Cain was by no means a stealthy Hylian but he still understood the concept of keeping quiet and staying out of sight or at the very least out of the way. So there he stayed waiting for his quarry to pass by. A pair of Goriya turned up in a small clearing that the mercenary was watching grunting jokes at one another not really suspecting a thing. The wind shifted to the point where his scent wafted passed the noses of the Goriya. Their hair rose on the back of their neck as they began to turn towards Cains direction. Their eyes loooked for Cain and it took them a long moment to realize that they were looking at a Hylian and it was only then that they reached for their boomerangs. But it was too late Cain had already had his khopesh drawn before hand, and it took only a step and a half to cover the distance to the nearest Goriya and in one swift sweeping movement his sword hissed through the air and cut into the Goriya's stomach. Hit growled, grumbled and groaned as the dog faced moblin fell to the ground. With out missing a step the former soldier kicked the second Goriya with the heel of his boot. The creature fell on its back and tried to scramble backwards as Cain trudged toward it , planted his boot in the furry ones chest and stated "I'm old, I'm tired, and I don't have the patience to dig the information from you properly. If you don't tell me where you came from in the next five second's I will crush your chest!" and started pressing into the Goriya's chest. The moblin gasped and pointed in the direction of a near by lake "cross the bridge! Lots of us!!" "Good" Cain growled before planting his sickle like sword into the dog faced Goriya's throat. Cain said he wouldn't crush the monsters chest, he never said any thing about cutting its throat. With information in hand he made his way towards the lake keeping an eye out for a bridge.
The approach to the enemy’s strong hold was easily defensible a single bridge to an island in the middle of a lake, with a single entrance. The flaw however was that the island was not being patrolled by anything but a single octorock and that was stretching the definition of patrolling. Cain decided to ignore the creature and slip into the front entrance. Passing through the threshold the mercenary descended a spiral staircase and entered the strong hold proper. It smelled of earth, with a kind of musty stagnant water odor. Not surprisingly there were pools of water here and there. The stronghold being on an island and under a lake. Before he went on the old soldier paused and let his eyes adjust to the duskiness. It was not dark by any means dark but it was most certainly dim inside this strong hold which was lit up by several torches. At the bottom of the stair case was the start of a heavily worn in path which lead deeper into the strong hold. Not far off Cain could hear the shuffling of something he wasn’t sure what and in an alcove, he heard the chirping of keese, and in the bottom of that alcove he noticed a glint of metal that he wanted to investigate. He choose to ignore the shuffling for the moment but gathered up a few hand fulls of rocks and edged closer to the alcove. The keese eyes glowed as they turned their heads unnaturally toward him. That’s when the mercenary let the hand full of rocks rip from his hands spreading about two feet in a pattern. Some of the rocks missed, but the rest hit their intended targets with satisfying fwaps! The keese lost their grip on the walls of the alcove and fell to the ground where they were easily crushed under the hardened leather sole of Cain’s boot. Crunch! When the alcove was clean of the bat like creatures the old soldier investigated the glinting metal which turned out to be a key. Cain smirked and talked to himself “Well how bout that. Keese guarding a key.” He chuckled at his cleverness and pocketed the key. For a stronghold it was not exactly a good idea to hid the key to the it under a rock like one would hide a key to their hose in Castle town, but then again it was supposed to be a secret. “It’s about time to move deeper into this little strong hold” Cain mused and proceeded deeper into it, toward the shuffling sound.
The shuffling was emanating from stalfos the shambling undead. These ones in particular, didn’t seem too bright, almost feral in their movements. ~Could it be some sort of poor man’s guard dog or alarm?~ Cain couldn’t really tell, for all he knew they were just raised but the monster’s presence or had shambled in on their own accord attracted to the noise Gannons forces were making inside. A hammer or a good mace would have proved the better weapon here but he didn’t have one. What he did have was rocks in his pocket. Pulling out a rock about the size of a gold ball he closed one eye and took aim. With a quick flick of his wrist in a side handed toss the rock wizzed through the air and collided with the skull of the middle skeleton with a loud thwack! It growled as it spun around swinging its sword wildly at its phantom attacker. The stalfos sword collided with its nearby brother and the two began to tussle back and forth. Brittle bones break easy and pretty soon they were little more than chattering skulls which proved enough of a distraction for the third for the old soldier to surprise it, hook its neck with the crook of his khopesh and slam it into a nearby wall. The noise of the scuffle was sure to attract some unwanted attention and so Cain decided to be where he was not expected. Instead of retreating he moved forward. Finding a locked door Cain decided to try the key head had found. Thankfully it worked, slipping into the small room he shut the door softly and watched as more stalfos passed. ~So, not feral just stupid~ thought the mercenary. The mystery was why was he led here by the Goriyas. He didn’t really care at this moment to investigate further than where the end of this stronghold may be. To that end he waited for some time more and soon the stalfos’ that passed returned to their post.
Cain pressed forward, a little cautiously, this strong hold being largely empty except for keese. Some of the webbed winged creatures would scatter and swarm out of the little stronghold; others would actively try to bite and scratch the mercenary. They were big enough to make for an approachable but slightly challenging target for his kind of swordsmanship. Never the less a mix of rocks acting like scatter shot, crushing them under his boot and the occasional sword swipe made light work of the pesky vermin. As he worked his way deeper into the strong hold the old soldier noticed that the corridors had changed from cave walls and dug out alcoves to more solidly built walls. At one point this was either above ground or, more likely a former fortress for the kingdom of Hyrule. There were decorative bricks here and there that showed a relief of a Hyrulian Eagle which seemed to more or less confirm it being a former fortress that something dug out. There was still the mystery of why goriya had came from a strong hold populated by stalfos. The rooms thus far that were not empty, were either filled stalfos, or keese. The keese the old soldier thought migrated in, the stalfos were sent there. ~Maybe the goriya were the stalfos handlers~ mused the mercenary. He heard another group of stalfos shuffling on patrol. Their patrols seemed to have increased since his entrance into this strong hold or more precisely since he dispatched the first group. But where were the Goriya?
