Forest Temple (TP) [Devil-Steel & BP]

Forest Temple (TP)
- Sandal, a dumb Moblin (5/1/2 Moblin) [Devil-Steel] Reward: Unusual Character: Monkey (With 3 Rupees from Silver's reward), -17 Rupees
- Silverscale Flapperback, an even dumber Aeralfos (4/1/5 Lizalfos) [Blonde Panther] Reward: Botany Level 2, +17 Rupees.
Music

Southern Hyrule was a very confusing place to live, sometimes. Swamped with evil energy from Ganon's conquest, strange things could happen at any given moment... such as strange, enormous trees popping up out of nowhere, with a large hollow in their trunk that lead to a complex system of tunnels and rooms. The floors were not tiled, and in one of the tunnels, the dirt had been marked with long furrows as a small monkey was dragged, screaming and clawing at the ground, deeper into the tunnels by a large looming thing...

But that was deeper inside the trunk. Further to the outside, the enormous tree showed its fertility, the walls of the tunnels grown with ivy and a carpet of moss covering the dirt floors. Fruits and berries of all sorts glistened on the walls, some tiny and hard, others large, plump, and soft. Patches of Deku Babas snoozed in what little sunlight reached them through holes in the trunk.

One particular seed, a whitish-yellow star-shaped fruit, was suddenly impaled through one of its points and delicately lifted off the wall it had clung to by a single long talon. Silver lifted it to his nostrils, taking a few whiffs of it. He looked at it closely. Cautiously, he scratched a little bit of the shell off and tasted it...

Only to throw it away in frustration, breaking it against the wall and spreading a bit of glowing yellow powder from its insides. "Trash," he mumbled, "Trash trash trash. Everything trash!" Still muttering to himself, he used his claw to pull his spear out of the ground he'd sunk it in and looked more closely at the vines in front of him. If only he could find nice, pure seeds to work with...

From behind Silver would come the sound of heavy footsteps clad in armor. Whatever was within the armor was looking around at the lush greenery, not paying any attention to what was ahead of it. While the suit of armor was sure to be intimidating as it continually grew closer and closer to the Aeralfos in front of it, that illusion was quickly broken as one of its feet got stuck beneath a vine bringing the creature down to the ground with a hard and loud crash it's helmet slipping off and bouncing away from it. With it's helmet now gone it was revealed that it was, oddly enough, a Moblin inside of the large suit of armor.

For some reason the large Moblin seemed to panic the moment its helmet bounced away from it, as if scared to be seen for what he was. He would claw at the ground as he tried to crawl towards his helmet, but his foot was still trapped beneath the vine, preventing him from moving forward. Though it was pointless for him to do so, Sandal would continue to struggle to reach his helmet.

In one final pull the vine would break and Sandal would end up lunging forward and landing on his face. He didn't lay there long as he quickly scrambled for his helmet. Unfortunately in his haste the Moblin ended up hitting his helmet instead of grabbed in sending it bouncing along the ground until it stopped only a few inches away from Silver's feet. Sandal's eyes would go wide as he looked at his helmet at the feet of another, his fear of being attacked once Silver turned around and saw that he was a Moblin would cause him to start wrapping his backshift cape around his head in an attempt to hide his face.

Silver's foot twitched when it was hit by something hard, and he turned around, looking down and pointing his spear at it. Strangely, it didn't attack him. It had no choice- it couldn't attack him if it had wanted to. It wasn't a beast but a thing, a helmet of some sort. Silver picked it up and looked at it closely, turning it around in his claws. Still, it wasn't what he had been looking for, so he dropped it, letting it fall back to the ground, and watched, entertained, as it rolled away from him.

And towards a large armoured figure frantically wrapping something around its head. Jumping and screeching a warning, Silver turned around, flew up, and latched on to the ivy at the top of the wall, looking down at the figure. There. If the newcomer wanted to attack him for being a monster, he would have time and room to fly away from it.

When Silver had picked up his helmet Sandals eyes had gone wide behind the cloak that was now wrapped around his head. He was on the verge of tears thinking that the aeralfos was going to keep. Much to his relief though his helmet was dropped, and as if one of the goddesses had smiled upon him it even rolled back to him. Releasing his grip on the cloak he had wrapped around his head he would quickly reach for his helmet. For a few seconds his face would be visible to Silver, the pit bull-esque face revealing Sandal to be a common moblin, before his helmet was back where it belonged.

With his helmet back on Sandal would look up towards Silver with a smile, not that it could be seen. "Helmet treasure. Gave back. Me happy." While his sentences were crude, they should have mostly got his point across. His voice held no anger, malice, or rage like most typical moblins, but was instead a very kind and gentle voice. After thanking Silver, Sandal would start looking around finally realizing he had gone and gotten himself lost again.

Huh. That wasn't a human sort of face, was it? Silver cautiously lowered himself from his perch, slowly walking over to the newcomer in the tunnel. As he came closer, though not yet within arm's reach, he sniffed. There was a funny sort of smell hanging around him. It wasn't really typical of anything he'd encountered before, but then again, the metallic scent of the armour probably interfered with his nose. Shaking his head, he sniffed again, taking a step closer in hops of being able to discern it more easily.

Finally, he managed to place the dog-like scent; he'd smelled it hundreds of times before in Monster village. "Moblin?" he asked himself, before nodding in confirmation and standing at ease. Moblins were good guys as long as you didn't piss them off, he knew that much. At least, they weren't humans. "Silver," he said, pointing at his silver-coloured scales. "Finding berries."

As Silver spoke Sandal would pull his attention away from the trees all around him and look back towards the Aeralfos. "Me Sandal." He would look around at the trees once more before look back towards Silver. "Lost." How did this always happen to him? How was it that he always ended up so far away from where it was he was supposed to be going? It was a miracle that he still managed to make a living somehow since he never managed to make it to the people that hired him.

Slowly Sandal would head towards the entrance to the large trunk. Curiosity had gone and gotten the better of him. He wanted to know what was inside. Was there any treasure? Better yet, was there any armor for him to find? "Treasure?" He was more speaking to himself at this point as he continued forward.

Lost, huh? Silver could sympathise. He'd often gotten lost, himself, and truth be told he wasn't sure how to get home from here, either. Still, even though none of the seeds he'd found thus far were good enough to work with, the sheer amount of them was promising and he wanted to go deeper and deeper in search of good ones. He would find his way back home from the air later, he supposed. He followed behind Sandal, entering the large trunk.

However, they'd scarcely set foot inside when a number of large plants with bulbous, eyeless heads popped up and started snapping at them. Startled, Silver used his claws to fend them off, only for his nails to bounce harmlessly off the surprisingly hard material the heads were made of.

Sandal would throw his arm up to block the surprise attack and get his arm trapped in the mouth of the deku baba. The evil plant wasn't going to let him go regardless of how much he struggled and that was when it happened. Sandals arm flew from his gauntlet leaving it to be chewed on by the deku baba. The moblin would look from his arm to his gauntlet repeatedly a fire growing inside of him. Lifting his club from his hip he would start towards the deku baba on a mission. "THAT MINE!" Roared the moblin as he brought his large club down hard on the next deku baba that lunged at him crushing its head into the ground.

As he approached the one that was still chewing on his gauntlet he would swing his club horizontally knocking his gauntlet out of it's mouth and onto the floor across the room. As he pulled the club back to finish off the creature another one of the deku baba would lunge forward and bite down on Sandals club. The moblin was now in a very precarious situation.

Swiping with his claws didn't do much, but when he pulled his spear out and jabbed it into the head of the Deku Baba attacking him, that was effective. He skewered the head, jerking it to one side and then another, causing the long tongue to loll all over the place, trailing plant... spit? everywhere. He screeched as he fought for dominance, as the plant was still struggling, and gave a particularly nasty tug to the left. A snapping sound was audible as the head came off the stalk, and with that, it stopped moving. The head stopped struggling, and the stalk fell to the ground, helplessly.

He turned around to the Moblin, seeing his weapon was ensnared in the other plant's teeth. He hesitated -was it his problem?- but decided that if he was going to go deeper into the tree, it would help to have someone strong around. So he fluttered up, taking aim and throwing his spear at the Deku Baba's head. He was a decent throw, and the spear embedded itself in the head from behind, startling it and prompting its mouth to open wide.

With the grip on his weapon released Sandal was able to strike out at the Deku Baba in front of him once more. His swing was low impacting the stalk instead of the head. With an audible crack the stalk of the Deku Baba would snap causing the weighted head to come falling to the ground lifelessly. Well that was a much easier way to deal with these things than trying to crack open their hard heads. Turning around to face the last Deku Baba he would notice the speak stuck in the back of its head. It was only then that Sandal realized that Silver had helped him.

The Moblin would stand still for a moment before launching forward shoulder first at the Deku Baba. His armored shoulder would hit the head of the Deku Baba hard, but wouldn't be enough to defeat the creature on its own. Luckily Sandal had been close enough that his Blitz would continue to carry him forward even after hitting the Deku Babas head. As the head recoiled back from the impact Sandal continued forward until he Blitzed right through the stalk of the Deku Baba coming to a stop a few feet on the other side of it.

With all of the Deku Babas defeated Sandal would start across the room to retrieve his gauntlet. Upon picking it up Sandal would come to realize that his gauntlet was covered with Deku Baba saliva? both on the outside and even on the inside. "Nasty." Reaching into his adventure pouch Sandal would pull out a large thick cloth that he wrapped his gauntlet up in before tucking it back into the adventure pouch and pulling out a different gauntlet. This one gauntlet didn't match Sandals armor in style or color, but at least it would protect his arm in any future fights.

With the plants dispatched, Silver landed and tugged his spear out of the second one. He nodded sagely at Sandal when the Moblin pointed out how nasty their saliva, poison, or whatever was. He agreed- they smelled terrible, too, and didn't seem edible; a theory confirmed by the fact that no one ever asked him to catch them one. He left his spear uncleaned, preferring the muck on his weapon than on his clothes, and returned to sniffing around in the room.

As he did, though, it wasn't his nose but his ears that were suddenly assaulted. An ear-splitting shriek echoed through the trunk, and the Aeralfos twisted his head to see the source of it. Just in time, he saw a small monkey being dragged deeper into the trunk, screaming and trashing, by a large ape. He gave a screech of his own to get Sandal's attention, but in doing so he also alerted the big ape, who tightened its grip on the little monkey and walked away more quickly.

Silver gave chase on wing, but was too slow to catch up before the ape rounded a dark corner and vanished.

Sandal had heard the ear-splitting shriek but hadn't been able to place the direction it had come from with the echo. Turning towards Silver when he screeched Sandal would look in the direction he was looking in just in time to spot the small monkey being dragged away by some large shadow. As Silver flew after them Sandal would run after them as well. Though his running speed was much slower than Silvers flight speed resulting in him catching up to Silver after he had already lost track of the two figures. "Where go?" Of course Sandal was asking where the two figures had gone, and not where they two of them should go. This was one of the situations where it would have been helpful if Sandal could actually speak in complete sentences.

Silver pointed to where he had seen the ape vanish towards, landing so he and Sandal wouldn't get separated. He was a little intimidated by the enormous beast, and having the Moblin around was reassuring. Still, the darkness did them no good. Hmmm... they weren't good enough for him to do things with, but... "Wait," he said, leaving his spear and flying back to the room they had come from. He soared to the strings of ivy he had been inspecting earlier, picking a handful of the berries that grew on it before flying back.

"Light," he said, to Sandal, taking one of the seeds and demonstrating what he meant by cracking it open against his spear. Its insides consisted of a fine yellowish powder, which clung to the spearhead and spread a dim, golden glow. He then held the weapon out in front of himself like a torch, stowing the other seeds for later use. He knew the glow didn't last forever and there was a good chance he would need another one later. He gestured that the Moblin had to follow, pursuing the ape.

As Silver flew away and left Sandal all alone the Moblin would take a few steps back in case something attempted to jump out at him from within the darkness ahead of him. Under normal circumstances the large Moblin would have already turned around and left, not wanting to venture into the darkness. Though these weren't normal circumstances at all. Sandal had caught sight of a small helpless creature being dragged away somewhere against its will and Sandal couldn't help but see himself in the little creature. The fear the small monkey had towards the larger ape was much like Sandals own fear of those he doesn't know. He wouldn't let the attacks and pain that he went through be inflicted on something so small and frail. Though as much as he wanted to help he couldn't even see to give chase, hopefully whatever Silver had in mind would help.

It didn't take long for Silver to return and coat the tip of his spear with some strange yellow powder from the inside of some fruit. The powder gave off a soft, golden glow and while it wasn't enough to illuminate the entire room it was certainly enough light to allow the two of the to move forward with. "Silver smart." Sandal was amazed by his companions resourcefulness. He would have never known that the powder inside of those fruits gave off light, however little it might be. Thanks to Silver the two of them could now move forward causing a smile to spread over the Moblins face as he followed on behind his Arealfos' companion.

That was the first time he'd been called smart, and he hesitated for a moment, shifting his weight from one foot to the next. Well... he DID know a lot about seeds and berries and fruits, but that was only because he was dumb in the first place, right? He shook the thought, sniffing the air. The faint scent from the Glow Seed was a hindrance in trying to sniff out the monkey from before, but he caught the scent and started walking a little faster, his wings flapping enthusiastically against his sides as he forgot to tense them.

As the tunnel let out into a large, well-lit room where the sunlight fell in through a hole in the trunk, he immediately spotted the poor monkey. It was encased in a cage on the top of a high pillar, screaming and rattling the bars to no avail. However, while he could easily fly up to it to save it, he stopped dead in his tracks. There was another, disgusting scent, overwhelmingly present in the room. Spiders. Silver made a face, snarling as he recognised the stench. He had never liked spiders. They scuttled around on eight legs, wibbling and wobbling, their webs were sticky and hindersome, and their bites hurt, even through his scales. "Careful," he said, gripping his shield and spear more tightly. "Spiders." He started flapping his wings, cautiously flying further into the room.

Emerging from the darkness of the poorly lit tunnel into a well-lit room had caused Sandal some discomfort, but he was happy to be able to clearly see once more. What he thought was a turn of good luck would quickly be soured by the mention of spiders. The Moblin really hated dealing with small, agile creatures such as spiders and keese. They were much harder for him to squish with his club. Slowly Sandal would raise his club up and rest it on his shoulder, he wasn't about to be caught off guard by these annoying little beasts.

At least that had been the plan, but the spiders had no intention of sticking to the plan that Sandal had for turning them into a mess on the end of his club. As the moblin was mid-step two spiders would strike at him from the shadows. The first would jump from one of the pillars in the room and onto Sandal's back as a the second lunged upwards from at his leg. The result of the two spiders lunging was Sandal coming crashing to the ground hard once more. While the spiders bites wouldn't be able to reach him through his armor, their webbing on the other hand was going to prove problematic. The spiders had wasted no time in trying to keep the moblin on the ground after he hit it. His right arm was already stuck to the ground and the spiders were now working on his left leg. If Sandal didn't act quickly he would find himself firmly bound to the ground.

Pulling his left arm in towards his side he would rest his palm on the ground and use it as a brace to try and get up. As he pushed upwards with his left arm he would pull his right arm upwards as well trying his hardest to break the webbing that was holding him down. Luckily for Sandal he was more than strong enough to rip through the spider webs and free his upper body, causing the spiders to run away before the could finish binding his leg to the ground. With a few strong tugs at the webs on his leg and they would tear freeing the moblin. As Sandal stood up he would take hold of his club that he had dropped as he fell to the ground. While he still had the spider webs stuck to his armor he was at least free. Now he could focus on the spiders in the roo....or not. Sandal seemed to be rather preoccupied trying to shake the webbing from the palm of his left gauntlet. "Nasty sticky." One thing was clear to the mobin at this point in time. By time they rescued the little monkey and got out of this tree safely he was going to have to give all of his armor a thorough cleaning. That was assuming he could actually focus long enough to actually survive the trip.

While Sandal distracted the two main spiders, Silver took off, using the time to Moblin bought him to get into a stable, rhythmic pattern of beating his wings so he could fly comfortably. He kept circling the room, seeing that aside from the two Sandal had run into there was a third large spider, but other than that there were only a few harmless little ones, only about as big as his claws. Deciding not to pay those any heed, Silver flew up as high as he could, finally choosing the first of the two spiders nearest to Sandal as his target. With a battle cry that would have ruptured the average Hylian's eardrums, he went into a nosedive, javelin at the ready to pierce the spider's back...

Only for Silver to end up in a crumpled heap on the floor, confused as to why his javelin had jarred so hard against the spider's shell and sent him flying without use of his wings. Were they tough? What the hell? Spiders weren't tough, they were squishy! He started to get up, seeing the spider scuttle towards him. Instead of trying the javelin again, he instead inhaled deeply, bending back a little and waiting for the insect to come within range. As it did, he abruptly leaned forward, exhaling with all his might. His Wind Breath knocked the spider back, buying Silver the space he needed to take off once again.

The third spider had joined the action, however, and now scuttled towards him, turning around to him and firing a long string of webbing at him. Silver managed to position his shield between himself and the spider, but the webbing stuck to the wood, tethering the two together. What was worse, the spider started to tug, attempting to pull him out of the air.

As Silver attacked one of the two spiders Sandal and gone after the other. Bringing his club down hard Sandal would connect solidly with the ground. The moblin would lift his club up into the air once more, take a few steps forward and bring his club down once more trying to squash the spider once more. This most recent effort would have the same result as his previous attack with the spider scuttling out of the way leaving Sandal to strike nothing more than the ground that was beneath it.

So long as Sandal continued to attack wildly without waiting for an opening the result would be the same. Taking a few steps back he would look around to see how Silver was faring, only to see that he was in a rather sticky situation much like Sandal had been with the deku babas. Raising his club up above his head once more the moblin would start towards the large spider that was trying to reel in Silver.

In one swift motion Sandal would bring his club down hard on the back of the largest spider. While the shell of the spider itself didn't break, its legs weren't strong enough to keep its body up from the force of the blow. The result was the underbelly of the spider taking the full force of the attack, but it wasn't strong enough to withstand the force leaving nothing but sticky mess on the ground. Sandal would release his club for a moment and take hold of web that tethered Silvers shield to the dead spider in both hands. Pulling his arms apart he would rip the webbing apart which would un-tether the Aeralfos from the spiders corpse, even if it did leave a rather long strand hanging from Silvers shield.

One spider down, two to go, Silver thought, saluting as a means of thanking Sandal when he released him from the beast's sticky grip. Steadying himself in the air and whirling around to look for the other two monsters, he screeched in surprise when one of them looked him right in the face; it had crawled up onto the wall while he and Sandal had left it to its own devices, eight eyes and two clicking mandibles looking back at him threateningly. Before the spider could do anything, Silver screeched and jabbed his javelin into the beast's face. Its legs had to keep it attached to the wall, so it was defenseless from that angle, and the spearhead buried itself in the soft flesh easily, leaving Silver to almost effortlessly rip the weapon out and the spider to fall to the ground, lifeless.

By now, the monkey on top of the pillar was making encouraging screams and clapping, jumping from foot to foot and making frantic gestures towards the final spider. Silver swivelled around once more, flying towards it. "Sandal!" he said, "Ready!" with that, he wheeled hard as he reached the spider, exhaling a hard Wind Breath to knock it onto its back and a few feet away from him, open to Sandal's weapon.

Sandal hadn't looked up at Silver after having freed him. No he had picked up his club and began looking around for either of the other two spiders only to have Silver draw his attention with a screech. Happy to see his new friend safe Sandal would look at the monkey, missing its gestures towards the third spider as he watched it dance back and forth from one foot to the other. It wasn't until Silver called out to him, pulling his gaze from the monkey, that Sandal would spot the third spider once more and causing him to focus on the fighting once more. As the spider flew backwards through the air Sandal would lift his club up high and get a running start towards it. The spider would land on its back and the moblin would bring his club down on it hard. The spider tried to block the attack with all eight of its legs, but it proved to be a futile attempt as it hadn't even been enough to slow the club down in the slightest.

With the final spider dead Sandal would look back to the monkey a large, unseen, smile on his face. With all of the spiders dead the monkeys would start to dance around in its cage. As if its energetic dancing were contagious Sandal would begin to mimic the little monkeys dancing. This would in turn cause the monkey to make some happy screams as it pointed at Sandal. It seemed as if Sandal and the little monkey had already managed to grow into good friends, either that or the two of them were just really stupid.