Prologue: The Great Plateau
Chapter 4
The dilapidated Temple of Time glowed from within with the light of the Aselians' campfire.
Colette stared glumly out a broken window, the landscape outside illuminated by the celestial bodies above, while a debate went on behind her.
"I think we all want to get home," Lloyd stated, "but if what that guy said is true-"
"We have little reason to trust him," Raine interjected. "He is far too guarded about himself to be a simple hermit. Kratos was the same way at the start of our journey - don't you remember?"
"But Kratos turned out to be on our side in the end, didn't he?" Sheena pointed out.
"He still betrayed us and almost got us all killed," Genis said sourly. "And it doesn't change that this guy definitely knows more than he's saying."
"We could give him the benefit of the doubt for now," Regal suggested. "As of yet, he hasn't brought us to harm-"
Zelos snorted. "He didn't think to warn us that there were monsters out and about, and then he tried to steer us into a suicide mission to take down some mystical embodiment of evil. Sure, no one's actually gotten hurt because of it, but it seems pretty suspicious to me. For all we know, he could be the one who brought us here and locked us in that cave in the first place."
"Okay, fine. That might be what's happening," Lloyd said, exasperated. "But what if you're wrong, and he's telling the truth?"
"And what if he's lying to us?" Genis countered. "For that matter, what if that girl is lying, too? We can't just..."
Colette sighed to herself. Having given her opinion early on, there was little to nothing she could add to the debate that had not already been said. She knew a good person when she saw one. She had been right about Sheena; she had been right about Regal; she had been right about Zelos; it had taken a long time, but she had even been right about Kratos in the end. She believed everything the old man had told them so far, even if he had not told them everything. That said, if the people of this world truly were in danger, they could not turn a blind eye.
Unfortunately, her instinct had not been enough to convince the more skeptical members of the party.
The topic of discussion itself was not even what troubled her most. Being in a group of their size, with people so vastly different from each other, disagreements were bound to come up sometimes. That was okay. One of the things she hated most, however, was when the group was split on how to move forward. Usually, when conflicting ideas arose between them, they were able to either talk out the problem and come to a solution, or simply agree that the subject was not worth arguing over. They had never had a split like this, when even after hours of arguing and reasoning they could not decide on a course of action. It did not bode well.
Wanting to distract herself from her thoughts, Colette spared Presea a glance, huddled despondently at Regal's side. The poor girl had been sobbing hysterically, unable to speak coherently, or even walk, for several minutes after they had found her, and Regal had taken it upon himself to carry her back here. Now, it seemed she was too exhausted and depressed to even pay attention to the discussion; she just stared blankly into the fire, her eyes puffy and red and her cheeks stained with tears. Seeing her friend so openly distressed was both jarring and heartbreaking for Colette.
Turning back to the window, she tuned out the conversation the others were having and buried herself in her own thoughts for a while.
Gradually, however, she noticed it was getting considerably quieter. Most of the others had stopped talking, and the few who still spoke did so in hushed whispers. No one else would have understood what was being said; she could hear that it was Regal and Raine discussing the night watch.
With a sigh, Colette left the window and sat down in the circle beside Sheena, who was already sound asleep. Raine joined her shortly.
"Are you all right, Colette?" her teacher whispered.
"I'm fine, Professor," she answered softly.
"Are you sure?"
She paused to think before answering again. She had awakened in a cave, without her clothes and recent memories, in a world not her own. She had encountered strange monsters, been scooped into the sky, discovered she could no longer fly, been informed she had slept for one hundred years, and been confronted with a task that made her last journey seem clear and straightforward by comparison. The family and friends she had had outside this group of eight were surely gone by now, including her parents and her grandmother, a thought she was not sure she could accept at this moment. She could not recall if she had gotten to say goodbye to them or not...
...Yet for all that, she was still alive, surrounded by the seven people she was closest to, the ones she had fought alongside, laughed with, cried with, and saved their world with. They had overcome the impossible together before. If they were still with her, how bad could this possibly be?
"...I'm sure," she said, nodding firmly.
Raine said nothing, but Colette saw her nod in the corner of her eye, and then she lied down on the floor. Colette turned to her and saw that the half-elf had closed her eyes to get some sleep.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"I don't know," Raine said sadly, cracking her eyelids open. "We still don't know enough about what we're dealing with here. In any case, we can't do anything more tonight except rest." She closed her eyes again. "Please, try and get some sleep, Colette."
With that, the Professor drifted off to sleep.
Colette tried to follow her example, lying down and shutting her eyes. However, her thoughts made her restless.
How could there be any more question of what they should do? If they chose to trust the old man, they would collect the treasure he had spoken of, exchange it for his paraglider, and leave the plateau to search for answers. If not, they could at least take a look around the plateau and see if it was true that there was no way down, and then decide what to do next. It seemed so simple to her; why did the others have to make it so complicated?
A rustling noise filled her sensitive ears. She tried to ignore it at first; it was probably one of her friends rolling over in their sleep. The sound persisted, however, and ultimately gave way to the padding of bare feet walking across stone.
Colette sat up and glanced around. Regal was sitting in the doorway; he looked like he had been there for some time. It had not been him.
Scanning the rest of the temple, she saw Lloyd creeping away from the camp toward a large hole in the wall leading outside.
What...? Taking care not to disturb Raine or Sheena, she pushed herself up to her feet, grabbed her bow, and tiptoed after him.
"Lloyd!" Colette hissed once she was outside. Though it was dark out, she had no trouble spotting him in the gloom, making his way toward the back of the temple. At her call, he stopped and turned to face her; after a brief hesitation, he started walking back to her. She walked out to meet him, hugging herself as she did; with her thin garments and bare feet, the brisk night air and the cold stone chilled her.
Lloyd drew close, expression serious; she did not have to ask any questions. "I'm going to find that old man," he whispered. "I'll get his dumb treasure, and I'll get his para-thingy so we can get down from this place."
"Lloyd, what if it's dangerous?" she asked pleadingly, glancing at his shoulder. The bandage Raine had made for him poked out from under his collar.
"We can't just sit around up here waiting for something to happen!" Lloyd exclaimed as quietly as he could. "Besides, if the people of this world really are in danger from that Calamity what's-it-called..." He clenched a fist. "...I can't just ignore it!"
Colette nodded somberly; her friend really could be dense sometimes. "I know. We need to do something. But what I mean is... it's too dangerous for you to go by yourself. So..." She drew herself up and looked him squarely in the eye. "So I'm coming with you."
Lloyd's eyes widened, and he looked like he was about to object, but his gaze softened and he smiled at her warmly. Almost literally - the sight seemed to stave off the cold. "All right," he agreed. "Let's go - you and me."
She returned his smile, sending his heart fluttering, and walked close beside him as they made their way behind the temple to avoid Regal's vigil.
Just on the other side of the broken wall, Sheena, now wide awake, relaxed and breathed more easily, grinning to herself. Even if she was weaker than before, her Mizuho training had not failed her, and she had escaped Colette's detection. "Well," she whispered to herself, "someone's gotta keep an eye on those two."
Character Profile: Lloyd Irving
As he was back in Aselia, Lloyd is of average strength and speed when compared to the rest of the group. He can use his crafting skills to perform maintenance on most weapons so that they last longer before breaking, and he can make basic arrows with the right materials. In battle, his skill with dual swords allows him to attack faster than most of his companions, but since he does not know how / refuses to use a shield, he is unable to passively block enemy attacks, and parrying is more difficult.
With a swing of his sword, Lloyd struck down the last of the bat-monsters that had confronted him and Colette. It fell with a screech and, upon hitting the ground, vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving its wings and its single orange eyeball behind.
"Ew..." He slipped his sword into the sheath he had scavenged. "Come on, we're almost there," he reassured Colette. They continued on up the hill they had walked down earlier that day, toward the old man's campfire. He was there once again, stirring the contents of a cooking pot with a ladle.
He glanced over to them when he heard them coming. "Oh. Good evening," he said to them. "Is your friend well?"
"Presea?" Lloyd shrugged helplessly. "She's safe, at least. Finding out we were out for a hundred years hit us all pretty hard, I think. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. But she..." He shook his head, momentarily lost for words. "Something like this has happened to her before."
"Oh..." The hermit returned his gaze to the fire and stirred a pot suspended over it. "I understand. I'm sorry to have asked anything of you while you were recovering from your shock."
"Actually," Colette told him, hoping to lighten the mood, "that's why we're here. We came to get that treasure for you."
He looked back to them curiously, one eyebrow raised. "At this hour? Do your friends know you're doing this?"
Lloyd shook his head. "No. Some of them don't trust you."
The man's gaze drifted past them. "No, I imagine not."
"But we do!" Colette said firmly. "So... where is this treasure?"
He looked them over for a few seconds before setting aside his ladle and standing up, lantern in hand. "If you are sure, then come with me." With that, he started down the path, in the general direction of the tower. The two teens followed close behind, trying to stay within the light his lantern gave off.
Lloyd kept his hand on the hilt of his sword as they went, and his head constantly turned side to side as he watched for more monsters. The old man assured him, however, that only Keese, the frail bat-monsters, would be active at this time of night. The Bokoblins, the pig-men they had encountered that day, would all be sound asleep in their camps, he claimed.
"Bokoblins," Colette repeated once she had heard the term. "What... are they, exactly?"
"They are demons," the man said gravely, "the basest of the Calamity's servants. They are also among the least intelligent, but deceptively strong and equally hostile."
Lloyd gazed out toward the shrouded castle in the distance. "They work for that thing? Why?"
"They exist to serve its will," said the man. "They and all the other races it spawned."
Colette moved closer to Lloyd. "What others?" she asked.
The man turned enough to give her a small, soft smile. "There is no need to fear them. Only Bokoblins remain here on the plateau."
Lloyd decided it was time to move away from the topic of monsters. "How long have you lived up here, anyway?"
"The answer to that is more complex than you realize," the man chuckled, to Lloyd's confusion. "I will say this: I have been here for far longer than I would ever like to admit." He stopped walking just as they were about to reach the plain the tower now stood in. "Ah, here we are."
The sight of the shrine, glowing orange beside a deep pond near the battlements marking the edge of the plateau, was enough for Lloyd to ignore the dodged question. It had a passing resemblance to an upside-down vase, and it appeared small enough to fit inside the temple the group was camped in.
"That structure began glowing at the exact moment those towers rose up from the ground," the man explained. "There are three others here on the plateau. I would think such a place might house some sort of treasure, wouldn't you?" he asked Lloyd.
Lloyd shrugged. "I... guess so?"
"So if we bring you whatever treasure is in these things," Colette clarified, "you'll give us your... what did you call it?"
"Paraglider," the man answered. "A fair exchange, I believe."
"Okay, let's go take a look," said Lloyd. He started down the hill again with Colette in tow, until he realized the man was not following. "Hey, aren't you coming?"
He shook his head. "I'm afraid I cannot enter the shrine. Not to worry; I will meet you when you have the treasure." He turned around and started walking back up the hill. "For now, I need to tend to my dinner before it burns."
Lloyd bristled. "You're making us go alone?! We don't know what's in there!"
"What makes you think I know?" the man asked over his shoulder. "And who said anything about going alone? You have each other, do you not?" With that, he left them, his lantern swaying on his cane as he walked.
Lloyd crossed his arms, irked at this development. "... If he wants the treasure so much," he grumbled, "you'd think he'd want to come with us."
"We could go back and get some help," Colette suggested. "I'm sure Sheena wouldn't mind coming, and Regal would probably agree, too."
He mulled it over for a bit and shook his head. "Nah. They might have realized we're gone by now. If we go back, Professor Sage probably won't let us come back here." He returned his attention to the shrine; it stood out like a sore thumb with its odd design and glowing lights. "It looks harmless enough," he decided. "Let's just be careful."
Colette smiled at him. "Okay! I'll look out for you, Lloyd."
"And I'll look out for you," Lloyd promised. The two childhood friends shared a quick hug before making their way down to the shrine.
Sheena's throat and chest seemed to tighten when she saw Lloyd and Colette's embrace from the cover of the nearby fores, and she looked away and sighed to herself as they walked away.
It was all too familiar. She had become aware of the bond between the two soon after joining their group as an ally. She had watched it grow, strengthen, and ultimately evolve during their travels... even as she had felt herself being drawn to Lloyd. She had not been all that subtle about it, as Zelos was all too happy to remind her, but the idiot... boy had never caught on to her feelings for him. Then came the final nail in the coffin; after their worlds had been reunited, Lloyd and Colette had revealed their plans to journey together again, just the two of them. Sheena truly did not know if she would have chosen to go with them or to return to Mizuho, where she was needed, but to not even be asked still made her ache.
She shook her head and steeled herself. Enough of that, she thought. I'm here on a mission. She looked back up and saw that Lloyd and Colette had reached the building; Lloyd was walking around its base, probably examining it for traps, while Colette had gone straight for the pedestal beside it on its dais.
Footsteps.
Sheena tensed up, listening, cursing herself for not thinking to find a weapon. It was not the sound of a pig-man approaching; their footfalls were quicker and heavier. It sounded more like...
She groaned under her breath.
"Hey, sweetums!"
"Go away."
Zelos ignored her, striding up from behind her and dropping down in the bushes, observing the scene, while Sheena gave him an annoyed glare. "Well, what could those two be up to?" he wondered aloud, grinning mischievously.
Sheena rolled her eyes, but kept her cool. "That old guy brought them here," she whispered, watching him out of the corner of her eye so she could see him recoil. Debunking Zelos' perverted fantasies tended to do more to shut him up than physical violence did.
"Are you telling me Lloyd-"
"He was gonna come alone," Sheena interrupted, "but Colette caught him sneaking out." She kept her attention focused on the two teens, trying to ignore whatever Zelos would say next.
"So who was it you noticed leaving?"
The question caught her by surprise. "Huh?" She turned to look at him, and his sly grin was back.
"Was it Lloyd or Colette?"
Sheena tilted her head at him, curious. "Why do you ask?"
Zelos' smile broadened. "Oh, no reason." He looked back over to Lloyd and Colette again, still smirking.
Sheena narrowed her eyes at him. "Speaking of which, why are you out here?"
"I woke up and needed to take a leak," he said bluntly. "Then I noticed you three were missing, and..." He shrugged. "Well, you can understand why I'd want to find you guys."
No mercy this time. Sheena slapped Zelos hard enough to send him sprawling to the ground.
"OWW!" he whined, holding a hand to his face.
"You're unbelievable!" Sheena hissed, turning away to watch Lloyd and Colette again. To her surprise, some of the orange lights on the building had turned blue, and one side of the structure had opened up. She could not see inside it, and the two teens were nowhere to be seen. "Hey, where'd they go?" she wondered.
Zelos popped back up to look. "Huh. They must've gone inside." He picked up his Slate and turned on the screen. "...Okay, that wasn't there before."
"What wasn't?" she asked, peering over his shoulder at the screen.
"That," he answered, pointing at a blue, diamond-shaped marker on the plateau map.
Sheena scoffed. "That thing was definitely there before."
Zelos gave her an annoyed look. "No, it wasn't." He pointed at another such marker, closer to the middle of the map. "That one's been there all along..." He moved his finger to a different one due east of their position. "... and that one popped up after the tower did. This one-" he touched the screen with his finger this time, and the map view shifted to center on the newest blue marker. A text box appeared:
Travel to Oman Au Shrine?
Yes\No
"...What?" Zelos' forehead wrinkled. "Travel... Is it gonna show me how to get there?"
"Why would we need that when we already have a map?" Sheena wondered.
"Got me," said Zelos, shrugging. "Eh, what the heck. Might as well figure out how this thing works." He tapped the "Yes" option. The Slate's screen responded by fading to a blank, brilliantly bright blue light. The rest of the Slate soon followed suit.
"Whoa!" Sheena yelped, shielding her eyes with one hand. She squinted and turned to face Zelos again. "What did you d-"
Her words caught in her throat, and her eyes widened.
Zelos was sitting stock-still beside her; his body was starting to glow the same color as the Slate. She just had time to see his expression of confusion and panic before all other color left him, and the light that now composed his body started breaking into strands that floated skyward and faded.
"Zelos!"
In the span of two seconds, he had seemingly vanished from existence.
Regal's eyes were glued to his Slate as he frantically scanned the map. He almost panicked before Zelos' marker re-appeared at the blue icon Lloyd and Colette had gone to.
"What in the world..." He touched the icon.
Travel to Oman Au Shrine?
Yes/No
"...Extraordinary," he breathed. Back when he had been just the President of the Lezareno Company, Regal had thought of his hometown of Altamira as being especially advanced technologically. Seeing the computers and warp pads in the temples and in Cruxis' establishments had humbled him somewhat in that regard. Now, the little tablet he was holding had blown everything he had seen before out of the water.
Raine will be especially interested in this, he thought. After seeing that half our group has wandered off, it might even placate her.
Regal looked up at the stars. In Aselia, he had been able to use the night sky to tell time. Here, however, the constellations were unfamiliar, and he could not be certain of the time. Still, he reasoned that his watch must be near over, and Raine would want to know about these developments sooner rather than later.
Keeping his Slate in hand, he got up from his post at the temple doorway and walked to Raine's side, shaking her shoulder gently. The half-elf sat up immediately, blinking tiredly. Evidently, she was a light sleeper.
"Is it that time already?" she asked.
Regal nodded. "I believe so." He held up his Slate for her to see. "You might want to take a look at this."
Raine covered her mouth and yawned, and then squinted at the screen in front of her. A few seconds later, her eyes widened and she shot up to her feet, rapidly looking around the camp.
"I was watching for monsters approaching us," Regal preempted. "I only just realized they had left."
The professor scowled and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I swear, that boy..."
"There is something else you will want to know," Regal interrupted, pointing at Zelos' marker. It had left the blue icon and gone back to where Sheena was. As they watched, it changed from yellow to bright blue and disappeared, only to re-appear in a flash of light back at the marker.
Raine shook her head, rubbed her eyes, and focused on the screen again. "What just happened?"
Again, Zelos vanished from the screen, this time materializing at the tower, and then again from the tower to the symbol marking the cave.
"As I thought," Regal murmured, rubbing his chin. He tapped the marker where Lloyd and Colette were, bringing up the travel prompt again. "Wherever one of these markings appears, the Slate allows us to go there instantaneously."
Raine's jaw dropped, but then her irate frown returned. "And of course Zelos is playing with it in the middle of the night." She promptly picked up her own Slate and started tapping on the screen.
Regal put his hand over it, raising one eyebrow. "What are you doing?"
Raine simply brushed his hand away. "I'm going over there to bring everyone back."
"We can't leave Presea and Genis here alone," Regal argued, "and I can't let you go alone."
"I won't be going alone," Raine countered. "I'll be teleporting directly to them and coming back here with them." At that, she made one last input on her Slate and de-materialized into blue light.
Regal stared at the space she had just been standing in. He realized that even if she had not left, he could not argue with her reasoning.
To you who sets foot in this shrine... I am Oman Au. In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I offer this trial.
As Lloyd and Colette discovered, the shrine did indeed lead them underground via elevator. The chamber it brought them to made them both simply stop and stare for a few minutes (once ghostly, resonating voice silenced). The floors and walls were perfectly smooth and, with the exception of orange lights shaped like constellations on the walls, plain. Every sound the two made seemed to echo softly around them. The space was filled with a soft light that poured in through what appeared to be skylights high above, despite the fact that it was nighttime out.
Colette instantly recognized the pedestal and stalactite arrangement she had seen atop the tower.
"So this is the same thing you put your Slate in that made the tower appear?" Lloyd asked, eyeing the pedestal's slot suspiciously.
Colette nodded. "Mhm. It gave us the map, too." She glanced around the room again. "Maybe this one will open that gate."
Lloyd shrugged. "Well, only one way to find out." He took his Slate from his belt and set it in the slot; the stone flipped it into place with its screen up.
Sheikah Slate authenticated.
Distilling information...
To Colette's surprise, the whatever-it-was skipped past the making-things-move bit and went straight to the blue runes running down the stalactite and the glowing droplet falling onto the Slate.
She frowned and tilted her head. "Huh. It didn't... do anything this time."
Lloyd, however, was staring at it with his jaw hanging open. "...Wow! That looked so cool!" He eagerly took his Slate back when the pedestal ejected it and observed the screen. An icon depicting a red horseshoe magnet appeared with some glowing text. Lloyd squinted as he attempted to pronounce some unfamiliar words. "Mag... mag...nessiss? Magnessiss Rune ack..."
Curious, Colette peered over his shoulder to read it for herself. "Magnesis... Magnesis Rune acquired? What's that mean?" A thought dawned on her, and she took out her own Slate and activated its screen. "...I have it now, too," she confirmed. "Just like the map from the tower."
Ever the curious one, Lloyd touched the symbol on his screen. The display changed to match the room behind the Slate. He moved it around experimentally, stopping when he was facing Colette and a perfect copy of her appeared on the screen. "Hey, it's like having one of those projector-things!" he exclaimed. He continued on, not much differently from a child playing with a new toy, until he got to the enormous metal slabs in the middle of the floor. Instead of silver and black, the screen displayed them in bright red, along with more text:
Target highlighted object and tap to activate
Rotate Slate right to move further away, left to move closer
Tap again to release
Without hesitation, he tapped one of the slabs on the screen, and it turned from red to yellow.
A loud, booming noise startled the two of them and made Colette squeal. One of the slabs jumped even as they did, flying through the air before bumping and skidding against the floor. Lloyd immediately put away his Slate and drew his sword, prepared to take on whatever had made the thing move.
The slab fell flat once again, and then...
Nothing.
Slowly, ever so slowly, they both started to piece together what exactly had just happened. Colette, wanting to be sure, held up her Slate, selected the magnet icon, and tapped the red-colored projection of the second metal slab. She angled the tablet upward, and the slab followed her movements, rising high up into the air to fully uncover a large hole in the floor before settling back down in the corner she put it in.
"No way..." Lloyd breathed.
Colette walked to the edge of the hole and looked in; just a short drop below was another level, a walkway beside a deep pool, that passed under the gate they were stuck behind.
She held up her Slate again; its screen was again displaying the Magnesis Rune.
That voice when we came in here mentioned a trial... She held the tablet up for Lloyd to see. "I think this is how we get to that treasure."
Under this assumption, Lloyd and Colette both spent a few minutes practicing this new tool of theirs, moving the metal slabs every which way until they had a comfortable grasp of how to use it. At that point, they jumped down the hole in the floor and continued on. On the other side of the gate and up a flight of stairs, they came across a wall made up of large blocks, all stone except for one made of metal. Lloyd quickly figured out that they could simply shove the stone blocks out of the way with a metal one. Once the way was, clear, however...
"Whoa!" Lloyd exclaimed. "What is that thing?"
A strange object rested before them: disc-shaped, supported by three spider-like legs, with a dome on top of it. As they were still trying to figure out what exactly it was, a blue orb on the front of its dome began to glow brightly, seeming to draw energy from the very air around it.
Colette realized what was happening just in time. "Look out!" she cried, shoving Lloyd behind a stone block and tumbling after him; they landed in a heap behind the barrier. A beam of blue light shot through the space they had just been standing in and hit the wall behind them, creating a small explosion on impact.
"Are you okay?!" Colette asked frantically as she disentangled herself from Lloyd.
"Yeah..." Lloyd grunted, sitting up beside her. "Yeah, I'm fine. Thanks, Colette," he told her, smiling.
She sighed, laughing nervously. "That was close."
Lloyd got up and peeked around the corner of the block, just enough so he could see the machine barring their way again. "It reminds me of one of those Raybit-things the Desians had."
Colette ducked under him so she could see as well; the robot evidently could not quite target them like this. "It seems stronger, though," she said. "Like the bigger ones in the Tower of Salvation."
They both retreated fully behind cover, and Lloyd drew his sword and looked at it critically. "I don't think I'll be able to take it down with this thing," he decided. "How do we get past it?"
I could distract it while you- Colette shook her head and put that thought away before she could say it out loud; Lloyd would never stand for it. Instead, she looked around the room again. The area was littered with blocks; they might be able to move them and use them as cover at the same time, but there was no way to pull them from behind. The machine would have a clear shot once they were on the other side of it.
Then her eyes fell on a second metal block she had not noticed before, off in the corner, and she had an idea.
"Look at this!" she exclaimed, targeting the block with her Slate and pulling it toward herself with Magnesis. "We can use these as shields and go around it!"
Lloyd's eyebrows flew up, and he grinned mischievously. "Hey! That gives me a better idea!" He took out his Slate, used Magnesis on the other block, and lifted it into the air. "Cover me!"
Colette nodded and maneuvered her block around so they could stand behind it. Lloyd stepped out in front of the robot, adjusted his block's position, and jumped behind cover again before he got shot. After three more repetitions, he dropped it, and it landed with a metallic crunch.
Wary, Lloyd peered around at the robot. It was a twisted, sparking mess underneath the metal block.
He looked down at the Slate in his hand with a growing sense of awe. "...Someone just left these for us to find," he realized. "Why?"
"Whoever did it," Colette said with a smile, "we'll have to thank them for it."
Lloyd frowned and put his Slate back on his belt. "Not if it's the same one who put us in that cave."
Colette's smile vanished. "Oh... You're right."
The path ahead had them using a single metal slab to cross gaps between platforms over a lower level filled ankle-deep with water. At the far end of the chamber was an enormous pair of metal doors without knobs or handles, requiring them to use Magnesis to open them. On the other side was a smaller room, occupied by what looked almost like a cage with translucent blue walls; inside this structure was a pedestal, with an object sitting on it. Lloyd immediately rushed forward, thinking it must be the treasure they were looking for. He recoiled as soon as he got a better look at it.
It was shaped like a human (or an elf, judging by the pointed ears), but it was black and shriveled, as if it had been badly burned - except that its long white hair was still intact. It was adorned with a necklace and bracelets, and an eye tattoo on its forehead.
"Eugh!" Lloyd gagged, backing away further. "Is that... a dead body?"
Colette walked up the steps beside the tomb to get a closer look. "If it is," she reasoned, "maybe it has the treasure." She put one hand on the side of it as she tried to peer through the wall.
At her touch, the eye-shape that had been popping up all day appeared on the wall before her. Then, all four walls began glowing brightly.
Suddenly seized by panic, Lloyd dashed to Colette's side to pull her back, but his fear was misplaced. With a ringing sound, the walls shattered outward into little rods of pale blue light that floated through the air. They faded harmlessly whenever they touched the two teens.
"Wow..." Colette looked around the room, eyes wide with wonder at this light show.
...You are not the Hero.
She stiffened. It was the same soft, resonant voice that had spoken to them at the start of the shrine. Only now, it was slightly louder, more distinct, as if its source was nearby.
Lloyd's eyes snapped to the body on the pedestal, and he blanched. "Y-you're... alive?"
I am Oman Au, a monk, the creator of this trial, the emaciated figure said, although it still sat stock-still; it did not even appear to be breathing. I was enshrined here to await the coming of the Hero, should he ever require my aid. But you... You are not Hylian, nor Sheikah, nor Gerudo, nor any of the other races of Hyrule.
Lloyd blinked and shook his head. "We... don't know anything about any hero," he said. "We were just asked to find the treasure in this shrine so we can get off the plateau."
"If we can do that," Colette offered, "we can look for the hero for you. So... will you please help us?"
The echoes of her words faded to silence before Oman Au spoke again. ...Those Sheikah Slates you carry... If they were entrusted to you, then Hyrule's plight is darker than the prophecies foretold.
Lloyd looked perplexedly at the Slate on his belt. "Prophecies? What prophecies?"
...I am dedicated to helping those who seek to defeat Ganon, the monk said. In the name of the Goddess Hylia, allow me to reward your resourcefulness in overcoming this trial. Please accept this Spirit Orb.
Before Lloyd could ask what a Spirit Orb was, it materialized in front of Oman Au, seeming to flow out from him... or her, he really couldn't tell. Anyway, the orb itself was purple, with a peculiar winged crest. It appeared insubstantial, like a projection. As soon as it had fully formed, it started floating straight for Colette.
For a moment, Lloyd was back at the Martel Temple outside Iselia, and the monk before him was Remiel, "bestowing" the Cruxis Crystal on Colette...
He gasped and shook his head. Remiel was gone, but Lloyd's heart was still pounding.
Colette reached out to grasp the Spirit Orb, but it phased through her hand and continued on into her body, disappearing from sight with a flash of dim light. She put her hand on the spot, curious, as a strange sensation seemed flooded her veins - no, her very soul.
My duty is now fulfilled, Oman Au said. May the Goddess smile upon you. With this greeting, the monk's body began disintegrating, its body turning to dust with a soft blue glow and dispersing out of sight.
"They're... gone," Lloyd realized.
Colette stared at the pedestal, mouth agape, her hand still on her breastbone. "They just... gave it to us and... died."
Lloyd put a hand on her shoulder, his mind hard at work. "Okay, so... on one hand, how are we supposed to give that old guy the treasure if it's inside you? On the other..." They looked each other in the eyes. "Why did they give us that thing, anyway? It sounded like... it's part of something bigger."
"And that thing about them waiting for someone else... Who could it be?" Colette wondered.
Lloyd shook his head. "Well, we won't find out by staying in here," he decided. "We should head back to the temple before the others realize we're gone."