Prologue: The Great Plateau

Chapter 5

For a moment, Zelos thought was dying. First, his entire body went numb, and he became unable to move, as if paralyzed. Next, he lost his hearing and eyesight, and even smell. The only sensations he was aware of were a feeling of weightlessness and his own panic.

He did not know how long that experience lasted, but at some point, the effects reversed themselves: he felt himself being pulled to the ground again; his hearing, eyesight, and smell returned; and the paralysis wore off.

Dizzy, he fell forward, bruising his knees and dropping his Slate to catch himself with his hands.

"Urgh... Dude, what the..." He shook off the urge to vomit and forced himself back up to his feet. After a moment, he could see straight again, and he realized where he was: at the entrance to the shrine.

"Wait... Travel?" He grabbed his Slate off the ground and examined the map. His eyes slowly widened, and his mouth spread into a large, excited grin.

Thinking quickly, he re-oriented himself and started jogging back toward the forest where Sheena was hiding. "Hey, hunny!" he called loudly. "You miss me?"

The bushes rustled as the ninja shot up to her feet. "Zelos?!" she exclaimed, and she ran out to meet him. When they were close enough, he could see that her eyes were wetter than usual. Still, the scowl she gave him would have cowed the average warrior. "What did you just do?! You nearly gave me a heart attack! Give me one good reason not to smack you into next week!"

Zelos just laughed and waved one hand; how could she still think her threats scared him? "I'll give you three good reasons, but first, I wanna show you something. Watch your map for a sec'."

Confused, and still getting over her near-panic, Sheena did as he said, staring intently at the map on her Slate. While she did so, Zelos found the shrine's marker on his own map and tapped it again.

Travel to Oman Au Shrine?

Yes/No

He chose the "Yes" option just as Sheena was looking up again. All his senses went blank and he floated, only to find himself once again standing at the foot of the shrine.

This time, Sheena was visible from where he was standing. "Yoo-hoo!" he trilled to her playfully.

"You idiot!" Sheena yelled, and she started sprinting for him as fast as her feet would carry her. "I'm going to-"

Whatever her threat was, Zelos did not hear it; this time, he chose the Great Plateau Tower's marker and found himself standing at its peak.

Laughing with excitement at his discovery, he found the map's third marker and selected it, just to make sure. Another warp later, he was back in the central chamber of the cave where the group had awakened.

"All right!" he crowed; the tunnels around him echoed his voice back to him eightfold.

Still chuckling to himself, Zelos checked his map to make sure Sheena was not following him; she was standing near the shrine, probably waiting for him to come back.

It was supposed to be simple. Zelos was going to warp himself back down to the shrine and pester Sheena about what a breakthrough this Slate could be for his late-night "conquests." Sheena would get mad and hit him or something. He would get a kick out of it.

That's what was supposed to happen.

As soon as the floating sensation of teleporting was gone and he found himself at the shrine, however, he was greeted with one of Raine's angry-teacher-death-glares.

"AAAaahh, hey, Raine! What brings you out here so late?" he asked, trying to brush off the fact that she had startled him.

"We need to talk," Raine said curtly, snatching Zelos' Slate from his hands.

He gulped nervously. She was a sight shorter than him, and nowhere near as violent as Sheena, but for some reason, Raine was by far the scariest member of the group when she got mad.

Raine turned to face away from the shrine. "Sheena," she called, "I know you're out there. If you don't come out now, we'll just have this discussion later."

For a moment, there was relative silence. Then, the ninja stood up from behind a chunk of building rubble and stalked toward them, glowering at Zelos all the while.

"I came out here to make sure Lloyd and Colette were okay," she announced before Raine could launch into a lecture. "They went to see the old man, and he brought them here."

"And you just let them. Where are they now?" Raine asked sharply.

Sheena showed the professor her map, unfazed. "It looks like they're underground. I think that's where that shrine leads."

Raine turned again to look at the shrine - really look at it - for the first time. The change was palpable as her attention shifted away from Sheena and Zelos and toward the glowing structure. Soon, as she started examining it more closely, her two companions seemed to leave her mind completely. Zelos would have made a run for it, if she were not still holding his Slate.

"Fascinating..." she murmured, feeling the shrine's surface. "I've never seen building material like this before... It's not any kind of stone, that's for certain. So is it metal, or some form of polycarbonate? I'll have to ask Genis to try using magic on it to see if-" She snapped out of it at this thought and fell silent.

Zelos shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "You know, the tower looked like it was made of the same stuff," he pointed out. "You didn't notice anything strange about it then?"

Raine only gave him a steely glare in response before stepping over the shrine's threshold and peering into the hole in its floor. "I can't see anything in there. How are we supposed to follow Lloyd and Colette down there?"

"Ho, there!"

All three of them looked up at the sky at the familiar voice. "Oh, not again..." Zelos muttered under his breath. Sure enough, though, there was the old man gliding down toward them, his form blotting out a few stars at a time as he descended.

Zelos scowled at the man and rested a fist on his hip as the old man landed. "No offense, gramps, but we're kind of in the middle of something."

"Is that right?" the man asked, collapsing his paraglider and taking up his lantern. "It looks to me like you're only just beginning. What brings you all out here?"

Raine, initially puzzled but choosing to ignore the man's observation, folded her arms. "You brought two of our companions here," she stated firmly. "Why? Does it have to do with that treasure you mentioned before?"

"Lloyd and Colette?" The man rested his hands on his cane beside his lantern and nodded. "They approached me and asked me to show them where the treasure can be found."

"You must have realized we would have objected to this had we known about it," Raine said accusingly, her eyes narrowing.

"I did," the man said with a nod, "and so did they." He abruptly turned his attention to Sheena. "I should apologize for letting you follow behind us in the dark." Sheena startled, staring bug-eyed at him. "I would have invited you to join us in the light, but you were moving so swiftly and silently that no monster could have detected you anyway."

Raine glanced at Sheena before addressing the man again. "We haven't yet reached a decision on your request," Raine said in a clipped tone. "So if you would, kindly refrain from going behind our backs again."

"I haven't done so thus far, and I'm not about to start," the man answered, and Zelos, for the life of him, couldn't detect even a hint of spite or irritation in his voice. "In any event, I will stay with you three until your friends return and escort you back to the temple, if you wish."

Raine simply re-positioned herself to where both the man and the shrine's entrance were in her field of vision. "Do as you will," she told him dismissively.

Imagine Lloyd's surprise when he and Colette arrived back at the surface to this scene.

"Wha-?! Professor? Zelos? Sheena? What are you all doing here?!" he stammered as the elevator came to a stop.

"Interesting question, bud!" Zelos quipped with a cocky grin. "We could ask you the same thing! Sneaking out is one thing, but dragging sweet, innocent Colette into it- OW!"

Raine and Sheena, without even looking at him, had each grabbed and twisted one of his ears. "Yeah, what kind of person would do that, Zelos?" Sheena asked dryly before they released him.

Colette winced at Zelos' pain. She wasn't quite sure what he'd done to deserve it, but she quickly rallied and stepped in front of Lloyd. "Lloyd was going to come alone," she said, speaking primarily to Raine. "I decided to come with him. We both decided."

Raine crossed her arms sternly. Though Colette's desire to defend Lloyd was admirable, in this case, it meant she would have to share the blame with him. "In the middle of the night, in a place we don't know, with people we don't know, without telling us? What if something had happened to you two down there? How long would we have gone wondering what became of you?"

Every objection Raine raised caused Colette's head to dip lower and lower in shame, until she could no longer see her teacher's face. The professor's heart broke a little at the sight of her; the poor girl rarely needed to be reprimanded, but she never did handle the guilt well when she did.

Lloyd, on the other hand...

"Professor Sage, we're fine!" he protested impatiently, stepping around Colette to stand beside her. "And if we had gotten hurt or stuck somewhere, you could have just looked where we were on the map and followed us!"

"And then what?" Raine asked him critically. "Without mana, I can't use healing magic. Injuries that I could have healed in less than a second before could have fatal consequences now."

"For that matter, none of us are as strong as we were before," Sheena pointed out. "We all need to be more careful. A risk like this is usually something we decide on together."

"I know that," Lloyd said earnestly, feeling a twinge of regret. "But we couldn't all agree this time. That's why I didn't ask anyone to come with me. I didn't want to split everyone up."

"Whoa, Lloyd, what are you saying?" Zelos asked with raised eyebrows. "You thought we might break up the band over this?"

Lloyd lowered his head and shrugged helplessly. "I've made up my mind. I want to get off this plateau and help stop the calamity. I didn't want to make anyone feel like they had to come if they didn't want to, or leave anyone alone if some decided to join me."

Raine held her peace for a moment while she proceeded this. "You're telling us that you intend to trust this man and go on this mission regardless of what the rest of us think?"

Colette finally looked up at Raine again, her eyes pleading sadly. "He told us the truth, Professor," she said softly. "We can trust him."

Raine quietly regarded Colette and Lloyd for a while, her expression serious, masking her thoughts from them. Sheena fidgeted in place, glancing between the three of them, while Zelos studied the luminous blue patterns on the shrine to avoid eye contact with any of them.

Lloyd held his breath without meaning to. What came next would decide the future of their group; of that, he was certain.

Finally, with a sigh, Raine seemed to deflate a little. "We'll still need to discuss our next move as a group," she declared. "For now, what did you find in the shrine?"

Lloyd sighed with relief and gasped for air as Colette began giving a recap of what had transpired underground. She told them about the Slates' new Magnesis ability and demonstrated it on Lloyd's sword; she described the robot they had encountered and how they had defeated it; and finally, she told them about the words of the monk who had been entombed there.

"And where is this Spirit Orb now?" Zelos asked, stealing a glance at the old man waiting patiently beside them.

"It, uh..." Colette felt her torso in a few places, hoping that it would re-materialize so she wouldn't have to explain. "It kind of... went inside me, I think..."

Zelos, Raine, and Sheena all reacted with various levels of surprise and incredulity, but before anyone else could speak, the old man stepped forward. "If you use the Sheikah Slate to check your inventory," he said calmly, "it should indicate that you do, indeed, now possess the Spirit Orb. You need not worry; it can do nothing as long as you possess it."

"Inventory?" Sheena echoed, reaching for her own Slate. "You mean these things keep track of our stuff, too?"

"More than that," the man answered, "the Slate is able to hold things for you - more than you could reasonably carry on your own."

For all her suspicion, Raine simply could not stop the questions once her interest was sparked. "How is technology like this possible if the land is in a state of ruin, as you said?"

"Because it dates back to long before the Calamity," the man told her, stepping into their midst and resting his hands on his cane. "The Slates, the shrines, and the towers - they are all connected. Many millennia ago, a highly advanced tribe called the Sheikah inhabited these lands. The great power of their wisdom saved this kingdom time and time again. But their ancient technology disappeared long ago..." He inclined his head toward the shrine. "Until now, it seems."

Raine listened with rapt attention until a loud noise distracted her. She turned to find Lloyd, snoring, still on his feet. She rolled her eyes and gave him a hearty slap across the face to wake him. "And these Sheikah people were the ones responsible for making the Slates, as well as the shrines and towers?"

"Indeed they were," the man answered with a nod. "These shrines lay tucked away in numerous places all across the land. On this plateau alone, there are still three more. If you will bring me the treasure from each of them, then I will give you my paraglider."

Hearing that snapped Lloyd out of his lingering drowsiness, and he bristled. "Hey, wait a second!" he protested. "You said you'd give it to us for the treasure from this shrine!"

"Oh?" The man sounded confused, despite the knowing look he was giving Lloyd. "I suppose I changed my mind. Bring the four Spirit Orbs from the plateau's shrines, and I give you my word, you may have my paraglider."

"Not so fast, pal," Zelos cut in, looking and sounding ready to be done with the matter for the night. "The rest of us still haven't agreed to this little scavenger hunt, and personally, I'm not really open to discussing it tonight."

"Zelos is right," Raine concurred, folding her arms. "We all need to go back to our camp and get some sleep. We'll talk it over once more in the morning and bring you our answer." She moved closer to the man, looking him full in the face with eyes hard as flint. "We'll keep the Spirit Orb for now, but if it hurts Colette in any way, you'll have hell to pay."

"Of course," the man said with a nod. "Find me atop the tower when you're ready. I couldn't help but notice that you have already discovered the shortcut."

"The shortcut?" Colette asked, and she shared a perplexed glance with Lloyd.

"We'll explain later," Sheena promised, and she gave Zelos the stinkeye. "There's been enough playing around with it tonight."

"Not sure I know what you're talking about," Zelos retorted grumpily.

As he'd said he would, the old man escorted the five of them back to the courtyard of the Temple of Time before taking his leave of them. Raine told Regal they would convene again in the morning, and that was the end of it for the night.

At sunrise on the following day, Sheena got up early to procure a breakfast of poultry meat and eggs. The Aselians sat in a circle around their campfire inside the temple to eat, and then the five who had gone out the night before informed the rest of what they had done, seen, and learned.

There was a long silence once everything had been said as each of them took time to process it all.

"It sounds as though this monk was waiting for someone in particular," Regal thought aloud. "Was this Spirit Orb intended for someone else, then?"

Colette fidgeted where she sat between Lloyd and Sheena and glanced around at the others. The fact that Regal was the one to voice his thoughts first didn't bode well.

"That seems plausible," Raine agreed. "Given that we still don't know what it is or what it does, the idea of finding three more for that man feels less and less appealing."

"But you're gonna do it anyway, Lloyd?" Genis asked, peering around Colette to eye his friend uncertainly.

Lloyd lowered his eyes and sighed. "... Yeah," he stated. "Changing the deal was kind of dirty, but other than that, I don't think he's been lying to us." He looked up at his friends again, a determined light in his gaze. "Besides, we can't really stay up here, can we?"

"... Whether or not that guy is telling the truth," Sheena asserted, "I gotta agree with you there." She turned to Raine with a shrug. "There's obviously no civilization near here except for those pig-monsters. Either he's been lying to us and we need to find someone to tell us what's really going on, or he told us the truth and we need to get down from here and..." She faltered and shrank back a little. "... and do... something."

"Like finding our way back to Aselia," Zelos said firmly.

"Only the elves and half-elves would know us."

All eyes snapped to Presea. This was the first time she had spoken since the night before. She had a glowering expression, but her gaze was distant, avoiding eye contact with anyone else.

"If it really has been one hundred years," she continued in a low voice, "Aselia will have moved on without us. I think I want to go back, but more than that, I want to know how and why we came to be here. If the man we met yesterday cannot tell us, I want to find someone who can."

"Presea is right," Regal agreed. "Learning why we are in Hyrule will help us decide our next course, and learning why may be the key to returning to Aselia."

"One problem with that," Zelos pointed out. "If it's been a hundred years, who's to say anyone from when we came here is still alive to tell us?"

"Where would we even start looking for someone like that?" Genis wondered.

Lloyd got up to his feet and spread his hands to entreat them. "I don't know," he said honestly. "And that's the biggest problem right now. There's too much we don't know. I know that making a move at a time like this can be a mistake, but we won't find out anything by staying on this plateau and talking about it!" He let his arms fall to his sides again and looked around at each of the others. Colette, Regal, Presea, and Sheena were all watching him intently, while Raine, Zelos, and Genis avoided his gaze. "We can start by finding out once and for all if what the man told us is true. If it is, and the calamity is going to destroy this world, I've decided to do whatever I can to stop it."

No one else said anything for a long moment, until Raine gave a heavy sigh.

"When it came to times like this during the World Regeneration," she said, "when we were at a crossroads and needed to decide which path to take, each of us decided for ourselves whether to move forward with a given plan of action, or to take our leave of the group. This isn't like any of those times. If one of us doesn't want to continue on, they can't just return home. We're in a strange land with strange rules. We have nowhere to go back to."

"Raine, what are you saying?" Genis asked in disbelief.

"I'm saying that whatever we do, the most important thing right now is that we stay together," she answered, sounding resigned.

"Does that mean you're gonna just go along with Lloyd's plan, then?" Zelos asked, earning a mild glare from Sheena.

"What I'm suggesting is that we all find a way down from this plateau and look for answers together," she stated. "If the only way to do that is to give the man the Spirit Orbs and make a trade with him... then so be it."

Lloyd gave the professor a grateful, apologetic smile.

"... All right," Genis said, "I'll help, too. Raine is right; we can't split up now."

"I'll stay with you, Lloyd!" Colette volunteered, beaming at him.

"No surprise there," Zelos chuckled.

"You can count me in," Sheena declared.

"I will go as well," said Regal.

Presea gave a nod. "So will I."

Lloyd's grin widened, a thrill coursing through him. When they had first awoken the day before, he had taken it for granted that they would solve this mystery and return home together. Now, after the unity of the group had been threatened, he found himself remembering just how grateful here was to have each of them at his side, to call them allies and friends. There was still one holdout, though.

Everyone turned their attention to Zelos. At first, he said nothing and didn't look back at any of them. What he might be thinking, none of them could be sure.

Finally, he raised a finger. "I have one condition," he announced.

"What's that?" Lloyd asked, feeling a touch of apprehension again.

Zelos lowered his hand to pick at his ragged shirt. "If we find any decent clothes, I get first pick."

Lloyd let out a breath that was part sigh, part laugh. "It's a deal!"

"I guess we need to go talk to that man again, then," Genis said, standing up. "So, how do we use the Slate to teleport?"

A short time later, at the top of the plateau tower, Genis materialized from floating strands of blue light. As soon as he had control of his body again, he stumbled to his knees, swaying from side to side. "Whoa... That was... weird..."

There was the sound of soft laughter. "Perhaps, though it is quite useful. Wouldn't you agree?"

Still disoriented, Genis gave the old man an irritated grunt as more lights appeared around him, and his friends alighted on the tower one by one. "How did you get up here, anyway?" he asked incredulously. "Don't tell me you climbed up!"

"Oh, I have my ways," the man said placidly. He regarded each member of the party with a dip of his head as they arrived. "I hope you all are well-rested after having such a trying time yesterday."

"We've decided to gather the Spirit Orbs," Raine told him brusquely, arms folded. "Just to be clear, the deal is that we will give you four of them in exchange for your paraglider, correct?"

"Again, you have my word," the man confirmed. "Now, then, the reason I asked you to come up here... These towers, aside from completing your map of a region, are excellent vantage points for observing the surrounding landscape. If you would, please lift your Sheikah Slates and watch their displays. Touch the eye symbol."

Colette did as he asked, and the Slate's map disappeared, replaced by an image of the landscape before her. She wondered at first if the man was showing them another rune, but her companions interrupted her thoughts.

"Huh? Oh, wow!"

"Fascinating...!"

"It's reminiscent of a telescope."

Concrete suppressed a giggle as she realized what had happened, and she lowered her Slate and returned it to the map. She had been living with enhanced senses for so long that it was easy to forget about them at times. The effects of the lens, as exciting as they were to her friends, were more or less lost on her. She could see just about as far and with a much wider field of vision without it.

"There's another shrine!" Sheena exclaimed. Colette followed her pointed finger toward a snow-capped mountain in the distance. At its peak was the little structure with its telltale orange glow.

"I see another on the cliff," Presea said.

"Now, try touching the image of one of those shrines," the man instructed. "It will place a pin at that place on the map."

Just as Colette raised her Slate again to try this, two brightly-colored markings appeared on her map.

"If you see something interesting from afar," the man explained, "you can use a pin to mark it on your map and investigate it later. I believe you can only use five pins at a time, but pins can be replaced with different markings so they can be used again."

Well, if the scope wasn't all that useful to Colette on its own, this feature certainly sounded worthwhile.

"So there's still one more shrine around here?" Genis asked, walking around the top of the tower and sweeping his gaze over the landscape. "... Aha! There it is! In those ruins down there!"

"Well, that one's nice and close by!" Zelos noted, marking the location with a third pin. "Might as well head down there first and get it knocked out of the way, huh?"

"It might be relatively close to the tower," Raine said pensively, "but unless we climb down from here, we'll have to teleport further away from it to get back down to the ground."

"Would it be better for us to go to each shrine together, or should we split into smaller groups?" Regal asked.

"That, I leave to you," the old man answered. "But a word of caution: reaching the shrines may prove more hazardous than it seems. With adequate preparation, though, I believe no challenge you encounter in Hyrule will stop you. For now, I must take my leave, but I will be nearby should you need me." He unfolded his paraglider and walked to the edge of the tower.

"A word of caution for you, as well," Presea said suddenly, and the man stopped and turned to face her. "We are choosing to trust you for now," she told him icily. "If you betray that trust, you will answer to us all."

The man nodded gravely. "Of that, you need not fear." With that, he stepped off the tower, gliding toward a dense forest to the south.

"'More hazardous than it seems?'" Sheena repeated, placing a fist on her hip. "Well, that could mean anything!"

"Yes... It sounds to me like we won't be able to just rush haphazardly to the shrines," Raine deduced, resting her chin on hey knuckles.

"Then we'll need to approach them with caution," Regal said. "Perhaps we should simply scout out each location for now, and then make a plan to enter the shrines tomorrow."

"Makes sense to me," Zelos remarked with a shrug. "'Haste makes waste' and all that."

"We could split up to check out the shrines," Genis said, "but the problem with that is that most of us still don't have any weapons."

"But we do have enough weapons for about half of us," Sheena asserted, glancing around the group. "We can send one group to each shrine and give weapons to at least one person in each group."

Lloyd scratched his head in thought and shrugged. "Some of the Bokoblins yesterday were just using sticks, too," he recalled. "If all else fails, even that would be better than nothing."

"It is still early in the day," Presea observed, squinting as she checked where the sun stood in the sky to the east. "It may be prudent for those going to the closer shrines to familiarize themselves with our available weapons before setting out."

Raine thought in silence for a moment and nodded. "In that case, Lloyd, if you give your sword to Zelos, he and Sheena can get a head start toward the shrine on the mountain."

"What?" Sheena and Zelos blurted out in unison. Sheena looked wide-eyed at Zelos, but Zelos' gaze turned to the shrine in question.

"Presea," Raine continued, "you and I can go see about the one on the cliff. Genis, Regal, would you investigate the shrine in the ruins?"

Regal gave Genis an inquiring look and got an amicable shrug in response. "We'd be glad to," the former convict told Raine.

Meanwhile, Lloyd was counting on his fingers and realizing something wasn't adding up. "... Hang on," he said, "what about me and Colette?"

"I just had to ask," Lloyd grumbled as he worked.

Colette stood a few paces away from him, aiming a bow down the length of the temple and trying to emulate the form Regal had shown her. "This isn't so bad," she said cheerfully, relaxing the bowstring and turning to face him. "Learning how to do new things is fun!"

"Yeah, but this isn't new," Lloyd sighed grumpily. He compared the fletching on an arrow he had scavenged with his own handiwork; satisfied, he added the new arrow to a small stack on the floor beside him. "I know we're probably gonna need all the arrows we can get, but I'm pretty sure this is punishment for sneaking out last night."

"Maybe Professor Raine just wanted us to rest after being out so late," Colette opined before taking aim with her bow again.

At the far end of the temple, at the feet of the statue therein, three apples sat side by side on top of a marble brick. Gauging the distance once more, Colette aimed a little higher and released an arrow with a twang.

The dart arced through the air toward the apples, but Colette could tell she had missed her target even before it fell short and skittered across the floor. She felt only a pang of disappointment before happily shrugging it off and going to retrieve the arrow to try again.

"Doesn't that hurt your fingers?" Lloyd asked as she returned to her starting position.

Colette gingerly ran her thumb over the crease the bowstring was carving into her fingertips. "Maybe a little," she said honestly. "If I do it enough, though, my fingers will get stronger, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Lloyd answered, "but you also need to be careful and pace yourself. Dad always used to tell me our limits can't be broken, but you can push them and move them."

Even as he said it, a shadow seemed to pass over Lloyd's heart, and in his mind's eye he could see a stout, bearded face smiling at him warmly.

Dad...

A commotion somewhere behind him snapped him out of it. He dropped what he was doing, jumped to his feet, and spun around wielding a Boko club. No sooner had he done this than someone darted into the temple through the front doors.

Lloyd immediately lowered his club in surprise. "Genis?!"

The young warlock promptly tripped and fell, sliding facefirst across the floor. Hot on his heels, Regal dashed inside as well.

Colette winced at Genis' faceplant and trotted to his side. "Are you okay, Genis?" she asked, looking over both of them briefly. "You two weren't gone very long... What happened?"

Genis lifted his head off the floor; his face was paler than normal, his eyes wide, his breath shuddering, and his whole body trembling.

"We... almost died... just now," he panted.

Earlier...

Genis and Regal had accompanied Lloyd and Colette back to the temple when the other two groups set out so that Real could give Colette and Genis a crash course in archery. Granted, he wasn't especially skilled at it himself, but he had dabbled in the sport in years past and knew the correct form. After two hours or so, Genis could reliably hit a target from five meters away, and he and Regal went to find their shrine. As expected, they had reached their destination in a matter of minutes: a grassy area with a cluster of stone ruins, consisting of crumbling stone walls, empty doorways, and peculiar structures scattered here and there, almost resembling upside-down clay jars with ridged tendrils.

"I can see the shrine from here," Genis observed as he slid down a short dirt ridge to the grass below. Regal jumped down behind him and glanced around, alert but not to the point of being wary yet. At the moment, he was more curious of their alien surroundings than anything else.

"These don't appear to be part of any building," Regal thought aloud, walking over to one of the large pot-shaped objects. He eyed one of the tendrils extending from it and brushed his hand over it. His suspicion was confirmed by the abnormally cool feel of its surface. "... It's made of metal."

Genis paused to look the structure up and down for a moment. "That's... weird," he remarked. "Was it some kind of machine, then?"

"The other ruins we've seen so far have been wood and stone," Regal said with a nod, "so it most likely was a machine rather than a building."

"In a place like this?" Genis questioned, looking at the rest of the surrounding ruins. "But everything else seems to be made of wood and stone!"

"Hm..." Regal frowned thoughtfully and touched the Sheikah Slate at his hip. "Not everything..."

Genis, not catching his comment, could only shake his head and shrug. "Oh, well. I'll have to tell Raine about it and see what she thinks. We should probably head for the shrine and see what's up."

Regal gave a nod and put his musings away. "Yes, of course." He turned to join the young half elf and venture further into the ruins.

They didn't get far before a harsh, unnatural sound caught their attention. After a moment of frantic glancing around for the source, Regal placed it as reminding him of steel gears turning. Not a second later, he spotted it.

One of the pot-shaped objects was moving. It had no visible tendrils and seemed to stick awkwardly out of the ground, not unlike the shrines they were looking for. Patterns of bright orange light adorned part of its surface, as well, but the similarities stopped there. The upper half of the structure was rotating, causing the metallic sound. Then, it turned around fully so that a blue, ring-shaped light was facing them. Genis was immediately reminded of an eye.

"Whoa!" he cried, jumping back.

"It's..."

Before Regal could finish his thought, the orange lights on the ancient machine - what else could it possibly be? - turned a familiar sickly red color. It pivoted back and forth, the "eye" moving between the two wanderers before settling on Regal. A narrow beam of red light shined out of it, pointed straight at Regal's chest, and the machine started to make a rapid, high-pitched ticking sound.

Regal's heart skipped a beat, and his eyes widened in a moment of panic, but he lost no time. "RUN!"

He didn't give Genis the chance, however. He jumped into a sprint, scooping up the warlock and slinging him over his shoulder without missing a step, much to Genis' displeasure.

"HEY! Put me down!" Genis yelled, but Regal surged on, deeper into the ruins. He reached the end of a wall and rounded a corner-

-and a blue beam of light shot out behind him, missing him by centimeters and exploding on impact with another wall.

Regal had barely set a badly startled Genis back on his feet when the ticking sound started again.

Genis quickly spotted a second machine, staring directly at him with its single blue "eye" and marking him with its laser. "Another one?! What are these things?!"

"We have to get out of here! Back to the temple!"

The two of them ducked back around the corner from where they'd come, safe from the second machine, but back in the sights of the first.

"I'll distract it!" Regal shouted as the red light shined on him again. "You go on ahead, as quickly as you can!"

"What?! Regal, no!"

The former convict ignored Genis' protest and split off away from him, drawing the robot's attention away from Genis and their way back to the temple.

One part grudgingly, three parts frantically, Genis ran as fast as his legs could carry him, retracing his steps away from the ruins. He didn't get very far before he ran into a bit of a problem.

The dirt slope he had slid down to get here was taller than he was.

Panting, he looked left and right, looking for the quickest way up. Right was in the direction of the temple, but-

A red dot appeared on the slope before him, and his blood seemed to freeze.

There was no time to find an easier way. The only way out was up.

Genis jumped as high as he possibly could and scrambled up the wall, his hands grasping at every protruding rock they found and his feet sending cascades of dirt to the ground. He was climbing too slowly, he wasn't going to make it-

Then, just when he was sure he was too late, he felt the grass at the top between his fingers and clawed his way up and over the edge. He fell flat on the ground in his haste, and an instant later, a blue laser blasted the hillside in front of him.