The Plane of Shadows [Moonshadow] - COMPLETE

Triton turned his head to look at the approaching nothingness when the others screamed at it. His body down below grit its teeth. They -had- to keep moving, they had to get out of the maze quickly. He turned his Familiar around, redoubling his efforts. There was a path, he knew there had to be. Everything else in this place had made sense, in some twisted, unnatural way. There had to be a way to get out of this maze of reflections and closer to the core- or at least away from the void.

He wished he could swoop down with his Familiar and guide the others that way, but the Familiar would just be reflected by the crystals and glass, so he had to use this inefficient and slow way of guiding them. Still, they started to make some degree of progress, even with his body moving awkwardly and himself, Thria, and Fion being difficult to maneuver. They were getting somewhere, he thought half triumphantly as he fluttered after the men, looking at the next section of the maze. Just a little faster. Just a little more observant. Just a little more efficient.

Flipper by flipper, they were getting out of here. Flipper by flipper, the presence outside the maze pulled harder and harder on his consciousness...

It was still a bit uncanny an experience, but as he spent more time controlling his Familiar and seeing through its eyes, it became easier and more natural. Even moving his body on the ground slowly became easier, if only a little. He hovered the spectral being upside down, almost lazily observing his body and his companions, only to turn fully around and focus when he counted one man less among their number. He had gotten lost in the maze, leaving Triton with an impossible dilemma. Finally, he grit his teeth and decided. He could not risk the entire company wandering lost for one person. The warriors knew what they had gotten themselves into when they had entered the portal. Thria would filet him later, but for now... he had to keep the mission in mind.

Thria kept shouting at him, so he flew lower so the Familiar landed just on her head. "I heard you, sister," he made the spectre say, "But we have a mission. And the mission is more important than any single life. Just keep following my instructions," he concluded as he fluttered back up, "we're almost there." As he reached his upper limit again (maybe he could work on getting rid of that invisible ceiling- it was proving troublesome) and looked to where they had come from.

The shock broke his concentration, and with a jolt, his senses fully returned to his own body. "Ow," he muttered, but he quickly recollected his balance. "We have to hurry. The void- it's gaining on us quickly."

As long as it had taken to grow accustomed to use of his auxiliary body, so quickly did Triton readjust to his own. He wasted no time in starting to run, leading the others in roughly the path he thought he had seen from above. Thria followed right behind him, keeping a close eye on him in case he turned a corner or did something else to remove himself from her line of sight.

Behind them, Fion tripped and fell over. Fortunately, one of their men saw it happen and stopped to help the boy up, giving him a gentle shove to urge him to keep moving forward. As he did, however, he failed to pick up enough speed to outrun the void himself, vanishing, his screams fading as the void approached ever closer.

Triton tried to ignore it as he reached a particularly large crystal wall. "Here it is!" he shouted, "The maze ends on the other side of this, I'm sure of it!"

"Stand back," Thria said, holding out her arm to push him away. He stepped back, giving her space and watching as she delivered a vicious kick to her reflection.

Once it was established that they were safe from the void, Triton turned to gauge the damage. He grimaced. Other than himself, Thria, and Fion, only Finnagan and Nereid were left... their losses had been great. But at least they were closer than ever... Thria stepped forward once more, rage clearly visible in her gaze, when they saw a carpet of the black Chus moving past them. They used their adhesive undersides to cling on to a cliff, too high for Triton to see what lay above it, and vanished over the edge as they continued crawling forwards. "They're..." Thria muttered as she returned to a calmer stance. "They're... completely ignoring us."

Part of Triton expected her to explode and attack the nearest Chu, but she didn't. Something was definitely off, here. On the surface, the Chus had been few and far between and consistently attacked them on sight. And yet... here there were dozens of them, tightly packed together, and yet they were completely peaceful. It felt strange. And yet, Triton still felt the pull. "It's here," he said. "We're so close to the Core."

"If that -is- what's been dragging you here," Thria said, "And not some evil magical presence meaning to dine on our souls."

"You say that as if the two are mutually exclusive," Triton muttered, putting his hand to the cliff and staring at his reflection. "We should be able to get up here. Someone, give me a boost."

"Me too," Thria said, "I'm not letting you go up there on your own."

With Finnagan's help, Triton clambered to the top of the cliff and pulled Fion up as well. As he and Thria kneeled down to help the remaining two Zoras up, however, their attention was drawn by the sound of rushing water. Finnagan and Nereid turned to face it, Triton and Thria looking up as well. To their horror, the void was no longer stopped by the invisible boundary where the wall had formerly been and had begun to close in again. "Keep going, Captain," Finnagan said. It wasn't very fast, but if no one helped them, the two Zoras would fall prey to the same fate their comrades had. "Not much time left. Complete the mission before it gets you too, alright?"

He turned around, and Nereid sighed. She turned back to Thria, tossing her weapon up. "Take this, Captain. Make sure that brother of yours has the time he needs to fix all of this, now."

"What are the two of you going on about?!" Thria shouted, although she caught the halberd. "Give us your hands! We'll pull you up, I'm not losing the two of you too!"

"Not enough time," Finnagan said. "Use the time you'd need to get us up there to gain on the void." He grinned. "It's been a pleasure serving under you, Captain." With that, both he and Nereid turned to look at the twins, saluting. Triton knew they were right. They had been prepared to die for the cause from the moment they chose to accompany Thria. As frustrating as it was, leaving two good warriors to their doom, he got to his feet.

"Don't you dare!" Thria hissed, but Triton shut her up, doing the last thing he had ever expected to do. A loud SLAP resonated through the emptiness of the plane around them, and for a second, his sister could only touch her hand to her cheek in shock. "Did... did you just hit me?!"

"We don't have time," Triton said. "The core is just behind that wall there. We have to leave them."

"Well, I won't!"

"It's them or me." With those words, Triton turned around and joined Fion, watching the ChuChus pour into the wall. "It's just beyond here..." he muttered, pointing his cane at the wall. He had no time to wait for Thria to make up her mind and break it down. Instead, he focused, conjuring up a large fireball and launching it at the crystal wall. The impact didn't break it, instead starting to slowly melt it down and allowing them to see the core they had been looking for. Triton gasped as he saw it.

Before them was an enormous hunk of metal, shaped like a human heart. It glistened in all colours of the rainbow and then some, never maintaining the same colour for longer than a split second, and radiated light. More disturbing was that, although it was clearly metal, it beat. The Chus slid towards it calmly, seeming to enter it through a hole in the bottom, and at the top, they were launched back out, back to the surface. "It's a bloodstream..." Triton muttered, "Except with light..."

"Don't move!" He had started to move forward, but upon hearing the scream he put his flipper back down. A split second later, Thria flashed by, striking something unseen with her halberd. "Are the two of you blind?! Don't you see that?!" With her free hand, she pointed at something in front of the heart. Triton held his breath as he watched large droplets of the strange, reflective water rise up from the ground, gathering together and forming a larger and larger orb. Finally, it stopped absorbing water, and the liquid started to stretch. Four limbs... a vague shape of a torso... maybe that was a head...

"A guardian," Triton managed to get out. "The Core has a guardian... If we defeat it and destroy the core, our mission will be complete!"

Mercurial Master​

Panopticon​

Triton might have said that, but he had no idea how to go about fighting the guardian. It looked vaguely humanoid, but made of the strange liquid as it was, refracted the light from the large metal heart behind it; this made it hard to really see, and Triton had no idea if it was vulnerable to magic, Thria's weapon, Fion's darkness, or anything. They would have to experiment with everything they had, and hope and pray there was something in their arsenal that would hurt it. Fion's Shadow Ball seemed like the obvious answer, with it being the opposite of the light their opponent consisted of.

The creature didn't do much, apparently observing them as much as they observed it. Perhaps it really was a guardian in the strictest sense of the word, Triton thought, with its powers based in defense rather than in offense. They would have to provoke it, but as Thria took a step forward it was Triton's turn to stop her with a gesture. "Wait. We don't know what it can do from up close. Better to test its abilities from a distance." He raised his cane, pointing it at the creature and casting a simple fireball at it.

It passed through the water harmlessly, robbed of the light it spread and the energy that made it dangerous, fizzling out as it passed through the creature's hip. It did tear a hole in the liquid, but it repaired itself immediately and at a first glance, Triton didn't see their opponent becoming any smaller. That made sense- it was made out of the liquid they stood on. It was not so strange to think that it could endlessly reshape itself as long as it was in contact with that. "Perhaps we need to break its contact with the ground," he mused out loud, "I can't see a weak spot right off the bat..."

He gasped and ducked when part of the liquid on the creature's chest reshaped into a mass of long, thin needles and were suddenly launched at him. "Get on the ground!" he shouted, not waiting to see that Thria grabbed Fion by the wrist and dragged him to the ground before swiping his hand out front of him. Nayru's Affection's thin blue shield came into being at the perfect moment, deflecting the needles before they could hit him. They flew off in various directions, vanishing not long afterwards. Good thing he'd tried from a distance... if that was a reflexive response to being attacked, Thria might not have been able to respond in time from up close.

As Triton had expected, Fion's Shadowy magic momentarily sapped the light from their enemy. But what was interesting was what it revealed... a multicoloured mass of something, quickly shifting away from the wounded shoulder and towards the centre of the creature's body. There was no trace of it when the shoulder, and the arm that went with it, reformed themselves. The creature paid it no heed, even as it attacked Fion and Thria saved the Twili, but Triton was immediately fixated on it. Had he been mistaken, or did that mass resemble the heart behind the creature? Did it have a core of its own?

"Thria!" he called, "Did you see that?"

"Didn't see much of anything!" she called back, "Was kinda occupied babysitting! What is it?!"

Triton sighed, hurrying over to their side and throwing the Book of Mudora open. It was important that Fion would see this, too. 'I saw something when the light faded. I suspect the guardian has a core much like this realm does. It hid in the light after it was exposed, so it might be its weak point. Fion, can you try to expose it again? And Thria, once it is exposed, I want you to hit it with everything you have.'

'Got it. What will you do in the meantime?'

'I'll distract it and create an opening.' With that, Triton broke away from the other two once more, Thria taking her halberd in a more aggressive grip as she watched him throw a fireball at the guardian, drawing its attention away from her and the Twili. She nodded at Fion, slowly starting to close the distance between herself and the creature.

A woman she may have been, but Thria was a warrior like any other. When Fion's attack revealed the core once more, she dove under the arm that came towards her and swung the halberd into it, predicting its movement and positioning the blade such that she struck the whole length of the core. Finally, -finally- something responded to physical trauma, finally something they did seemed to have an effect. The entire creature reeled, quickly losing its form as it stepped back, out of range, and needed a moment to reform itself, shuddering.

Seeing all this, Triton smiled. The core was definitely its weak point, then. However, it was difficult to hit, seeing as it kept moving inside the creature. He cast another fireball, distracting the monster from Thria and Fion once more, but his mind was only half on his task as a distraction. The creature lashed out and Triton ducked under it, pondering how they could track its movements. They knew what the core looked like, he thought, if they saw it they would recognise it. But they couldn't keep wasting power looking for it... Fortunately, he was almost at his destination.

Diving to the ground to dodge another swipe from the creature's freakishly long arms, he snatched up his pack and tore the Dowsing Rod from it, pointing it at the creature. With luck... yes! The rod started pulling, the tip following a random path but never leaving the contours of the creature's body. Of course, at this distance that didn't mean anything, so he threw the rest of his pack aside and started zigzagging towards the creature, avoiding its blows as he tried to estimate what distance would be safe, and yet give Fion and Thria the information they needed.

Fion's Shadow Ball dissipated before it could really brush Triton, but the Zora still shivered. Dark magic was never pleasant to get too close to, especially not for someone like him who was dedicated to other kinds of magic, but somehow it was... worse... in this unnatural realm. Shaking the ominous feeling, he turned his attention back to the guardian, trying to find the core. He didn't know how sensitive it was- if he could find it and strike it with a fireball or even with his cane, would that be less effective than Thria's weapon? There was only one way to find out, and that was to try, but he was divided. It would certainly speed up the process of defeating this thing. On the other hand, he knew better than to do anything that could be interpreted as stealing his sister's glory, especially after all the frustration she had built up over the past few days.

He paid dearly for his moment of distraction. He threw his weight back to dodge an incoming swipe from one of the creature's arms, but hadn't noticed the other one slinking behind his ankles. The next thing he knew was that he landed on his back in the liquid, the creature changing its arm into a wickedly pointed spike and hurrying to bring it down on his face. But the Dowsing Rod pulled towards the spike and Triton took a risk- he reached out, slamming his hand over the spike and squeezing it for all he was worth. Best-case scenario it would hurt his adversary, and worst-case scenario, well... a penetrated hand was better than a hole in his skull.

He was only half surprised, far more intrigued, when the spike lost all solid form and the creature reeled back when he felt the hard core under his fingers. He gave it a second, harder, squeeze, prompting the guardian to turn tail and flee away from him. As it turned, however, its entire arm was sliced off by a passing disc of hardened cartilage, which flew back towards Thria and re-attached itself to her arm. The liquid the arm had consisted of melted back into that on the ground, but the core started to hover back to the rest of the body. "Now's your chance, kid!"

Triton didn't have time to be horrified at Fion's ordeal, as when the core returned to it, the guardian immediately started shaking, rearranging its internal structure for the umpteenth time. This time, its entire body became covered in spikes, and without any apparent effort on its part, it launched all of them, in all directions. However, it had learned from last time, and not all spikes were shot out at the same time- about half of them were on a delay, so while Nayru's Affection succeeded in repelling the first barrage, Triton was struck full-force by the second, sent rolling over the floor.

Thria, for her part, was mostly protected by her scale armour and altogether way too pissed to care much about the pinpricks she did sustain, even if they caused her to bleed. "What," she said, challenging, to get the creature's attention away from her brother, "That the best you can do?!" With that, she leapt forward, closing in and striking at the creature's midriff. It did nothing, and she hadn't expected it to- she would have been stupidly lucky for the core to just have happened to be there as she struck. However, it needed time to reform itself. And in the meantime, as she stepped back again Thria saw that Triton had ingested one of his clear red potions to recover from the volley from before.

With Thria's distraction having bought him the time he needed, Triton used the Dowsing Rod to track the core to the creature's head and closed in, suddenly dropping the rod to grab hold of his cane with two hands, praying to Lord Jabu-Jabu that it hadn't moved, and using all his strength to hit the guardian's forehead. With success- his swing dislodged the core from the liquid once more, and this time the liquid splashed onto the ground harmlessly as the core clattered on the ground.

"Aggravated assault, brother?"

"I got carried away."