Stone Tower Temple [BP/Tsu]

Stone Tower Temple
Curse of the Skeleton Kingdom Finale

Horus, the Ikanan Refugee (3/2/3, Hylian) [Blonde Panther] Reward: +10 Rupees (Had 10, now has 20)
Luna, the Ice Princess (2/4/2, Hylian) [Blonde Panther] Reward: +40 Rupees (Had 80, now has 120)
Phiorra De’Maluin, Positive Priestess (1/5/2) [Tsubori] Reward: Priestess level 6
Music for this Dungeon Thread.

It was time. Horus crossed his arms, looking up at the massive structure in front of him, as the wind between the towers picked up and waged war on the bright red hair above his eyes. Luna stood in front of him, gazing up the tower as well, but obviously less absent-minded than he was.

He had finally managed to get into contact with King Igos du Ikana, and after being attacked by him and beating him (or rather, breaking a curse and killing his will to fight them), they had learned that Ikana had fallen under a curse. It was that curse that turned the Stalfos against the living, causing them to cease taking out the Redeads outside, which in turn caused trouble for Horus and his group.

"So." He looked behind him, where Bertrand had finished getting the pebble out of his boot and pulled it back on. "So we pretty much climb up there, go in, Freddy works his magic, we go out?"

"That's the plan," Horus replied. "As soon as Luna figures out a way to get up there!" During the last part of his sentence, he turned to the blue-haired girl, frustrated with how she took her time.

"We'll have to use your grappling hook," she immediately said. "It might not hold Bertrand and Frederick but it's our best if not only shot."

"Right." Horus stepped forward, although he looked back once more, this time over his other shoulder so he could see the other blonde. "You can still turn back, you know. I've got a feeling this ain't gonna be a cakewalk."

NPCs (open) NPCs (close)

We got two NPCs here.

Bertrand: A blonde bear of a man bearing a battleaxe and a broadsword into battle (not at the same time).

Frederick: A black-haired mage, shorter and less broad than Bertrand, versed in the magical arts.

Phiorra looked nervously at the tower in front of them. Yeah... that was tall. The priestess had spent the last few days healing from her wounds she'd sustained in the well and the castle, so she was in a bit better shape now. Regardless, this would prove to be even more difficult than the previous two. She could sit it out or something... But that would be cowardly. She glanced to her teammates, noting how much more prepared they were for this.

They were survivors in a dead world, and they knew what this place held. Soon though, so would she. "No, I'm not leaving. I was sent here to prevent this, and that's what I'll do. So how are the rest of us getting up there?"

"The only way we know how," Horus said, uncoiling the rope of his grappling hook and letting the prongs hang down. "Climbing. No one of us can fly, so there's not a whole lot of options there." Starting to rotate his arm, he looked up, searching for anything he could attach the hook to.

Luna stepped back from him to avoid the hook hitting her, and watched as the redhead swung his arm up and let go of most of the rope, letting it uncoil further as the hook shot up... and remained on what seemed to be a fallen stone pillar. "If that is sticking out to far we'll all fall to our death," Luna pointed out, much to Horus' obvious annoyance.

"Listen, Luns, if you think you can do it better, you're welcome to try. Until then I'm just going to get up there. Follow behind me." With those words, he grabbed the rope with two hands, gave a tug on it -Luna's words had slightly unnerved him- and then started climbing. The rope hung too far away from the wall to brace his feet against it, so he had to settle for pure rope-climbing, but pfft. Unless a Keese flew into his face and messed him up, he'd be fine.

While Horus quickly and steadily made his way up there, Frederick sighed and rolled up his sleeves. "He's at it again, thinking we all have the same drive he does."

"We don't?" Betrand said, laughing. "The only thing I'm worried about is that Little Miss Priestess won't be able to climb the rope."

"Then pick her up and climb it yourself," Luna said, grabbing the rope once Horus was all the way up there and getting ready to follow him. "It can't be that hard." Luna was a lot less practiced in the physically vexing task of climbing, but she had enough strength and endurance to hold on to it. When Horus noticed she wasn't really making any progress, he grabbed the rope from above and started pulling her up, putting his arm around her and pulling her towards him before dropping the rope again so the guys could climb.

"So..." Bertrand turned to Phiorra. "You want to try or should I do the climbing? Pulling one person up was probably straining enough for Horus. Besides, he never has the courtesy to pull that sort of stuff with US."

Phiorra looked up at the rope, and after seeing Horus make it up, she knew it’d hold her. “I... Think I can make it up myself.” She gripped it tightly, and with a little jump, started pulling herself up the rope. Less than a quarter of the way up, her arms gave and she fell down, only to be caught by Bertrand. He only looked at her with a grin, and she was blushing furiously. “O-okay... Could you help me up?”

He carried her up the rope, the strong Ikanan having no trouble with her on his back. Once he reached the top, Phiorra climbed off of him and looked down to the ground below. They were already pretty high up...

Phiorra knew for a fact this place wouldn’t be without foes, so she immediately cast her spell to summon her bow and a quiver of arrows. “Well then... do any of you know what to expect here?”

"Hell," Bertrand replied to Phiorra's question.
"Pain," Frederick added.
"Death," Horus finished.

Luna shook her head, looking around. There were crumbling remains of stairways going around the perimeter of the tower, but she didn't harbour the illusion that they would hold Frederick, much less Horus or Bertrand. There wasn't a lot of room to move around in, and even though Horus bent forward to get his grappling hook back, there was nothing to attach it to up here.

"Go back down and find an alternate route?" Horus asked, coming closer to Luna and looking around, himself. He was smart enough to know that if Luna hadn't pointed out the stairs, she didn't consider them an option.

"This was the only route." Suddenly, Luna frowned. "Do you sense something, Horus?" Behind them, Bertrand and Frederick were casting cautious glances around the tower, too. Four counts of Sense had gone off, alerting them to... something.

Seconds later, they saw what it was. One of the pillars in the tower was violently knocked over by an enormous centipede. For a second, Horus flinched upon seeing it, but as he saw it levitating above the ground and turning its head towards the sky, he got a brainwave. Putting both arms around Luna and picking her up, he ran towards the edge of the tower they were standing on and threw himself towards the centipede, landing on top of it and ramming his sword between two segments of its body so he could hold on to it to stabilize himself.

behind him, he saw Bertrand do the same, except he was carrying Phiorra once more, and Frederick following. They'd have to wait until the beast dropped them off at the entrance to the temple, way up there.

His Sense was just whining at him to get off, annoying sixth sense...

Okay, this was just blinshit. Phiorra screamed as she was carried onto the massive centipede thing. Her sense for evil was horribly going off, and it was coming from right beneath her. “G-guys! This thing is part of the evil here!” She clutched Bertrand hard, slightly worried she’d cut off blood pressure. She wasn’t built for these adventures...

Normally it was just finding a creature and defeating it, not going for a demon rodeo, climbing up towers and duelling the undead. It didn’t take long for Phiorra to close her eyes, a worried look on her face. “Wh-when can we get off! This isn’t safe! Or sane! ...And probably not sanitary! This thing came from the ground!”

"Would you stop whining?" Horus called back, adrenaline rushing through him as the giant centipede indeed made its way to the top of the tower. "Spare your strength! We still have to jump off, too! You got her tight Bertrand? Freddie, still alive?"

Two counts of confirmation came from behind, and when the centipede flew over the solid platform in front of the entrance, Horus drew his sword out of it and, with Luna holding on to him, leapt right off, not even looking how far from the ground they were.

Too far from the ground. When he landed, his leg protested loudly and instead of landing like a hero, he forced himself into a roll. Luna was more fortunate, having had Horus to break most of her fall and needing only to slide a foot in a crouched position.

"You okay, H?" Bertrand and Frederick had waited a little longer, until the monster had flown a little lower. Bertrand now put Phiorra on the ground, while Frederick shook his head.

"I would say 'your father would have been proud of you,' Horus, but the truth is that would be a hard-faced lie."

"Are you kidding me?" Bertrand was clearly as high on adrenaline as Horus was. "Pierce was the KING of blindly slinging himself at stuff and seeing where it took him!" Horus got to his feet, still pumped.

"Well, here we are," he said, "and my Sense is singing barbershop quartet. So we're on the right tower."

"Fortunately," Luna said, calmly tapping her foot on the ground to shake some dirt off of it. "I don't believe we would be lucky enough to catch a ride to another tower. Are we waiting for something, or are we going in?"

Phiorra was put down, her head still spinning. “H-how can someone survive like this? Jumping on giant monsters... By Nayru, that was reckless...” She also looked at Horus’ leg. He’d botched the landing, and it looked like it had hurt. He wasn’t complaining, but the priestess supposed Horus wasn't the type of person to complain even if it had hurt him.

She followed the others into the tower, first seeing a massive stone face. She looked over it, first noticing the obvious eye button. She summoned her bow, notching an arrow and firing at the button. The eye closed, sliding a door open for them to go further. Unfortunately, they had to walk around a large pit and... “Awww~” A rat was sitting near the edge of the pit, and Phiorra stepped closer. Its tail was off the edge, so Phiorra couldn't see the bomb sitting on the end of it.

Horus led the other four into the Stone Tower Temple, noting the layout of the hall and the material the place was made from. "Seems solid," he said to the other Ikanans as he stomped the stone floor with one foot, "That's a nice surprise."

"The symbols on the walls and floors are unfamiliar to me," Frederick said, kneeling on the ground with one hand on the red half-sun-like painting on the stones. "But they definitely don't have anything to do with any of the Golden Goddesses. Sun and Moon worship, perhaps?"

"Dude, Freddie, no offense," Horus said, "But we're here to kick evil's ass, not for a history lesson."

"Nonetheless you would greatly benefit from a lesson or two in history," Frederick mumbled to himself, glaring at Horus, but the redhead ignored him.

"Oi, Phiorra, eyes open!" He flicked his wrist, producing a long, thin needle out of thin air, and tossed the thing at the rat Phiorra was looking at. As the two made contact, the rat exploded. "I'll warn you. There's five of us here, and if even one of us screws up that could screw us all in the asses. I expect everyone to pull his own weight- that includes you. Don't go about looking at stuff if you don't know for sure it's safe. Clear?"

With those words he turned around, following Luna to the door on the West side of the room, which had just been opened by Phiorra's crack shot. In the next room, the redhead was assaulted by another Bombchu, managing to pull up his arms to protect his face but not avoiding being thrown onto his back by the force of the explosion.

There was a pressure-sensitive plate in front of them. "...how much you wanna bet those do something."

Phiorra cringed as the explosion rang out, then looked to the ground as her red-headed teammate reamed her out. His choice of words was very peculiar, but she understood the point. Looking like a scolded puppy, Phiorra merely followed the others into the tower wordlessly. Yet again, Phiorra cringed as the Bombchu exploded, sending a bit of shrapnel everywhere. Horus was lucky none had hit him.

Hearing buzzing from behind, Phiorra turned and saw that a Dragonfly creature had followed them in. She drew and arrow, pulling back and firing, taking out the creature in a single hit. Odd... Only one hit? They must not have been very strong...

Regardless, she still jumped to Horus’ side, ignoring the pressure plates for now. “Horus... Are you alright?” She asked, concern flooding her voice.

"Good god, Phiorra," Horus muttered, putting his hand to his face, "Are you going to do this every time I get a scrape? Because it's already getting tiring." If Bertrand or Freddie was about to point out that he never complained if Luna showed this amount of concern for him, he would rip their throats out where they stood.

Speaking of Luna, she had already walked on ahead, knowing that if Horus gave a yell he was fine- it was when he went silent after a hit that she started to worry. Bertrand quickly followed after her as she started to walk down the hallway. She saw several niches with pressure plates, and around the corner was a lowered gate. "Dead end," Bertrand said, but Luna ignored him. She ran her hand over the bars for a few seconds, pulling on them to obviously no avail and Bertrand's amusement, and then turned around, walking back to Horus and stepping on the pressure plate closest to him.

Nothing happened, but over Horus' complaining against Frederick that he could be an ass to anyone he wanted, she definitely heard something click under her feet. When she stepped off the plate, it clicked again, so it seemed that whatever mechanism these pressure plates worked would only activate if all of them were pressed at the same time. She stepped back onto it, hearing the click again.

Bertrand nodded in understanding even though Luna hadn't acknowledged his presence, walking over to where the others were. "Hey H, Luna's figured something out. Looks like we'll have to step on those raised tiles all over the hallway."

Phiorra stood up, a bit perplexed. “O-oh... You don’t want me to look at it then?” But she became distrcted when Bertrand said about the switches. Phiorra looked to Horus, ensuring he was okay, then nodded. “Alright, I’ll go find one.” Phiorra then scampered off, trying to locate one of the switches. It wasn’t too far until she found a switch, oddly with one right on the ceiling above the other. She stood on the first switch, the priestess looking right up at the other switch.

She pondered for a bit. Hmmm... Her rapier maybe? Could she press the switch with her rapier? No... It wouldn’t exert enough pressure. She was snapped back to attention by another Bombchu, this one a bit further down the hall. They met eyes, and it started scampering towards her. “Not this time, mousey...” She pulled out her bow, summoning an arrow onto it as she drew her arm back, firing at the bombchu and making it detonate. She then lowered her bow. “Sir Horus? There’s a button on the ceiling too... How should we press it?”

"No, I don't," Horus snapped at the priestess. "It's nothing. I know when I do and don't need help." He had paid attention to Bertrand's words, though, as evidenced when he got back to his feet. "Well, Luns normally knows what she's going on about. If that's her plan, then let's do that."

He accompanied Phiorra until she found a tile and asked him about the one on the ceiling. He looked up at it, crossing his arms in thought. "Well that's awkward. There's no way our swords are going to reach." Shurring at the priestess, he walked out the hall and stepped on the last tile, immediately hearing a lot of ruckus around the corner.

Luna, hearing the same, waited for the sound to subside before investigating. A faint smile found its way to her face, possibly smug. The gate had been drawn up, clearing the road for them. She looked up as a Needle thrown by Horus flew by her ear and bored itself into the skin of a Dragonfly, turning around to see the others approaching.

As Horus walked further into this room, he found himself walking onto a bridge over what seemed to be a pool of sorts. "Not fair," he said, "The Stone Tower Temple has cleaner water than we do." He took his waterskin from the inside of his coat, filling it with water. Luna, meanwhile, focused her attention on what lay on either side of the bridge. On the far right, she saw another edge they should be able to walk on, however the road was blocked by an enormous block marked with a sun. Walking over the water to get there wouldn't work either, as the path was blocked off by a fence reaching up to the ceiling.

"Phiorra," she said, much to the surprise of the men in their company. "That block over there. Shoot it with your magic."

Phiorra kept looking up at the switch as Horus walked away. “See, that was my first thought too... Swords and stuff.” She kept thinking about it until she heard the gate slide down anyway, then running to catch up with her teammates. “Gah... Silly pointless button...” She muttered, not understanding the point of that. It partially surprised her when Luna specifically referred to her, because for the past few seconds she’d been firing at distant giant dragonflies, practising her firing speed. She was getting rather good at firing quickly, summoning an arrow onto her bow just as the last one left.

She looked at the block for a second, then at her bow, summoning and enchanting an arrow to dance with light. When she brought her arm back and fired, the arrow struck the block, making it vanish in a flash of light. Phiorra put her bow to her side, looking at Luna puzzled. “That’s strange... I’m surprised there’s an obstacle specifically requiring a light spell to eliminate...”

Bertrand and Frederick were as surprised as Phiorra was. "Huh," Bertrand said. "You can say that again. Light magic is the last thing I'd expected to need here in Ikana."

"It makes sense," Frederick said, following Horus and Luna as they walked around the perimeter of the room to where the block had been prior. "I mean, you have seen the short work Alison made of the Undead roaming this place. Or how Pierce did the same after she cast that spell-" he gestured his staff to Phiorra, "-on his weapons."

"Are the two of you done talking about my folks?" Horus said, annoyed. He hated it when Bertrand and Frederick talked about his mother. It wasn't that he disliked her, or had bad memories about her. On the contrary. Precisely because he had loved his mother so much, it hurt him to remember her now. The same went for his father, although he was always happy to hear that Bertrand, his former right-hand man, would think that Pierce would have been proud of him.

Luna, in the meanwhile, was the first to make it over. Behind where the block had been was a treasure chest, locked and chained. She tilted her head as she saw it. Someone had desperately tried to keep someone out... or something in. Fortunately, the chains were so old and so rusted that they were brittle, and she could break them with her bare hands despite her physical frailty. As she opened up the chest, out came nothing.

She looked into it, seeing a small, yellow critter lying at the bottom. It was unconscious, if alive at all, and she gingerly picked it up. "What's that?" Horus asked. She couldn't answer. "Is it dangerous?"

"I don't think so. It looks weak. And my Sense isn't warning me."

"Can you carry it?" She nodded. "Then take it with you. You never know what it's good for. Come on." Behind the chest, there was a door that he held open for the others.

Phiorra looked very surprised at her companions when Horus’ mother was revealed to be a light priestess. “Wait, Horus’ mother was a light priestess? Maybe the Lumesca knows her then!” She looked excited until Horus snapped at them, then frowned. “Oh... I.... Guess you don’t like it when people bring her up...” She sheepishly stayed quiet as they walked forward, then looked over Horus’ shoulder (With a bit of help from Bertrand) and she saw the fairy.

“Hey! That’s a fairy!” She said, looking at it worriedly. “It looks in such bad shape though... I’ve never seen one this injured... What are you going to do with it?”

Bertrand was about ready to reply to Phiorra when Horus interrupted, and he decided to let the subject rest for now. Having the priestess around brought back enough painful memories for all of them as things were, and making Horus feel worse didn't usually end well.

Horus shook his head when Phiorra asked what they were going to do with the critter. It didn't look like a fairy to him, but then again, since when did HE know anything about magic phenomena? "I dunno, but we can't very well leave it here, can we?" He blinked, turning his head back to Luna. "Luna, what the hell are you doing?!"

The ice mage was very busy stuffing the injured fairy into the pouch on her waist. The critter's body fit in just fine, but its head was too big for the opening and she was pushing down on it pretty hard, eliciting a squealing noise from the still unconscious (or sleeping) fairy. "It won't fit," she argued without looking around. "I can't carry it if it doesn't fit."

"Well, stop that!" He let go of the door, causing Freddie to have to catch it and close it behind him. Rushing over to Luna, he took the fairy. "Just say it if you don't have the means to carry it, jeeze..." Grabbing the pouch in which he carried his crossbow bolts, he emptied it, distributing the bolts across the pockets of his coat and stuffing the two or three remaining bolts down the boot in which he also kept his dagger. "Gimme that."

Horus' pouch was bigger than Luna's, so the fairy fit in. Not comfortably, but it was better than Luna trying to stuff it inside. "It's a living creature, for crying out loud," he said as he slowly dropped the pouch again, the fairy being light enough to not exert any pressure whatsoever on his belt. "You wouldn't do that with a bird, would you?"

"Guays are best eaten fresh," Luna immediately retorted, "We're doing something wrong if we're trying to store them."

"Just-" Horus interrupted himself, putting his hand to his forehead. "You know what, forget it. You're being a never-ending headache again." Ignoring Luna's comment that headaches weren't entities and that therefore she couldn't be one, he looked around this next room. Right in front of him was a massive pillar, and as he walked around that, he was attacked by small, black puffs of... something. His Sense warned him ahead of time and he succeeded in holding them off, shielding his eyes from the sunlight coming in through the hole in the ceiling. "Okay, that was just a dick move," he said, angry.

Phiorra sighed as he saw the commotion with the fairy. Poor little thing... it’d wake up bruised and sore, but alive. Hopefully. The priestess looked around, seeing more of those sun blocks. This made her giddy. “Useful~ Useful~ I’m being useful~” She fired light arrows at the blocks, making all of them vanish in flashes of light. She saw one small panel though, on the wall, that didn’t seem like the others. Nevertheless, she fired at it, revealing a strange tablet.

Lowering her bow, Phiorra saw that there were strange etchings on it, so she walked over, touching the tablet and trying to understand what was written. Instead of an understanding of the marks, however, she received a small explosion of magical energy, knocking the priestess on her back. “Wow! Did you guys see that!” She then had an odd feeling in her chest. “There... were spirits trapped in there.... One of them gave me something...” She pointed her arm out, summoning a glowing, translucent straight sword onto the back of her wrist. It glowed with the light of her enchanted arrows, making her hold her breath in surprise. “Th-this is amazing! Luna, what is it?”

Luna idly looked to the side, raising an eyebrow at the sword on Phiorra's wrist. She had no idea what it was, nor was she particularly interested in knowing. "I don't know," she said, turning back to the road ahead, taking Horus' hand as she sensed something ahead.

"It's looks misdesigned," Horus himself said. "How are you ever going to fight with that without breaking your wrist?" He couldn't imagine how she was supposed to swing those things. Thrust, he supposed, but they looked designed for slashing. Shrugging, he followed after Luna.

He found himself near the ceiling of the next room, at a distance from the floor that seemed hardly safe to jump down to. More worrying, however, was the statue in the middle of the room. As Horus jumped down the ledge, he immediately put his hand to his forehead as he was overcome by an immense headache. Luna dropped down next to him, focusing her attention on the statue.

Luna's Sense had always been more finely tuned than Horus'. While Horus was still busy recovering from the impact his Sense made on him, Luna had already pinpointed the cause of it going off. "It's hostile," she said, "But I don't know what it is or how we remove it. It's blocking the door, too."

Phiorra looked at her weapon, waving it sideways and making a few test slashes. It seemed to work fine for her... Oh well, she’d test them later. She dispelled the weapon, noticing just how easy it was to do. “Hmm...” She thought, following the others towards the next room. When they were there, Phiorra inspected the statue.

“Well, it’s not evil, more... Neutral. But if it’s here to guard the way and is kind of alive, it should spring to life any second to-“ The thing rumbled, eventually spinning and knocking Phiorra back onto her rear. “See? I knew it’d do that...” She stood up, gaining some distance on the statue and pulling out her bow. This wasn’t the type of enemy it was a good idea to try a new melee weapon on.

It walked forward, shooting a laser at Phiorra, which she managed to dodge in time. “More lasers! I hate lasers....” She pulled up her bow, using her rapid fire summoning shots to spam it with arrows. That worked, seeming to make it recoil until it smashed a hand down, sending rocks everywhere. The priestess wasn’t feeling like she’d be very lucky about keeping stance, so she dove to the right, a boulder landing where she once stood.

When she looked back up, the thing’s eye was blue instead of the Yellow it used to be. She figured she’d point it out to Luna. Horus certainly wouldn’t be making any sense of it. “Luna! It’s eye turned blue! What’s that mean?”