Swimming Pool of Death (Darth and Inky)

Yuku realised after a moment that the pool was abruptly empty of River Zora, and she stilled in fear. River Zora...didn't retreat, in her admittedly negligible experience. She looked about nervously, the water stained an ugly magenta, stinging her eyes and tasting foul as she breathed it in.
"M-Miss Yuku? Are you there?"

Yuku whirled at the sudden sound, looking about for its source before she spotted Judith at the top of the pond, robes billowing in the bloodied water.
"I'm here," she said, unsure if Judith could hear her. She swam to the surface, her head breaking the film of gore that floated atop the pool. A part of Yuku wailed at the desecration of the clear water- an insignificant cry next to the shrieking that she was surprised remained internal, howling Saku Saku!
"I- I can't find Saku," she stammered, spitting out some of the copper-tainted water that sat in her mouth. "I found m-Maku and Taku, b-but..."

"Wh-What?" Judith's head snapped back to the hallway the River Zoras had escaped into, eyes blazing. She SHOULD have pursued them, after all... If those blackguards had taken Saku, then... No, she could not afford to show any sign of despair or weakness right now! That would only dishearten Yuku and the other believers. In times of crisis, the Cult was to provide calm, analytical leadership. They needed her to be the priestess she was supposed to be!

Steeling herself, the Hylian acolyte beckoned to the nearest Sea Zora with a weapon.

"We have to evacuate the premises, but one of the children is missing. I need two experienced volunteers to search this pool for the River Zoras' entry point. It's possible the child may have hidden within their tunnel, or even swam out of the temple altogether, so be sure to examine both areas thoroughly before repairing the breach. Everyone else who can fight will tend to the wounded, then escort them somewhere safe, away from here. Do not engage the River Zoras under any circumstances. I will deal with the savages personally." Judith fought to keep her voice from quivering as she issued her orders, struggling to overcome her innate meekness. Her words were confident, but her tone was not as commanding as she would have liked.

Nevertheless, the Zora nodded and hurried to inform the others of her plan. Whether this swift obedience was because her contributions during the battle had marked her as someone to be listened to, or merely because no one else was offering any better ideas, she wasn't sure. But she was grateful that she did not have to contend with a dissenting voice on top of the River Zoras.

Paddling to the edge of the pool, Judith hauled herself out of the befouled water, her raiment now stained an unpleasant shade of red. Washing it out promised to be a time-consuming task, but that was the least of her worries at the moment. Her revulsion was utterly nothing compared to what Yuku must have been going through... Immediately chiding herself for even entertaining the idea of being bothered by her own laundry when young lives were at stake, Judith whirled to give the woman a helping hand out of the water.

"Everything is going to be alright, Miss Yuku. I promise that no harm will come to you or your children so long as I draw breath."

Yuku pulled herself out of the water, checking the tank again to make sure that Maku and Taku were safe. Judith...promised? Yuku was suddenly struck by how much of a liability she seemed to be in crisis situations. On that ferry? She had barely done anything to defeat the Octorok that had attacked them! When that kid in purple had taken her children? She hadn’t even considered the safety of the furry Yeti who had been with her- she had just gone straight for her triplets. She needed to become useful.

No more wailing. No more fretting. She was going to help herself instead of being so dependent on others. The Gerudo, Datura. The Hylian boy, Erick. The Yeti, Yeteta. They had saved her rear end when she hadn’t fought for herself. No more. She wouldn’t let Judith join the ever-expanding cast of heroes saving her. She would fight alongside her.

Wrapping her hand around the hilt of her scimitar, she looked at Judith with a gimlet stare.
“Woe betide them if they touch Saku,” she said darkly. “I won’t let harm come to him, either. I swear, under Nayru herself if need be- this is the last time I will let harm come to them. I will no longer let my children be endangered and rely on others to save them!”

Foresight had abandoned her, it appeared. She really should have predicted Yuku's request to accompany her- it was the obvious response of a concerned parent, and the Zora woman had already proven that she was willing to brave any danger for her children's sake. That would make refusing her all the more difficult. Loathe as she was to do so, it had already been a miracle that Yuku and two of her three Tadzoras had escaped the initial raid unscathed; it would pure folly to risk sending any of them into near-certain death again.

Placing a gentle hand on Yuku's shoulder, Judith gazed into the woman's eyes imploringly.

"I cannot allow that. Children need their mothers, Yuku. Think of how Maku and Taku would grieve, were something to befall you..." She spoke with the weariness of one who was altogether too familiar with the subject of loss, the painful memories of her youth flooding her mind. Better to spare the innocent Tadzoras that heartache.

And yet, as she looked upon Yuku and beheld the palpable agony etched in her features, so clear and vivid as to be instantly recognizable despite the inscrutable boundaries of race, Judith found herself questioning her own logic. Was Nayru not the patron of Love and Motherhood, in addition to Wisdom? Would keeping a mother from her beloved son truly be in accordance with Her wishes? Nayru taught that it was important to avoid letting emotions cloud your judgment, but Her teachings also indicated that it was equally vital to temper Wisdom with compassion, for soulless pragmatism would only lead to evil.

In the end, Judith's heart won out.

"B-But no... F-Forgive me. It would be cruel to forbid you from aiding Saku in his hour of need, and it would be foolish for me to face the River Zoras alone." She relented and released Yuku, unable to meet the Zora's eyes as she took a step back. "You may come. All I ask is that you do not throw your life away recklessly... And that you leave Maku and Taku with the others. I know that parting with your children is the last thing you want to do right now, but we should not gamble with their lives by taking them with us."

When Judith refused Yuku, she felt her innards freeze up, lodging somewhere in her throat and feeling as though breathing was suddenly impossible around it. She meant to protest but the words smacked into the emotion clogged in her throat and bounced off, lost in Yuku's ever-rising fear. Please.

When Judith changed her mind, Yuku's gut lurched in a bizarre mixture of joy, fear and determination, and her grip tightened around her tank.
"Thank you...oh, Nayru, thank you," she said, words tumbling over eachother to escape, most of them some form of gratitude. She hesitated on Judith's plea-slash-ultimatum, but with no small amount of hesitance turned to one Zora who had armed himself with a broken piece of the golden carvings that were now in shards across the floor. His makeshift weapon looked deadly, and Yuku decided that surely the most heavily armed of the Zora would be able to protect her children if the River Zora somehow looped around and came back, or if a second wave came through- Nayru forbid.

"Please," she said to the Zora, who looked at her with a disgruntling amount of pity in his black eyes. "Will you look after Maku and Taku?"
She offered him the tank and he took it, and Yuku fumbled for the straps that she used to hold the large tank to the back of her belt when she couldn't carry it by hand, holding them out.
"Please, don't let them get hurt,"

"They're safe with me," the Zora said, strapping the tank to his belt. Yuku looked at her other two children, who were huddled together and wailing in their tank, faces flushed with the exertion of their cries.
"Shh," she tried to soothe them, but it was no use. Their squalling was mostly quieted by the tank anyway, and Yuku- as much as it pained her- had to simply hope they would cry themselves to sleep. She didn't have time to comfort Maku and Taku when Saku could be- don't finish (dying) that thought (dead) for the love of Nayru just stop!

Trying to quell the shake in her jaw and the water raising in her eyes, Yuku pushed her glasses back up her nose- they had caught under a scale and gotten stuck earlier, and she figured that scale would be rather sore later having been levered up by the thick frames of her glasses, but at least she hadn't lost them.

"Thank you," she said to Judith, hating the wobble in her voice.

"Please, I... I have done nothing to merit such... appreciation." A bit overwhelmed by Yuku's gratitude, Judith shook her head as she shuffled uncomfortably on her feet. "Save your thanks for when we have made certain that Saku is safe." The idea of bringing Yuku along still didn't sit well with Judith's more logical side, and she wondered if the Zora woman's thankfulness would prove premature by the end of this tragic affair. If Saku had truly fallen into the clutches of the River Zoras, they would surely sacrifice him in some abhorrent ritual or even kill him outright at the first opportunity.

That made one thing clear: Time was of the essence! Every second wasted was an extra second Saku spent in mortal danger.

Once Yuku had entrusted the remainder of her children to the other Zoras, Judith motioned for her to follow her as she briskly moved toward the passage the River Zoras had fled through. They would have to talk tactics as they went; the extended discussion of strategy the Hylian priestess would have preferred, ideally involving a map of the temple and a step-by-step plan of how to go about clearing rooms with maximum efficiency, obviously was not feasible. Slowing slightly to allow her companion to walk alongside her, Judith tilted her head in Yuku's direction whilst keeping one eye trained on the path ahead.

"Let us be off. Stay close, and be wary. They will be expecting us... An ambush is likely. Tell me, how well do you know the layout of the inner sanctum, and how confident are you in your swordplay?" It had not escaped Judith's notice that Yuku possessed an actual blade, which was more than could be said for most of the congregation... but possession alone was no indicator of mastery. She had to know the extent of her partner's combat capabilities, so that she could determine how best to approach the upcoming battles without putting Yuku in harm's way any more than necessary.

Yuku nodded sharply, trying to banish the gushing thanks her mouth seemed hell-bent on spewing. Saku. She had to focus on Saku. She was going to save Saku. She was going to save Saku come plague or murky water. She scratched at the torn scale on the bridge of her nose, flinching when she accidentally ripped it out. Ow. She was left standing stupidly with a scale in her hands, unsure of where to put it. She ended up shoving it in her bag before registering Judith's question, following after the priestess with a brisk step. The Hylian was an intimidating sight even drenched in bloodstained water, even with her hair plastered to her head and her robes dripping. She certainly looked more intimidating than Yuku, with her glasses crooked and a small trail of blood leaking from where the scale had torn out, her tentacles limp behind her and still bleeding sluggishly, the wounds washed out by the water.

"I can sort of use it," Yuku said, determined not to flush in embarrassment. "Well enough to run through any River Zora that runs at me, for sure. And I can certainly shock the everloving hell out of them if they try to grab me,"
She talks nicely, the part of Yuku's mind swimming in cotton candy, detached from the abrupt loss of Saku, decided. All...fancy words, an' stuff. It's pretty.
Not the time, she reminded herself, shoving her glasses up her nose again even though they hadn't actually moved since the last time she had done it. "I hope you can swim," she added suddenly. "There's a lot of water in here,"

Upon hearing that more swimming might be required to progress, Judith cast a fretful glance at her apparel. Hardly unexpected, given the usual occupants of the temple, but unfortunate all the same. Water may have been Mother Nayru's chosen element, yet the cumbersome robes of the Cult were ill-suited to prolonged periods of submersion, their bulk robbing her of the aquatic agility that both Zora races enjoyed as a rule. Would that she had brought her swimsuit! There was naught to be done about it, she supposed. She wasn't about to strip down now- this garment was the symbol of her office, and she would wear it as she smote the River Zoras, so that they would learn to fear the priestesses of the mightiest Golden Goddess.

"I can manage. If possible, though, we should try to engage the River Zoras on land." She rejoined, her impromptu inspection of her clothes complete. "Speaking of which, when we encounter them, I will assail them from afar with my spells. Should they respond in kind, I will call upon Nayru's Affection to shield us. If they attempt to close the gap and force a melee, however, I will need you to step forth and intercept them. You need not best the savages; slay them if you can, but prioritize your own survival over their defeat. Fend them off for but a few moments, and I shall use the opportunity to flank them, whereupon I can finish the fight with a well-placed cantrip... or at least create and opening for you to do so. I daresay your ability to manifest an electrical aura will be of great use to us ere the day is done."

As Judith outlined her preferred rules of engagement, the duo passed through the hallway and emerged onto a platform overlooking a series of canals and aqueducts, a set of stairs on either side of them leading downward. From her vantage point, the Hylian acolyte saw that the walkways and bridges that spanned the water below were maze-like in design, rarely going in a straight line for more than a few paces. It was a clever layout- the crisscrossing bridges would deter and slow a land-based invader... but not their current foes, who could traverse the more-open waterways at their leisure.

Turning to consult her companion on how best to tackle the labyrinth that awaited them, Judith realized with a start that Yuku was bleeding from both her face and tentacles, evidently not as unharmed as she had initially thought. Fumbling for her Bottomless Bottle, she wasted no time pouring some of the water within into her palm and invoking the restorative magics of her Rejuvenation spell, before holding the blessed liquid out for the Zora woman to drink, internally cursing herself all the while for not noticing sooner.

"Oh! You're hurt. I can't have you fighting in this state. H-Here, drink this. It should ease the pain and seal those cuts... If you are wounded, let me know right away and I will heal you. It will be a short while before I can perform this benediction a second time, and I cannot cure mortal injuries ... But smaller wounds are another matter, and I need you at your best."

Yuku looked at the bottle for a moment suspiciously, her mind momentarily conjuring images of the kinds of drinks her old crowd had used to give eachother- more often than not spiked. She brushed the thought aside impatiently, taking the bottle.
"Thank you," she said, before knocking the water back with the swift motion of someone used to drinking from a bottle rather than a glass. She lifted her glasses away from her nose as the ripped out scale healed, and she swiped the water-diluted blood off her face and tentacles. "I-I guess we better stop dawdling then,"
Clenching her jaw (as if that would actually strengthen her resolve, all it did was make her teeth hurt), Yuku stepped forwards and opened the gilded doors leading to the inner sanctum of the temple.

The water glowed in the light filtering through the glassy panels in the golden carvings, a great wheel turned by a jet of water dominating the centre of the room. If Yuku remembered correctly, it was supposed to represent something about circles of life and the role water played in that circle for the Zora- but then, Yuku had never really paid attention to those lectures when her parents had given them. She'd generally just stood there with an obedient and contrite look on her face until they gave her guitar back.

"I'm going to be doing quite a lot of swimming, aren't I," Yuku mused, looking into the pools of water. She hesitated for a moment, looking at Judith (would she be bothered? Hylians don't generally go in for nakedness...) before huffing and beginning to unlace her corset. "It's probably better if I don't have this dress in the way," When she got enough of the laces undone (she never did it up properly anyway- that took far too much effort) she shoved it down past her hips, onto the ground, unbuckling her belt as well. She lifted her claw-marked dress up over her head and pulled it off, rolling it up in a ball and shoving it and the corset into the alcove next to the door. The only parts of her apparel that remained were her glasses, and her belt once she buckled it back on. She bit her lip, trying not to feel too concerned about what a Hylian might think of her eschewing the social necessity of clothes.

"Well...I guess we should just...go up that way," she gestured helplessly at the moving platform beside them, hopping carefully onto it. It was slick with water, which didn't really bother her- she was a Zora, after all, she had grown up with slippery floors- but might pose an issue to Judith, especially since she was fairly sure that the Hylian still had no shoes on. "Be careful, it's slippery," she said, offering a hand to help the woman balance on the platform before it moved upwards once again.

While Yuku took the sensible precaution of removing her clothing, Judith retrieved her Botttomless Bottle and observed the great churning wheel in the centre of the inner chamber with no small amount of fascination. What a feat of engineering! It never ceased to amaze the priestess how many of Hyrule's most complex mechanical contraptions were housed within temples. Automated doors, animated guardians, deadly traps... The sheer ingenuity of the architects of old was mind-boggling, enough to put the finest artisans of the capital to shame. Not for the first time, she wondered how long this particular temple had stood... Another question for Yuku, perhaps, when lives were not at stake.

Once her companion had finished disrobing, Judith fell into step behind her, following the Zora's lead as she made her way toward one of the room's many moving platforms. Normally, the sight of a naked woman would have been enough to bring a flush to the priestess' cheeks, accompanied by a profound sense of embarrassment, but the Zora form was so fundamentally... different as to be unrecognizable as being in the nude, at least to a Hylian gaze. Indeed, Judith considered the aquatic race's innate modesty to be happy coincidence- the unwanted distraction of an unclothed comrade could prove fatal, otherwise.

Instead, what bothered Judith far more than the issue of nudity was the revelation that the platforms and walkways ahead would be treacherous- the accumulated moisture within the temple making them difficult to stand upon. Given her propensity for extreme klutziness whenever danger reared its ugly head, the acolyte was certain that the slightest misstep could send her plunging into the water, where she would be easy prey for any nearby River Zoras. Thus, it went without saying that she was quite grateful when Yuku offered her a helping hand.

"Th-Thank you. I will be sure to watch my step. If I do fall into the water, though, I'll be counting on you to save me." Judith declared half-jokingly, accepting Yuku's hand with a smile. Rather tellingly, she did not let go, even after she had climbed onto the platform.

Curiously, the platform Yuku had selected seemed to be an elevator of sorts, carrying the duo upwards rather than downwards, as Judith would have expected. Of course, her companion knew the interior of the temple better than she, and she trusted Yuku's judgment. Concerned as she was for her child, the Zora was sure to take the fastest possible route to the temple's deepest levels, which might allow them to gain ground on the River Zoras, who would be unfamiliar with the exact layout of the building.

"This really is magnificent to behold. Under better circumstances, I would love to return here and take a tour of these sacred halls." Gushing about the temple's splendour would do little to ease Yuku's worries, but Judith hoped that her praise might lift her companion's spirits, knowing that an ordained priestess was in awe of her place of worship. It would be better than simply waiting for the elevator's ascent in silence, she reckoned. "Ah, forgive me, my inner scholar demanded that I commen- Wait. What is that?"

Still clinging to Yuku's grasp with her left hand, Judith brandished her staff with her right and gestured to a spot beneath them. There, in the water below, she could make out a mass of green scales- A single River Zora, perhaps left behind by the others to act as a sentry. More distressingly, a frog-like creature with an orange hide floated alongside it... if a frog were the size of a Hylian head, that is. They did not seem to be hostile toward one another; in fact she could have sworn that the River Zora appeared to be petting its unusual partner. Fortunately, they had not spotted the two Nayruites yet, but the priestess had never seen a being of the monstrous frog's ilk before, and she was reluctant to act without first knowing what it was capable of.

"M-Miss Yuku... Do such beasts normally populate the temple?" Judith turned to Yuku with a quizzical expression written across her face. Maybe she would have a greater insight into the nature of this strange new foe. It was often said that terrible beasts lurked in the depths of the world's oceans... and Judith knew that better than most.

Yuku gave a weak sort of smile at Judith's joke.
"Oh, I don't know," she joked back. "If you fall in I'd have to assume you were just criminally clumsy,"
She immediately felt bad. Not the sort of joke to make. "I'm kidding, of course I'd pull you out.
She blushed slightly at the gushing commentary on the temple.
"It's a beautiful place," she agreed. "I haven't been here in years but it's always been quite the sight to behold. Years of sculpting and labour went into this temple,"

When Judith pointed out their foes, Yuku narrowed her eyes, pushing her glasses back up her nose to get a better look.
"No," she said, something dark to her voice. "They do not,"
She drew her scimitar as quietly as she could, the wooden click of the weapon clearing the sheath barely audible.
"And if it's alongside a River Zora, it's bound to give us trouble,"
She stared at the duo, clearly debating something.
"I don't know if it would be wasting time for me to dive down there and take them on, or whether it would be the better option so they can't follow us and we get caught in a hallway with enemies in front and behind,"

She was already calculating how she could make a dive from the slowly rising platform into the water- and whether or not she could dive directly onto the River Zora without injuring herself in the process. They didn't seem to be so high off the surface as to have her break bones when she landed on top of the creature, and so long as she held on tight they wouldn't be able to attack her. A quick swipe across the neck with her scimitar, and wow that was the most violent thought she could recall ever having.

"I can make the jump," she said to Judith. "If I dive-tackle the River Zora I should be able to kill him fast enough to stop him attacking me. Since you're less suited to swimming and diving it might be better if I take him out. Unless you've got a bow, or some long-range weapon you could attack with from here? Then you could take out one while I dive on the other,"

For a moment, Judith blinked in confusion. She was a trained sorceress, why wouldn't she be able to strike from a distance? Had Yuku not seen her efforts to rally the rest of the congregation with her magic? Ah, wait! Of course she hadn't. The Zora woman had spent the duration of the previous battle submerged in the pool... Well, it fell to her to demonstrate that the Cult's studies were not restricted to the healing arts alone, then. And given the atrocities the River Zoras intended to commit, the Hylian acolyte had absolutely no qualms about doing so.

"Do not fear. Some girls of Lon Lon like to boast that they can hit a target from a hundred paces with a bow, but I take pride in the fact that I can accomplish the same with my mind... and some help from Mother Nayru." Planting her feet apart, Judith raised her staff and stabilized her arm. Firing from a moving platform wasn't the most ideal of situations, but thankfully the elevator was traveling slowly enough that there was little chance of her aim being thrown off. "I will not suffer even a single blasphemous wretch to roam free in our Goddess' halls. Let us deal with them now. They may have been stayed behind to delay pursuers... Nayru willing, there may be signs of a trail down there we can use to track their movements. But at the very least, we will be sparing ourselves unnecessary danger further down the line if we seize the initiative here."

The choice of targets, however, was somewhat less clear-cut. Her gaze shifted from one to the other, then back again. Leaving Yuku to contend with the frog was a risky proposition that didn't sit well with Judith; how was one to properly assail a foe one knew nothing of? That said, while she couldn't be certain how dangerous the beast was, she knew that the River Zora was definitely a threat, being larger and probably stronger than her companion. Worse, he looked to be carrying a vicious assortment of blades, one in each hand, with several more on his belt. If Yuku miscalculated her jump, it was a very real possibility that he would be able to overpower her. Either way, it was a gamble, with Yuku's life as the wager.

"As for who to prioritize first... I leave the decision to you. The River Zora looks strong, but we also have no idea what abilities that frog-like creature possesses. It could have poisoned jaws, or the like. You would be the one leaping into harm's way, so I would not presume to make the choice for you. I will zap whatever one you don't attack with an Arcane Bolt. On your mark, Miss Yuku." Letting go of her fellow believer's hand, the priestess concentrated on her breathing, and her staff began to emit a barely audible hum.

Subdued though they were by Judith's focus, the crackling energies within promised a swift death to any aquatic foe, be they Zora or frog.

Yuku nodded and looked down at the River Zora and the froggish creature beside it. Both could present a threat, and the striking orange colour of the frog put Yuku in mind of the poisonous specimens she’d heard tell of in other parts of Hyrule. A thought occurred to her. Would physical contact with the frog- like, say, tackling it from a storey up- be enough to poison her if it was indeed a toxic creature?

She wasn’t keen to take the risk.


“I don’t know if the frog is poisonous or not,” she said to Judith as the elevator neared the apex of its climb, “and I don’t want to touch it if it is. I’ll tackle the Zora and you take the frog, alright?”

Without waiting for an answer, Yuku stepped back and then launched herself off the platform, her arms out to either side and her tentacles splayed as she arched in mid-air and plummeted towards the green-scaled foe beneath her.


She hit the creature and the two of them immediately plunged under the water with a disproportionately small splash, and the Zora made a noise that was half shock and half pain as it slammed hard into the bottom of the pool, the back of its head hitting the stone bottom of the pool with a sharp crack muted by the water. The blades in its hands had been lost when it was struck and it was drunkenly fumbling for the replacements on its belt, even as Yuku lashed her tentacles around its limbs and yanked them as far away from the belt as possible. She was trying her best to pin the creature to the ground but it was kicking furiously, its arms immobilised but its legs still free. Yuku’s solution was to hit it in the face with the pommel of her scimitar.


It wasn’t a particularly hard blow, and Yuku was no warrior, but the muffled crunch and the decidedly misaligned nose seemed to quell the River Zora’s immediate struggle as it attempted to curl up, pulling its knees to its chest. Yuku put her blade to its throat.

“Where did you take my son?” she hissed as threateningly as she could, baring sharp teeth.

Synchronizing her assault with that of her companion, Judith loosed her Magic Bolt the exact instant Yuku's feet had left the platform. Her diligence in steadying her aim paid off as the arcane missile struck its mark, and the priestess was rewarded with an ear-splitting screech. The frog-like beast thrashed about the water, writhing in pain as the electricity coursed through it, and the Hylian acolyte dared to hope that it would soon expire... only for it to suddenly cease its convulsions and turn a hate-filled gaze toward Judith, hissing loudly as it gnashed its teeth in fury.

At first, she did not understand how the creature had endured her spell, but as she squinted and inspected it once more, she noticed that there was a green, glistening sheen to its scales that had not been there mere seconds ago. From what she could tell, it appeared to be secreting some form of gelatinous fluid through its skin, which had insulated it from the worst of the harmful shocks. Regrettably, as staggering as the biological implications were, there was little time to ponder them as the creature, now alert to Judith's presence, went on the offensive.

Briefly dipping beneath the surface, the monster swam upwards and launched itself upwards and out of the water with a force the priestess would not have thought possible of a critter its size. Apparently content to leave its master to his fate at Yuku's hands, the frog soared straight past the moving elevator, its unnatural momentum carrying it all the way to the ceiling, which it promptly attached itself to, no doubt with the aid of the same fluid that had allowed it to shrug off her Magic Bolt. To make matters worse, within moments the creature had somehow encased itself inside a protective 'bubble' of the stuff, secreting a truly massive amount in the span of a few seconds.

While Judith watched in horror, the frog, now secure in its vantage point, flashed her a toothy grin and thrust one claw forward. The motion jarred the wall of the bubble, propelling a small portion of the ichor outwards... right toward where she was standing.

Not eager to discover how the substance would interact with Hylian flesh, Judith leapt back to evade the incoming slime, but it was at that moment her dreaded clumsiness betrayed her. As she landed, her foot slipped on a particularly slick patch of the platform. While she mercifully did not fall off the the elevator altogether, the blunder put her squarely on her back, knocking the wind out of her and leaving her at the mercy of her scaly foe.

"... Ungh!"

Seeing her in this vulnerable state, the creature wasted no time hurling a second gob of fluid her way, roaring triumphantly in anticipation of its victory.

Heart hammering in her chest, Judith made one last-ditch attempt at defiance: Splaying her legs, she snatched up her staff and fired off a hurried Ice spell, praying the frigid orb would pierce her opponent's slimy barrier.

As it turned out, neither attack had the effect the assailant had intended, but the priestess proved the luckier.

The creature's globule had fallen short, landing where Judith's feet would have been had she not spread them apart. The Hylian's projectile, meanwhile, had become lodged in the creature's bubble- though it had failed to make much headway against the barrier, the sudden drop in temperature had caused the already viscous fluid to freeze over, trapping the beast within. What had once been a sanctuary was now an icy prison.

Unable to maintain its adhesive properties in its solid state, the frozen bubble plummeted from the ceiling, crashing into the water with a resounding splash. As Judith picked herself up and gathered her bearings, she saw that the frog was still alive inside the bubble, pounding against the walls of his newfound gaol. Although it had been dealt with for now, the threat was not truly neutralized- given time, the creature would surely free itself. She had to warn Yuku!

Turning her attention back to the waterway, she scanned the area for any sign of her partner.

The River Zora bit out a growl as Yuku pressed her sword harder to its throat, a savagery she hadn’t thought herself capable of twisting her features into a hateful mask of anger, her black eyes boring into her quarry.

“I’m not going to ask again!” she snarled in its face, the water rippling around her sharp teeth. The Zora wrinkled its face into its own furious visage, growling back at her with no regard for her demands. She wrenched upwards and slammed the Zora back down again, hoping to shock him into acquiescing; when that failed, she opted for the more literal shock of her innate electrical aura. The River Zora gagged as the water it breathed abruptly turned into a crackling conductor, and Yuku let the spell fall.

“Where is my son?”

She’d been so focused on the spell that she was taken completely by surprise when a knee impacted her gut, and she instinctively reared backwards. The River Zora twisted itself free, surging up and away from her, drawing one of the wicked blades from its belt, and-


Thunk.


The surge of the water sent Yuku whirling head over heels backwards, limbs splayed in an attempt to steady herself; when the waves settled she recognised her foe floating limply under the water, blood pooling from its head like a jellyfish dancing through the temple’s pools. And above him bobbed a great frozen mass, a misshapen blob of something that had dropped out of nowhere and smashed the River Zora’s skull in. Yuku surfaced and pushed her glasses back to where they should have been, staring at the mass in the water. There was...something inside it? She stared when she recognised the bright orange frog. Which meant that Judith had done thi-Judith!

“Are you alright?” she called, whirling to face the elevator where she’d left the priestess.

"I-I am no worse for wear!" As she called back her reply, Judith reoriented herself to face her companion, careful to avoid stepping in the slimy patches left behind by the frog-beast's volley. The priestess was grateful to see that Yuku appeared to be similarly unscathed... and that the same could not be said for the River Zora, judging from the bloody splotch that had formed along the surface of the water a short distance from her ally. However, it would be folly to assume that they were out of the woods... or deep end in this case, so long as that wretched frog drew breath, and Judith was quick to shout a warning to her friend.

"Beware, Yuku! The creature still lives, and I don't know how long the frozen sphere will hold it!" Already trying to brainstorm a more permanent solution to their foe's existence, the Hylian cast her gaze about the chamber, hoping to find anything that might be of use. She supposed that Yuku could simply use her blade to chip a hole in the icy orb and stab the frog while its range of motion was still limited, but that was once again risky proposition. What if the ice shattered altogether? The creature's claws had resembled razorblades, even from afar.... Wracking her brain for inspiration, Judith fretfully squeezed her chin. She had no desire to place Yuku in undue danger if a better alternative presented itself.

As she continued to survey the area, an idea suddenly struck her. The inner workings of the temple's aqueducts were quite complex, if the series of pipes lining the walls were any indicator. And if there were pipes, there were surely also valves capable of opening and closing to regulate the water flow in the pools below. What if they could use one of those valves to seal the creature within a pipe until such time as it could be properly exterminated, or even remove it from the equation entirely by sending it back out to sea?

"Miss Yuku, can you push the sphere somewhere? One of the pipes, p-perhaps? M-Maybe we could use the valves to entrap it while it's still immobilized, or flush it out of the temple altogether!"

By her reckoning, it wasn't a bad plan for how short notice it had been. The only problem was, Judith didn't know which pipes would be safe to stash the beast inside. There would be no sense in doing so if all they accomplished was relocating the frog to elsewhere in the temple. She prayed Yuku had a more concrete understanding of the room's plumbing...

Oh dear. Yuku paled at Judith’s idea, suddenly regretting all the time she’d spent not paying attention when she had been taught about such Zora monuments as the Great Bay’s temple. Instead she’d dedicated herself only to the parts she’d actually enjoyed. She had no idea which of the pipes was vital!


She looked around quickly, her glasses glinting with torchlight reflected off the water. The yellow pipes were full of rushing water, and Yuku didn’t know where they came out. It would be an awful idea to let the monster wash away and pop up somewhere else! The red pipes, however, were stagnant and silent.

“The red ones!” she shouted, snap decision made. She lunged, pushing the icy ball forwards until it knocked into the pipes. The ice was slushy and shedding under her hands as she pushed past it and yanked open the valve of the red pipe, the violent ripples of the water around her sloshing into the pipe and wetting the dusty surface within. She swam under the sphere and shoved at it, grunting as she all but dashed herself against the fast-melting ball, until she finally felt it give and it rolled into the dry pipe.


The creature within was thrashing, and the Zora clambered out of the water, straddling the pipe. She shoved her hand into the slush ball and let loose with her electric aura, channeling the potent bioelectricity into the ball and thus the creature, leaving it making bizarre noises in pain before slumping dazed in its prison. Yuku slammed the valve shut, twisting the lever until it was tightly locked, before finally letting her shoulders drop. She slid back into the water, making her way over to where the River Zora floated prone in the water, bobbing up and down with the ripples still bouncing around the room.


The beast had been ugly in life and was even uglier for his death, head fins snapped and head brutally misshapen from where the ice orb had impacted it. Yuku doubted even the power of Nayru herself could repair that kind of damage, and she turned away before she could start feeling even guiltier than she already was. All she could hope for was that it was a quick death. She ducked under the water- was all the water in this temple doomed to be bloodstained by Yuku’s folly?- and retrieved her sword, sliding it back into her belt, before surfacing and swimming over to the platform with smooth strokes.

“If I remember right, the red pipes are blocked,” she said to Judith, hauling herself from the water and getting her feet under her on the platform. “If we’re lucky, the creature won’t be able to get out at all. The blockage should stop it from fleeing. Are you alright?”

Patiently waiting for the elevator to come back down so that Yuku could rejoin her, Judith let out a relieved sigh, glad that everything had more or less gone according to plan. It must have been her companion's first real taste of battle, she reckoned. The priestess could tell by the way the Zora woman kept nervously asking after her safety, as if unable to believe that they could emerge from such a confrontation unscathed (Granted, Judith herself was not immune to the doubts spawned by a neophytic mind, as she too was but a novice in the arts of war). But Yuku had acquitted herself well, and the Hylian acolyte offered her a warm smile alongside a helping hand once the platform had completed its descent.

"I am unharmed, Yuku, honest. Oh, mind the splatters... I think they're corrosive." Judith indicated the two splotches created by the mutant frog's attacks with her free hand, then looked back at her partner. "Your concern is very much appreciated, though! Truthfully, I'm more worried about you. You were in greater danger than I... What you did back there was very brave. Between that and what happened at the entrance, I'm beginning to be glad we found you before Farore's church did. They would have snatched you up in a heartbeat!" She let out a small laugh at her own little jest, though she was only half-joking.

Courage was certainly a virtue Yuku did not seem to want for, and while it was not part of Nayru's portfolio, Judith had to admit it was a valuable one. The Zora's willingness to put herself in harm's way for the sake of others marked her as a truly selfless individual, and Judith resolved not to rely on Yuku's valour overmuch. Plucky though she was, it would be best to keep the death-defying stunts to a minimum.

Yuku quickly looked down at the platform, shifting her flippered feet and fearing she’d already stepped in the frog’s green oil. When she was satisfied she’d found a safe place for her feet, she looked back up at Judith, flushing at the praise.
“T-Thank you,” she said, offering a toothy grin. “I do think that your ice magic was of much more benefit to both of us. You defeated both of them with a single spell!”
Her smile faltered slightly when she realised that the River Zora had been killed before any information on Saku’s whereabouts could be gleaned from him.
“We’re no closer to finding my son, though,” Yuku said glumly. The elevator was rising again, the walkway she had been aiming for originally drawing closer. “We’ve no choice but to go further in, I fear. Swimming is inevitable from this point, unless you are comfortable climbing the railings of the walkways above the water. I only know the paths through the canals, not from the walking trails, I’m sorry,”

The elevator reached the top and Yuku stepped over the puddles of green ooze, turning and offering her hand to Judith. The entrance to the next room was at the end of this pathway, and the tiled floor sloped into the water, dividing into two tunnels. One was rimmed in faded copper, the other in tired gold, each with an exquisite carving of a fish over its arch. On the wall in the centre of the room, between the two tunnels, shone a silver Mark of Nayru. While the rest of the temple appeared aged and ancient, the Mark gleamed like it was newly forged, standing out in stark relief against the water-damaged walls. From the pathway’s sides, however, reached the networks of tangled walkways extending further into the temple. Spiderwebs riddled the railings, and the centres of the wider pathways where no water had reached were dusty and dirty. They arched above the two fish-marked tunnels, providing a somewhat less beautiful road into the depths of the temple.
“These paths aren’t often used,” the Zora apologised, looking at the disrepair. “When Zora enter the inner sanctum, they take the waterways,”

She paused, trying to remember the way. Her brother had come here once, she recalled, although he hadn’t exactly espoused instructions on how to get to the inner sanctum. That would have been altogether too convenient, she grumbled to herself. The only helpful advice she could remember was his complaint about the two paths.
”The Red Salmon Path caved in,” he had complained. “We had to double back and take the Golden Carp Path,”
“We musn’t take the path on the left,” Yuku blurted. “It caved in some time ago and as far as I know it has not been repaired,”

The golden carp seemed to glimmer in the light almost invitingly, and Yuku knew in her gut that she had made the right decision.

Joining Yuku as she stepped off the elevator and advanced into the next chamber, Judith beheld the intricate carvings that topped the two tunnels ahead with no small amount of awe, unable to prevent herself from gaping in wonder. Truly, the craftsmanship of the Cult's aquatic allies was without peer! Moving forward to admire them more closely, she found herself likewise entranced by the silver Mark of Nayru that adorned the walls, taking heart in the fact that it had remained untarnished throughout this ordeal. Not to be profaned by the barbaric River Zoras, the Goddess' symbol had endured... as would Her faithful, the Hylian acolyte told herself.

Unfortunately, Judith's good mood proved short-lived, as the beauty of the temple's artistry appeared to have come at the expense of the structural integrity of the walkways above- Gone were the love and care that had been poured into the statues and carvings, replaced instead by a film of dust and a musty odor. It was a travesty, one that would have to be remedied in short order... How ever could she foster goodwill between Zora and Hylian believers if that latter could not safely visit the former's sanctuaries? She would be sure to have a word with the congregation's leader, once this predicament had been resolved...

But none of this disrepair was Yuku's fault, and Judith heeded her words with a nod of acknowledgment, carefully weighing their options. Having two possible routes to choose from presented a difficult conundrum: Speed was of the essence, but Judith's robes would slow the two of them down were she to swim, and she had no means of breathing underwater should the tunnel become entirely submerged. At the same time, she wondered if the winding platforms would offer a direct enough path to the deepest levels of the temple. Could they even be trusted not to collapse if she traversed them? All of these concerns swirled like a whirlpool in her mind as she finally opened her mouth to speak.

"The River Zoras must have swam when they reached this juncture... With that in mind, the landings above are probably safe... or at least clear of their kind." Judith tilted her head toward her companion, an inquisitive expression writ across her features. "I cannot tread water as you can, and I do not wish to diminish our pace. Tell me, would the walkways afford me a clear view of the waters below? If so, perhaps I could try them while you took the tunnels. That way, I could support you from on high with my spells in the same manner as before, should we chance upon any more of our impious foes."

They would have to reach a decision quickly. The River Zoras were not likely to accommodate a lengthy debate on their part.