Great Deku Tree (Blonde Panther and Tsubori)

Inside the Great Deku Tree
Lyra, the healer-in-training, and Hector. (1/4/3) [Blonde Panther] Reward: +25 Rupees.
Keiligh L’Archa, the drama queen, and Leronah (1/2/5) [Tsubori] Reward: +25 Rupees.
This Dungeon thread’s music.

Kokiri Forest was supposed to be a peaceful place, a haven of peace and quiet amidst the chaos that was Southern Hyrule. Guarded by the Great Deku Tree, it should have been the safest place in Hyrule... and yet, if the Great Deku Tree gazed at the sky, he could sense the evil approaching the forest. The Kokiris, also apparently sensing something was wrong, had retreated to inside their homes... and instead, a few Fairies hesitatingly answered the Great Deku Tree's calls.

Two of the protective spirits that aided the Kokiris in their daily lives approached him. One magenta, and clearly feminine... and the other with a deep purple glow, a distinctly masculine creature. "Leronah... and Hector." The Great Deku Tree said, recognizing the two. "Why haveth only the two of you answered me? What happened to the others?"

"Probably too cowardly to come out of their homes," the female Fairy said, bobbing up and down slowly. "Much like the kids themselves, actually."

"I... I don't blame them," her purple companion weakly protested, shaking, "Can't you feel the evil, Leronah? Of course they're all scared..."

"Are you calling me stupid, Hector?! I know that!"

"Enough, both of thee." The Great Deku Three silenced them both, but then remained silent for a good while. Neither Fairy dared speak. "Thou must protect Keiliegh and Lyra... They haveth skills that I require... and with thee by their sides... yes. It appears I doth not require the other Fairies after all."

Leronah and Hector looked at each other for a few seconds. "Are you telling us to..."

"Yes." The Great Deku Tree looked at the skies once more, noting the dark clouds packing together. "There is not much time left. Go back to the children you ward... and bring them here. Hurry."

"B-b-b-but how will we convince them?" Hector said, still shaking. "They're scared... how do we get them to leave their houses?"

Leronah huffed. "They're personally being called by the Great Deku Tree, you pansy. I dunno about Lyra but it should do for Keiliegh."

"Leronah is right, Hector. And if they hurry, I can protect them..." The Great Deku Tree waited for Hector's nod. "Now go, Fairies! Bring the children to me! Quickly!"

OOC (open) OOC (close)

Leronah bunnied with Tsu's permission.

Re: Great Deku Tree (BP, Tsub and Raz)

Leronah raced towards the kokiri village, knowing that Keiliegh wouldn't be easy to command. Stubborn moron. She then found Keiliegh's house, going in through the window and drifting over to the bed where the kokiri girl slept. She got close to her face, trying to wake her up. "Hey! Keiliegh! Wake up!"

"Noooo..." she mumbled, still deep in sleep. "Koume.... Your... Sis is... A cheater... Kotake has... Two fives an'... You know it..." Her eyes then shot open, and as a first reaction, she pillowswept the fairy before her into the wall. "Oh... Leronah? Sorry!" She then sat up and stretched her back.

"S-stupid girl... Oh well. Listen up! The great deku tr-" She faded off as Keiliegh ignored her, going to pour herself some juice. "Oi! Moron!"

"What??? I'm thirsty!"

Leronah charged, hitting Keiliegh in the forehead. "The great! Deku! Tree! Wants you! Jeez, you make me annoyed to be your fairy damn near daily, now you're defying the words of the great deku tree?!"

"I'm not 'Defying'!" The kokiri said while crossing her arms and pouting. "I'm just... Ignoring until after breakfast."

Leronah swarmed Keiliegh's head attacking like a pesky fly. "Gogogogogo! Get going! Grab your stuff!" 

Keiliegh swatted around her head, but to no avail. "Ahh! Wait- what are- Gyaa! Fine! I'll gooooo!" She grabbed her stuff and walked out of her house, beginning her descent down the ladder.

Re: Great Deku Tree (BP, Tsub and Raz)

Lyra was staying in a hollowed out tree stump, where she was currently up, awake, and immersed in a book she had brought from Hyrule Castle Town. Hector found her like this, studying the finer workings of her magic. he didn't really want to disturb her, but a request from the Great Deku Tree was absolute. "L-Lyra..." he whispered, landing on her shoulder, but without results.

She didn't hear him. So, gently, he tugged on her hair and tried to talk a little more loudly. "Lyra... the Great Deku Tree wants to see you- eeeep!" Lyra had turned her head so quickly that the hair Hector had tugged on and not yet released whipped behind her in a wide arc, effectively pulling the light fairy to her other shoulder, where he failed to hold on and was launched into the wall.

"Hector? Oh, I'm sorry." She picked the fairy up from the ground, where he was lying a little dizzily. "Where have you been? You weren't there when I sat down to study."

"T-the Great Deku Tree wants you to come see him..."

"The Great Deku Tree?" Lyra repeated, in shock, "Why didn't you say so sooner?" She leapt up, tied her hair, grabbed her staff with one hand and Hector with the other, leaving the tree stump and heading towards the meadow of the Great Deku Tree. "What's it about," she asked, "And why does he specifically want to see me?"

"It's not just you, Leronah and Keiliegh are coming, too."

"Keiliegh, huh?" Lyra didn't know the girl very well personally but she had a general indication of who she was. This promised to get interesting.

Re: Great Deku Tree (BP, Tsub and Raz)

Keiliegh huffed as she walked outside, Leronah having drill marshalled her out of bed and out to the deku tree. It really was an honor to be chosen for this, but could it not have waited an hour? 

She walked to the bridge with the missing plank, usually people would jump over it or fall into the cold river a foot or two below. Keiliegh, however, could easily walk over it with her hover boots. When she saw a familiar figure going towards the meadow, Keiliegh started sprinting. She recognized most people from the forest, even those who she didn't know very very well. 

"Omigosh! Lyra! I heard you went to the north! How are ya, girl?!" This was followed up by a swift glomp to the back.

"Wah!" Lyra went straight to the ground when Keiliegh glomped her from behind, causing a surprised cry from both her and Hector. Fortunately they had already gone over the bridge, otherwise they might have fallen off and that would have been distastrous. "I... I came back to study the magic of the Great Deku Tree from up close..."

As she explained to Keiliegh in the most understandable words possible why the Great Deku Tree was a worthy source of research and why it was better done from up close, they reached the enormous tree itself. "Thou art here." The protective god of Kokiri Forest was immobile, as always, but its voice carried far and found its way into the Kokiri's heads.

"Lyra and Keiliegh... thou must be wondering why I sent for thee." Lyra merely nodded, not interrupting the tree in his speech. "Thou may have sensed it. Evil is drawing near to the forest once more... we have need of great magical strength to repel it."

"But how? Why us? I'm a healer, I can't do fighting with my-"

"Inside me... I keep a treasure of great power." The ground rumbled slightly as part of the Great Deku Tree's trunk opened up. "I need thee to go inside of me and retrieve it... if we have it above the surface, I can use it to dispel the evil approaching Kokiri Forest. I beg of thee..."

Lyra grabbed her staff more tightly and Hector shivered around her head. Go inside the Great Deku Tree? Retrieve a treasure of great power? It sounded like a dream of sorts. She looked to Keiliegh... the glamour queen of Kokiri Forest would decide.

Keiliegh laughed when Lyra put the spotlight on her. The great deku tree pleading her? Wow! What a thing to brag about when she got back! All she had to do was go into a tree and loot for treasure? Sweet deal! She glomped Lyra from the right again as she beamed. “Of course we’ll do it! Why wouldn’t we? We’ll go in ya better than anyone else has ever done it! Right Lyra?!” She then didn’t wait at all for her comrade to accept and drew her katars. “Let’s go! Open wide, Mr great Deku tree!”

Keiliegh approved of the plan, and Lyra followed her to the insides of the protective deity of the forest. Immediately after getting in, she pulled out a pencil and a small pack of paper, jotting down 'F1' in the top left and looking around the room. Square in the middle of the circular room she sketched on her paper, there was a large spider web covering a hole. She leaned forward at the edge of it, looking down.

"There's something down there," she said, "Are you telling me the Great Deku tree goes as far into the ground as he does into the sky?" Hector hovered over the spider web and Lyra tried it with her foot.

"It's sturdy stuff, Lyra..." Hector said, sitting down on it, "And not sticky at all, strangely enough." Lyra risked to step on it, and jumped up and down. The spider web creaked and proved to be elastic instead of sticky, denting in a little but quickly re-assuming its normal form when she jumped back up or stood still. "You need more weight or power, Lyra..."

"Keiliegh!" Lyra shouted over to the glamour queen, "I need your help!"

With a smirk, Keiliegh jumped on the strange web in tandem with Lyra. "Whooo! It's so bouncy!" after a few seconds though, it became apparent that the web wasn't breaking. Stopping to think for a moment, the kokiri jumped in excitement when she came up with an idea. "Stand back Lyra! I've got this!"

She stood in the middle, pulling out her slingshot and a handful of chill seeds. She fired in a circle around her at the edges of the web. Stretching turned to  bending, and bending to cracking. Leronah hovered next to Lyra, whispering in her ear. "She hasn't thought this through. This'll be good in.... Three... Two... One..." 

"Ahhhhhh! " Keiliegh let out a scream as the web shattered beneath her, sending her plummeting down the massive hole. She started reaching for her hover boots to save her, but before she got ahold of them, she landed in water. 

Going up to the surface, Keiliegh called up to Lyra. "Awwwwww now I'm all wet!"

Keiliegh had a solution for the web not breaking, but apparently not for the ensuing fall. "Keiliegh!" Lyra shouted, sitting on her knees at the edge of the hole. "Keiliegh, are you all-" The other Kokiri shouted up that she was all wet, but Lyra was fairly sure that if she was hurt that would have taken priority. "Wait for me, Keiliegh, I'm coming down!"

She had already put her legs over the edge of the hole and mentally prepared herself for the jump, when Hector called out. "L-Lyra! Over here... These vines give this wall a pretty rough surface. Maybe you can use them to climb down..."

"I could try that... help me out here, Hector." Lyra walked over to the wall Hector had spoken of, slowly swinging her legs over the edge and trying to get them into the vines properly.

"Lower... a little to the left... a little more... Yes!" Hector bounced, a little excited over Lyra's success in getting her feet into support. "Oh, you could drop your staff... you'll need both hands to climb down..." Lyra did as she was told, waiting until she heard the 'splash' the wooden rod made in the water before proceeding to climb down.

It was the most taxing thing she'd ever done in her life. By the time she reached the three quarter point, her arms were screaming in pain and she started to think it might be worth it to jump down and get wet if that meant she could stop climbing. However, with a little encouragement from Hector, she made it down to the first Basement floor.

Hector helped her by pulling up her skirt a little bit, until she had both feet on the ground and could hold the hem herself. Then, he floated over to where her staff lay in the water, staying there until Lyra had picked it up.

The healer looked around. The room they were in looked to be about the same size as the one they had come down from, except half of it was filled with water. Lyra was standing on slightly higher ground where the water was more shallow, while Keiliegh had landed in slightly deeper water. That was her luck, though- it had broken her fall.

"There's another hole up there, Lyra..." Hector said, flying back to his ward from the much higher half of the room, "I think we might have to fall even further down."

"There's also a passage over there, though," Lyra said, pointing over to the patch of dry land right in front of them. She was right, there was a passage there, but it was covered in spider web yet again. "But we'd need to get through the webbing somehow... Keiliegh, what say you?"

Keiliegh got out of the water, ringing out her hair as she waited for Lyra to make it down. She called up to the girl. “Just let go! We haven’t got all day!” But put on a pouty face when Lyra softly landed in the shallow water. “Aww… I wanted a big splash.” The Kokiri wandered around the dry area blindly, trying to dry herself, until she accidentally stepped on a pressure pad, turning on a torch.

“Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about!” She then closed in on the fire, trying to dry herself.

Just as Lyra wondered how they were going to get past the webbing this time, as it was clearly too thick to just walk through. "We could burn it if we had fire," Hector said, "Or maybe freezing it like Keiliegh did above us and then ramming it with blunt force..."

"Both Keiliegh and I are too small and weak to do that, Hector... We're not Gorons."

"You wouldn't have to be. Technically speaking a Hylian would have been able to do it with a bludgeon like your staff."

"But I'm a Kokiri."

Hector nodded. "Yes. You and Keiliegh both are Kokiris. So we're going to need something else. Maybe Keiliegh can cut it with her... ka... tars?"

Lyra looked behind her at Keiliegh, who had... lit a torch. Inside the Great Deku Tree. Well, Lyra assumed it would make sense if their protector had it in him in the first place. "Lyra?" hector looked at her in confusion when Lyra picked up her staff and turned it around, so the emerald on it faced the ground.

"We need something to carry the fire over there, right?" Lyra walked near to Keiliegh, holding the wood in the fire. "And there's water there anyway." Stepping off of the dry land into the shallow water, she walked over to the webbing covering the passage and held her burning staff to it. It didn't take long for the webbing to catch fire.

While the flames quickly spread, Lyra stuck her staff into the water next to her to extinguish it. She was worried for a second that the solid wood of the trunk would catch fire as well, but that was interestingly flame resistant, as the flaes died the second they reached the wood. "Amazing," she muttered, taking a note of it. "Keiliegh, whenever you're dried up..."

After Lyra burned the webs blocking the next door, Keiliegh got the last of her hair dry, though it was a tad frizzy now. Freak the hell out. "Damn it to the sacred realm!! I didn't bring a brush!" She said, moderately angry. Leronah came over from above, having apparently taken her sweet time in coming down.

"Calm the hell down child!" She said, trying to calm Keiliegh.

"Screw you Leronah! If I'm doing heroic deeds, I can't have frizzy hair!" She stormed through the door in front of her, nudging aside Lyra. "Whatever's in this room is about to get fooked."

And fooked it was. There was a single deku scrub and it's attempt to shoot her with a seed went badly. She blocked it with her katar and went in for a sliding punch with it. The deku went down into it's leaf bed, so Keiliegh stood over it, putting her katars away. "So that's how it'll be, huh?!" She reached into her bag, bringing out a whole handful of chill seeds. "Brainfreeze!" She yelled throwing them down. The scrub came up screaming, rolling on the ground with the kokiri standing over it furiously.

"Keiliegh-" Lyra was pushed out of the way by her companion and only managed to keep her balance. Well. Note to self, she thought, don't ever mess up Keiliegh's hairdo. She rushed to follow her companion in, for the safety of whatever was inside the next room. She was far too late to save the Deku from Keiliegh's icy wrath.

"...are you done?" she asked quietly, looking at the still steaming Kokiri standing over the Deku before getting on her knees next to the poor thing. "Well, fooked is the right word..." She put her hand on its head, still holding her staff with the other one. "Did you really have to go this ballistic on him?"

A warm, white light momentarily stretched over the palm of her hand, touching the Deku as she cast Life. The Deku shivered a bit, but eventually hopped to its feet, scuttling away from Keiliegh and towards Lyra, whom it suddenly hugged. "Thank you miss!"

It then got back to its feet, wobbling in place a little bit. Lyra stayed on her knees. "Do you wanna know a secret?" Hector stopped bobbing next to Lyra's head, a sign he was listening. "I'll tell you something good because you helped me! Come here!" Instead of waiting for Lyra though, he hopped to her side, got on his toes and whispered into her ear:

"It's a secret code my brothers up ahead and I have. It's... 2... 3... 1. Twenty-three is number one!" It then got back on its feet and hopped off. "Byeee!"

Lyra got to her feet, looking at the door the two had not come from. It was barred, with a switch vaguely shaped like an eye above it. "I don't know about you, Keiliegh," she said as she jotted down 2-3-1 on her makeshift map so quickly she wondered if she'd ever be able to read it back, "But between water, fire, and doors in the Great Deku Tree's trunk I am getting more fascinated by the minute."

Keiliegh kept trying to straighten her hair in vain while Lyra healed her chill seed victim. When he whispered something in the healer's ear, Keiliegh started fuming. "Hey! That's mean, keeping secrets." Then as the deku ran away, she made the 'I'm watching you face'.

In regards to Lyra's comment, Keiliegh laughed, loading up a normal seed on her slingshot and nailing the eye on the panel. "Oh, I'm sure the. Deku tree has had realtors in here before. I mean... Seriously. Doors." 

Keiliegh then motioned for Lyra to follow, walking into the next room with her.

"Heh." Lyra watched as Keiliegh shot the eye above the door, causing it to shut and the bars to pull up in front of the door. She chuckled at her remark. "What do you suppose his value is on the real estate market?"

Laughing, the two Kokiris walked into the room, although the room itself quickly made them stop laughing. Or rather, what was dead in the center of the room did. Spanning the entire width of the room was a large, round log lined with what looked to be very sharp spikes. It looked menacing, and when Lyra got closer, it got worse.

More water, with a platform slowly moving back and forth between the two shores. "Oh dear..." Lyra muttered, quickly seeing that not only was the other shore too high for them to swim to and climb on to, but the water level was so high that the platform only barely missed the spikes- anything on it would be skewered.

"...I guess there's nothing to be done but to tank it..." she muttered, but then Hector caught her attention. "Hm?"

The fairy couldn't speak because he was underwater, but he was floating around something. It looked like a pressure plate of sorts... "this should be good..." Without thinking about her dress, she stepped into the water, dove, and put her hand on the pressure plate. She immediately resurfaced, seeing that the water level had dropped significantly. "Bingo!" she shouted, walking back to Keiliegh. She could wring out her dress and her hair later.

With a jump onto the lowered platform, Keiliegh didn't take long to get to the other side. When she reached the wall, she climbed up, raising her hands above her head. "Yeah! Your turn Lyra!" She waited for Lyra to make it as well, and when she did, she proceeded towards the next door. "I'm sure we'll find another torch soon for your hair. We don't want two sets of frizzy hair."

She flexed for a moment, showing off her totally nonexistent muscles, pushing a block so that she could reach a ladder that was leading to the door. She climbed it, looking down at Lyra and helping her up.

She opened the door, leading back into the room they were in before, just on a higher platform. Keiliegh was looking at the distance, not paying much attention. When she reached the block, she tripped over a rock, sending her careening over the edge down into that damn pool again.

"Oh, come on!" She got out of the water, slipping on her hover shoes and going from the button platform to the one next to the block. She then leaned on the block pushing it down. "Man... I'm friggin soaked! Before our parade I'm totally going home and putting on dry clothes."

When Keiliegh careened over the edge, Lyra already wanted to walk over to the block and push it into the water so the other Kokiri could get back on without having to go around, but then Keiliegh blew her mind.

Hover boots. They allowed her to stand on the water's surface, so she could climb back on. Lyra pinched the bridge of her nose. "Keiliegh," she said. "Do you mind terribly if I ask why we walked all that way around instead of you just doing that in the first place?" She then looked to her side, to the hole Hector had pointed out when they had first come to this room.

Once again, it was covered by spider webs. The torch Keiliegh had lit before was still burning, so if she wanted to, she could use her staff again to burn this web. However, this time there was no water nearby to douse the staff afterwards, so she didn't really want to risk that.

But fortune was her ally. Just as she was about to rip off a strip of cloth from her skirt, hoping to use that as disposable flammable material while slowing the fire getting to her staff, she spotted a branch lying on the ground near the hole. Picking it up and giving it a swing, she decided it would do. With the stick in hand she hopped on to the block, from there to the torch, and lit the stick. Then, she hurried to walk through the shallow water, climbing back onto the block and throwing the stick, burning end first, onto the spider web.

The hole was uncovered in a flash, and the stick fell down, hitting whatever was below them with a splash. More water. Again, Hector wanted to point out the vines they could use to climb down, but Lyra figured that if she was already wet anyway she might as well save time. With water beneath them, she knew she'd land safely and dove down headfirst.

Keiliegh shrugged when Lyra asked her why she didn't do that from the start. She looked from the hole to the torch to the block to the platform back over there, and then back to Lyra. Unable I come up with any good answer, she started doing jazzhands. "Magic!" 

She then watched Lyra light the webs on fire, jumping down right with her. She swam out of the water, seeing three deku scrubs. She did the same thing as before, making the one on the far left retreat and then pulling out chill seeds. Before she could throw them down though, she felt a sharp pain in her rear. One of the bastards had shot her! She turned around, stomping a few seeds on the first deku's head, defeating him. She then loaded two seeds, firing first at the one closest to her and then at the furthest. All done.

Suddenly though, she was being barraged by seeds again, getting pelted even by the one she was sure she'd taken out behind her. Dashing back over near Lyra, Keiliegh took cover. "What the... They're invincible!"

"Ewwww..." She had expected the water to be clear, like the water on the floor they had just come from. However, the water on Basement floor 2 was murky, like Lyra supposed made sense for being inside a tree.

"Lyra..." Hector said, floating down, "Your dress..."

"That's what my mentor has the laundryman for, Hector," Lyra said coolly, walking up dry land and wringing out her hair and dress. "And I had to take a bath after I was done here anyway. You can't expect to go play the big damn hero and stay pristinely white, you know?"

Hector looked at Keiliegh. "Evidently you can."

"Hector!" While Lyra was occupied with her fairy, Keiliegh had run into trouble with the Deku trio shooting at her. She remembered what the Deku higher up had said. "Twenty-three is number one," she muttered, before leaping forward and slamming her staff into a nut, reflecting it towards the middle scrub. She then repeated this, stunning the one on the right, and finally the remaining one.

As soon as she did that, the middle scrub got up while the others fell to the ground. The one came up to Lyra. "How did you know our code? That's annoying!"

"Um... well..."

"Go away! Kokiri kids shouldn't be here, it's dangerous! Shoo!" When Lyra crossed her arms, a sign she was going to be stubborn, the Deku shook his head. "Here!" He dragged her to his leaf bed, pulling out a red and a blue rupee. "Here, you can have these if you go away!"

He shoved them into Lyra's hands, diving into his leaf bed at the same time his brethren did. Lyra looked at it, a little confused.

Keiliegh stomped when Lyra beat the deku scrubs no problem. “What? What was all that about??” She even got paid! Keiliegh turned away from Lyra, storming toward the door. She walked into the massive door into the creepy room. It had changed from the previously warm colours of outside to that of an eerie blue. She could see skittering in the webs above, which were probably spiders... Ew.

In the center of the room though, was a strange jewel with Golden trim around it. This was indeed the kokiri emerald. She picked it up, raising it above her head.

She then brought her arms down, slipping the emerald into her pocket. “Lyra! Imagine earrings made of these!”