal slash to the neck.

Turning his head upwards, he could see Wilhelm near the top of the ladder, but Stalfos had started to scurry up before him. Running towards the ladder, Nicholas leapt off the ground, streching his right arm forward as he managed to catch the back of one of the Stalfos, himself crashing into the one underneath it, causing the three of them to fall back to the ground. The Stalfos in his hand snapped it's neck on impact with the ground, and the other one fumbled for it's sword as Nicholas kicked it in the jaw. With the beast keeling back, Nicholas stumbled to his knees to reach out and pound it in the spine, shattering the bone.

While pulling himself to his feet, he could see the last Stalfos getting closer to Wilhelm, but before he could rush up the ladder, felt leathery hands wrap around his chest from behind, an unearthly scream echoing in his ear as the Redead clawed at his chest and tried to bit his neck. Nicholas managed to skewer the creature's face off his blade, but the awkward swing didn't leave him a lot of momentum, and it wasn't enough to kill the creature.

"Damn it, get the Stalfos away from him Harry!" Nicholas shouted as he struggled with the Redead while trying to avoid the swings of another Stalfos who was trying to take advantage of his situation.

(Skipping Ultra5 at his own request)

Wilhelm gripped the key tightly in his left hand before slipping it temporarily into his satchel.

"I've got the key! Head for the door!"

However, as he looked down, he saw Nicholas struggling against a Redead and a Stalfos. Unable to hit the Redead without risking injuring Nicholas, Wilhelm went for the Stalfos. He wound up to swing with his ten foot whip and lashed out with his full strength. The iron ball of the whip crashed directly into the Stalfos skull, spraying Nicholas with bone fragments.

Then, Wilhelm jumped down from the ledge, letting his legs fall out from underneath him so that he could roll forward to absorb the impact. He sprinted madly for the locked door, knowing even then that several Stalfos and Redeads were behind him. He reached into his satchel and brandished the iron key, jamming it into the padlock and turning it. As expected, the padlock fell free from the chains, which fell in their own turn from the door. As the door was unlocked, the rumbling beneath the floor halted, and the undead monsters that still stood collapsed where they were, never to move again.

Wilhelm stood near the now unlocked door, waiting for his comrades to rejoin him.

"That was more unpleasant than expected, I would assume."

Bones fragments rained down on Nicholas as he continued to wrestle with the Redead. "Thanks Wilhelm," Nicholas grinned as he managed to get to his knees before pushing himself to his feet, falling backwards ontop of the Redead. An unpleasent squishing sound could be heard from the creature under him, and from his new position Nicholas had an easier time pulling the creature's clawed hands from his chest and rolling off.

The Redead screamed as it went to shambling up and lunge at Nicholas, but he was already midswing as it moved forward, meeting his blade and falling back to the ground, it's head laying on the ground beside the corpses' corpse. Looking around, Nicholas could see the other undead left in the room tremble and collaspe as Wilhelm opened the door.

"That was very convient," Nicholas laughed, sheathing his sword and absent-mindedly rubbing the shallow wound on his chest. "Hope everyone is ok so we can continue."

"Damn it, get the Stalfos away from him Harry!"

Harry took a quick look over at Wilhelm and the Stalfols that was chasing him. Harry tried to line up a shot with his fireball, but the Stalfols he was fighting with earlier kept slashing at him. Preventing him from getting a good shot in. "You know Mister Stalfols you are being quite rude. Preventing me from helping my friend over there," Harry said after continuing to sword fight with the Stalfols.

"I've got the key! Head for the door!"

"What?" Harry asked as the Stalfols he was fighting with collapsed on the floor turning back into a pile of bones. "Well that was also very rude. Just abandoning a fight like that. Well at least he isn't trying to kill me anymore," Harry stated as he sheathed his sword into his cane, and walked over to Nicholas and Wilhelm who were waiting by the door to the next room.