Stone Tower Temple [Blonde Squishy Cats]

So focused on the task at hand was Tessa that she didn't process Horus going down at first. Attention deficit or no, combat was a full sensory experience, and that made it easy to maintain focus. She saw what happened, but only later would she understand it. She was getting ready to direct another beam of light at their assailant when the still nameless fairy interjected.

"The mouthy one is down," she said simply. "Well, the other mouthy one. Obviously you're still standing."

She sounded somewhat perturbed about that last bit.

Tessa broke off immediately, realizing the obvious implication: her shield could block the creature's scythe, but not Horus's sword. Which meant the scythe was magical, and Horus's sword was not. The next swing, aimed for Luna, bounced off her shield harmlessly. Tessa was prepared for the force behind it this time, and although she was pushed back, she didn't fall. That came at a cost, however- she felt a crack deep in the bones of her shield arm as the blow fractured her forearm. Under normal circumstances, she might not have tried tanking hits like that, given her thin frame and lack of armor, but, well, desperate times and all.

One more hit, and her arm would break outright. That's what Tessa's instincts were telling her, and she knew better than to ignore them. Unfortunately, it was possible that she would have no choice in the matter.

"Get him out of the way, quickly! I can stop one more attack, but the next one kills us both. Morgan, if you can distract big fat and batty here, it'd be very much appreciated!" Despite the situation, her tone never wavered- it was nearly jovial, in fact. Evidently, even imminent death couldn't quite break her of that.

When Morgan's Longshot connected, the impact sent the gem flying, the spectre's form wavering as it had to recover from the strike. As it reached the dead center of its trajectory, it was suddenly struck by something else- Luna's foot collided with it, sending it flying in a completely different direction and crashing it into the wall. Instead of waiting for the spirit to reform fully, she sent an unformed sphere of ice after it to keep it down. When she landed, one hand on the ground to catch herself. She was beyond livid. This -thing- had done what years of living in Ikana had failed to do. But it would pay dearly for taking her protector from her.

For his part... Horus wasn't sure if he was really dead. His body wouldn't move, that was true. His heart didn't want to beat, either, and his lungs had stopped working. For all intents and purposes he was dead, right? But something was odd. Things hadn't gone black or white. He couldn't move, and when one of his senses -his hearing- decided to work again, he didn't hear the din of the battle. Instead, he heard a voice he hadn't expected he'd ever hear again. "Why are you here already, son?" His eyes jolted awake. Standing over his prone, motionless form was his long-deceased father, looking the exact same as he had before he had died. Pierce shook his head, sighing. "The afterlife is no place for someone like you, Horus. Not yet."

"I didn't really have a say in the matter," Horus protested, "That thing had rended my soul before I realised what was going on. I don't WANT to be here!" It was fortunate his spirit was all that was here. Had his tear ducts functioned, he would have burst out crying at the sight of his father.

Pierce gestured his head. "Go back, then. She still needs you." When Horus looked at him, startled, he grinned. "What," he said, "You thought we didn't know? We've been watching you, son. You've grown up well, and we're proud of you. But you have no business being here." He put a hand on Horus's shoulder. "You're a proud son of House Falconer. Are you going to let some spectre get the better of you?"

"I don't want to," he said, gritting his teeth, "But what choice do I have? Trust me, if I could GO back I would! I'd show that thing where to stick its scythe, but..."

"You have an anchor. I don't know if it's Luna or something else, but there's something keeping you in the physical realm. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to stop you here, son." He let go, stepping back. "So get going. Go back and show that thing to respect the name of Falconer, alright?"

"Right." Horus shut his own eyes, realising his father was right- there was something that consistently tried to tug him back to reality. "I'll do you proud, father." Death would not hold him for long.

((Note: The entire conversation between Horus and Pierce takes place on an alternate plane of existence, so all the other characters see of my post is Luna going absolutely ballistic. He'll come back in my next post, courtesy of his Rebirth Stone.))

Tessa blinked as Luna laid into the spectre's core. That was...not what she was expecting to happen next.

I know when I'm not needed, she thought, lowering her shield. A jolt of pain coursed through her arm in response, but she could still move it, so she supposed complaining would be rather pointless.

"I changed my mind. You're not the stupidest member of the group," the fairy intoned, utterly deadpan. She was staring at something off to the side- Morgan, apparently. Tessa cocked her head to the side, a silent question implied, and the fairy turned to face her. "He tried to do a wall jump. It looked...painful. Don't let it go to your head too much, though. You're still easily number two."

"What about the bird? The bird is smarter than me?" she asked, more to poke holes in the fairy's logic than anything else.

"Especially the bird," came the response. Tessa gave an indignant 'harrumph,' but truthfully, she was more concerned with the task at hand. Insults were a lot less excruciating than battle wounds, and she preferred not to accumulate more of the latter due to inattentiveness.

...as if Tessa could ever be described as paying attention, anyway. That said, gem was stilled encased in ice, and its keese were still in disarray. She rather doubted she could damage it without breaking the ice, and thereby freeing it, so she was somewhat at loose ends at the moment.

Should probably find some other ways of fighting than 'hit it with the sword until it stops moving.' Magic, maybe. Or a really big hammer. That'd probably work here. Assuming I could lift it.

With the immediate threat to his mistress gone, Cryo turned around to look at her, but didn't approach her. Much like Morgan, he gave her space, lowering his body to the ground and placing his head there, too, just observing her. He wasn't intelligent enough to understand the underlying reason, but he was empathetic enough to know she was upset and she wouldn't be cheered up by his bill in her face begging for treats for a job well done.

Luna, for her part, didn't respond, or give any indicator that she had heard the blonde. When she had attacked Horus's killer to take out her rage on it, her barrage of attacks had drained more than just the magic needed to fuel her spells, and now that Morgan had vanquished it, she was left with nothing but exhaustion and grief. Who was going to take care of her now? Heavens knew she couldn't take care of herself, least of all here in Ikana. And she didn't like the odds of Bertrand doing it after finding out that not only had Horus been killed, she had let him be killed. Her hand was like lead when she lifted it to stroke his still-warm face, and it took several minutes before she regained the strength -and the will- to speak.

"We finish what he started," she said, although she still didn't get up. "We destroy the Serpent Twins and end the curse." Horus never half-assed things and he'd definitely be mad to find out they had given up without him. She'd find a solution to her problem after that. As she put her hand back on the ground to force herself upright, however, her attention was drawn by a powerful, sudden surge of magic. Her head snapped in its direction, her hand rushing into the pocket of Horus's coat, where it was coming from. She pulled out a small, white stone -one they had found during their ordeal in the underworld with Marcus and Loft, she remembered. So Horus had carried it on his person all this time? ...no, he must simply have forgotten about it.

Right now, however, it seemed they were fortunate he'd had it. The stone shone brightly, radiating a light so hot Luna had to let go of it, dropping it on Horus's chest. The moment it connected the light suddenly flashed even more brightly, forcing her to shield her eyes and still causing a temporary blindness in them. When all the white made way to the scene before her again, Luna immediately realised the stone was gone, as was the immense power she had sensed.

But Horus's chest was rising and falling, quickly enough that there was no mistaking it. Fearing she was imagining it, Luna looked over her shoulder at the others, wide-eyed with something between panic and relief. Cryo had raised his head a little and stared intently at Horus, but that didn't have to mean anything... but if the others saw the same thing she did, then...

"You fuckers better have done that thing in while I was out."

For once, Tessa stayed quiet. She was well aware she wasn't cut out for these situations, and she wasn't...quite...compulsively annoying. Honestly, that bit was mostly accidental. On occasion she was capable of exercising tact.

Instead, she tried to stay nice, respectively out of the way. The fairy- for goodness sake, what was her name!?- looked like she wanted to cut in a few times, but Tessa just kept giving her menacing looks and brandishing that empty bottle. Her best "menacing looks" mostly just came across as a goofy person trying and failing to be serious, but the bottle, well, that did the trick on its own.

A bit mean, but it worked.

"You fuckers better have done that thing in while I was out."

"Well, Morgan did, at any rate. I guess Luna helped. I mostly just shined light on it and almost broke my arm saving you. But hey, there's a door now, and you're still alive, and I'm still mostly not broken, so we are still good to go!"

Notably, Tessa failed to be phased by Horus suddenly returning to life. Apparently. Her WTF quotient had kind of just keeled over at this point, so she was ready to accept anything. Not that she didn't usually do that, but there was at least normally some questioning for appearance's sake, or at least comedic effect.

"And probably die horribly anyway," the fairy pitched in quietly. "Honestly, kinda tempted to just let you all go on without me."

"Hey, rude! Rude fairies go in the bottle. Also, what is your name." Technically that was a question, but the tone made it a statement. The fairy hovered in place for a moment before answering.

"Survive the next, oh, twenty-four hours, and then I might tell you. Maybe. And stop threatening to stuff me in a bottle, you bitch."

The whole exchange was made in a whisper, off to the side, as they waited for the group to get moving again.

"Ha." Horus sat back up, silently amazed that his body didn't hurt as he got to his feet in a fluid motion. Apparently the spectre really HAD only rended his soul, leaving his body unharmed. Well, that was just about the first thing to go his way today, not counting the entire 'coming back to life' thing. "It takes more than death to keep me down," he said to Morgan, ruffling the boy's hair. "That said, let's try not to have it happen again." He struck an arm around Luna, who was too stunned and embarrassed to hug him tightly, and when he looked down at her, she nodded.

They would talk about this later; for now, they had to focus on the climb. Horus wasted no time walking over to the door that Tessa had pointed out, although he stopped next to her to give the Fairy a pointed glare. "Please," he said, in response to her threatening to make them go on without her, "Don't make promises you can't keep." He then turned to cryo, who yawned broadly and slowly took off from the ground again. "Thanks, buddy," he said, saluting the enormous bird. "Continue keeping an eye on things, you got that?"

"Squawk!"

"Attaboy." With that, he gave a light kick to the new door, opening it effortlessly. Beyond it was not a large room, however. If anything, it was more like a closet of sorts- and all that stood out inside the room was the ornament on the not-so-far wall, a large red gem surrounded by golden decorations.

As she saw it, Luna recalled the seemingly meaningless ranting of the Poe they had encountered. "Wait," she said. "Do you think that may be the 'blood-soaked emblem of the kingdom?' It looks similar to the banners in the castle..."

"Less a promise, more a brief glimpse of sanity. Sadly, it appears to have passed," the fairy replied dryly. Ignoring her, Tessa stepped closer to the door.

"I dunno about banners, but considering everything else in this room has been activated by light, it it seems like a fair bet this would be too." She paused and looked around for the closest patch of light. It was surprisingly far away; the damage to the building was less severe on this side. Finding what she was looking for, she pointed to it. "Hold that thought. I'll get some light on the gem if you'll clear out of the way of the beam."

With that said, Tessa strolled over to the nearest light. It took a few moments, but then she was in position. She made sure she had a clear line on the gem, the raised her shield- earning a stab of pain in the process- and aimed the light at the gem.

"Watch your step, kid!" Horus reacted quickly, diving down and closing his hand around Morgan's arm not unlike a vice grip before he could plummet to his death. The dive landed him chest-first on the ground and he swore, gasping for the wind that had been knocked out of him, but recollected himself and pulled Morgan back onto solid ground. "Hasn't living in Ikana taught you to look before you leap?"

As they had attempted to exit the room, they had been faced with... well, frankly, it made no sense. They had exited through the same door they had entered, but it had exited out in a completely different structure than from which they had entered. Luna looked around as Horus got back to his feet, mind racing for a solution. Not far from the doorway, off the side, there was a narrow ledge they could walk on if they were careful, and Luna sidled onto it, hoping to see more of the tower. Horus blocked the way onto it, glaring at Tessa. The last thing they could use was their analyst and mage dropping to her death because that girl had the mental capacities of a Guay.

"It turned around," Luna muttered to herself, and then to the others, more loudly, "The Stone Tower Temple turned on its head!" She pointed at a spot on the ceiling, "That is where Morgan shattered the spectre's core," she said, and she redirected her finger to the ground before them, "And that is where Cryo broke in..." She sidled back, Horus helping her back onto solid ground.

"So what? Are we upside-down in the tower now?" he asked, not sure what to think of this.

"I don't think so- our hair and clothes aren't pulled in any other direction than the rest of us," Luna thought out loud. "It's more as if... the tower itself turned upside-down but forgot to take us with it." She rubbed her head. It hurt to think about it. "It defies all logic- it shouldn't be physically possible."

"Well, we're looking at it." Horus sighed, cracking his neck as if to brace himself for something. "How do we proceed?"

"The room was a dead end and you were gonna ask eventually, soooo I'm really not sure what you expected of me," Tessa replied to Horus's silent glare. She jerked a thumb in the direction of the switch. "If you preferred that, I can always light up the gem again and we can try the doors at the entrance."

She listened to Horus and Luna's brief exchange while she looked around. Luna was probably right about this being impossible, but, then, 'physically possible' as a definition tended to degrade quickly once you got magic involved. The fairy flew off to examine the room in general and the gem in particular, but other than being upside down now, everything was pretty much the same.

"Anyone else notice that chest is still on the floor up there? It's like it didn't notice everything going topsy-turvy," the fairy pointed out. Tessa shrugged and looked back towards the entrance.

"Y'know, I could probably follow that ledge. With my boots, I'd getta moment to recover if I fell off. Or the fairy could scout ahead. Or someone could ride your Loftwing and check it out. Or we could use the gem to get back the entr- wait, I already said that one. Heck, we could probably go with all of the above! Except the last one. I guess that one is kinda the odd one out here."

Horus followed behind the other two, Luna behind him, and landed on the platform behind Morgan. He didn't like the look of the place and the idea of what would happen if they were to fall. Would they fall into the skies? And keep falling until they hit... whatever was above that? Was there anything above the skies? Or would the world turn back to normal and send them plummeting into their death on the ground? He didn't know which option was more terrifying and less appealing. Shaking his head and deciding that was enough philosophy for one day, he looked around for the next step.

"Horus," Luna said, stepping forward and putting a hand on his shoulder to draw his attention. "Look up there." He did. There was a sturdy beam there, something he had not noticed during the initial climb. "Do you think you can get your hook around that? If we can reach that beam, we can probably get onto the ceiling."

"Only one way to find out," Horus said, gesturing the others to stand back a little as he took his grappling hook to hand and mentally gauged the distance between himself and the beam. Too much rope and he would hopelessly overshoot it, too little rope and he wouldn't make it. "Right," he muttered to himself as he started to swing the rope, the hook on its end acting as a weight that made it spin from his hand much more quickly than his little effort showed, and once he felt the hook had built up momentum he threw it forwards and up, aiming for the beam Luna had pointed out.

The rope snagged on it, and the speed with which the hook had flown towards it sent it spiralling around the wood, attaching itself to it. Back on the platform, Horus gave a few experimental tugs on it before holding it out towards the others. "Well then, who wants to go first?"

(I've updated the rewards to reflect the fact we now get 50 Rupees per Dungeon instead of only 40. If this affects what you want for your reward, let me know.)

(I'd like mine changed to a Tiny Fairy license. Basically the same thing, yeah, but I intend to do up a profile when we finish. I think I'll also spend 2r from Tessa's current funds for a Kinstone.)

Tessa followed Morgan onto the platform, her eyes scanning the area for flying monsters like the Keese they had encountered earlier. This was an ideal place for them, and she had no good way to counter them, but do it she could. Luckily their surroundings seemed to be mostly clear for the time being.

"...wouldn't the hookshot be better for this?" she inquired as Horus started to swing his grappling hook, but then it occurred to her that it would only serve one person. "Ah, never mind. I'll go first? Although I guess Morgan could beat me up there if he feels like it. Aaaaaaanyway..."

She accepted the rope from Horus and stepped off without hesitation, clamping her boots around the string while she pulled herself up by her hands. A stronger person might have simply lifted themselves up the rope by pure upper body strength, but Tessa was a more wiry built woman, and her shield arm wouldn't take the strain anyway. Her method still got her to the top rapidly enough. She clambered onto the beam and passed the rope back for whomever intended to follow, then got out of the way and took a look around.

"Gonna be honest, really expected you to fall," the fairy pitched in. Tessa jumped an inch off the ground, but she managed not to fall off in the process. She was not used to this! Her own personal floating insult machine laughed at the sight, producing a sound like chimes in the wind.

"Rude! I will come up with an appropriate retort the moment I'm not precariously perched above a bottomless pit, just you wait."

Horus sighed. This was not a competition. If either of them fell, he would be responsible, of course- he wouldn't care much about Tessa but he didn't doubt that fairy would give his ears hell until he could crush her with a hand. But if Morgan were to fall he supposed he would be genuinely upset. He gestured his head for Luna to go up first, so that if anything happened to her he could try to catch her, and followed after the others, rolling up the rope on his grappling hook as he went.

Luna was only about halfway up, however, when a shadow moved close to her and a Garo materialised as if out of nowhere, zooming by her and cutting her arm open with one of its swords. She screamed, clutching the rope out of sheer force of will, but hung still for a moment as she tried to regain her composure. That hurt! "Luns!" Horus shouted, hurrying to climb after her a little faster. "Damnable- Hey, you two!" He shouted up to the other two. "Less fucking around and more making yourselves useful! In case you hadn't noticed, our hands are sort of full!"

He glanced to a side, seeing movement from the corner of his eyes, and hurried to swing the rope around so he could dodge the Garo's second pass by them. However, getting a rope swinging was easier than making it stop, and with Luna still on it, he immediately cursed himself for acting without thinking. At least they were now a moving target, he supposed. "Sometime today, you two!"

Tessa glanced over as Morgan landed, giving him a welcoming wave.

"A little of both I guess. It's kinda hard to define 'up' and 'down' right now, so who knooooows." She looked down, but no bottom was forthcoming. If they fell, it was questionable whether they would ever land. Better not to know, perhaps. Morgan seemed convinced they were near the 'top', but she couldn't tell what he saw that gave him that idea. That wasn't to say he was wrong, just that Tessa felt a step behind right now.

Luna's scream broke Tessa's thoughts, and her head whipped around to look at the rope. Whatever had caused her to scream seemed to be gone now, but she could see blood. Fresh blood, that is. They all had at least some blood on them by now. She blinked in response to Horus's commands. What...exactly did he expect her to do about this? Throw her sword? Really, the best she could do was clear space for them to climb up. She couldn't even haul the rope up; not with both of them on it. She could maybe manage Luna, assuming a burst of energy, but Horus was right out.

Oh! Maybe she could cause a distraction!

A Garo revealed itself after a moment, sailing through thin air right towards the pair dangling below her feet. She didn't move. Tessa locked her eyes on the Garo, and thought. She thought up the most vulgar, insulting two sentences she could possibly string together and fired that message right at the attacking ninja. Alarmed, its head whipped around to face her, whether due to the contents of her communication or simply the telepathy itself. And with its head facing her, it failed to take into account the motion of the rope and its- riders? Was that the right word?

It rocketed through the air, missed its targets, and slammed headfirst into the ledge they had just stepped off of before plummeting into the abyss. Huh. That was more effective than expected, really.

"You're welcome!" Tessa called out cheerfully. That was about all she had to give though- this would be over by the time she could repeat her feat, and her bag of tricks was now empty.