Everything Explodes

( Everything Explodes - I don't even care if it doesn't fit the theme of Moon Labyrinth. )

With a dramatic leap, Tent's flaming iron fist superman-punched down into the face of a Blue Octorok, pelting it into the ground. He landed with a flourish, before spinning out another backfist before it could ready another rock. He finally screamed in its face, "GET THE MESSAGE?!"

With a yelp, the Octorok finally scurried away, realizing the battle was lost thanks to several smoldering bruises. Tent surveyed the area, his iron gauntlets still aflame, as his chest panted with heavy breaths. When all seemed clear, he finally extinguished the enchantment, "Good... didn't have to kill any of them." He knew well enough that, for the most part, Octoroks were just animals defending their territory. He doubted Din would approve of slaughtering them without necessity.

He looked over to his makeshift pupil, who at the moment was... disguised to look exactly like him. He twitched slightly at the sight of her, "Even if you learn better that way, it's... really creepy, Alice."

"Deal," a harsh feminine voice came out of his doppelganger, sounding nothing like a Deku Scrub, "I'm paying you for this, so don't get snappy." She glared at him silently for a moment, before glancing away, hissing softly. Deciding to give him a tiny bit of slack, Alice cast Actor's Illusion to make herself look slightly different, growing a bit more elongated, and replacing Tent's red accents with blue ones. Her face was slightly altered as well, to look more feminine. She scowled at him, as if disgusted with the fact he wanted her to do this.

"That's... Well, that's better. I appreciate it." He smiled uneasily. The two had been traveling up a mountain path for quite some time now, looking to find a temple where Tent could exhibit some of his fire magic, and Alice could attempt to learn and imitate him. Though Tent was a novice instructor, he always thought the sort of spells he wielded were better mastered from field work than studying books.

They had mad an arrangement with a Mogma who knew the area to meet them up there, just so they wouldn't get in over their heads. As Tent looked towards the sky, seeing the sun rising high, he hoped the fellow wasn't already waiting on them...

Cecil generally preferred the underground when he wasn't being paid, but today he thought it prudent to scout out the area before he met up with his liaison. He often used this place to gather materials to make his bombs, but it never hurt to be careful and make sure that there were no surprises along this route. There didn't seem to be anything that he couldn't handle, and certainly nothing that could overpower a warrior. Forget anyone who seriously followed Din, the way that his current employer was.

Good thing he was, too. He had never delved too far into the odd structure that the Scrub had designated, but he knew from one incident or another involving burrowing up a bit too quickly and in precisely the wrong place that the inhabitants were generally not terribly accommodating to visitors. At one point he swore he could hear a terrible rumbling from above him when he tried digging about underneath it.

Satisfied with his initial stakeout of the area, Cecil Droves began digging directly upwards. A subtle trembling of the earth was the only warning when out popped a slightly-charred, dark-furred Mogma whose hair gave the impression of the explosives he preferred to work with.

And it was then that he realized his error. "Oh! Whoops! Sorry, chief. Didn't see you there. How are you, sir, miss?" he said, turning to each Deku.

Alice the 'Deku Scrub' gave her instructor a twisted grimace, as if to say, 'Really? This was the local he was talking about? It is a friggin' mole!' Tent ignored her, and hoped their new associate wouldn't mind her... odd mannerisms.

"Well met, Cecil," Tent said, shaking the Mogma's hand. Err, claw. The limb was massive compared to Tent's, and that was even including his iron gauntlets. Judging from the man's expression, he had pronounced his name correctly, which was a load off Tent's mind.

Tent glanced over his shoulder towards his companion, observing her apparent silence, then looked back towards Cecil. "Sorry about my pupil, here. She's talented, but... not very, erm, socially inclined." It was true, to some extent. Alice didn't mind talking, but Din knows everyone else would mind listening to her.

"Anyway, you've explored this area before, correct? How do you think we should best tackle the situation?" As the rumor went, the monsters in here guarded some kind of treasure, and Cecil here would be getting part of that loot for himself. Tent normally didn't bother himself with this sort of thing, but... even Din knew he had to pay the bills somehow. As he talked, Tent proceeded up the long staircase which presumably led to the labyrinth, which itself was near the peak of this mountain range.

Glancing back at Alice, Tent wondered if she would keep this guise up indefinitely, but didn't concern himself with it for the time being.

"Hmm... Well, let's see..." Cecil thought back on his old experiences with the area around the temple, and most specifically his unfortunate encounters with the more aggressive beings housed within it. He knew of several entrances but the one up these stairs was probably the one least likely to end in death by thousands of angry Ropes.

"If you have anything that helps you fight at a distance, you might want it. There are an awful lot of poisonous snakes around here, and the Goriya didn't take too kindly to my breaking their floor." He figured they'd like it even less if they did what they were going to do now, which included barging in and making a lot of noise.

"I guess it's not really my place to ask, miss," he said as the closed in on the temple entrance, "But are you sure you want to go in there? I don't mean to offend, but for a student to go into a place like this seems a little... dangerous." Then again, he supposed he was hardly one to talk. He worked with things that went boom for a living and promptly lived in places where a badly-timed or positioned mistake could cave the whole blasted thing in on you.

Either way, though, he led them into the first room. That, at least, didn't harbor any surprises. A large, open room, where the dirt and rocks of the outside had been swept into the doorway and met proper, tiled stone floor. It was nice and hard here, and Cecil supposed he couldn't keep burrowing as he liked. Two rows of intimidating stone statues lay on either side of the entrance, one side of what bore a resemblance to River Zora heads and the other of what appeared to be some kind of dragon.

Cecil tread carefully here, and briefly advised the others to do the same. "Don't get too close. Sometimes these things breathe fire. Not a pleasant surprise," he said, mentally adding that it was even less pleasant when one was carrying lots of black powder. It seemed unlikely that these ones would, as he'd found they rarely did when there were this many grouped together, but still. Either way, though, two doors stood before them, branching forward and right.

Alice snickered at his concern. Maybe the fact she was holding an unlit lamp didn't give away the fact that she was the only one here who couldn't die. "Yes," her shrill voice was almost cackling, "Don't concern yourself." How noble of him, she thought, overly amused with herself.

Tent sighed, slightly. He wasn't sure whether to bust Alice's cover or not. Many people didn't react favorably to Poes, even ones as coherent as her. He focused on Cecil's question instead, "Alice and I both have some ranged weaponry, thankfully. I have a few spells at my disposal, and she's not too bad with those hatchets..." He glanced at her worriedly, ensuring that the hatchets were on her belt, and not hidden in the disguise. Din's grace, they weren't even in the dungeon yet and he was getting overly worried. At least he was getting paid pretty well for this...

. . .

A short while later, the three were venturing through the open corridor. Tent solemnly absorbed advice about the statues, while Alice preoccupied herself with poking at their faces. She almost seemed disappointed the things weren't spewing fire at her.

Seeing Cecil hesitate about which way to go, Tent took the opportunity to delve through the right door. His gauntlets lit aflame, pouring light into a large room littered with cracked tiles. Colossal, hoof-like feet could be seen in the dirt, apparently breaking through iron tiles with such force that they shattered. The footsteps seemed to disappear right into the northern wall, as if the hulking beast moved right through it. Tent gulped uneasily--maybe this was over Alice's head after all? "Cecil, do you see this...?"

Alice herself floated into the room. Her shrill voice giggled, "Oh my.~ Maybe this place is more interesting than I thought." She walked over towards the tracks, bending over to inspect them. As she did so, however, she heard a suddenly ruffling of dirt. She scurried back as two Leevers exploded out of the sands, and was soon hiding behind Tent. "Go, Tent, I choose you! Use Fire Blast!"

Tent had already focused his energy into a Din's Burst, but almost lost the spell at his pupil's squealing words. The beast hurled itself towards him, spinning wildly--eating an explosion of flame and still charging towards him. It spun into Tent's flaming gauntlets as he tried to hold back its wild momentum. A grunt burst out of his lips in the form of words, "Cecil! Th-the other one!" Meanwhile, Alice had already drown a hatchet, stepping towards the first Leever with every intent of impaling it on her trusty, rusty blade...

Leevers. Of course it was Leevers. Cecil hated these things. If you were to ask him, Mogmas were the only burrowing creature that the world really needed. Most of the other things were creepy-crawlies. Or ruined your tunnels. Or something else equally horrible, or all of the above!

So it was with relish that he set about this task. "Gotcha, boss!" He pulled a bomb out with his left hand, then, as he sidestepped the critter's charge, swiped the claws of his right at the Leever, just below its spiny maw. It did not change course, but it clearly did not appreciate being wounded, and Cecil could feel it shudder slightly before it kept trying to move.

At this, the Mogma gently lobbed the bomb to land approximately where the Leever's gaping, spiny maw would be. As it detected movement, it attempted to snap again. Cecil threw up his arms to shield his eyes...

And promptly the supposed "prey" exploded in its face. The black-furred mole-man, after enduring the blow-back from the blast, whistled. He never tired of the sheer magic that a well-placed bomb could do.

Alice's hatchet sank into the monster's hide. As it squealed in pain, it lost its shoving match against Tent, and was abruptly launched backwards. A slight smirk spread across Tent's face, as it gave him the opening he needed. Another bead of light was launched forward, before exploding in the creature's face--or lack of a face. The creature let out a squeal of pain as it caught flame, and only spun a few more times before slumping to the ground... its corpse a makeshift bonfire that lit up the room.

Alice sneered slightly at her instructor, before bringing her hands together the way he did to cast the spell... A moment later, all she had to show for the effort was a flaming fingertip. "O-ow! Fuck!" She patted it out quickly against her clothing, before glaring uneasily at the other two. "Sh-shut up... I'll try again later."

"It's progress," Tent smiled. He hesitated to say he was surprised she had learned to do even that much so quickly. The last thing she needed was an even more inflated head.

Instead, Tent turned towards Cecil, "Good work." There was a slight smile on his face. "Once this is all over with, remind me to ask where you got those bombs. You certainly seem to know how to use them."

With the Leevers dealt with, however, Tent's attention turned back towards the broken tiles and colossal footprints embedded across the room. It wasn't clear where they came from, but, "Did it... burrow its way in here?" He gave Cecil an uneasy glance, before looking again to the wall, "I don't imagine a creature like that would just pass through a wall, at least not without destroying it. Don't suppose you... could think of a way to go through it?"

"Well, I could always make you some!" Cecil responded happily, proud that someone praised his bombs and general technique. "Though I'm still working on how to replicate the bag..."

Then they saw the prints. That was... worrying.

"I... might," Cecil said tentatively. From those footprints, it didn't look quite like something burrowing. It looked too... huge. He didn't want to imagine running into one of those underground. Of course, he wasn't sure whether that or the idea that something could just barrel through a wall and then set it back up with nary an errant thought was more distressing. He could always try digging through it, but...

He approached the wall and pressed an ear to it. Then he tapped it with a single claw, noting the sound. He slowly moved on from there, tapping periodically. Then he did the same in the reverse direction. Slowly but surely he centered on one point where the sound was the most unusual.

"This spot is a little hollow..." he murmured, pushing himself off the wall. That made sense, he supposed. If it were broken before and then rebuilt, it would naturally be fragile here. "Stand back, fellas." He dropped another bomb at his feet in this spot, then stepped away and covered his ears.

Tent felt like he shouldn't have been surprised to have a demolition man--or something akin to one, at least--think to solve a problem by blowing up the wall. He himself was thinking something more along the lines of taking a detour to see if there was another entrance, or at least looking for a switch. Oh well. "D-Din preserve us," he mumbled, as he tried to cover his hears through his helmet--and saw Alice doing the same.

After a catastrophic BOOM... Tent was a bit surprised to see a large hole in the wall, rubble everywhere, and a cloud of dust surrounding them. He wasn't sure if the Bomb wouldn't be strong enough to do it, or so strong it brought down the ceiling on top of their corpses. "It looks like you know what you're doing," Tent called over, relieved. With Alice in tow, he followed the Mogma into the newly-opened area.

The large, square room was littered with colossal stone cubes, resting upon tile. Again, gigantic footprints crushed the tiles, revealing dirt floor beneath. Before Tent could even wonder how the beast pushed through so effortlessly, Alice tugged on his sleeve. "You, uh... might want to see this."

All three adventurers turned to see the wall magically reforming itself, as if some unseen force was keeping this place intact. Apparently it didn't do much for the floors, however. As Alice peered into the room, she began to hear what she suspected was a faint... bestial... hissing sound. "Ropes... Ropes! Fuck, Ropes!!"

What must have been dozens of serpents poured out from behind the blocks, half of which were racing towards the trio with wild speed. Tent's fists flared into action, before he launched himself forward into the throng of them. "Back me up, you two!"

Ropes. Of course it was Ropes. It was always Ropes. Why did it always have to be Ropes? He heard about a dozen hissing noises just stepping into the chamber. Farore's breath, why were there so many?!

He finally decided to bring out his shield as the little monsters charged. He brought the thing down edge-first straight on the head of one of the serpents, cutting off its head in the same clumsy fashion as a farm tool would. He was glad that they were small, since he had to repeat this maneuver a handful of times, being careful not to touch the heads after they had been removed. Sometimes they still moved and even reflexively widened their mouths, chasing after invisible prey, which was creepy beyond words.

But there were still too many. This was ludicrous. Did they just burst in during Rope mating season, or something?

The Mogma huddled behind his shield and started chopping downwards with claws whenever one of the scaly little so-and-so's showed its head. "Where are they coming from?"

"A-ambush?" Tent answered hurriedly, though he honestly had no idea. Maybe they were startled by the blast, and hide behind the blocks, only to come pouring back out once they realized they might get food? Fangs suddenly sank into the back of Tent's unguarded leg, and he suddenly realized he didn't have time to think about this. He was trying to punch and stomp them, but they were too dang slippery, and were soon coiling around his feet. Thankfully his boots were pretty durable, but after that last bite--things looked bleak.

Suddenly, Tent's fists surged a bright hue as he spun in a wild circle, using Deku Pirouette for the first time in ages to whirl wildly through a throng of the serpentine creatures. Nearly a dozen of them flung into the air, several even outright on fire.

Alice herself had a secretly easy time combating them. The snakes were, after all, attacking illusory legs as her real body floated a safe distance above the ground. Wielding a hatchet in her right hand, she had an easy time chopping several Ropes into pieces. Noticing a crowd of them advancing towards Cecil, she pulled out a Mini-Bomb in her left hand before rolling it his way--blasting three Ropes apart with relative ease.

"Th-that's almost all of them," Tent hissed quietly, before pounding one more beneath a flaming fist. The trio stood over what seemed like a massacre of serpentine corpses, though a handful were still squirming. Tent hissed in pain. Fangs had suck into his calves once, and his tricep once more... Thankfully it seemed their fangs couldn't penetrate his metallic boots, gauntlets, or tunic. Their bites weren't lethal in of themselves, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt like hell. "D-Din's grace," he muttered, feeling a bit faint from the sap oozing out of his body.

"You all right, boss?" asked Cecil, inspecting his employer. "Let's take a break here," he suggested, easing himself into a sitting position. He immediately regretted that, as he found to his shock and dismay he had chosen precisely the same spot as some poor Rope's head and was subsequently punished for his negligence with a reflexive bite. He yelped and jumped back up, rubbing his backside.

"Okay, new idea," he said with a sound of slight pain, "I'll scout the next room while you get your bearings, chief." He needed to walk that one off...

He headed through the door slowly, examining it and scanning for traps. Finding none, he ventured inside the next room...

And was greeted by a boomerang to the snout. The mogma reeled, catching sight of what appeared to be stone heads, from which fire periodically flew, before being nailed in the solar plexus with a boomerang, knocking the breath out of him. He threw up his shield haphazardly and began hacking. He was glad he did since he felt a hard impact on it, probably another of the accursed things.

Cecil felt the air to either side of him grow hot, and after a second of abject horror threw himself forward, singing his back and tail with fire. Those statues were at the corners of the room... And now he was hemmed in with three angry Goriya.

Tent didn't have enough experience with Ropes to know how much venom was too much, but at the moment it was feeling like any other puncture wound. The fangs didn't seep in too deep into his leg... so he was able to stand and walk, giving Cecil a slight nod, "I'm alright. A break could do us good, though."

Glancing towards Alice, she seemed mostly indifferent to his suffering, but at least she herself was completed unharmed. He was fairly certain by now that if she was injured, she probably would complain about it. She abruptly noticed him looking at her, and grimaced slightly. Before becoming too distracted, her hatchet cleaved down into another Rope. "That might've been the last one," Tent admitted.

...

Several seconds after Cecil volunteered to scout ahead into the next room, where the tracks led, everyone heard an impact and a groan. Seems they wouldn't get a break.

Tent half-limped towards the door, and--as soon as he spied a Goriya taking aim for Cecil--he threw out a bead of light towards it at high speed. The Goriya jumped in fright at the projectile, but was too late to move out of the way by the time the fiery explosion detonated point-blank next to it. A yelp echoed throughout the room as it was set ablaze, running around wildly.

Before he could whip out another burst, Tent was forced to go on the defensive as he blocked an incoming boomerang with the hardest side of his gauntlets. If that wasn't enough, he soon found himself hopping--on his good leg--out of the way of a fiery orb of death. "D-Din guide us," he sputtered out, just trying not to get hit again. Cecil wasn't lying when he said this place was dangerous.

Meanwhile, Alice was scurrying rapidly across the room--floating effortlessly, though her Deku Scurb illusion made it seem like she was sprinting. Two fiery orbs shot towards her, but fired where she was, rather than where she was going to be--and ended up completely missing. Just when she was without a few feet of a Goriya, she stopped abruptly, and seemed to vanish into thin air--thanks to her Motionless Invisibility.

The beast eyes the spot she disappeared uneasily, and a bit stupidly. Just when he looked away to see if she had gone somewhere else, Alice pounced onto him with wild, flailing swings of her hatchet. Even if she couldn't swing it very hard, nor very accurately, she was fairly certain nothing liked taking a rusty blade to the back. The Goriya tripped forward, yelping out from the blows. It turned and went on the defensive, but Alice's wild strikes were enough to cut it down to the ground.

In her wild assault, however, she failed to notice and evade the fiery orb that blasted into her back, sending her body recoiling forward in pain, as her back audibly singed.

(Two Goriya down, one to go. At this rate it would not hurt to find a fairy or two.)

Cecil, upon hearing the entrance of his comrades, surged forward, batting aside a boomerang toss with his shield. He was upon the Goriya with a speed that frightened it, keeping it stunned for a few seconds as he tackled it to the ground.

After the initial shock wore off, the Goriya snarled as this trespass, and the two furry, angry men started struggling with each other. It wasn't long before claws were unsheathed and they rolled about this way and that, growling at each other the way only a mole and a dog could.

The Goriya socked him in the stomach. Cecil jabbed a claw into its arm in retaliation, and it yowled and scraped at his face. Cecil forcefully extracted his claw and thrust again, this time into its gut, repeatedly stabbing. The Goriya responded in kind with rapid punches and scratches.

They struggled with each other, blood hitting the dirt, for a while, with Cecil being vaguely aware through the adrenaline rush of the sensation of impacts and pain, of the Goriya biting and his claws entering and exiting his foe's body. Finally he managed to get his hands on the Goriya's chest and shove, throwing it off him...

And directly into the fire spat by the statue. It yelped in pain, and Cecil decided to end its suffering the only way he knew how: with one well-placed bomb.

The explosion was not pleasant to hear, or see, or even be in the vicinity of. The ungodly sound would haunt him for weeks, he knew.

That scrap done, Cecil asked in between gasps for breath, with a tired voice, "Everyone still alive?"

Alice twitched at the explosion. Even for a ghost, seeing piles of furry gore burst apart was... unpleasant, to say the least. She shrugged a bit--there were uglier things living in her caravan, quite literally.

Meanwhile, Tent mumbled uneasily, "D-Din save them." He gave the room an uneasy once-over, ensuring all three beasts were out cold. "Alice and I have minor?"--he gave her a cautionary glance--"Minor injuries. You seem to be alright yourself?"

Even though he said that, he felt himself slumping against one of the walls, breathing heavily. Was it the venom? Was it his injuries? Maybe it was just all the running around everyone did in that last battle. Nonetheless, Tent put a hand on his chest, feeling his lungs. "Let's... let's just rest for a bit." He sighed, admitting, "There's no rush." As he slumped, however, the horrid stench of fried corpses filled his senses. He wasn't exactly proud of that. Was this what Din really wanted of him...?

Alice gave an uneasy nod. Her long, sinewy arm reached uncomfortably onto her back--wincing as she touched the burn. It was sensitive, but her clothing seemed to take most of the heat. Perhaps she should be thankful her cloak tunic wasn't on fire, but in truth she was just pissed that hers wasn't as fireproof as the one she was trying to duplicate. That blast wouldn't have hurt Tent's damn Goron Tunic quite as much, she guessed. She glared towards the Deku Scrub, seeing a sudden eerie distance in his eyes. "Guess he's deep in thought..."

Alice cocked her head to one side, looking at the Mogma. "Cecil, was it? May I 'borrow' some of your bombs~?" Her voice was shrill, but was oddly nice as she asked this question. "They'd certainly be more useful than these mere Mini-Bombs of mine..." She presented one of the small spheres in her wooden fingers, for him to view if he so wished.

"Oh, cuts and bruises," reported Cecil absently. He had gotten to work wrapping his wounds to take his mind off of the violence he had seen and inflicted today. Stopping to ruminate about it, as his poor employer seemed to be doing, was a great way to lose morale. He hoped they could move on quickly so as to be away from the bloody mess they'd found themselves in.

So he was silently grateful that Alice broke the heavy silence. "Hm? Oh, sure. Here..." he pulled a few bombs from his bag, slowly and carefully, so as not to light them automatically. He stopped at about six, since he wasn't sure how many she wanted nor how many they would need. "Tell me if you need any more. This thing's a bit strange in how it works..." he trailed off there.

He inspected the mini-bomb that Alice presented, though. "Hmm. These look rather interesting, really..." That button, was that the trigger mechanism? He looked it over again, considering any potential applications it might have.

A grin spread across Alice's concealed face--and she supposed her illusory Deku Scrub face looked happy as well. She compared one of the heavier bombs Cecil used with one of her own, holding one in each hand. "Yours is definitely more powerful... heavier... Needing to manually light a fuse seems like a bit of a hassle, though." Needless to say, however, her little cherry bombs weren't going to blow up walls anytime soon. It's too bad these bigger stronger bombs didn't feature a button like the ones she was accustomed to carrying.

"I... suppose you can have some of mine, if you like." She glanced away, uneasily, "You could definitely throw them farther." There wasn't much point to them, otherwise. Alice supposed they were less likely to blow you into smithereens, too, but that hardly seemed like a benefit to someone like Cecil.

With his bandages freshly wrapped, Tent pushed off the ground. He pulled out his canteen and took a long drink, before looking towards the other two, already engaged in conversation. Getting his mind of the dubious morality of his actions, he walked over to the two of them. There was a slight smile on his face, as he snapped his fingers, causing a contained flame to appear in his hand. "You almost did this spell earlier, Alice. If you can do that, the fuse won't be much of a problem."

Alice's faced grimaced slightly. "As if it's that easy..." She looked at her wooden fingers--they were identical to Tent's like this. With a bit of hesitance, she haughtily commanded him, "Do it one more time." Smiling, Tent obliged. Alice repeated him, a mirror image, as the flame appeared on her fingertips.

"The spell is called Spark," Tent said, smiling. He shook his hand, and the flame vanished. She really was a natural at this. "I'll explain the details later, though you've got most of it. For now, we should press on." He glanced to Cecil, "Do you think we should keep following those massive tracks?"

... With an almost childish grin, Alice flicked flames into her hands repeatedly.

"Well, boss," Cecil said lightly, "I suppose that would depend on whether we want to deal with whatever it was that made them." He, for one, was not certain they did. Everything else here was hostile. It stood to reason that this creature would've been equally unpleasant, forced to be so by the environment if not naturally.

"You've seen what some of this place is like, and if this thing's tough enough to survive all that, then it'll be quite the beastie. On the other hand, they're going deeper in. If there's treasure in these hills, it's probably in there. With... uh... this thing." He gestured to the tracks. If he were alone, he'd probably do some scouting first before deciding on a course of action. But he was not. He was with two rather flammable friends who may or may not have been spooked half to death and/or traumatized today.

"I suppose I'd go after them, since it might have cleared out a few things on its way, but... your call," he suggested as a conclusion. Of course, while he did so, he made very certain to keep the explosives away from the two Deku. He was no mage, but he knew well enough that fire and bombs did not mix well. And as little as he knew about magic, he knew that sometimes it could be volatile. Extra explosions sounded all well and entertaining but they typically ended in some manner of spectacular failure.

Tent noticed the Mogma pulling the explosives away, and gave a slight smirk. It was probably for the best. He was overly accustomed to using flames, and Alice wasn't comfortable enough using flames yet. The poor man was probably having a heart attack between the two of them.

"No, don't worry about me," Tent said, approaching the tracks casually, "I have more campaigns under my belt than I expect you would guess." He glanced towards Alice. In truth, her presence was why he wanted additional help--and her payment was what was providing it. Her illusion made it difficult for Tent to discern the true extent of her injuries, but she seemed more than chipper at the moment. He was sore, but could still fight well, and Alice didn't seem to be wincing at all--he supposed her clothing ate most of the attack. As far as he could tell, Cecil hadn't taken a solid hit, either. While they could turn back, it would certainly be a hassle getting here again. Not only that, but there would probably be even more monsters in their way. And, even if Tent didn't want to admit it, he wasn't terribly keen on paying their escort for another day of work...

It might be against Tent's better judgment, but he look to Cecil and said, "No, you're right, let's go after them." He gave a slight smile. Maybe this creature's rampage really had cleared the way for them, as Cecil said--maybe it was a sign from Din telling them to press on. Tent liked to believe so, anyway.

With that thought in mind, he brought the trio through another door and into a new room. Tent tilted his head, curiously--it was entirely filled with sand, making the tracks stand out as much as ever. The door seemed entirely featureless, and there weren't any visible traps. There was one door on the opposite side of the chamber, and didn't seem to be anything stopping them from reaching it. Still, a vacant room seemed to Tent to be awfully... suspicious. With a bit of caution, Tent moved towards the doorway.

Abruptly, iron walls slammed shut over both the entrance and exit. Alice almost leaped out of her illusion at the sudden boom the doors created. Tent exchanged a wary look with Cecil. Everyone heard, then saw, the sand floor shifting around them. Suddenly, a colossal head shot out of the sand, screeching a horrid noise...

"Moldorm!" Tent threw out a Din's Burst, but the colossal creature already dove back into the sand before his blast hit home.

Moldorms were one thing that Cecil had little experience with. They weren't around a whole lot and to make it even less likely, they had an affinity for sand. The Mogma hated sand so much. It was too loose, you couldn't properly tunnel through it and it got caught in your hair and fur. That, of course, discounted the possibility of monsters like this showing up.

Slowly, he edged out towards the center of the room, somewhat discomforted by the shifting of the sand and its sticking to his tail. A rumbling from beneath him came, and Cecil dove to the side. He took a wild swing, but he hit nothing but air. The creature, despite its size, moved with considerable speed. There had to be a way to slow it down somehow...

He fiddled with one of the Mini-Bombs Alice had given him, slowly coming to an idea. He looked over at the two Deku, then held up a single finger to signal for them to be quiet. He pressed down on the button, held it for half a second, then tossed it over, letting it explode roughly a foot above the ground. Cecil waited like a hunter in the grass, slowly raising an arm and crouching. Sure enough, the Moldorm burst from the sand below the explosion.

Cecil lunged forward and managed to sever a segment from the Moldorm's tail. He heard a terrifying screech as he did so, followed by another attack from below. Was it just him, or was this thing... moving faster? That may not have been the brightest idea, he thought as he was clipped in the side by the Moldorm's mandible and sprayed with sand.