Ruined ramparts and battlements lay scattered about the ground. A man, particularly tall, aged, and with a green glow floating aside him, stood in front of it all. His silver plate mail gleamed in the near-noon sun, almost making him a target of sorts. He looked at the rubble, dissatisfied with what he had found. Led here by a wise man in search of a particular artifact, Julius surveyed his surroundings. They were deep, quite a ways away from any significant holding of Hyrule proper. The Hylians, Julius included, had an intense dislike of the cold. It was always so… disheartening. In Kakariko, Julius had grown fond of the hot, long days spent working the forge with his father and training with blades too heavy for his then-young self to wield… those were the days! But his time for regaling was over, as Lex sang out in her usual melodic voice, “Julius~! Over here~!” He stood from his crouched position, searching the Jade colored ruins for his companion. Soon, he saw her floating next to a statue, easily half again as tall as himself. It was constructed of what seemed to be slate, though Julius was no geologist. It wielded a massive broadsword made of a darker, shinier stone – perhaps onyx? But again, Julius could not be sure. A red shield – whether natural or simply painted – lay in the grasp of its left hand. As Julius drew near, it began to quake. Its goliath form, the statue of a mighty warrior wielding vast implements, began to shiver and leap and all sorts of movement almost uncharacteristic for something of this size. It moved with an almost alien grace, the statue, hopping and leaping all around in frantic bursts of energy. As it began to leap at Julius, slamming its hard, stony sword through the air, Julius caught it with his shield as he moved away from the grove the statue seemed entrenched within. The statue was easily stronger than any normal Hylian; it was on par with something of a Darknut, or Goron. Soon, it was on his heels again, flailing its dull blade about. Julius ducked, the statue seeming to not have as full of a range of motion as one would expect, before slicing into with an abnormal ease. Its body seemed to be constructed of stone, but it’s consistency reminded him more along the lines of Moblin hide, almost as tough as something you would find on a Dodongo. The statue reared back in pain, leaping back towards its alcove before poising to strike at Julius once more.
"Well... It's certainly something different." The young man scanned what appeared to be the last few blocks of what may have once been a much greater structure. Indeed, this was something different. For days, he had traveled through these mountains and valleys with his wolf beside him, scouring the trees and rocks and streams and peaks and valleys for any evidence of his quarry. He had set off, so very many days ago, in search of an ancient palace lost to time. All myths in the scrolls and texts he could find in Northrock's library told of the palace somewhere in these mountains, hidden at the end of a grand valley. This was, indeed, starting to look like a canyon of some sort. These stones, too, seemed to be a sign of good fortune ahead. Edric thought back on his journey as Winter turned his nose to the wind. Until finding this ruin, he had seen nothing of any relevance. Of course, he had met that strange old man days before, and though he had pointed Edric in the right direction, Edric had rather discounted the old man as nothing more than a witless hermit. Perhaps he was not so witless after all. Having discovered nothing more from the pile of stones, the young man set off once more. At least, he concluded, he was nearing the right place. Winter, apparently satisfied that this particular gust of wind posed no threat, carried on behind his master. Some hours passed before the pair stumbled upon another ruin. This time, the stone blocks were stacked in a fragment of a wall, and some stone pavement for what appeared to be a road could be seen below the dirt and sand. Beyond this ruin, Edric found only more. More walls and pathways, each one more perfectly preserved than the last, presented themselves. Some walls began to form shapes, where buildings would have once stood. The insides of some buildings still contained rows of standing pillars, cut smooth from the stone of the mountains. Edric even found the remnants of statues that may have once lined the roads and walkways. Fragments of carved sword blades and hands lay in the dust. Winter's ears went stiff, and his tail curled high. His nose twitched at the air. There was a sound. Edric and Winter both turned, scanning the ruins for its source. There was heard another. It sounded as the scraping, or even the collision, of stone. Was that a clash of steel? Where was this sound coming from? The young man took off after the faint echoes, cursing that his boots did not pound through the gravel more silently. Suddenly, as the sound grew louder, he heard the voice of a man. It was a grunt, he surmised, as if two men were fighting. Though, there was only one voice, the occasional crashing of steel, and a constant, rhythmic scraping and pounding of stone. Edric sprinted forward again, as the source of the sound could be more easily located. Indeed, among the ruins, he soon found a creature of stone doing battle with an older man clad in a suit of steel plate embellished in silver. What is this!? He lunged forward, descending a small drop, his leather boots sliding down through a gravel slope. Landing in a thin cloud of dust, he reached for the garnished hilt of the bastard sword at his side. Winter leapt beside his master, lips curled back to reveal sharp teeth as a growl boiled up in his throat. Storm, meanwhile, sprang free from its scabbard with the sound of oiled steel scraping against wood and leather. The swordsman's gaze darted to and fro, hoping to intercept any other living statues that might accost him. He did not, however, intervene in this mysterious knight's battle. When swords are flashing in wide arcs, it is sometimes best not to stand side by side. He did, however, stand ready to strike should the man falter, though he questioned the value of his steel, good and hard-tempered as its edge was, against the thing's flesh of granite, as he had not witnessed the man striking an earlier blow against the monster.
Julius’s ears perked up as he heard the sound of gravel being disturbed nearby. “Lexi! What is it?” He kept his gaze on the statue as its massive blade was once more swung, a wide horizontal slash with all the force of a machine put behind it. Julius ducked, stabbing almost directly up at the looming statue. He easily perforated its head, almost perfectly splitting its head in two. “It’s… a Hylian~! Oh, he has a sweet little wolfos with him too~!” “Tell him to stay back! There’s no telling what this thing could do!” Julius shouted as he parried another blow from the goliath statue, unimpeded by its obvious wounds. Suddenly, its shield arm shot forwards toward the center of Julius’s mail, carrying all of the weight and power of a machine with it. It knocked him onto the dirt and dust, looming over him. Getting a clearer, intense view of its features, he noticed far more about it than he had prior. It seemed far more monstrous in design than humanoid, though it still shared some traits. It had two legs, albeit built into the stone platform below it. It had two arms; even fingers, though they didn’t actually grasp anything. Its weapon and shield were built into its hands, the fusion of stones seeming almost alien. In all his knowledge of stone working, it was something that could rarely be done. It had a distinguishable head. Its head even had a helmet; though it wasn’t separate, Julius assumed it still held moderate functionality, no doubt having blocked his blade from simply bisecting the construct’s cranium. It poised its dark blade downwards, its arms having a mechanical motion to it. It seemed to be driven by gears. First, it poised its onyx blade skyward, the light of the oddly intense two o’clock sun gleaming off of its blade. It spoke aloud in very precise, monotone words: “IN THE NAME OF THE GOLDEN GODDESSES,” it paused. A whirring, buzzing noise was emitted from its chest. Julius took his chance. He was wide open. He wedged his blade deep into the statue’s chest, almost directly above where he had already sliced into the thing’s abdominal. The buzzing, whirring, it all stopped. It spoke aloud in the same tone, though clearly distorted, echoing, skipping, repeating. It sped up. Slowed down. Eventually, it got stuck in a loop, “IN THE NA- YE NOT- GOLD-.“ Exactly that, stuck on repeat, his blade still in the air. Soon, it start flashing, bursts of intense white light pulsating over the statue. It began speeding up, its pitch increasing gradually, as it was almost so high none could hear it. The speed of the pulses increased. Something told Julius to get back. He stepped back at first, and then gradually turned and ran, almost doing a full sprint, as he dove down into the dirt. As he lay there, the statue burst in charred fragments of porcelain. Looking up, all that remained of it was a crude stone base, looking nothing like the exquisite stonework it had been before. Pulling himself from the ground, he inspected his surroundings for further threats. With creatures like these around, he would certainly have to be careful indeed. Approaching the Hylian and his pet wolf, Julius introduced himself. “Guard Captain Julius Surgate at your service. What brings you here, boy? Ah, but first... This is companion, Lexi. She’s a fairy from Kokiri Forest. We came here in search of a particular artifact for a wise man that I owed a favor or three to.”
Edric lowered Storm as he watched the older swordsman dive away from the animated statue after plunging his sword into its head. No threat could be seen approaching just yet, but Edric resolved that his sword would not be sheathed until he could be completely certain of his safety. Instead, he simply turned the bastard sword over in his hand and rested its point in the sand, holding the weapon like a walking stick. "Good day to you, Captain Surgate, and you, my lady," he nodded, giving a slight bow to Lexi, "I am Edric of Northrock, son of Lord Mael Coluim. My trusted companion, here, is called Winter. He has been beside me for quite some time, and seen me through one or two adventures." He ran a gloved hand over the wolf's head. "As it happens, Captain, I have traveled this far from home in search of a particular sort of artifact as well, insofar as an ancient ruin can be called an artifact. I have heard tell of an archaic power sleeping in a palace among these ravines. I have something of an interest in the possibilities of such adventuring, you see."
