It took some time for the group to climb down from the tower, not least because Hubert had been scared out of his wits the entire time. Claude had found it amusing that he had so much trouble with heights.
By the time everyone was safely on the ground, nightfall was only a couple hours away, so the group had very quickly headed to the Temple of Time.
"We're going to want to board up these windows," Cyril noted, trying to drag a pew over to a window to barricade it shut.
"Need a hand with that, little buddy?" Raphel asked.
"No," Cyril said, before trying and failing to lift the pew into place. "Yes."
Raphael helped barricade the window. Dimitri turned to Dedue. "That seems like a good idea."
"I will help them," Dedue said, and went to aid in the barricading.
Link surveyed the interior of the temple. Aside from Cyril, Raphael, and Dedue, most of the students were either discussing the events of the day, praying (Marianne and Mercedes), or otherwise not being productive.
Link thumped the base of a bokoblin spear against the ground. "I know everyone here isn't in the highest of spirits. You're all stranded in a foreign land with a demonic abomination. We're all feeling confused and scared. But we can't just give in to despair. We need to do something. Let's get these windows barricaded so we can sleep safely."
Everyone seemed to respond to that, and they started blocking off the windows.
Meanwhile, Dorothea was at a cooking pot stolen from the ambushers, cooking the mushrooms Dimitri had been collecting. According the the old man, they were Hylian Shrooms, and were not only edible but a staple of most people's diet in Hyrule. It wasn't as good of a meal as meat, but it was better than just apples.
"What I wouldn't give for a proper convoy," Claude grumbled.
"Cheer up," Flayn assured him. "For what we have on hand, I'd say we have done remarkably well."
"For what we have on hand," Monica said. "That's pretty much nothing."
"Claude, there you are! I was hoping to see you," Lindhardt called out as he noticed Link, Claude, and Flayn. The young scholar had been scouting around the Temple with Lysithea, who seemed really put out with her 'partner' as she followed beside him, "I have completed my investigation into the Temple ruins like you requested, and I have something to report."
"Do you now?" Claude raised an eyebrow, immediately turning to Lysithea with a questioning glace, "Does he actually something we can actually use this time, or is he going to show me one of those screws and gears he pulled from those big statues again?"
"No. Believe it or not, he actually has something to report this time." Lysithea admitted with a huff before jabbing a thumb at where Sylvain was banging away with a hammer at the first part of a palisade meant to replace the rudimentary barricade they had constructed, "Seriously, Claude, are you sure we should be wasting time trying to play archeologist in this old temple?"
"Hey, I share the same sentiments you do, Lysithea. But right now, I am having a really big information deficit at the moment about this place that I need patching even more than that hole in the wall there," Claude explained while gesturing to the hole in the Temple for emphasis, "Look, when we get jumped by Pig Monsters on day one, see something out of my worst nightmares barely an hour later, and then get warned by the old man that it can get dangerous after dark... it kind of makes me want to know what else is out there waiting for us."
"And you think looking around a dusty old temple ruin can help with that?" Lysithea frowned.
"Hey, if this happens to be an ancient temple worshipping that Calamity Ganon thing and we're about to be swarmed by ghosts and monsters come nightfall, I would say that would be a pretty good thing to know beforehand. Don't want the ghosties to get us, right?" Claude teased, taking pleasure in watching Lysithea somehow go both pale with fright and red with indignation at the same time.
"Are you two quite done?" Linhardt mumbled irately, while Lysithea spluttered with indignation "I do actually have something to report."
"Okay then, let's hear it." Claude nodded to Linhardt.
"Well first, I think you will be pleased to know that this temple is not one worshipping Calamity Ganon," Linhardt pointed at the large winged statue at the Temple altar, "This temple is meant to worship a deity known as 'Hylia', who seems to occupy a similar position to the Goddess in the Church of Seiros' doctrine. Far from a place of evil, this temple was apparently thought to be a sacred place of protection and light. Well, before those machines came in and laid waste to it."
"Still going on about those machines again, Linhardt?" Lysithea shook her head disapprovingly, "Look, I concede that you were right about what we thought were statues being mechanical machines, but jumping to the conclusion that they were responsible for the destruction of the temple is just jumping to conclusions."
"And I believe the arrangement of the derelict machines is very much in line my theory they were besieging the temple, which I currently postulate was filled with worshippers seeking shelter at the time," Linhardt said firmly, "As I said, this temple, the 'Temple of Time', was meant to venerate this 'Hylia'. What surviving scriptures I found on engraved in the walls point to this place being sacred ground that no 'being of malice' can enter."
"So this place is sacred ground then?" Flayn tilted her head quizzically, "I wonder if the protections in this place are similar to the ones in Garreg Mach."
"Garreg Mach is a fortress which is protected by the Knights of Seiros. This is just a temple. No way you can compare the two." Lysithea pointed out with a frown.
"I meant spiritual defenses," Flayn said. "Wards against demons and the like."
Claude smirked. "That's a good thing for you, eh, Lysithea? No ghosties around here."
"Enough with the ghosts already!" Lysithea folded her arms petulantly.
"I would have to agree with Claude, actually. The fact this place seemed to have been a refuge at one point, and the engravings I found that indicated it survived 'a time of darkness' before, suggest this place did once have formidable protections. It just wasn't enough, as you can probably tell," Linhardt extrapolated. "Still, if we could reactivate the defenses, assuming they still exist, it could be of great benefit to us."
"Try and do that," Link told them.
"I can help," Flayn offered. "I know a few things about Thaumaturgy."
"Any help is welcome," Lysithea accepted.
Claude turned his attention elsewhere. Sylvain and Ingrid had were quietly engrossed in their own conversation. From what little Claude could eavesdrop on, the pair were talking concernedly about how the political situation back in Faerghus would be with them and Prince Dimitri having gone missing. Their conversation was quite grim, and Claude wondered how his own disappearance, and that of Lorenz, Hilda, and Marianne, would affect the already fracturing Alliance.
Suddenly, Leonie and Ashe barged in through the doors, and Leonie barred it behind her. "G-G-GHOSTS! EVERYONE BACK IN THE CHAPEL," Ashe screamed in sheer terror as he sprinted through the main door of the Chapel, looking like he'd sprinted the entire way back from his scouting mission, "THE STORIES WERE TRUE, THE DEAD ARE RISING FROM THE GROUND!"
"What now?" Claude groaned, while Lysithea and Bernadetta both gave strangled screams in response to Ashe's sudden entrance. Putting his meal to one side, Claude reluctantly got to his feet and went over to the panicking scout. "Ashe, Ashe, calm down. What's going on?"
"D-DEAD RISING FROM THE GROUND! SKELETONS! SKELETONS OUTSIDE!" Ashe blabbered near incoherently to Claude's face, "SKELETONS WITH GLOWING EYES! SKELETONS WITH BOWS AND ARROWS AND SPEARS!"
"He isn't crazy," Leonie said, clearly shaken.
Just then, a skeletal creature (Link would later identify it as a Stalmoblin) smashed its club into one of the barricaded windows, forcing it open.
Hubert wasted no time in throwing a Miasma blast at the skeleton. However, Miasma being poison and the skeleton not needing to breathe, it had no effect.
"Oh no," Hubert said simply.
Dimitri then attacked the Stalmoblin with his harpoon, breaking the bones apart. "Die!"
As soon as he was done, though, the bones simply reassembled themselves. Dimitri started to back away from the skeleton, until a Fire spell hit it, destroying many of its bones. One must have been important, because the skeleton didn't get back up this time.
However, more skeletons, both human and Blin, seemed to have noticed the open window. Lysithea started to panic, and Claude was pretty sure he heard her crying for her mommy.
"That entire night was a terrifying experience," Claude stated simply. "After we took out the Stalmoblin, we managed to fix the barricade, but it was still a fight. By the time Flayn actually managed to get the anti-undead defenses up, we had been fighting for hours. Nobody felt like sleeping after that, unless you count Bernadetta fainting as sleep."
"Wait, you can't tell a story like that!" Seteth protested. "You built up the skeletons as this threat, and then only elaborated on them for a few sentences! That's not how good storytelling works!"
"I'm trying to be economical with our time," Claude told him. "Don't like it, have your own adventure and write about it."
Zelda shook her head. "Was it really necessary to talk about Lysithea, and I quote 'crying for her mommy?'"
Claude nodded his head. "Gosh, that was so funny."
"Need I remind you that you were frightened out of your wits as well?" Zelda pointed out.
"Yeah, but I got over it pretty quick once Link taught us how to get rid of Stalfos. Lysithea on the other hand got waaaaaaay worse before she finally got better. Hey, look on the bright side, Princess. As scary as it was then, we can laugh about it now. That's a good thing, right?"
"It sounds like you had quite an adventure," Seteth said once he had regained enough of his inner composure to continue, "But from the sounds of it, these 'Stalfos' were incredibly dangerous. Considering the amount of damage they could sustain, I am amazed you managed to repel them."
"Meh, actually Stalfos are pretty easy to deal with," Claude waved dismissively while helping himself to another cup of tea, "It's actually just a matter of hitting them in the right places or containing them until the sun comes up. A good perimeter usually is enough to keep them at bay."
"Really? That is completely at odds with the story you just told us." Seteth noted.
"True, but that's because we were dumb kids at the time who didn't know anything, let alone dealing with something out of a horror story. We were literally just stumbling around blind, hoping we'd be able to figure things out without dying," Claude stated frankly, "Seteth. Everyone in our class came to the Officer's Academy to learn. Some of us had a bit more of a head start than others, but at the end of the day we were a bunch of kids who hadn't yet found our own place in the world, and had no idea how to save it. I guarantee you that if we have been on our own, none of us would have made it back home. Not even Flayn, and she's been through a heck of a lot before."
Rhea and Seteth both frowned at the reminder that their secrets were out in the open, and that Flayn had been placed in such danger.
"Best continue with the story then," Rhea said.