Weeding [Terrel/Willow/Closed]

Rua shook his head in irritation at the woman's angry outburst. It'd figure that a woman running around out here dressed as she was would be quick to anger. He turned away from her and returned his gaze to the motley-looking Scrub. "Rua," he identified himself with a nod to the Scrub. He did not give away anything else.

The woman cursed underneath her breath when the Deku mentioned where exactly she was. While no cartographer, she remembered the stories of the other large forest known in Hyrule, located south of Death Mountain. From what she knew, the journey back to Northern Hyrule from where she stood could take months, if she survived at all. It was time she didn't feel she had, and it made finding a quick way home even more important. Well, if this tower could get her here, maybe it could get her back. She didn't much like the sound of that, but what choice did she have?

The two males named themselves Dante and Rua, and the woman realized she would have to break the moody silence she'd already become comfortable in. "Terrel," she said, trying not to let her stress touch her voice. As if to try and water down her own emotions, she looked around casually and added, almost to herself, "Southern Hyrule, huh? Marcus was right--this place is a mess. How far away is this from the Western Caves?"

"It's east of here, but this deep into the forest? It'll take nearly a week to get there," Rua replied to Terrel. Marcus? The name sounded familiar. "If we survive, I could lead you there."

A week to the east? Terrel frowned at the thought of having to journey all the way out of this barren land. "Thanks," the woman muttered, sincere but not enthusiastic. On a better day she might've paused to ask if he were from there or if he knew the kid, but she simply wasn't in the mood for all that right now. Her head still ached and the heat was still oppressive, and the longer they stood there the more uncomfortable she continued to feel.

"Well," she began, not entirely sure what to say before she said it, "I don't suppose there's really an option for us now but up? Anything with a brain around these parts already knows we're here, and it sounds like you two came here with the express purpose of seeing this lovely landmark. Since we seem to be stuck with each other for now, what do you suppose we do?" Stuck together. She didn't much like admitting it--she didn't even like thinking it--but it was the truth. This was business for a bloody hero, but it looked like she was going to get roped into it all the same.

"I don't think it's a device causing it."

Rua's statement was punctuated with him bringing his sword up and returning it to its scabbard, and lowering his shield fully. He was looking at Dante. "I spoke to a Korok on the way here, it was how I found out about this... thing." He gestured to the tower. "I think it's some sort of creature making this blasted noise, and if that's the case, this is going to be a lot harder than you thought."

He glanced over to the construct at that. "Did you see an entrance to this place? We should probably get you inside. The sound might be muted in there," he told the Scrub. "I doubt you want to go mad out here before we kill whatever's at the top."

Terrel returned the Deku's grunt with one of her own, craning her neck to try and catch a glimpse of the tower's top from where should stood. It was no good, though, and the woman gave it up a moment later, glancing at her newly found, mandatory companionship. If she had to kill something at the top of this tower to get home, then she certainly felt ready to give it a shot. The thing still unnerved her in a way she couldn't explain--she'd never been stuck in a position like this, really--but what choice did she have? The only way out seemed to be up.

"Well?" she said, her tone impatient, "can't do a whole lot just standing here, can we? Let's see if there's some way in, and if there isn't then I'll just bloody stand on your shoulders or something if I have to." Terrel wasn't much of a leader, but that was mostly just because she didn't care if the rest followed. Without another word, the woman broke into a walk to search the perimeter.

Rua pivoted on his boot and proceeded opposite of Terrel, going to search the side of the tower. The rasping sound of metal on leather was heard as he drew his sword again for safety's sake. If one Deku Scrub was able to sneak up on them from the water's edge, what's to say others couldn't? His eyes made careful sweeps, making sure to take in the water surrounding the tower like a moat. He took in the sounds of the swamp, hearing Terrel's boots squash in the mud, heard his own do the same. The water remained still, stagnant around him, while light breezes moved the about the vegetation. The pervading stench of the decay around him remained unchanged; he couldn't smell any predators. He kept his senses open and alert, but he could detect no dangers.

Making the bend around the tower, moving up over a mound of wet dirt, he saw it--mud burying a stone incline emerging from the water around the back of the tower, leading up to an alteration in its structure. It was the closest thing he could see that would resemble an entrance. He lifted up his head and shouted for Dante and Terrel to hear. "Over here!"

After almost losing one of her boots twice, Terrel arrived last to this so-called entrance that Rua had found. It came straight out of the bog and looked like it'd been abandoned for a long period of time, to her eyes. It was the sort of thing you stumbled across a thousand years after it'd been used, all overgrown and mud-ridden as it was. The whole thing made the woman frown. The way the other two had been talking about this tower, it sounded like it'd not been here for very long at all, though she didn't know how that would work. Someone would have seen it being built, right?

None of it made any sense, of course, and that just made her feel more uncomfortable.

"Great," the woman muttered, eyeing the 'entrance' up and down, "looks like we're in for a day of cramped quarters, mud, sludge, and anything else you can think of inbetween, huh." Terrel craned her neck up in search of the top of the tower again. "And bloody heights," she added, resisting the urge to grab at her crossbow just for comfort.

"Would you rather stay out here and get mauled by a wolfos or something?" Rua asked, examining the structure's opening himself. He pushed himself up the incline towards it, grunting as his boots tried to stick in the mud. His steps grew cautious as he neared it, and he brought up sword and shield both, ready for any possible ambush. The open entrance loomed over him, the interior somehow looking dim within. Yet his senses didn't seem to kick in, he didn't feel any looming threat within the immediate vicinity.

He leaned his head back over shoulder, never taking his eyes off the portal, and called back. "Looks like it's safe to enter so far," he said.

Terrel scowled at Rua from behind his back, sticking her tongue out at him briefly in contempt. She didn't hate him, but she didn't like him either. Leave it to her to find the one smartass in the middle of the wilderness halfway across the world. That said, she had no problem letting him go first and find the trapdoor with spikes underneath it or run headlong into the first monster this place could conjure in its defense. She hoped it'd be empty besides just grubs and crawlers, but something made her doubt that. Hopefully it wasn't worse than those Deku nuts.

Despite the brief flash of contempt she felt for him, she also trusted his senses, not feeling any immediate danger either. At his word, she also put her feet on the incline, though perhaps a little more ambitiously than he had. A moment later, on her second step, she felt her boot slide out from her with a shock. Flailing her arms wildly, the woman just managed to catch herself with her hands on the slope, covering them with mud but saving her face from the same treatment. With a particularly foul curse, the woman clambered to her feet, glancing at her hands with disgust. It was going to be a long day.

Of course, while the mistake was not particularly egregious, she felt instantly vulnerable and subject to criticism, and her face grew warmer. Trying to save herself from any snarking comments, the woman turned to the Deku--who seemed a bit more polite--and asked, as if nothing had just happened, "What kind of creatures are down here? Do you think we'll run into anything inside there?"

The entryway of the tower expanded out around them into a circular room of stone. Torches within cast a dim light at intervals within, and their entrance brought in a breeze of air that caused them to flicker feebly. Moss covered a good portion of the stone floor and the walls, and mildew hung on the air. Two doorways could be seen, one on either side. To the left, the portal protruded slightly from the wall, denoted by the circular formation of stones surrounding a rotted wooden door. To the right, it was partially open only at the top, where the collapsed portion of ceiling had caved in the doorframe, leaving crumbled stone and shrapnel of sodden wood scattered outward around it.

Rua noted that there were muddy tracks on the floor of the antechamber, and that none of it looked human. He grimaced, pulling at the scarring on his face and worsening an already hardened expression.

"We're not alone in here," he said, gesturing to the stains beneath their feet. There was... something about his voice that had noticeably changed in his companions' hearing. His voice had grown colder, more neutral. There was no hint of his previous irritation and his being winded from the dash to here--what spoke now was the voice of a killer. "I don't sense anything nearby but there's definitely something lurking deeper within."

"Daddy's little goddess," murmured Terrel as she stepped into the room, taking it in as best she could. It was larger than she thought it would be, given the entrance, but mostly just in height. She could see all the walls around the room, wrapping in a circle around the middle of it, but the ceiling was merely black, the torches on the wall refusing to light up the depths above their heads. Clocks had always confused Terrel, but she could remember them even if she had trouble reading them; some people liked to use them as a reference though, and in this situation it would put the two other doors at about 2 o'clock and 10 o'clock on the right and left, respectively.

Like Rua, the woman didn't feel anything particularly dangerous in the immediate vicinity, so she picked up her courage a bit and took a few steps past the rest of the party, dipping down a small incline that plateaued into the rest of the room. Across the floor were bits and patches of grass growing between what appeared to have once been a stone floor, though that was now covered in grime and littered with tracks that she did not recognize.

Going out a little ways further into the room, Terrel knelt over the prints, having had some experience with the likes of them back home, and took a moment to study it. They were elongated and narrow, though not particularly large, and it looked as if whatever had left them had a single talon-like toe at both the front and back of its foot. As she studied them, though, a growing sense of uneasiness began to fill her that hadn't been there when she entered the room. For the first few moments, she ignored it, but soon it sank deep into her gut, and she stood up unsteadily, glancing around as if looking for something she couldn't see.

From the darkness above her, though, a deep, guttural click broke the silence and fear struck her suddenly. Looking up as quick as she could, Terrel had only just enough time to see a large, dark shape descending from the shadows at a rapid speed, eight legs writhing on one side and a huge almost porcelain-like plate covering what must have been the top side of the monster. With a shriek, Terrel flung herself to the side of where she had been kneeling, the hideous spider crashing into the ground where she'd been a moment before.

It was a Skulltula--those things were bloody real! She hadn't believed the kid when he'd said it, but she recognized it by his description. Terrel felt as if she was going to be sick, but the worst part was that it was already detached from its thread and advancing on her, only moments away.

The sweeping sound of a blade hurtling through the air could be heard as Terrel fell, as Rua's sword swept over his hand and came crashing down at the Skulltula's thorax, making a thudding noise as it bit into the spider's hard carapace. It reacted immediately, backing away from the blow and rearing up its forelegs and mandibles as Rua stepped between it and the woman. The creature made an odd hissing noise as he swung his sword again, trying to force the creature away.

"Damn bugs," he growled, bringing his shield up to bear. Making sure to keep his eyes on the monster, he asked over his shoulder, "You alright?"

"Fine," Terrel grunted back at Rua, scrambling to her feet. Just bloody dandy, she grimaced, if I keep this up then I'll never make it home. Somehow, the thought seemed to bring her to some level of stability. As she came to her senses, she realized that the Deku they had found was proving himself quite mad indeed, dancing with that spider as he was. In another situation, the woman might have laughed to see the little creature moving about to-and-fro, but now she just had to be thankful. That thing, Dante he called himself, was a killing machine with movements more fluid than she'd have thought possible from a creature of his shape and size. That wasn't even mentioning the fact that he seemed to have more than his fair share of tricks up his sleeve.

The woman forced herself to tear her eye's away from watching Dante, though. He seemed in control of his own situation, at least at the moment, and she owed Rua for stepping between her and this gigantic spider. The thing was repulsive and disgusting, but the worst part was that exoskeleton that seemed to cover its topside quite successfully. Taking a few steps back, the woman managed to get her hands on her crossbow, bolt still at the ready in its mechanism.

Before she could so much as search for a shot at the first Skulltula that Rua now pressured, something else caught her eye; Terrel yanked her weapon above their heads, aiming at another huge arachnid that was fast descending to fill the gap between Rua and herself. Only, this one seemed intent on going after the man, faced away from her as it was with its soft underbelly exposed. Taking a breath to brace herself, the woman fired, sending a bolt hurtling through the creature. Small though her projectile was, it pierced the creature's flesh and embedded itself on the other side, through the shell, and the force of the attack tore it from its perch and sent it a good distance across the room.

Chaos erupted around Rua. More of the beasts descended from the ceiling, first throwing themselves at Dante. The first Skulltula that had appeared skittered forward to renew its attack, and Rua lunged forward to meet it, bringing his shield up before him and his blade down low. The arachnid pushed up and forward, slamming its weight against the shield. Its mandibles and limbs clicked and clattered as it tried to past to grab and bite. Rua had to brace himself, putting one leg back and throwing his weight into his left arm to hold the Skulltula off, snarling in response to its chittering.

The leather of his gauntlet stretched around his fist as he gripped his sword, and swung up. Two legs flew upwards into the air, end over end, as the mercenary's sword cut through the joints with ease, and the creature made an alien screech as it pulled away from him. Rua gave it no quarter. He darted forward and kicked, catching the Skulltula underneath the corner of its thorax with his boot, and he shoved it onto its side. Its remaining legs writhed about wildly until his blade pierced through its center, and it shrieked again as its limbs splayed outward before curled around itself as Rua pulled the blade back out. He stabbed it again for good measure and spun around as yet another Skulltula hit the floor, its legs also scrambling from the crossbow bolt sticking out of its body.