Tower of the Gods ~ the pilgrimage (Razgriz/Tsubori)

When Phiorra felt the chuchu leave her body, she quickly swam to shore, gasping for a safe rest. "T-that... Certainly hurt..." as she pulled herself up the ledge, Castus cleared out the chest, revealing a small key and rupees, which he offered to Phiorra.

"Oh, thank you, sir Castus, how gentlemanly." She let out a few breaths before accepting the money. "If you insist I'll take them... I just wish we had some way of knowing when those would pop up... Oh well..." 

When she had regained her breath, the two made it back to their boat before starting towards the opposite side of the floor. "So, is it obvious I'm not particularly combative, Sir Castus?"

Castus walked beside the priestess, dampened in both body and spirit. "More like you're good with a bow; good at range, but once a chu-chu is that close, it's more useful as a stick than a bow." He quickly explained, "You need a closer weapon: a short sword, a dagger, an axe... or best of all: your fists." Joked the champion, Proudly displaying his.

The boat launched into the water once more, navigated to the main room again. "Besides, you're good at solving puzzles, I don't think I could've solved that last one alone, at least not without ruining a few dozen more sticks.

... Speaking of puzzles, can you figure out where to go now?"

Phiorra thought for a moment, then brought out the page the Lumesca had given her at the start of her pilgrimage. It had a map of the tower, including a section they hadn’t been to yet. Looking in that direction, Phiorra saw a large wall with cracks on it. She paddled closer and inspected it, seeing a hole big enough to crawl through about two meters up. “There!”

She climbed up, putting her upper body through the wall and seeing the next room. “There’s a whole extra section here!” She said, finally wiggling her rear through the hole into the other side. She saw another pedestal for the totem, but no totem in sight. The first room here probably has it.

Walking through the door, Phiorra was quickly greeted by a fire bubble attacking, the strange flaming skull cackling evilly. Phiorra reached for her arrows, but that was when she gripped air, feeling that there were none of the projectiles left in her quiver. “Uh….Oh…”

Castus waited patiently as Phiorra finished wiggling her booty through the small hole, he had to admit, it wasn't bad at all. Though such thoughts quickly left his mind as he saw the girl's predicament, And began to wonder why the silly girl didn't just summon more. Silly, silly girl, she had to enjoy be rescued by Castus (Maybe she wants a third ).

Alas, his duty now was to save the girl, and so began crawling through the hole. He has indeed much bigger than the girl and the space was a tight fit, but his physical strength and ability to ignore such silly things as "injury" or "blood loss" let him move much quicker and was out much faster than Phiorra. Soon a bloodied Castus bared down on the skull, drop kicking the poor monstrosity into oblivion.

To his surprise, that turned out to be the only enemy in the room, leaving a chest instead of a Totem in it's centre. Inside turned out to be only a map of the tower, but at least now they knew where to go.

Phiorra looked at the map, which turned out to be far superior to the one she'd had before. It had a listing of all the chests and locations of keys. "Well, this is a nice thing to find." She said as she walked out of the room. She looked to the right down the large slope until the water quickly covered her view. 

She saw a door down there, she knew that much. Running towards the water's edge, Phiorra waited until the water went back down, running down the stairs and walking through the door. "Sir Castus, hurry!" she called, though as soon as she went through the door, four thunder Chuchus dropped down, sparking angrily at the duo. "Eep... Not good..." She said worriedly. 

Did that girl still not have arrows? Didn't she just summon them? Whatever the case was, Castus still needed to protect her and... for a girl whose well trained in archery, can summon arrows and has several other skills, she needed to be rescued; a lot. Castus even began to get the feeling that she liked being saved, sort of like a knight in shining armor thing.

Now for the feature presentation (killing by numbers[for Castus{I like brackets}]). The Hylian turned his head and scanned his environment, there didn't seem to be any traps or hazards, just a large stone... thing with a stone statue-y thing that they'd seen before, a lot. That left only open combat for both parties, and Castus now knew the timing of the electric protection. He got ready to lunge at the first target, only waiting for the right time. In his head, time seemed to slow, one... two... three.. and two-thirds!

He bolted for the first one, swinging around it in a way that should've broken it's neck; but, you know, it's Revenge of the Jello, so that didn't exactly work. Still the move put it's face(?) into the ground so hard that it didn't matter much, the second just got an upper-cut and he was in the air ready to unleash a vicious kick when the water rose quickly and the force of the kick went into the water, and then back at him.

At his crotch specifically, but I'm not going into detail there, needless to say it wasn't pleasant in the slightest but at least not crippling. And that is all on the subject.

After this unfortunate accident though, the man(hey, he still is) had other problems, the chu-chu was directly above him, and electrified once more. So once again the dignified fighter was forced to doggy-paddle (this time underwater and almost drowning!) over, closer to the stone platform.

Thankfully, after a few seconds the water receded, leaving Castus on a platform about a storey above his enemies, and that gave him a plan. Jumping off the platform, threw his hands above his head and shoved his feet together before descending on the unfortunate one with enough force to crush a fully armored knight. In the resulting explosion a large chunk of Jelly hit another larger piece, killing the latter instantly.

Phiorra ran towards one of the Chuchus, firing arcane bolt at point blank. Obviously with no way to deflect the attack, the chuchu took the energy attack directly, flying back in yellow mist. 

Now... Time to replenish her arrows... She put out a hand, summoning more arrows to herself, though just as the water increased, her bundle spawned. She missed the arrows and due to the heavier material sealing them together, they sunk to the floor below. 

The priestess dove down into the water, trying to secure the ammo, but by the time she got it, the water level had lowered. She notched an arrow, ready to shoot the jelly beast, but before she could, Castus absolutely ravaged the thing with a powerful drop kick. 

When the chuchu was destroyed, a staircase of light was spawned that led to another statue that had to be carried to the spot that had been in the other room. Phiorra placed the arrows in her quiver before looking to Castus. "That was quite the impressive finishing move..." Then with her best puppy dog face she looked at the statue. "Could you pwease carry this one?"

Castus returned her remark in one of a mocking knightly voice "But of course my lady, for what would a champion such as I be if I were to refuse such an innocent request from a fair maiden as yourself?"

The statue proved to be an easy pull, little heavier than the ones before and the pedestal was just as convenient as it's key, being both obvious and easy to reach. As the statue clicked into it's place, water ceased it's flow from one of the totem's mouths, presenting a door in it's wake; only a short boat trip away from.

Through it lay a circular room with a ceiling so high it couldn't be seen, and walls glittering with undreamt riches while the very floor beneath them presented art of such astounding grace, that no living artist could best it. The sheer glory of such a place however, was spoilt by the beamos and rats inhabiting it.

Phiorra followed Castus along the way, and when she too, entered the room with the beamos and rats, she didn’t quite know what the beamos was. A rotating light… it was rather pretty… Ignoring the rats, she took a few steps forward before the light turned into one big light and hummed loudly. Something in Phiorra’s mind clicked and she realized it was a trap.

Dodging left barely enough to avoid the laser at her, a bit of the very bottom of her robe was burnt right through, though it didn’t create a flame. Now with a bit of momentum, she sprinted around the beamos, the beam trailing very dangerously close behind. “Sir Castus! Attack it now while it’s shooting me!” And then those damn rats. One leapt at her feet, tripping the girl up.

She tumbled, trying to get back up in time, but the light passed over her arm for a moment before she regained her bearings. Damn that beam hurt! She put a hand on the mark, feeling the skin as dry and rough now. A burning sensation had also shot throughout her body. She needed to remember to shoot those rats after this…