The Plane of Shadows [Moonshadow] - COMPLETE

The Plane of Shadows
- Triton, Scholar of Magic (1/5/3 Blue Zora) [Blonde Panther] Reward: Dowsing Rod, Familiar, -15 Rupees.
- Fion Tivan Lost Twili Child (1/4/5 Twili) [Squishy] Reward: Dowsing Rod, Heart of Darkness, Wall of Hazards [Darkness].
Quest Bureau Thread

Zoras were extremely vulnerable to extreme temperatures; both heat and cold were antithesis to their existence. It was something many of them often lamented, and while Triton normally didn't pay it any heed, recently he understood the frustration. Snowhead, with its eternal snow and its well sub-zero temperatures, was an outright hostile environment to his kind. And yet, the Royal Army had explicitly requested Zora help in the investigation of a portal to what seemed to be a different dimension, which had appeared in the mountains. Triton had been among those chosen to go, and even through his thick, borrowed fur mantle, he shivered.

The situation didn't help, either. The portal often spawned monsters, and those Zoras with mastery of battle magic had been assisting in taking them out, which was tiring and made academic progress slow. However, they had theorized that something important was hidden inside the portal somewhere, and voted to send an expedition inside to find and retrieve it while the rest stayed behind to work on a method of closing it. The expedition's leader had been chosen by ballot, and the responsibility had fallen to Triton. Picking two of his fellow scholars and requesting backup from Zora's domain, he had assembled his team. He hadn't expected his twin sister Thria to show up as one of five Zora warriors who would serve as their protectors, but she had overheard much of the situation through their Siblings' Stones and hadn't wanted to sit still.

At least his sister's presence was comforting, Triton supposed as he gathered his notes, his Book of Mudora, and his potions and shoved them into his pack, looking through his tent one last time to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Assured that he had everything, he met up with his men near the portal. Nodding to their Yeti protectors, he turned to the portal and exhaled deeply. This was it, then. There was a good chance they wouldn't come back from this... they had no idea what awaited them behind the portal. Still, this was exactly what he had wanted to do since he was a child; make a difference.

Taking another deep breath, Triton, as the leader of Expedition A-1, was first to step through the portal.

Immediately upon setting foot on the other side of the portal, Triton grasped around himself desperately, finding nothing to hold on to and instead holding his arms out to either side to keep his balance. He was caught completely off-guard by the darkness on this side; it wasn't like normal absence of light. It felt -wrong-. Part of him wanted to turn around and go back, but he heard the others coming in behind him and knew that was impossible. At least there was water under his feet, he thought as he cautiously took a step forward. Water was comforting. And at least the temperatures were moderate.

Stepping forward to make space for his men, Triton raised one hand and conjured up a small flame so that he would have some indicator to the others where he was. To his horror, it was snuffed out the moment it came into being. "Careful," he said to his men, "We will not have light." They had all brought some means of shedding light, but the darkness was so unnatural that it snuffed everything out. Trained to adapt, the Zoras coming through the portal identified themselves as they entered, until Triton heard Thria's name, indicating they were all there. "Alright. I fear we will have to rely on hearing and touch to navigate this plane. I know it seems daunting now, but-"

He stopped. There was something else here. A sense of dark magic, different from the energy radiated by himself and his fellow scholars. "Who goes there?" he asked, turning around so his voice would carry better to anyone behind him. "Identify yourself!"

When no immediate response came, Thria's impatient voice added: "Well? You heard the man! We don't have all day!"

"What kind of joke is this-"

"Peace, sister." The voice sounded uncertain, as if it didn't normally speak Hylian, and shaky, as if it were afraid. And with the tone in Thria's voice, that wasn't unexpected; she was intimidating by nature. Still, Triton felt a little ill at ease himself; the voice clearly belonged to the bearer of the dark power he sensed. The two came from the same rough area in front of him. Just as he thought that, a faint light washed over them, letting him see the silhouettes of his men... and that of the person in front of him.

He could see no colour, only the glowing of the creature's eyes. It did not look Hylian, although it was certainly humanoid. Noticing that it seemed garbed in shadows, Triton suppressed a gasp. A Twili?! Had the portal led them to the Twilight Realm? It would certainly explain the critter's lack of expertise in the Hylian tongue. "Wait, everyone," he said, holding out a hand just in case the warriors had felt threatened. "It might not speak our language. I may have a solution to that."

"In this darkness?" Thria asked as she watched him take his Book of Mudora to hand and browse through the pages. "Have fun with that." She had a point. They didn't know how long they would have this sudden light for. So Triton found the page he'd been looking for, kneeled to come to the creature's eye level, and turned the book around so it could read it.

As he introduced himself, his words appeared, translated into the creature's presumed native tongue, on the page. "My name is Triton, and these people are under my command. Who are you, and do you know where we are?" He decided not to ask about the Twilight Realm. It was researched, yes, and however little information there was on it, he wasn't sure that was where they were. If it was, then the creature would surely say so. As he waited for a response, however, the light slowly started to vanish again.

It was a happy coincidence that when Fion returned the book to Triton, he happened to have opened it on the page for Zora script. Triton was fluent in Hylian, of course, but when it came to foreign languages he was more comfortable reading his native tongue; it lessened the chances of things getting lost in translation. He read Fion's words out loud so the other Zoras could hear it too, but as he reached the last two phrases, the light vanished altogether and he could no longer see the words. So, not the Twilight Realm, then. In that case, where exactly they were was largely irrelevant. They had oxygen, they had water, and they had rations. If they could tolerate the complete and utter lack of light without losing their sanity, they would be able to explore.

The light briefly returned, and Triton looked up. Overhead, barely visible through inky black clouds, was a large, silver moon, most likely the source of the brief intervals of light. The Zora looked back at the book, seeing Fion's last question. Flipping back to Twilit and making a mental note to mark the two pages, Triton replied. 'It is. It allows me to communicate with people who do not speak my languages- people like you. Although well-educated and well-trained, I fear we are poorly equipped to deal with this unnatural darkness. You seem more used to it, however. Will you accompany us, Fion?'

What a relief, Fion was willing to join them. Judging from his responses to Triton's questions, he could see even in this darkness, which would undoubtedly make him an invaluable asset to the expedition. 'I'm afraid we don't really know much more than you do. The portal appeared one day and we were asked to investigate, but there wasn't much we could discover from the other side. We're hoping to find a way to shut it, to stop the influx of monsters.' He paused, wondering how to proceed.

'If you can see and read in this darkness, then keep the book on you so you can understand us.' With that, he held the Book out to Fion so he could take it. 'Just call my name or tug on my robes if you want to add something.' With that, he got back to his feet, turning to where he estimated his fellows to be. "Fion here is joining us. He can see, and he will guide us to what seems to be a town in the distance. Stick close together. Do not stray. And alert someone, anyone, should you feel something is off."

They couldn't have walked for more than a few minutes, however, when Triton's flipper caught on something and he fell forward, making an audible splash in the water as he landed. Immediately, judging from the smaller splashes behind him, the other Zoras took more defensive stances to answer to a potential threat, despite not seeing anything. Not wanting to risk drawing more attention by getting up, Triton instead turned to Fion. "Fion... is it safe to get up?"

A dead body? Triton's first thought was that was impossible. They were the first expedition to set foot in this realm, at least that they knew of. Then again, though, Fion had been inside as well, without them knowing. Had native people gotten to the portal before a report had been filed? It was possible. ...or were they native to this realm? Triton couldn't tell, anthropology was not his field. And his fellow scholars wouldn't be able to tell either, for a lack of light.

Getting up from the ground, he wiped the water off his face. It was odd. It didn't feel like the water in Hyrule. He couldn't put his finger on it... but something about it felt different. Wrong. Much like Fion had said the darkness was all wrong, so Triton felt the water here wasn't water. It was hard to put into words, but he understood Fion's discomfort now. "I don't know," he replied to the Twili's question. "I don't know if they're Hylians or something else. And I can't see," he added, waving his hand in front of his face to illustrate his point.

"Alright everyone!" Thria called out as Triton spoke with Fion, "Keep your ears peeled! We've got dead bodies, and where there's corpses there's usually killers!" Triton took her words to heart, tightening his grip on his cane.

Triton had hoped that as he spent some time in this strange world, he would grow accustomed to it and at least feel a little less on edge. No such thing, however. His sister was right- where there were corpses, there were killers. Fion pointed out there were more bodies as they came closer to town, but they had yet to come across a hostile presence. The longer this went on, the more Triton wished they would run into something, anything, that would attack them. The alternative was the very environment being lethal... and they wouldn't find out until they were in too deep to return.

As they approached town, the inky black clouds in front of the moon receded, as if someone wanted them to see what they were dealing with. Triton could now see the corpses for himself, asking Thria to pull one out of the water. He'd hoped to have one of the others identify their race, but there was no need; he could tell this corpse at least was Hylian. "Triton," Thria said, having looked it over as well and tried, and failed, to find any identification on it. "Look... The kid's right. They're all grey... they have no colour. Hey!" She turned to Fion. "Is this what you meant before when you said they were 'pale'?"

They were right. However, rather than mortified and confused, Triton was more intrigued than anything else. They had been drained of colour... or was it simply that colour did not exist in this realm? No, the Book of Mudora was clearly green-covered. So what had taken their colour? Or were they a different race after all?

What?! Triton spun around, fearing the worst. "Roll call!" he shouted, waiting for everyone to identify themselves. One of their number did not respond, however. Where was Finnagan?! As Thria pointed out, he was a serious and reliable man. He wouldn't stay quiet as a joke in a situation like this- something had to have happened to him. And with the splash they had heard... Had the water, their natural home and state of being, betrayed them? "Be wary," he said, "We can't get off the water, but avoid the deeper patches. And again, I cannot stress enough how important it is to alert the rest to anything unsettling you may sense."

"Can you find him?" Thria asked, concern in her voice. Finn was one of her best men, and his wife her best friend- who would violently murder her if anything happened to him. Triton nodded, reaching into his pack and rummaging in it for a moment. Before he had entered the portal, he had been given something by the leader of their scientific expedition. When he pulled it out of his pack, it looked to be nothing more than a cherry red stick, but Thria knew better than to take things at face value when it came to Triton. Indeed, he held the stick in front of him and focused on something...

The Dowsing Rod started pulling forward, and Triton slowly, cautiously, followed its pull. At Thria's command, the remaining warriors converged around him for his protection, following him as he avoided deep puddles as the Rod led him to where Finnagan was.

"Fion?" The Twili seemed to take Triton's earlier words to heart, grabbing hold of him and shaking him vigorously by the fin. "Ow, Fion! Stop that, you're hurting me! That's sensitive-" he interrupted himself with a gasp when the light returned his sight, and he saw... saw... what was it? There was definitely something there, but he couldn't see it. He couldn't see anything there, it was as if the moonlight simply did not reach there.

As he backed away, Thria was first to undertake action. Taking a step forward, she launched one of her fins at the entity in an attempt to cleave it in two. However, the hardened cartilage passed through harmlessly, flying back to its body and re-attaching it... however, whereas normally Thria would barely acknowledge the re-attachment, this time she clutched her arm and screamed in pain, falling to her knees. "Jabu-Jabu's big whale dick that hurts like--" she interrupted herself with a stream of cussing and Triton hurried over to her side. Thria was always a little rough around the edges, but she didn't use their god's name in her swearing unless something was REALLY wrong.

Prying her hand off of her fin to inspect it, Triton's eyes widened in shock. The spots on her fin had vanished, leaving a pale grey in the folds and a startlingly stark white on the rest. "Dear Lord Jabu-Jabu," he said, "What happened?"

"I don't know but the fucker will pay for it!" With that, Thria shoved him out of the way and spat a fireball at the entity. Triton hurried to scramble away from her and take Fion by the hand. When Thria stooped to using her mouth to launch her Fire Spell, that was when you turned around and ran away fast.

"Don't make contact with it!" he called to the others. "Use ranged attacks that do not require any part of you to make contact with it!"

Thria's fireball collided with the entity and vanished. For a moment, Triton feared that it had been as useless as her fin had been, but the entity at least stopped for a moment, as if needing to regain its bearings. "Wait... that's it!" he said, turning to his fellows. "Light! It absorbs light from around it! The fire doesn't hurt it, but it needs to readjust itself after absorbing the light it sheds! Everyone!" He stood straight, raising his cane and summoning a fireball of his own.

The entity started wobbling at them again. "Get your fireballs ready!" Everyone but Thria, who needed to regain her breath before she could cast another fireball, did as he had ordered, most of them conjuring one up at the palm of their outstretched hands and others using staves or canes of their own to guide it. "On my mark!" Triton noted his voice was more commanding than it had ever been. Perhaps he did share some of Thria's leadership abilities after all. "...FIRE!"

It was a cry that sounded from the throats of all able Zoras in the company, and all fireballs converged on the entity at once, knocking it back and temporarily exposing it to so much light it was visible. "Was that..." Triton heard one of the other scholars say as it fell backwards and struggled to get up, "A ChuChu?"