Forest Temple {Ultra5, Quill, Eternis} (OOT)

Holle raised the compass in his hand, the red torchlight reflected off of the blue side of the compass lighting his face up with a faint violet glow. 'First, a map.' Holle thought to himself as he flicked through the options of things the group needed, or could use to continue. Concentrating on both the thought of finding a map for this dungeon of a temple, and on the sight of the compass, Holle watched as the compass needle swung ponderously towards the door in front of them. Walking over to the door, Holle turned and looked at Loft and Marcus.
"It looks like the map to this labyrinthine temple is this way. Now, we don't know what will be in front of us, but we do know that it'll be trouble. Are you two ready to continue?"
((It's sad that U5 left us, we really could've used his Poe companion for exposition D: Also, how exactly do compasses work here? Do they point the way we need to go for each room to get the item, or do they simply point in the direction of the item?))

[[There is no actual Compass treasure; I brought it in because it's a typical Zelda item. It doesn't matter to me whether it points to the item's exact location or its general position (the right room). I'll roll with whichever.]]

"Yeah," Loft said, taking off the mask and shoving it into his pack. He pointed a warning finger at Marcus. "First sign of badness, all bets are off!"

Marcus rolled his eyes and reached for the door's handle. "We're ready," he said. He stepped through, making sure to check above and around the doorway before he did so. He'd had too many experiences with monsters catching him unawares because he walked casually through a door like it was the entrance to a bakery in Castle Town. There wasn't anything in his immediate vicinity, though, for which he was extremely grateful.

There were no doors in this room. Instead, there were two staircases, one leading up, the other leading down. Marcus looked between the two of them, then turned to Holle. "Which way?"

((Just realised I posted as Eternis last time D: NEED TO REMEMBER))
Holle stared intently at the stairs, noting that they looked almost identical, apart from the fact that one was going up, the other down.
"I think we should head up, it's more easily defended, and our eventual location is below us, so it's more likely that up will be a dead end."
Holle walked forwards, compass in hand, keeping a watch out for any foes, when he noticed an oddly purple-ish glow on his upper-left forearm. On the opposite side to the compass.
Spinning around, Holle turned just in time to see a portrait of the blue Poe they had seen as they entered fade to the sound of an eerie cackle. Grinning, Holle turned back to his companions.
"We've found a Poe, Marcus. How can we catch it?"

"Catch?" Marcus scratched his head, yawning. Loft nearly giggled; silly Marcus, why was he tired? He just had a nap! Loft wanted a nap, but there were evil skeletons around, and Loft didn't want to wake up and have one staring into his face. That'd be really scary! "We shouldn't need to catch it. The flame we need is in the lantern; just pop that in a bottle and we're set."

Loft jumped up and down and pointed at the stairwell winding up, up, up! The empty frame on the next landing wasn't empty anymore. "The Poe picture jumped," he said, running up the stairwell, his Bunny Hood flippity floppiding happily on his head, "let's get it!" He pulled out a throwing knife and lobbed it at the portrait, burying it in the paint.

The painting upstairs now pinned, Holle turned back to his portrait, which flashed orange as the eerie cackle came again, then faded back to black. Knowing the other portrait would be nearby, Holle looked downstairs, and, surely enough, the grinning face of the poe stared back at him from the frame below. Out came Holle's sling, and within three rotations, a stone from Holle's pocket was flung at immense speed at the portrait below. Before even seeing whether or not the stone had hit, Holle spun around and stuck his hunting knife into the portrait behind him. The shriek of the ghost being expelled from the portrait and fleeing upstairs brought a grin to Holle's face.
"It's hunting time, Loft." Holle started charging up the stairs. "We have a ghost to kill."

Loft cackled gleefully and Bunny-hopped up the stairs, his pounding feet going super duper fast 'cause of his awesome Hood. Before he knew it, he was up the stairs and on the landing. He made it just in time to see the orange Poe fade into the door on his left, and he turned and called down to the others. "Left door, left door!" He yanked it open and threw himself inside, leaving it open for his friends to follow through.

"Whoa...." Loft was so busy staring, he nearly tripped over his own two feet. The room was small and completely made of stone. Nasty chains hung from the ceiling, all they were all covered in what looked like dried blood. Loft felt goosebumps rise on his arms; this room was not a happy room.

The Poe cackled, and Loft jumped. It was hovering in the far corner of the room, shaking its lantern and shrieking with mirth. The orange light made the blood on the chains look fresh, and Loft was seized with a sudden desire to run. To run from this terrifying ghost, to run from this freaky mansion, and to run from secrets that should never have been revealed.

Holle followed the sprinting Loft, getting through the upper door just a few seconds behind him.
His eyes took in the gore plastered around the room, feeling sickened, with an intense desire to flee from the room implanting itself inside his head. Taking out his sling, Holle twirled it once, release the stone, then followed up by leaping directly at the poe, his eyes not on the poe but on it's shadow.
The shadow, not an enlarged version of the ghastly orange form in front of him, as one would expect from a normal being holding the torch, but rather the shadow of a shrunken childlike form, wrapped in chains and stretched from each limb . Four shadow chains led from each limb of the child to the corners of the floor, but as the stone from Holle's sling hit the poe, causing it to shriek in pain and hide from Holle and Loft's sight, one of the chains snapped, causing the childlike shadow to jerk in the other three directions, the unchained limb going limp.

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((As both previous partners (all 3 other characters) in this thread have stated that they were going to abandon this dungeon, I am now going to [Solo] this thang.))

Watching the spot where the poe disappeared carefully, Holle carefully circled the center of the room, keeping a loose hold on his stone-filled sling. A flicker of movement alerted him just in time, allowing him to jump out of the way of the oncoming lantern-twirling poe, its malicious cackle now tainted with the sharp edges of pain. Now standing in the left half of the room, Holle tightened his grip on his sling, causing it to begin its rotation, then quickly release its stone into the right eye of the poe. Another chain on the shadow snapped as the haunting cackle stopped for good, in its place a shriek of pain and a murmur of angry whispering. This time, the poe didn't hesitate to charge Holle, its lantern sickeningly fast and burning his left shoulder as it landed a painful, if glancing blow on his arm. Flicking his knife out from its sheath, Holle sunk the blade into the poe's incorporeal body, encountering a similar resistance as could be expected from jello. The murmuring rose to a dull roar, the shriek of pain now somewhat deafening as the poe simply threw itself at Holle, the final chain on the childlike shadow now hanging loose around its left ankle. Barely ducking in time, Holle mustered up his "tricks" and pushed off with his hands, twisting as he landed so that the wall was at his pack, and that he could face the poe, now hovering in the air above the huddled shadow in the center of the room. The poe, its eyes normally full of mischief now smoldering with pain and anger, reached its arms wide and howled dreadfully, the sound eliciting a shiver that ran through Holle's spine. Not a shiver of fear, anticipation, or elation, but a shiver of anger. Anger at the poe that had been terrorizing the local villagers. Anger at the makers of this dungeon that could do such a thing to a small child that its very spirit could be trapped and tortured like this.
This anger burst forth, barely controlled and in the form of an explosion right into the face of the poe from Holle's outstretched left arm, the pain from Holle's burns adding to the symphony of emotion being expressed in this almost primal expression of magic.
The poe was silenced, the last chain snapped, and the shadow disappeared, releasing from its center the red flame from the large chamber.
Exhausted by his efforts, and from his use of new magic, Holle sank to the floor, his back against the wall, and closed his eyes as his vision went black.

Holle awoke, the clanking of chains rattling in the distance breaking the tenuous hold unconsciousness had over him. Hearing grunts and an unusual clacking sound, Holle very carefully pulled ajar the door to the Poe's room, taking a peek towards the stairs. A stalfos was walking down the stairs up which he had come, its feet moving at their usual plodding pace down each step. Taking the opportunity, Holle ripped the door open, and, feeling the rush of magic run to his legs, leaped onto the back of the stalfos, causing it to tumble down the stairs, taking Holle with it. Battered and bruised, Holle frowned at himself, beginning to re-think his decision as the stalfos began to slowly re-form from its jumbled state. Taking action while his foe was at a disadvantage, Holle wedged his hunting knife in the crack made in the right femur of the skeleton, warping the arm out slightly and ruining the grip the stalfos had on its blade. As the swing of the blade rushed past his left side, two inches from his arm, Holle once again brought out his sling, swinging it to produce maximum torque as quickly as possible, and let it fly right into the centre of the armoured brute's spine, cracking it, and causing the already weakened foe to crumble to a pile of shattered bones and bone dust.
Walking down the stairs to the lower floor, Holle saw that a golden torch, similar to the ones he saw in the first room of the dungeon, had been lit with the red fire from the Poe's room. Encouraged, he opened and strode boldly through the door into what looked like a nearly empty room, a few pots laying about and a door on the other side.
As the door clicked shut behind him, a set of iron bars rammed down behind him, and, from an octagonal opening in the ceiling, two more stalfos jumped down, their skulls clacking in what looked like a macabre mockery of laughter.
"Oh, great. I really should have seen that coming..."
Holle sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as the two stalfos began to close in.

Holle paused, waiting for the correct moment. The stalfos were closing in, their clacking bones rattling in a grotesque mockery of laughter as they raised their swords at the poorly armed refugee before them. Their shuffling pace caused Holle to shiver in fear, a thought jolting into his brain.
What is with these Stalfos? It's been at least thirty seconds since they saw me, and neither of them have attacked yet. Are they waiting for, I don't know, a... floormaster... or.... something...
Holle looked up, then started to walk quickly to the Stalfos on his left, standing face-to-face with the skull and started shouting into its face.
"Really? That's what you were going for? You were going to scare me into submission while your bloody floormaster mate just dropped down on me from above? Well, I have some really bad news for ya, buddy!
A whistling in Holle's ears alerted him to the falling floormaster from above, letting him jump as he had planned, rolling behind the other bemused Stalfos as the stunned skeleton he had been ranting at was snatched up by the hidden hand, the monstrous form scuttling away to the entrance of the dungeon. Turning to the remaining Stalfos, Holle forced his anger into a metaphorical ball that took physical form as his magic condensed into an explosion, releasing the full force in the centre of the undead warrior's ribcage, scattering bones to the corners of the room. The skull, clattering and flickering with an eerie fire was silenced as Holle's open palm shattered it on the stone tiled floor.

*Biiiiiing...
Doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot
Doot doot doot doot doot doot doot doot
Doot doot doot doot Doot doot doot doot
Doot doot doot doot DOOT DOOT DOOT Ting!
DA DA DA DA~!
A chest faded into view, opening itself to reveal a well-crafted, but simple bow with thirty arrows.
"Oh, great. My reward for slaying some creepy monsters is a weapon I can't use."

Holle slung the bow and quiver over his back, in a style that he had seen some hunters back at the western caves do. Opening the door in front of him, Holle took a careful look through, and, sure enough, there were two visible pictures of a blue-coloured poe that winked from picture to picture until it disappeared. Holle took an arrow out from the quiver on his back, and, carefully weighing it, hurled it at the painting in front of him as it were a knife. Concentrating on the arrow, Holle's aim was true and the painting was pinned directly in the middle. Repeating this act on the second painting he saw, Holle rushed up the stairs, his anger, aggression and sheer annoyance at this despicable dungeon shearing through him like a hot knife through butter as he brought an arrowhead into his hand and hurled it at the painting in front. Letting the arrowhead fly with only a sliver of his concentration focused on it, Holle sent the bead of his anger straight towards the painting. The shrill cackle he heard from the Poe turned into a shriek of surprise and despair as Holle's magic caught its lantern and shattered it into a thousand pieces, the childlike shadow fleeing into the cracks of the ceiling as the blue flame scattered and travelled towards the torches in the main room of the temple.
"That's the second gone. Two left."

Holle continued traversing the labyrinthine dungeon, walking his way through rooms filled with bats that, while numerous, quickly fell to his sling. Room after room of mind-twisting physics that defied what should be, along with a few close shaves with a floor master or two all being him to a final passageway, ending in a room with, finally, another of those golden braziers.
Where of course he was immediately accosted by a stalfos coming out of nowhere.
By this point, Holle was exhausted. His 'tricks', while relatively inexhaustible, exhausted him, and he was really starting to feel the strain in his arms. Which failed to come up in time, his legs, collapsing beneath him as the jagged, bloody blade swung down to his head-
And passed straight through.
Wait.
What?

"Oh pooh, and I was looking forward to watching you dance!"
The air shimmered, and about three feet from where the now-absent stalfos had stood was another Poe, this one clothed in ragged green, somewhat slimmer than the previous two. Holle sat up onto his elbows, looking at him quizzically.
"Uh... And you haven't killed me yet because?"
The Poe waggled its lantern as if it were an admonishing finger, a hint of maddened mirth in its voice
"Because that, my dear plaything, would be no fun at all!"
Holle sighed. He had a terrible feeling about this.
"And let me guess, this fun involves various puzzles I have to solve?"
"No, no no no no!"
"Really? Thank Farore, because those ones get annoying really quickl-"
"I'm just getting you to solve my riddles!
Holle smacked his face into his palm.
"Nayru's tears..."

"Now, for my first riddle, I'm going to ask you an incredibly easy one."
Holle found himself at the edge of of a cliff, a rickety rope bridge suspended between this side and the nearest peak, nearly as far as the height of said peak. A series of paths leading from the peak are on the other side, twisting and winding so that it was nearly impossible to make out the individual track that leads to its base. Behind him, a rumbling sound came from a horde of moblins barreling down towards him.
"Find your way down to the ground without the moblins catching you in a trap, or falling down, because if you die here, you die for real! Remember, they can climb down this bridge if it's cut, and get there before you, and they can just send a horde down each of the paths. You're the same speed, but you only have a thirty-second head start... Good luck in finding the fastest route~!"
Holle grinned, laughing heartily.
"They can climb down the bridge if it's cut, huh?"
He dashed onto the bridge, slicing the ropes connecting it to this side, letting out a witty one-liner before sailing off towards oblivion.
"Only if it's cut from the other side, my good poe!"
The wind whistled through his hair, hands going red as he strained to hold onto the quickly descending ropes. He barreled towards the mountainside, the arc bringing him ever-closer to the rock wall.
"What is that maniac doing? There's no way he's going to- Wait."
Holle felt a surge of energy fill him, his favorite 'trick' coming to the fore. He leapt from the bridge with moments to spare before it crashed into the mountain, his own momentum sending him plummeting to the ground-
When he flipped out his cape, his favorite life-saving 'trick' kicking in, his fall slowed to that of a feather.
"Dark lord Ganondorf curse you, that's CHEATING!"
The surroundings disappeared, leaving only Holle and the Poe in the chamber, all traces of his "riddle" gone.
"You're not allowed to use magic!
Holle stuck his tongue out at the ghost, grinning wickedly.
"You never said that, you just said to find the fastest route! How was I to know I wasn't supposed to use magic, given that the entire thing was an illusion?"
The poe grumbled, a chorus of mutterings accompanying its complaints.
"... Fine. But this next one, you don't get a chance to do anything... Tricky!"
"Wait wait wait how many riddles do I have to solve?"
"As many as I want!"
"Here's a deal; you will WANT at most two more, after which point you will happily allow the flame in your possession to wander freely back to its home. And I, in turn, will not rip your soul from this plane with every ounce of power I command and seal you inside a squeaky dog toy. Agreed?
Holle focused, and the bead of force from his hand shattered a handy nearby pot, making the poe shriek and bob up and down, tilting its head forward in a manner very reminiscent of nodding.
"AGREED!

Holle breathed a sigh of relief, glad his bluff worked, just as the Poe started glowing, his body emitting a sickly green light.
"Those lost in darkness find their way by means not sight nor sound;
But you will find you'll lose your hands if you just feel around!
So now be trapped in maze of dark with ears plugged up with wax,
And best of all, you need to solve it in three minutes max!"
The Poe giggled, and suddenly Holle was surrounded by pitch-black, his ears blocked up by something. Still, it was actually pretty funny that the Poe thought that the 'riddle' was in any way hard...
Given the overwhelming stench of blood from all sides barring the front.
Holle laughed loudly, a little surprised at how loud his voice sounded in his blocked ears, then carefully made his way through the maze, making sure to always head in the direction with the least stench of blood.
Suddenly, he could see again, his ears clear, and the scent of blood disappeared.
"You... You... I hate you!"
The Poe scowled, buzzing angrily in the air.
"For that, I'm going to give you my hardest puzzle!"
Holle found himself in a room full of two hundred monks, half of whom had blue dots on their forehead.
"These monks cannot hear me, as, well, they do not exist. Every minute, I will ring a gong, and those monks that know they have a blue dot on their forehead will disappear. Now, you have one sentence to say, to the monks which cannot give an indication of the number of monks with blue dots, after which you must correctly guess when each monk with a blue dot will disappear."
"At least one of the monks has a blue dot on their forehead."
Holle turned to the Poe.
"And, assuming all the monks are perfect logicians, the ones with the dots will all disappear at the one hundredth gong ring"
The Poe twitched, and the illusion shattered, leaving shining shards of nothing glimmering on the ground before they melted away.
"You win..."
The Poe twirled vanishing in a puff of green fire, which made its way yo the central chamber through a door that Holle was certain hadn't been there at any point during the encounter.
"Finally..."
Holle made his way back through the door, to be greeted by a purple Poe being circled by the three flames he'd already freed.
"Great, just what I needed; Middle management of pesky poes dangerously defending a ghostly Ganon."

The purple Poe giggled, spun its lantern, and three identical copies burst forth from the flames, starting to circle Holle with echoing, malicious laughter.
"Sod this."
Holle closed his eyes, focusing on the memory of the crystal he'd acquired from that odd Kokiri in the Curiosity shop, centring the 'pulse' on his heart. Their giggling increased in pace and pitch, but he kept his eyes shut, focusing until he felt the 'click' that told him he could let go-
He opened his eyes, watching the ripple in the air as the four Poes dived at him, their giggling at fever pitch, then grinned as the shock wave smashed through the Poes, three of them blinking out into the red, blue, and green flames, which circled angrily around the fourth, who hissed in pain as it was knocked back. Holle brought out his sling as it shivered, once again splitting into three.
"No you don't!"
Holle spun his sling, fire spreading across the stone a moment before he let fly, the Poe shrieking as it burned, the flames now circling . He let his sling drop, focusing on the bead of force he sent flying towards his foe, placing it just inside the gap in the flames to explode right in the Poe's face.
The Poe screamed, burning up in the purple flame that, along with its three fellows, went to the four torches around the elevator, which began to move.
"Oh thank Faore that's over..."
Holle collapsed to the ground, staring up at the ceiling in his exhaustion.
"At least now I can rest..."

Holle's eyes snapped open as his senses screamed at him, warning him of hostile intent; He quickly rolled out of the way as a floormaster dropped out from the shadowy ceiling above. He grasped at his sling, which was inches from his hand, and began cracking it like a whip. As the floormaster began to scuttle towards him, he grinned and sent a chill to the leather in his hand, which began to glow a pale blue.

Another snap, this time connecting with the incredibly tough hide of the hand-like monster, and the thing froze solid, encased in a block of ice.
"Heh, time to move on, I guess."
Holle made his way to the elevator, wincing a little at a stiff pain in his shoulder. He hopped inside, watching warily as he made his way to the lower level...
To be greeted by two impressive, foreboding double doors.

Which Holle promptly swung open
"Hey, ghostie! Sorry to burst your ectoplasmic bubble, but your buster has been brought-"
He cut himself short as he saw the room with six paintings, a dais, and nothing else bar the seal of the forest inlaid into the floor.
"So that's how you're going to play it, huh?"
He brought out his trusty dagger and sling, watching carefully as he moved to stand in the centre of the symbol.

An apparition, you guessed it, appeared out of this air, cackling at nothing. This apparition had taken the form of Ganon, but there were a few differences.
At least, Holle HOPED they were differences.
The apparition's eyes were swirling pools of void, windows into nothingness that burned away the thing's face even as Holle looked at it, leaving behind a skull, off-white with veins of black running through the bones. Two long, somewhat curved horns grew from the skull's forehead, glistening wetly in the unearthly light suffusing the room from no obvious source. As if that weren't enough, chains burst from the thing's back, wrapping themselves around the arms and legs of the figure, dangling from its wrists and ankles. The thing snapped its fingers, and a pitch-black horse with glowing red eyes and a crimson mane appeared beneath it, complete with saddle and black steel barding as it floated in mid-air.

The apparition mounted the beast, a staff with three sword-length blades at its tip, a dagger-length blade at it's base, and reared, cackle and neigh echoing through the room as Holle black iron railings sprouted up around the sides of the platform. The thing rode off into-
Into a painting?

Holle breathed in deeply, watching the painting the thing disappeared off into carefully.
Only to be struck by a bolt of lightning from the thing's staff as it came out of the painting behind him. Holle yelled out in pain, his hair standing on end as current flowed through him into the floor, the thing cackling as it rode back into a painting.
Din damn that thing.

Holle brought his bow and arrow from his back, nocking the arrow on the string and pulling it back.
"...Huh. This is a lot simpler than I'd thought."
He started pacing in a circle, keeping his eye on as many of the identical paintings as he could, the five without the phantom riding out at him-
Holle recognised exactly what was bugging him about the though even while he was thinking it. He turned to the painting with the moving ghost inside it, catching sight of the swirling purple portal opening.
"No you don't!"
Holle let loose the string, the arrow flying off almost wildly as the bowstring smacked into his arm, the hit skin turning red in an instant.
"Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow!"
Holle barely kept his grip on the bow, but through luck or accidental magic, the arrow nicked the horse-thing on the side of the face as it was halfway out of the portal. It gave a whinny, and retreated back into the painted image, the phantom visibly riding back towards the castle featured.
"Well, at least I know this thing works...

Holle nocked another arrow to the string, examining how his arm got in the way.
"Hm... Maybe if I..."
He twisted his hand, now resting the bow on the fleshy part of his palm, and EUREKA! His arm moved out of the way, and it didn't feel awkward. He pulled slightly on the string, testing how the bow felt in his hands...
Yeah. This would do.
Wait, hadn't he been doing something?

Holle drew back on the drawstring and looked up, catching sight of the phantom raising its staff above its head, energy crackling around the three blades.
"Nope!"
He let loose his arrow, driving it into the belly of the horse, which whinnied and backed off back into a portal with alarming unnaturalness.
Although, considering it was a ghostly horse summoned by an evil phantom-Ganon thing, flying in mid-air, Holle felt he shouldn't really have been that alarmed.
Still, that didn't really matter when he saw three identical images coming from the paintings before him, of the phantom riding towards him.
"Oh you have GOT to be kidding me."
Holle drew back, just waiting patiently as the three rode to the front of the wall-hung artwork, letting loose as the one on the left grew a purple portal. Another whinny, and this time phantom Ganon came out himself, the barded horse melting away into a skeleton, which then burned to nothingness in a blue-white flame.
"H~uh. Did not expect that."
Holle took another shot at the thing, which blocked it with its cloak, the arrow clattering to the floor. Holle shrugged, slinging the bow back onto his back as he brought out his dagger, bringing to mind a head of force he sent moving off towards the phantom. It was, similarly, dodged and blocked, to the sound of echoing eerie laughter.
Another shrug, and Holle closed his eyes, considering the 'trick' that the pulse crystal, so effective against the Poe earlier, had taught him. He slowed his breathing, focusing the energy in his body into his right hand-
Only to be shocked and electrocuted for a few seconds, accompanied by the sensation of a strong punch in the chest. He fell to the ground, but something about him clicked at the sensation. Something about what he'd been hit by felt natural, oddly enough, and he was going to investigate it as soon as he got out of there.

Weaving in midair, the apparition laughed again, twirling its staff in each hand as energy started to build up at the tip, forming a ball that sprang at Holle. With no time to dodge, he swung his dagger at it, connecting and-
Electrocuting himself again. His shoulder began to throb, and he had to grit his teeth against the pain. He couldn't take much more of this, having had insufficient rest and recovery in his time in this dungeon. He started to rummage through the pouch on his belt, trying to come up with something to help him. Random rocks? No. Shiny crystal? Doubt it. A few pieces of string and a mouldy, half-eaten pork sandwich later and another orb of lightning was sent his way. Panicking, again missing the time to dodge, Holle swung at the orb. Stupid, stupid! If his dagger hadn't done anything, why should this cloth-
Bounce the orb right back to the phantom? Huh.
The phantom, as surprised as Holle, couldn't react in time as the lightning hit it, jerking in its descent to the ground, Holle focusing a chill around his dagger as he dived in to stab it. It froze, encased in a block of ice, but shortly rose back up from its position, the ice cracking of in big sheets that instantly evaporated.
Holle shrugged, gently spinning the bag in his fingers. He had the feeling next time wouldn't be so easy.

The phantom hovered, twirling his staff with blinding speed, once again building up energy. There was something about the figure now, something more watchful, and Holle found himself shifting his footwork, keeping himself perfectly balanced just in case.

The thing sent the ball of lightning flying towards his face, quicker than the previous shot, but this time, Holle was ready. He took a swing, sending the thing flying back to its original owner-
Who then hit it straight back with his staff.
Oh shit.

Holle wildly flailed his pouch at the accelerated ball, managing to push it back mere inches from his body as the ball shot back towards the foe, who took another swing, and hit. This time, Holle hard prepared himself, and had already started his wide swing as the thing sent the ball flying back towards him. The range on the staff started to give the thing trouble, the end just barely managing to hit. Holle tightened his grip on the sack, pulling in his swing to take half the time, and sending an agonising twinge through his injured shoulder. Still, it worked, and the phantom failed to swing it,back once more. Holle rushed in, dagger in his other hand, now just tackling the thing.

The blade sunk into it's flesh, which began to melt away in the blue-white fire. All that was left were the bones, which began to burn and dissipate themselves, leaving just the skull behind. Holle fell back to the floor as light filled the room, a soft green glow suffusing the surroundings.
Aaaaaaaaand the skull started to rise back up. Holle was having NONE of that.
He swung his dagger, bringing to mind the lighting he'd been hit twice by, and sent the glowing orb towards the skull, which burned away as the orb hit it, the last traces of the torturous phantom leaving the place.
"Thank Farore it's over..."