Wing Dungeon [Darth Panther]

"Is there any way around it?" Nevelle asked, no more comfortable than her companion with the thought of having to cross this abyss. Some Twili were capable of hovering just above the ground, but Nevelle was not one of them. And even if she were, she would have had no means of bringing Judith with her. "A Mining Hand would have been convenient right now," she warbled, more to herself than to Judith, before shaking her head. No. She was in the World of Light now, it would help no one to keep dwelling on what they had in the Twilight Realm. Instead, she had to think on what it was they had here... "Hold on, Sister..." she turned around, putting her hand on something that stood at the edge of the chasm.

The statues in the other room had been relatively small, but this one, while showing the same subject -an odd avian creature with dimly glowing eyes- was significantly bigger. If they could topple it in the direction of the chasm at just the right angle, maybe it would be just tall enough to form a bridge... "If it's tall enough to reach the other side," she thought out loud, this time careful not to warble, "then it might be a sturdier passage than the rails." The question was, how were they going to topple it? It was too heavy for Nevelle to simply push over...

"Not that I can see... Hm?" Her lips pursed in thought as she searched in vain for an ideal solution to their latest quandary, Judith was quick to respond when Nevelle piped up again, apparently having found something that could be of use. As her gaze settled upon the enormous statue her companion had pinpointed as a possible method of crossing, the priestess leaned forward and squinted, rubbing her thumb against the base of her torch in contemplation as she shined it on the painstakingly sculpted effigy.

In theory, Nevelle's suggestion was a sound one. The statue was large enough to suffice as an improvised bridge, were it to be knocked over... But in practice, doing so would require an excessive display of brute force or an explosive impact. The former was out of the question for her, as the humiliating ordeal with the plank had aptly demonstrated. And unless Nevelle was secretly harbouring a great deal of muscle beneath that cloak of hers (If only!), Judith doubted she would be capable of such a feat, either.

Taking the opportunity to steal a glance at Nevelle, the young priestess was again struck by the woman's exotic appearance. The Twili was tall, taller than her, even. That in and of itself was not unusual. Such heights were common among Gerudo women. But whereas the Gerudo typically boasted impressive physiques to match, Nevelle was impossibly slender, her wispy frame seemingly devoid of anything that would give it width, be it fat or muscle. Judith struggled to find the words to adequately describe her. Odd? Eerie? Alien? No, all of those had negative connotations. Her companion was not hideous by any means- Quite the opposite, in fact- yet there was a definite sense that she was out of place in this world, Judith decided.

... That had gone on a bit longer than necessary, hadn't it? Feeling guilty for analyzing Nevelle as if she were some kind of lab animal, the young acolyte shook her head and resolved not to waste anymore time with her frivolous curiosity. Focus. She needed to focus. Taking a deep breath, Judith momentarily meditated on Nayru's divine serenity, drawing inspiration from her Goddess to calm herself before returning to the task at hand.

It fell to a spell to carry the day, then. However, Judith already knew that none of the cantrips in her repertoire could generate enough force to topple the statue- Her grasp of offensive magic was still too limited, even with the recent addition of Ice, to unleash such energy alone... But she wasn't alone, was she?

No, Nevelle was here with her, and the watchful eyes of Nayru were upon her also. If she drew on their combined power... United, they could accomplish what neither she nor the Twili could individually.

"Miss Nevelle, I am going to try something. My Goddess holds dominion over many aspects of life... Time, Love, Water, Wisdom... and Magic. All of them hearken unto Mother Nayru. If I sing her holiest hymn, all who hear it shall find their sorcery empowered, imbued with but a fraction of Her arcane mastery." Judith explained slowly, reciting what she had learned from her scriptures almost word-for-word. "For a short time, at least. Wait until I have finished the song, then let us strike at that statue with our strongest spells together. Nayru willing, it will be enough to tip it over."

Satisfied with her plan, the priestess coughed to clear her throat, placing one hand on her chest. Nayru was a compassionate Goddess and would tolerate any sincere effort to perform the melody, no matter the actual quality, but Judith was determined to do her best. Not only was she honouring her patron deity in doing so, but this would be her chance to impress Nevelle with the very real power of her Goddess. A sub-par recital simply wouldn't do!

Exhaling one last time to chase away any anxiety about singing outside her own abbey, Judith closed her eyes, opened her mouth, and let the first few notes pour forth from her lips.

Nevelle stood listening in awe as Judith sang. Twili sang, of course. And Nevelle had always thought Twilit song was beautiful- but it didn't hold a candle to this. The Hylian language and all its applications were so... smooth! The lack of warble gave it a clean, controlled sound that lent itself well to song. So fascinated with the phonemes and allophones was Nevelle that she didn't notice her own mind clearing a little, her shadowy powers pulsing through her veins with more power and her light burning hotter and more painfully. She winced as it made itself known via a sharp sting in her head. "Ow," she muttered, warbling it so Judith might not worry.

"Well..." she followed up, now in Hylian, "This might work. On three, yes? One... two..." The priestess's Magic Bolt impacted the statue at the same moment Nevelle's slower, but earlier-cast Shadow Ball did, both exploding upon impact. Nevelle held her breath as the statue wobbled... only to topple over and have its head land on the opposite side of the chasm, the thundering thud of the impact audible all the way over here. That had been almost suspiciously easy, but Nevelle cared not. She sensed another powerful well of shadowy essence or power down the hallway on the other side of the chasm, and she wanted to know what it was.

Not bothering to inspect the rest of the room, she struck her mantle back and stepped onto the statue's base, running over to the other side.

Watching with bated breath as the statue wavered under their magical assault, Judith heaved a sigh of relief as its equilibrium finally gave out, leaving gravity to do the rest. To fail, especially after so passionately extolling the virtues of her Goddess, would have been mortifying... Thankfully, her fears had proven unfounded. Nevelle had not only witnessed Nayru's power, she had experienced it, felt it flowing through her. Surely she would be inclined to view the Goddess in a positive light henceforth!

As an added bonus, the loud thud produced by the statue's fall frightened off the throng of Keese, the bats scattering in several directions in an attempt to flee the echoing booms that reverberated throughout the chasm. With the Keese dispersed and their path ahead secured, there seemed to very little that could bar the duo's passage.

Being the torchbearer of the two, Judith was about to insist on taking the lead, but in an astonishing display of agility, Nevelle nimbly navigated the makeshift bridge before she could, clearly attracted by the wellspring of Shadow energy she had mentioned earlier. For her part, the priestess was hesitant. Large though the statue was, it had not been designed to accommodate being trod upon, its surface uneven... and she was all too familiar with her irritating habit of being clumsy at the worst of times. Rather wishing she could emulate the Gerudo tightrope walker she had once seen perform at one of Lon Lon's fairs, Judith carefully took her first steps onto the statue. If she went slow and steady, she would be fine...


She made it two paces before her hopes were dashed. Just as she was preparing to take her third, a flurry of arrows whizzed by her face, missing her nose by inches. Eyes widening in terror, Judith immediately cast her gaze in the direction they had come from, hoping to divine their source.

There! In the dim lighting afforded by her torch, she could make out a raised platform that had not been visible from the chamber's entry point, parallel to the now-toppled statue... as well as three pairs of orange dots, glowing in the dark, and the glint of metal. Whoever her attackers were, they were nocking arrows for a second volley.

"N-Nevelle! Beware! Archers!" Judith cried out in warning, practically throwing herself forward to escape their line of fire. She was extremely vulnerable so long as she remained within the ambushers' killing zone, and their elevated position meant it would be difficult to return fire or even shield herself with Nayru's Affection. Her best bet was to throw caution to the wind and make a break for it, praying that there would be something she could take cover behind on the opposite landing. If she were fortunate, Nevelle might be able to disrupt their aim with a well-placed spell... Assuming the Twili herself was not immediately pinned down by their arrows.

Dropping into a crouch to minimize her profile, Judith ran as fast as she dared, heart hammering in her chest. The other side was mere seconds away, but to the priestess, it felt like a mile-long gauntlet stood between her and safety.

Nevelle was about halfway across the statue when the first arrows started whizzing by. Fortunately, she was no stranger to them- the rogues in the forest had employed bows to great effect, inadvertently teaching her how to deal with them. She fell onto one knee, putting a hand on the statue for stability even as the other hand shot up, calling her shield to life once more. Arrows clanged on it loudly as they bounced off harmlessly, the disk of light being effectively the same as a steel shield except much lighter in weight.

An advantage of the light as opposed to steel was that if she squinted, she could see through it. There was definitely something up there. She couldn't see well between the shield's glare and the darkness there, but there was something on that raised platform, something that was nocking for a second volley. Nevelle waited. The second volley passed, her shield again protecting her. Then a third... and then, as timing would have it, all archers had to nock at the same time.

Nevelle took her chance, leaping up and throwing a Shadow Ball in that direction with all her might. "Hurry!" she called, a light warble slipping into her voice as adrenaline overtook her. She, too, ran to the other side, counting on the initial impact and fear-inducing effect of her spell to give them a brief moment's respite. She was almost at the end when a new volley came- and from this distance, she could make out skulls under orange hoods. Small wonder her spell hadn't done as much as it could have, then... She could probably make it to the other side from here, but what of Judith?

If only she could get her light magic over there like she could with her shadow magic...

Perhaps the only saving grace of the next fusillade of arrows was that the unknown archers had decided to divide their shots between Judith and Nevelle, though that was small comfort to the Hylian priestess- She had not forgotten her unspoken pledge to protect the Twili at all costs. Fortunately, her companion was quick on the draw, putting Judith's earlier concerns about her Shield Ring to rest by using it to deflect the arrows aimed at her. However, the fact remained that they were in no position to meaningfully retaliate, as Nevelle's ineffectual spell aptly demonstrated.

"Keep going!" Judith called back to Nevelle, glad to see that she too had recognized that fleeing was their best option. "We must not fight here! Run!"

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she spied an arrow with her name on it. Twisting awkwardly to evade the missile, Judith was beset by a sickening sense of dread as she felt her soles slip on the statue's craggy surface. Not now, please not now! She pitched forward with a scream, her equilibrium lost.

Tossing her torch and staff onto the solid ground mere steps ahead, the acolyte managed to catch the ledge of the platform with both hands, barely avoiding the certain death a plunge into the darkness below promised. Of course, dangling above a sheer drop out in the open while being targeted by hostile marksmen was hardly an improvement in that regard, only marginally less dire than simply falling into the abyss. Already their foes had begun to concentrate their fire on her; one arrow fell just short of its mark, landing directly between her hands.

Staying like this would be tantamount to suicide. She had to pull herself up.

Her frail arms were having none of it.

Groaning under the strain of suspending her own weight, Judith tried again and again to hoist her body onto the landing, to no avail. She was forced to halt her efforts in order to cast Nayru's Affection with a flailing arm as a third arrow nearly caught her in the neck, batting the projectile aside just in the nick of time, preventing her untimely perforation. The priestess wasted no time in re-gripping the ledge with her free hand, but by now her palms and fingers were slick with sweat. Her strength was ebbing...

What could she do?! Entreating Nevelle for assistance was out of the question. If the Twili stopped to haul her up, they would be as lambs being led to the slaughter. All Judith could do was pray to Nayru for salvation....

At this point, Nevelle had to set priorities. She would be of no help to the priestess if she stayed sitting here pondering, or if she was knocked into the chasm by a well-aimed arrow. Her first course of action had to be to stop the stalfos from shooting them. Nodding to affirm the thought to herself, she lifted her knee from the statue and started walking again, albeit half-crouched so her Shield Ring could cover most of her. With every shuffling step she took, she recalculated the distance between herself and the monsters, until she was certain she was at the range she wanted.

Waiting a second for them to loose their last arrow and reach for new ones, she then lowered her shield and used the index finger on her free hand to draw an imaginary line under their feet. "Let Light be your downfall!" she cried in her mother tongue, and as if on cue, a wall of light magic rose up from the ground, slicing though the skeletons. Physically, they would remain untouched, but whatever foul magic had reanimated them was cleansed from their corpses and they collapsed in heaps of bones.

Nevelle turned around, running back to Judith. "Hang on, Sister Vicaron... I'm coming!"

While Nevelle annihilated their attackers with her magic, Judith continued to scrabble for purchase, the aching pain in her arms mounting as she hung on to the ledge for dear life. It occurred to her that climbing up would be awkward with the arrow that had embedded itself betwixt her hands blocking her path, but she dared not shimmy even slightly to the left or right, not with how tenuous her grip was. One slip, and she would be sent plummeting to an early demise.

Thankfully, the Twili had recognized her predicament, and was already en route to aid her. She just had to endure for a few seconds longer... Closing her eyes and thinking of Nayru, Judith willed herself into a state of calm.

... Of course, the disquieting notion that Nevelle was having to save her bacon, when it should have been the other way around, was a source of great frustration to the Hylian priestess, especially in light of her unspoken oath to protect the Twili. What did her companion think of her now? Confound it all...

With no further attackers in the area, Nevelle could run over to Judith and clamp her hands around the Hylian's wrists, using all her strength to pull her back onto solid ground. It was a good thing that the priestess cooperated, because... in all honesty, Nevelle didn't have that much strength to work with. It took some doing, but finally, together they managed to get Judith's body over the tipping point, leaving her on the ground as both women recollected themselves. It wasn't until now that Nevelle saw a moment to take off and put back on her Shield ring, resetting it so her arms were free.

"Are you alright?" she asked, looking at the priestess. She still felt a light tug on her consciousness from the other side, and wanted to cross the bridge as soon as possible so she could find the source. When Judith seemed alright, she stood up, straightened out her skirt, and looked for the source of the shadows she felt. Instead, she heard a somewhat disconcerting sound, of something chomping and slurping nearby. As she walked closer, a shape in the shadows moved, turning around as it heard her, and screeched in surprise.

She brought up her hands to shield herself as the critter swooped up from the ground and soared by her, flying off into the nearby hallway. "Wait!" she called, "I'm not going to hurt you-"

Mercifully, Nevelle continued to prove that her body was as quick as her mind, wasting no time as she took Judith by the hands and pulled her upwards. Once more, the young priestess found herself grateful for the dim lighting, which would ensure the scarlet in her cheeks would go unnoticed by the Twili- or if it had not, it would instead be mistaken as the byproduct of physical exertion. The process of hauling Judith onto the ledge was a short, simple affair, but to her it felt as though she was being raised to heaven by a tenebrous angel... albeit one with no wings.

Stop staring, Judith.

Speaking of winged creatures, however, as the Hylian internally rebuked herself for gazing into her companion's eyes rather than devoting more effort toward lifting herself so as to lessen the strain on Nevelle's arms, a loud squawk heralded the arrival and subsequent departure of massive avian creature. It was gone in the blink of an eye, its movement too fast for Judith to catch anything more than a parting glance, but the sound of hefty wingbeats and the distinct shape of plumes vanishing into the darkness alerted her to the true nature of their unexpected guest.

The implications were anything but reassuring.

"W-Wait, Miss N-Nevelle." Judith hurriedly moved close to Nevelle, grasping the Twili's cloak with one hand as if to hold her back. "A c-creature like that... should not be here. They... they live outside. Not indoors or underground." What was a bird doing in this sacred place? Somehow, she doubted it was here merely to sup on spiked beetles and carrion flesh. It had to be some kind of monster...

Alas, seeing as the entrance to the shrine had collapsed, their only path was forward, deeper into the beast's lair. Sighing, she released Nevelle.

"We should follow... But we must be careful, too." With that, she turned to retrieve her staff and the improvised torch, and was immediately greeted by a most demoralizing sight. "Oh no...!"

When Judith had cast her staff and the flaming plank onto the ledge, she had done so blindly, her sole priority being her own survival in the heat of the moment. Consequently, the two items had landed rather close together, and while the stone floor had kept the Blue Fire from engulfing the rest of the chamber, the flames had all-too readily pounced upon the nearest flammable object- her staff.

Beset by the urgent need to rescue her only real means of defending herself, Judith rushed over to douse the burning implements with water courtesy of her Bottomless Bottle. A few splashes later, and the flames were extinguished, though with a frustrated groan she saw that she had been too late to prevent lasting damage. The plank was easily salvaged, but much of the lower half of her staff had been warped in strange ways by the arcane fires; it was cool to the touch and difficult to grip, as if coated in ice.

Nothing was going right. Why today, of all days, did she have to look the fool?