The gauntlets seem like the most practical spoils for you to take. While they're currently too large to fit you, there are plenty of spells that can address that one way or another, and once you get used to the added weight, a set of steel gloves will synergize with your existing hand-to-hand fighting skills in interesting ways. In contrast, you've never worn a helmet in your life and don't see that changing any time soon, if ever, while the Guardian's mace is just too big and awkward.
Obtained Guardian's Gauntlets
Matched prizes tucked away in your dimensional pocket, you straighten up and look around. There's nothing of particular interest back the way you came - just the light of a Poe that is moving away from the plateau at a lazy pace - while the nearest of the three domes lies just slightly northeast of your current position, across a patch of trees. Recalling what your Prying Eyes showed you, there should be three Poes moving around in there, all of them under the canopy; thanks to the lack of birds in this area, you could easily bypass them by taking the "high road" provided by your flight spell. Your other possible route heads north from the plateau and curves around to come at the dome from the west, avoiding the trees and whatever lurks beneath them. It's patrolled by a single Poe, and you can see the eerie glow of that spirit's lantern moving about behind some cliff faces and standing stones. It seems to be headed in your general direction, moving at the typical speed of a patrolling Poe that's just following its assigned route.
OOC: If Alex were to cast Sands of Time on himself, he'd temporarily advance to "adulthood," which would counteract the Young penalty in all physical skills (but not mental ones, since he'd still be a kid on the inside). On the other hand... he'd also look a lot more like Ganondorf all of a sudden.
This one's a no-brainer. If you were strictly ground-bound, you'd have a decent reason to wander north, but as long as you've got access to flight magic, there's no need for you to be constrained by geography unless you want to be. And in this case, you don't.
You also don't particularly want that incoming Poe to see you and give chase, even for just a short distance, and so - gathering Briar close - you duck behind the boulder and settle down to wait for a couple of minutes as the lantern-bearing specter drifts in your general direction. When you hear the clatter of its lantern-chain, it occurs to you to wonder, nervously, if the Poe will react to the absence of the Guardian's tall, silent figure, or get close enough to see what's left of the greater spirit. Luck is with you, however; the Poe's presence drifts to a point you'd estimate as the northern end of the plateau, hovers for a moment, and then starts fading back in the direction from which it came.
After glancing south to confirm that the other Poe is well out of sight - and it is; you can't even make out the glow of its lantern - you take to the sky, crossing over the hilly area that separated you from the trees. You make a point of staying just above the treetops and keeping your aura in check as you move, not wanting to draw attention; the Poes below can't see you in the usual manner, but who's to say they or the other denizens might not be sensitive to spiritual or magical emanations? Speaking of which, you decide to keep your own unusual senses up and running as best you can without breaking emissions control, not wanting to be caught by surprise by, for example, a squirrel-spirit lurking in the upper branches. The real things are bad enough; Goddesses only know what a spectral version might do if it caught you trespassing.
Gained Ki Sense D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Ki Sight C (Plus)
Gained Listening D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Watchful C (Plus)
As it happens, you're able to cross the wooded area without incident. Aside from the Poes, you do sense a few animals of varying size scattered through the area below you, most of them giving off the "prey" aura you got from that spectral bunny earlier. A couple felt larger, if still skittish; deer spirits, you'd imagine. Odds are if any of those saw you, they'd be less inclined to attack than they would to run away, kicking up a fuss as they went - though recalling how that rabbit's incisors gleamed like steel, you're not completely discarding the possibility that even the non-predators of this place might attack you. Just as well you bypassed them. Plus, trying to keep up your speed without compromising stealth gave you some useful experience in the air.
Gained Flight (Magical) F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
All in all, it takes you about six, maybe seven minutes to reach the treeline. Here you pause, studying the terrain ahead. It's a moderately-large clearing, with the first of the dome-like structures placed neatly at the middle. A dozen little stone statues, each about as tall as you are, ring the main structure, which is some two-and-a-half stories tall at its highest point and covers roughly as much ground as your school gym. The architecture is moss-grown stone, with lots of ancient, weathered carvings along the ground level. No windows or other gaps in the dome are evident, except for the obvious front door - a seven-foot-tall, five-foot-wide opening in a tall archway that juts out slightly from the rest of the building. Kind of like a huge stone igloo. There are stone bowls, head-high to you, on either side of the door, matching those which are held up by the various statues; you're not close enough to see what, if anything, they contain.
All in all, it's little different from what your Prying Eyes showed you. The sole exception is on the inside of the entryway, hidden by shadow and the bulk of the arch. It's a slab of rock, filling the passage from earthen floor to worked ceiling. On its face is the symbol of the Triforce, clear of overgrowth and untouched by the passage of time.
"Oh, way to be petty, Mom," Briar grumbles as she lays eyes on the 'closed door.'
"What do you mean by 'petty,' Briar?" you ask.
"Oh, this." She waves in the direction of the dome. "Like dumping us in another dimension full of monsters to fetch a bunch of useless junk as some kind of character test wasn't bad enough, she goes ahead and locks the damn doors, too." Briar sighs. "And from the look of things, it's one of those Hylian puzzle-locks. She KNOWS I hate those things."
For some unfathomable reason, the phrase "Hylian puzzle-locks" sends a chill of foreboding down your spine. Shivering, you do your best to ignore the sensation.
"Not fond of interactive puzzles, I take it?"
"No. Mainly because the guys who make them have absolutely no consideration for anybody smaller than the average Hylian kid, if they think ahead even that far. If you're lucky, they weren't completely thorough about sealing all the little entryways to a chamber, or time and the elements have opened up a few holes, or maybe, MAYBE there are exploitable flaws in the warding magic - but otherwise, nobody my size has a hope in hell of getting past doors like this."
As Briar grumbles, that chill grows to a sense of despair - if you had to put it into words, they would be, "Oh god, why?" - as well as a heated impulse to just blow the door open. You have to shake your head to clear the feelings. Seriously, what the heck is with you all of a sudden?
Putting that question aside for now, you focus on the dome, bringing your senses to bear.
Ki Sight doesn't reveal anything beyond the vague, not-quite-life-force of the plants clinging to the dome and the grass growing around it, but when you shift to the pure spiritual spectrum, you start to learn things. The dome is solid enough that it blocks your augmented vision, but the carved slab of stone acting as its door isn't quite as thick, and from beyond it, you gain a sense of either one Guardian-level entity or several weaker ones - stronger than the Poes and most of the animal-spirits you've seen out here. The energies in question are in motion, which combined with your limited field of view makes it difficult to say anything more.
Gained Spiritual Sight D (Plus)
As for Mage Sight... whew. The dome is warded, a simple but powerful abjuration that looks like it would stop any form of cross-dimensional movement cold, and be similarly resistant to attempts to dispel its protection. A separate enchantment covers the door, inactive elements of transformation forming a pattern that gives you the feeling of an empty keyhole. This spell links the door to the two bowls that flank it, and a third magic connects those bowls to the ring of statues. The overall impression you get is that by doing something to the outer ring of bowls, you'll cause a reaction in one or both of the bowls on the archway, and that getting both of them to react will in turn open the door. Exactly what you're supposed to do, however, remains unclear.
You're tempted to cast a Spell of Divination, but really, you could probably get an idea of how to handle the bowls just by going down and looking at them more closely.
Having used up a good fifth of your mana reserves taking down the Guardian, you're not terribly keen on further spellcasting, even if the idea of blowing open the door does appeal on a fundamental level. And aside from that, pulling out an advanced Divination ritual just to figure out how to unlock a door seems a rather disproportionate response. So instead, you let yourself drift down from the treetops, quickly crossing the open space between the wood and the ring of statues. You touch down next to one of the carved figures and give it a once-over.
The statue is a fairly bland design, consisting of a humanoid figure with the usual arrangement of head, torso, and limbs, sitting cross-legged and with both arms raised to help support the stone bowl that rests atop the head. Moss and vines have overgrown it in places, and those features that aren't concealed have been worn down as if by weather, but enough detail remains to give the impression of a probably-male figure wearing long robes and a mask not unlike the triangular faceplate of the Guardian's helm. There's no writing that you can make out, nor any obvious mechanisms. As for the bowl - you hover a couple of feet off the ground to get a good angle - it's unhelpfully empty. You make a quick clockwise circuit of the ring of statues, checking each bowl in turn and each time finding nothing.
Next, you move to inspect the front door - ah. Both of the bowls here are filled to the brim with ordinary-looking water. This may or may not be significant, because the streams and the lake that your Prying Eyes passed over all contained something dark and shimmery that didn't really look like any water you've ever seen, let alone would consider safe to drink. Really, even if Navi hadn't told you that touching it would awaken the Guardians, you'd have been less than inclined to go near the stuff. This liquid, on the other hand, looks like it could have come out of your kitchen tap. Granted, you still might not drink that, but...
"It seems to me that the idea here is to transfer the water from these bowls to the ones the ring of statues are holding," you note aloud. "Does that sound right to you, Briar?"
"I'd say that's a reasonable guess."
"Okay. Now, the big question is, was the water in these bowls included in your mother's warning not to touch water in this place? And if so, does 'touch' apply to using magic to move the stuff, or merely to getting any of it directly on ourselves? Because there are some very distinct differences between that water and the stuff that's running along the riverbanks and filling the lake. Less dark, oily, rainbow sheen."
"...good question," Briar admits. "Give me a minute."
The fairy drifts towards the bowl on the left-hand side of the arch, keeping enough of a distance so that she doesn't risk touching it or even disturbing it with the beat of her wings. She examines it silently for several moments, then crosses the doorway to study its counterpart.
"Eh?"
"Briar?"
"One sec." She's hovering near the base of the right-hand bowl, and quickly zips back to a similar position near the first one. "Huh. How about that?" Briar returns to the right-hand bowl, drifting counter-clockwise around the base. "Yeah. Okay, I think I get it now."
"And that would be?"
She points at the right bowl. "This bowl is separate from the statue holding it up. That one" - she indicates the bowl to the left - "is all one piece. You have to get a bit closer to see it, but there's a gap between the bottom of this bowl and the top of the little masked guy's head. And the way these puzzle-locks are set up, if something looks like it's meant to be moved, that's because it is."
"So you're saying I can pick up that bowl and carry it around to pour the contents into all of the empty ones," you conclude.
"Looks like it, yeah."
It occurs to you that there are twelve of those empty bowls, and you don't know exactly how much liquid you need to pour into any of them to solve this puzzle - or even if you're supposed to fill a particular bowl, or a group of them, while leaving the rest empty. It could even be some combination of the two... or you could be overthinking this. But then again, maybe you're not...?
Shaking your head, you follow Briar's example and move up to the door, so you can get an up-close and personal view of the two stone bowls. Leaning down slightly and looking back and forth between them for comparison, you see that it's as Briar said; there is a small gap just above the right-hand statue's head that isn't present in its companion. You can also make out a difference in the hands of the two figures and how they hold their respective bowls, with the one on your right having its fingers open just far enough so that somebody could reach down and lift the entire bowl up and out. Studying the bowl in question, you conclude that while you'd need to use both hands to keep it steady, the weight should be perfectly manageable.
There's also no helpful writing or pictograms, just more faded-out detailing on the statues and some moss.
Gingerly, you reach down to grasp the bowl and give it the slightest of upwards tugs, half-expecting to hear a siren or a spectral howl go off. Nothing of the sort happens, and you relax slightly, going ahead and pulling the bowl completely free of its resting place - while still being careful not to spill or come into direct contact with any of the contents. Turning about, you head for the nearest of the statues in the outer ring, which as it happens stands directly in front of the dome's sole entryway.
Here, you pause. "How much should I pour, Briar?"
"You might as well fill it up," your companion replies. "The builders of these things like using pressure-sensitive switches that only activate when somebody's dragged or dropped a literal ton of weight on top of them. I can't see this being much different."
Not doubting your friend, you go ahead and start pouring. Again, you are careful to try and avoid spills or splashing.
As the bowl before you fills, you frown. The one in your hands... isn't getting any lighter. You pause in mid-pour to check, and find that the bowl is still as full of water as when you started. Calling up Mage Sight for a moment, you pick up an aura of Conjuration and Water Elementalism, mostly masked by the other enchantments worked into the stone. Huh. Neat.
"Something wrong, Alex?"
"No, nothing," you reply, going back to pouring. "We just seem to have found a Bowl of Endless Water, or something similar."
"Oh. Well, don't get too attached. Odds are you won't be able to take it out of here."
Your reply is cut off by a distinct, heavy "click" from the statue in front of you, which settles some six inches deeper into the turf with a raspy slither of stone against stone.
"One down, eleven to go," Briar says.
You proceed to fill the remaining bowls, making a clockwise circuit of the dome as you work. It takes less than fifteen minutes all told, and that only because you're still taking care not to spill or splash anything. Each statue reacts in the same way as the first one, and when you finish filling the last of them, you hear that click-and-slither combo coming from the direction of the doorway. Looking over, you find that the statue that still has its bowl is sinking like the rest of them - but the door has not yet opened. Taking the obvious hint, you return your handy bowl to its original place, and sure enough, the final statue settles.
Gained Puzzling F
The Triforce symbol on the door glows faintly golden, the light spreading out to cover the entire surface... and then the stone is gone, leaving the passage open. What you can see of the dome's interior is dim, but with the Spell of Low-Light Vision you cast earlier still active, you can see well enough. Something is off, though. It looks like the dome is bigger on the inside. By how much, you can't say.
Although you know you're going to have to go into that yawning portal eventually, there's nothing saying that you have to charge in blindly. If anything, there are good arguments to the contrary.
"Tell me, Briar," you ask, staring into the dim passageway. "What sort of places are normally found behind Hylian puzzle-locks?"
"Ancient ruins, mostly," she replies. "Not quite as twisty and mazelike as, say, that Labyrinth I've heard about, but they usually have a lot more monsters and additional puzzle-locks on the inside." Briar pauses. "And treasure, too, but I have a feeling Mom may have skipped that part. Like she said, Great Fairies don't go around handing out freebies."
You nod. "Traps, too, I'm guessing?"
"Oh, yeah."
With that confirmation, you give the threshold a detailed inspection. Visually, it looks normal. Magically, you're picking up lingering traces of the vanished door, which give no indication that it's set to reappear at any point. You also get another read on the Abjuration that blocks out teleportation; while it's as strong as ever from the outside, now that you're able to see into the area it protects, you can tell that it won't prevent an outbound teleportation. So if you really need to escape this dome, you can. That's nice to know. As you extend your Mage Sense into the chamber, you pick up very subtle but very potent manipulations of local space-time. As well-contained as the energies involved are, they're still giving you a headache, one which is only worsened as you try to make sense of how the dome's interior dimensions have been warped. You're unable to get a clear reading on how much bigger the structure is on the inside than it should be, save that it's definitely got enough room to hold your house - which is impressive, considering that it doesn't look much bigger than your living room from out here.
Gained Mage Sense C
Your Ki Sight doesn't turn up anything new, but with the door out of the way, you're able to get a clearer reading from your spiritual senses. What you were picking up before proves not to be the single Guardian-class enemy that you were worried about, but rather at least three roaming spirits stronger than the Poes you've seen wandering the Silent Realm, and another dozen relatively minor entities. That's just an estimate - all the signatures you're picking up are in motion, and the little ones are hard to distinguish from one another or against the background "noise" of their bigger, stronger neighbors.
You also detect nothing about the archway that makes your inherited Gerudo senses suspect a trap. Granted, you could be wrong, but you really don't think you are.
Gained Trap Sense F
Satisfied, you deactivate your active extrasensory powers, suppress your aura as far as you can, and draw your sword so that its mild aura-drain can further screen you against detection. Gesturing wordlessly to Briar to stay close, quiet, and take similar steps to conceal her presence, you let out a soft breath and enter the dome.
Gained Ki Concealment E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mana Concealment E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Concealment E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Stealth D (Plus)
It takes you ten short, light-footed steps to reach the other end of the dark passage, where you pause in the interior archway to study the room beyond. As expected, it could indeed accommodate your entire house, and also a fair chunk of your front and back yards - you estimate the chamber to be some eighty-five feet across, with the same basic shape as the structure that contains it. The high point of the arched ceiling actually isn't that far above you; instead, aside from a broad stone walkway that starts just beyond the passage you're in and runs along the dome's interior, the floor simply falls away to a depth of twenty feet. The space below is laid out in a series of concentric circles, each five feet across, alternating between open walkways and fifteen-foot tall stone walls - four of the former, separated by three of the latter, with a single pillar at the center of the dome that rises clear to the ceiling. Glowing entities that look like a meaner class of Poe and carry scythes instead of lanterns patrol the "passages," one to each, moving clockwise in the outermost and third circles, and counter-clockwise in the second and innermost fourth circles. While no Poes patrol the upper walkway, you can see a lot of eerily translucent Keese flitting about, shedding electric blue sparks with each beat of their wings.
Three things really stand out. First is that the floor of each of the passages down there is rotating in the opposite direction that its patrolling Poe flies, fast enough that you'd need to jog or use your flight spell to avoid getting dragged right into the waiting blade of the nearest specter. Secondly, you can't see any obvious gaps in the walls, at least not from your current position. Finally, along the top of each stone wall run two coppery rails, all of them visibly crackling with the same blue-white energy given off by the Keese-ghosts, which leaps from one rail to its neighbors with alarming frequency. There is no obvious pattern to the discharges, save that none of them appear to cross the outermost passage - and when they hit one of the bats, far from being hurt, it glows brightly and moves faster for some time thereafter, before fading back to normal.
Most annoyingly, you can't see anything that looks like a quest item.
Given the crowd of spooky-looking, electrically-crackling Keese flitting about the open air of the dome, a Spell of Energy Resistance strikes you as a good investment. You go ahead and cast that, attuning the magic so that it will shield you against the various manifestations of the Lightning Element - everything from irritating but harmless static electricity to castle-rending thunderbolts. The spell will last for about eighty minutes, which you figure ought to be enough time to clear this dome and at least its nearest neighbor.
Gained Resist Electricity Buff
Sensible precaution taken, you raise your ki, letting your aura bleed out as you augment your already magically-enhanced abilities.
Gained Ki Enhancement D (Plus) (Plus)
The glow of your awakened aura attracts the attention of the nearest of the batlike monsters, and while you try to use your increased speed to form a spiritually-charged Ki Blast like the one you used against the Guardian, there simply isn't time to get the job done. Given the choice of letting your attack off early and incomplete, or allowing the Keese to get in a free attack against you, the only answer you're willing to accept is to attack first - which you do.
The good news is that by striking at point-blank range, you've given the Keese no room to dodge. It takes your Ki Blast head-on, right between its bulging yellow eyes, and lets out a keening wail as it is knocked out of the air and falls to the floor below. The abrupt descent doesn't appear to hurt the creature much, if at all, but the attack definitely had an impact, as the Keese's body is no longer crackling with electrical energy.
Although the scythe-wielding Poes do not react to the sudden dropping-in of the Keese, several of its compatriots do, wheeling about and closing in on your position with high-pitched aggressive shrieks. Three at once is too many for your typical Ki Blast, but if you split the power-
Gained Ki Shot F
-you're able to send a brief barrage of bullet-sized ki projectiles shooting from your fingertips at the incoming group of Keese. Individually, these Ki Shots lack the punch of your Ki Blast, and it takes three consecutive hits just to knock one of the bats from the air - and you only manage to hit one of them that many times, merely "winging" the other two. Fortunately, even those light hits are enough to disrupt the little monsters' snapping electrical auras. That still leaves two Keese coming at you, but a quick swipe of your sword deals with both of them. The Blessed Sword barely touches the two Keese before they dissipate into clouds of dark energy.
Gained Crowd Control F (Plus) (Plus)
You hold your position, checking the situation. With the exception of the two bats that you knocked down - and which you put paid to, one after the other, as they recover and try to attack you again - none of the remaining Keese in the room appear to have taken notice of your attack. Their vision kind of sucks, as you recall, despite how large their eyes are, and while their hearing is perfectly fine, they're no more intelligent than the Poes. Less so, in some ways. Moving steadily along the walkway that circles the room, you're able to clear out the remaining Keese in relatively quick succession, conserving some additional energy by using Ki Shots to disrupt their auras and draw them into range of your blade. It's an amazingly painless process, and not terribly expensive, either.
After the last of the Keese is put down, you hold position and wait several minutes to see what, if anything, will happen next. Vague concerns about additional bats appearing or the Poes finally getting their act together are put to rest when, after nearly five minutes, the only thing that has happened is a whole lot of nothing.
Somewhat reassured that no new monsters are going to leap out of hiding, you take a minute to observe the Poes and how they are moving along the turning floors. In doing so, you notice that there are archway-shaped discolored spots along each of the stone walls, every forty-five degrees or so on the outer faces of the walls, but almost entirely absent on the inner faces. In fact, from where you stand, some hundred degrees clockwise of the entrance, you're only able to see two such patches of pale grey against the darker material of the walls: one just forty-five degrees counterclockwise of the entrance, in the second ring; and one a hundred and eighty degrees from the entrance, in the third ring.
You squint at the blotches suspiciously. "Do those look like concealed passages to you, Briar?" you ask, pointing them out.
"Huh? Oh. Yeah, they kind of do. Good eye, Alex."
Gained Looking C (Plus) (Plus)
"Want me to check for the other two?" Briar continues.
"The hidden passages can wait," you reply. "It's not like they're going anywhere, right? At the moment, I'm more concerned about those Poes. Personally, I find the idea of leaving scythe-wielding undead at my back just a bit disturbing."
"I find the idea of scythe-wielding undead in general just a bit disturbing," Briar notes wryly. "But yeah, given the choice, I'd rather not have them sneaking up behind me, either. So, time to do more violence?"
"And for a bit of sneakiness," you add, before quickly explaining your plan to use Doppelgangers to distract the Poes so you can stab them with your spiritually-charged sword.
Briar frowns. "I'm not sure that I like this plan, Alex."
"Why not?"
"I saw what you were trying to do with those spiritually-charged Ki Blasts earlier. No offense, but your technique sucks, and that's with manipulating the basic energy. Do you really think you can imbue it into an object AND pull off another technique while you're building or holding the charge?"
"...maybe?"
"Or maybe not," Briar says. "Besides which, your Doppelganger may not work in this situation. It's a visual illusion, and Poes don't exactly see the world the same way we do - more to the point, they can actually see souls. I'll grant you, an illusion made up of life-energy would be more likely to distract a Poe than a magical one, but if these spooks see you at the same time that they see one of your clone images, I can't imagine they wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
It's your turn to frown. "They can really see souls?"
"They sort of ARE souls, themselves, just more messed up and less intangible than most."
Gained Parazoology E
"Well, that's a problem."
"Eh, not really," Briar responds. "If you want to be sneaky, why not just hang out up here out of the ring and take your time charging up your sword until you know you've got it right? And then, when the Poe goes by below, just drop down and smack him one when his back is turned?"
...that could work. And if you were to hang out in the hidden doorways between the rings, you could probably do much the same to each of the remaining Poes in turn.
Maybe it's the simplicity of this new plan, or the reduced energy costs associated with it, that make it so appealing. Or it could just be the fact that it's Briar's plan, and she has yet to steer you wrong. Whichever is the case, you do not hesitate to drop your original intended course of action in favor of hanging out on the upper walkway and taking all the time necessary to properly charge your sword with spiritual energy before leaping down after the nearest Poe.
It turns out that imbuing the Blessed Sword with the excess energy of your soul is the easy part; the hard part is keeping the sword from absorbing that power until you're ready to strike. You actually have to recharge your weapon at one point, after it "eats" a good third of the spiritual essence you put into it, causing the rest to break up and diffuse into the environment. It's a good thing the Poe in the outer ring below you was on the other side of the room at that point, or it probably would have picked up on the source of the spirit energy and come to investigate. As it is, the ghost slows in its patrol and begins looking around with an unmistakable air of puzzled curiosity as it draws nearer to your position, forcing you to pull back out of line-of-sight and hope that it doesn't decide to investigate.
Through the fading haze of soulstuff, you can almost sense the ghost's wary interest as its aura pauses and shifts back and forth, as if looking around.
Then it starts to get closer.
Silently cursing, you take a stance and raise your blade as quietly as you can. As soon as you can see enough of the Poe's hooded visage over the rim of the walkway to be worth hitting, you swing, your sword flaring with ethereal light and power as it slices into its target. The Poe lets out a shriek and lurches backwards, clearly stung by the surprise attack, but not wholly disabled; you can see it raising its own weapon to a guard position, eyes burning hatefully in the shadows of its hood.
Gained Sneak Attack F
Gained Sword Beam F
Gained Sword Training E (Plus) (Plus)
Plan B appears to have been less than totally successful. That said, the Poe's reaction to your spiritual presence suggests that Plan A might have gone even worse. Well, there's no time to worry about it now; the ghost is hurt, angry, and armed.
From inherited memories, a few lessons with Lu-sensei, and brief observations at the world tournament, you know that when your opponent has a weapon whose design boils down to "blade on a long stick," one of the best places to be relative to said adversary is right in his face, where he can't bring the deadliest end of his armament to bear easily - if at all. Given that and the fact that you've already scored a blow on this Poe, you opt to press your attack, charging forward sword-point first.
It's a good plan, and probably would have succeeded if not for two things. Firstly, the Poe's retreat from your surprise attack has taken it far enough back from the walkway to be out of your reach unless you take to the air after it. Secondly, your flight abilities are currently less-than-impressive - certainly not up to the task of mid-air combat, and especially not with a creature for whom flight is as (un)natural as (not) breathing.
This realization hits you just as your leading foot leaves the walkway and comes down on empty air, driven home by the sudden shift from solid stone to the less substantial support of a spell. In an instant, you recall just how badly your earlier test run of fighting in the air went, and that when you didn't even have an enemy floating within striking distance. A part of you wants to abort the attack run immediately, lest you get slashed by that wickedly curved scythe-blade, but another part recognizes that if you try to back off or dodge at this point, you'll be fighting your established momentum, making yourself almost as easy a target as if you were to go tumbling wildly through space along all three axes. The only alternative that comes to mind in the time you have left is to charge straight ahead and try to bodycheck the Poe - or perhaps stab it.
The Poe's eyes have narrowed, and it is hefting its scythe as if to swing. From the look of things, the blow will come at you from your left side.
You've already committed yourself to a charging attack; you may as well see it through.
"Farore," you half-pray, half-curse as you bring your blade up, pointy end aimed at the Poe, "please don't let me screw this uuuup!"
That last part comes out as a last-instant attempt at a battle-cry, as your forward momentum and the added thrust of your flight spell carries you over the edge of the walkway, into the air, and straight at the Poe. The ghost's eyes bulge wide with alarm, and it tries to backpedal - or whatever the equivalent is for a legless floating entity - even as it swings its weapon.
Gained Flight (Magical) E
Time seems to slow down. Out of the corner of your left eye, you can see the scythe coming closer, its jagged, curved blade gleaming ominously in the dome's dim interior. Ahead of you, you can see the tip of your Blessed Blade thrusting forward, shining brightly as it seeks its enemy's ectoplasmic essence. The Poe's attempt at a retreat is slowed to the proverbial crawl, too much energy spent on getting in its attack for the creature to really evade your charge, which in comparison is moving along at something close to a walk. You lose sight of the scythe-blade as your course carries you inside its arc, yet you can still sense the threat at your back, even as your own weapon draws nearer and nearer to its target.
And then there is a sudden shock of resistance, as the top two inches of your Blessed Blade strike home - not as intense as when you struck the Guardian's armored body, but the questing tip of your sword has definitely made contact with the unliving essence that lies beneath the Poe's tattered shroud. While it feels kind of like stabbing runny Jello, there is still a definite sense of corporeality, and that sense is backed up by the abrupt high-pitched squeal that issues from beneath the dark hood.
At the same time, the haft of the scythe smacks into your left shoulder. The impact is nothing to write home about, so much of its force absorbed by your still-active Mage Armor and Magic Vestment that what remains to make contact feels more like a pillow thrown at you by your sister. That said, you are keenly aware that the cruel blade of the scythe is now directly behind you, just below neck level - and worse, you are on the inner edge of the cutting crescent. All the Poe needs to do is pull back, hard, and you'll be in a world of hurt.
Ducking or dodging would just give the Poe a chance to recover and pull back to a proper scything distance, you decide, and while you're quite strong for your age, you don't care for the idea of trying to wrestle a weapon away from something possessing the strength of the undead - no matter how quasi-corporeal the entity in question may look. And as far as defending goes, really, the best way to stop an enemy's attack from hitting you is to hit him first.
So you press the attack, pursuing the Poe as it flinches back, shrieking, from your first strike. Not satisfied with merely running the scythe-wielding specter through, you call upon your ki and launch yourself forward, sword-first, in a Body Flicker.
You're not entirely sure what happens next. You have the usual sense of the world blurring around you, followed almost instantaneously by a cold, grimy, semisolid pressure against most of your upper body - and then there is spinning, unholy screeching, bright blue flashes, a building sense of nausea, more flashes, and finally, IMPACT.
When your head stops spinning, you find yourself smashed up against what looks to be the far side of the dome, upside-down, backwards, and slightly clockwise from your original mid-air stance. Your head and body ache where they've collided with the stone surface, and for some reason, small tongues of electricity are dancing along the length of your shining blade, which you somehow managed not to drop during that period of utter confusion.
A red glowing figure appears before you. "Alex? Alex! Are you okay?"
"Define, 'okay.'"
"Uninjured enough for me not to feel guilty about slapping you for doing stupid things," Briar replies promptly.
"...no. I'm never going to be okay ever again."
"Nice try, buster." And she cuffs you about your right ear, a flick of force that you almost don't feel through all the aching. "What the hell was that?!"
"I'm... not entirely sure," you admit, willing your flight spell to slowly pull you away from the wall and start getting you correctly oriented with regards to the local gravity. "What did you see?"
"You charged the Poe at superspeed, pretty much drove the whole length of your sword through the thing, then smashed into it bodily and started spinning every which way while flying across the the dome. You got blasted by those charged rails down there three or four times, which was too much for the Poe on top of everything else, and THEN you hit the wall."
You compare the fairy's account to your confused tangle of impressions. It seems to fit. Good thing you had that Spell of Electrical Resistance up, or you'd be a crispy critter right about now. Too bad your other protective spells didn't do much to ward you against the impact, but then again, they're basically the magical equivalent of body armor - useful at stopping or minimizing weapon damage, but rather less so when you go around running into walls at high speed. And they'd have done precisely nothing against the acceleration and abrupt deceleration you just put yourself through.
Gained Pain Threshold E
"Note to self," you sigh, as you straighten up. "No more rocket-powered flight for a while."
"And for 'a while,' see 'ever again,'" Briar notes.
Ignoring that, you look around. There's no sign of the shrouded humanoid figure you were fighting, nor of its scythe. You were kind of hoping to loot that, but either it fell into one of the rotating pathways and got whisked out of sight, or it discorporated along with its wielder when the latter died. Again. Somewhat more worrisome are the remaining Poes, which have halted their original patrol paths to float there, still, silent, and staring ominously at you. They're still within their respective rings, suggesting that they either can't or won't leave their territories - but that does nothing to reduce the creepiness factor.
Before you do anything else, you call on your Spell of Flight to carry you down into the now Poe-free outer ring, and then hold you steady about a foot off the turning ground. The surviving spirits turn as one, tracking your movements right up to the point where you dip below the level of the encircling wall. Although you've given up the proverbial high ground for the moment, you feel it a small price to pay to get out from under those lifelessly staring eyes. Brrr.
Once you're out of undead sight - and hopefully out of their minds as well - you take a minute to recover from your unplanned high-speed collision. Fortunately, your injuries are no worse than bruises, if widespread ones, so Briar doesn't have to burn too much of her mana or use up one of her limited cure-alls in order to top you off. It also gives the fairy the opportunity to get in a few remarks about "driver's license," "air bags," and "crash test dummy," all of them less-than-flattering towards you.
After the patch job, you have a go at running through a basic sword routine, to see if the crash jarred loose anything really important. This part doesn't go all that well at first, as your flying abilities aren't really up to keeping you steady while you swing several pounds of steel around at speed; you have to slow down quite a bit just to avoid wobbling. On the other hand, testing your range of movement does not require speed, just the ability to complete specific motions - all of which you're able to achieve, if five times slower than you'd need with your feet on stable ground. A follow-up test of your evasive skills goes more quickly, since they are reliant on your spell under the current circumstances. Again, the results are satisfactory.
Finally, suppressing your aura, you will your magic to carry you up just high enough over the wall so that you can peer down into the next of the rings and see if the Poes have returned to their previous routes.
Cold crimson corpse-like eyes meet your gaze. Not only has this Poe not resumed its patrol, it's actually moved itself as close as it can get to your current location, without running afoul of the electrical "ceiling."
Somehow, that five feet of stone between you and this scythe-wielding spook suddenly doesn't seem NEARLY thick enough.
Shivering, you drop back down behind the wall.
"Okay," you say quietly. "It would appear that at least one of these Poes has an attention span more akin to a well-trained guard dog than a carefree puppy, and that it also possesses x-ray vision, sonar, or some similarly unfair sensory ability - because it's. Right. Through. There." You point at the wall.
Briar regards the stone surface for a moment, and you swear you see her aura shudder. "Okay, creepy ghost watchman is really damn creepy. Suggestions?"
"Well, given how well the last attempt went, I'm less than eager to try fighting the remaining three."
"I'm in full support of this idea so far!"
"I thought you might be. So, what do you think about the idea of using a Spell of Undead Command to try and hijack your mother's spectral guard-dogs?"
"...Necromancy's not my thing, so I might be remembering this wrong, but doesn't that spell have a tendency to fail against spooks that are able to think? Even slightly? Because I have to say, those lantern-waving Poes outside may not be going to win any awards for scholarship anytime soon, but they're still brighter than your average brain-rotted zombie."
"Point," you admit glumly. There's a difference between "stupid" and "mindless," and now that Briar's reminded you of it, the terms of the spell you've been considering are that any non-mindless undead can resist your attempt to control it, especially if you tell it to do something that "goes against its nature." That term is annoyingly vague, but given that these Poes were explicitly chosen and set here as guardians, it's entirely possible that they might be able to refuse an order to simply let you pass or to otherwise abandon their "duty." It's not guaranteed, however; your plan could still work.
After some further thought, you decide to go with Command Undead, taking steps to try and up the potency of the effect. Ritual casting is a must, and it would help if you could find some way to invoke Din, with whom you currently have the best relationship of the three Golden Goddesses.
Perhaps due to the involvement of the living dead, an idea comes to mind involving - of all things - a music video that you've seen on TV a couple of times over the years. It's from the early Eighties, well before your time, but it pops up like clockwork around Halloween and in those end-of-year countdowns of "the best music videos of all time." There's a dance routine involved in the video, and to your understanding, Din is big on that sort of thing...
"Briar, when it comes to dancing, does Din have any particular preferences?"
The fairy gives you a suspicious look. "Why do you want to know about this now?"
"Humor me?"
Briar sighs. "Din's more about the energy of a dance than fancy footwork, although she appreciates that, too. For the most part, as long as it's got a percussive beat and the people involved give it their all, she's satisfied. Waltzes and the like are supposed to be too restrained to really get her interest, unless you've got a situation where two people are dominating the floor - either because they're throwing tradition and the rules to the winds in order to enjoy themselves, or they're just that good at dancing."
You nod.
"That having been said," Briar continues firmly, "I can tell you that, as a goddess of dance, Din expects dances in her honor to be Really Good." You can hear her emphasizing the capitals. "As in, performed by people who have trained for years specifically for that purpose."
"...and I'm nowhere near that good," you conclude.
"Not remotely." For someone so small, it's remarkable how much weight Briar is able to lodge into those two words.
You sigh, but then nod. It's not like you even remember what half of the dance from that video looked like, let alone have the ability to perform it. And you're shy about twenty back-up zombies and a backbeat, anyway. Ah, well. Better to be warned of your shortcomings in this field ahead of time, rather than in the middle of a performance where the main critic might be inclined to smite you. Maybe, in the future, you can take the time to improve your non-combative footwork.
Gained Dancing F
For now, though - ghosts.
You levitate upwards until you can see all three of the rings, and their occupants. As you'd half-suspected after seeing the first Poe, the other two are also locked on to you, hovering as close as they can. Seen from above like this, you could draw a line from yourself to the center of the room and hit all three of them. The idea of doing so - with, for example, fire - has some appeal, but you shelve it and decide to go with your previous plan. With an extended chant, invoking powers of Shadow, Spirit, and Necromancy, you begin building the mana necessary for an empowered casting of the spell. Two minutes later, you feel the accumulated energy resonate in that specific pattern that tells you the spell is ready to be released - and you let it go, aiming for the nearest Poe and uttering a single word:
"OBEY."
Gained Necromancy D
The Poe flinches so violently in the face of your unleashed magic that it drops its scythe. The loud clang of the weapon falling to the stone floor immediately draws the ghost's attention, and it lets out a sound of dismay as the rotating floor carries the scythe away. What follows is a humorous moment of the ghost trying to catch up to its "stolen" weapon and not quite succeeding, before the Poe stops, turns around, and heads in the opposite direction of the turning stones, to meet the scythe coming the other way and snatch it up. The Poe brandishes its weapon triumphantly - and then goes back to patrolling.
"...did it work?" Briar finally asks.
"I think so," you answer. "At the very least, that Poe doesn't seem to regard me as an 'enemy' anymore. I'd have to talk to it to be sure."
"Well, then?"
You clear your throat, and then call down. "Excuse me! You, in the outer ring!"
The Poe pauses in its patrol and looks up at you. Some of the menace from before is absent, but on the whole, it's not really any less creepy.
"Er, yes, you. May I pass?"
The Poe says nothing. Instead, it shrugs and goes about its business.
"...was that a yes?" you ask.
The Poe doesn't answer.
You look at Briar. "Did it even understand what I was saying? For that matter, what language do Poes speak?"
"Beats me," your fairy friend says with a shrug of her own. "I've never heard of anybody actually trying to talk to one of them before. Most people either run for their lives or go for their weapons at the first sight of the troublemakers."
Well, that's unhelpful. Still, language issues aside, the terms of the Spell of Undead Command are that the target will not attack you while the magic lasts, which it can do for a full week at your current level of ability. That's more than sufficient for your purposes; all you really need to do is enchant the other two Poes and move through the little course to the center of the chamber.
The questions of spectral linguistics can wait for another time. You're in the middle of a fetch quest; you should focus on getting it taken care of first, not letting yourself get sidetracked by every little thing.
Ritually casting Command Undead to deal with the two remaining Poes takes another six minutes, all told - the one nearest the center of the room finds the mental strength to push aside your influence and flies into a scythe-swinging frenzy, sending non-electrical sparks flying from the stone wall as it hacks away in a mad attempt to get at you for messing with its mind. The display ends quickly enough when your next spell takes hold, but it leaves you more than a little uneasy at the prospect of flying past the Poes as you navigate this miniature maze. Still, it needs to be done.
Flying towards the archway-shaped discoloration in the first of the circling walls, you briefly bring up your Mage Sight, confirming the presence of a low-powered but masterfully-woven spell of Illusion. It's purely visual in nature, and even if it wasn't, the fact that you know it's there and what the passage would look like without it would have taken the majority of the potency from the magic. You have no trouble simply floating across the outer edge of the spell, through the almost cheerfully lit five-foot "passage" beyond it, and then out the false image of a wall on the other side.
The nearby Poe glances your way and gives you an odd little salute with its scythe, then ignores you.
You can't help but let out a sigh of relief. Briar does likewise.
From there, the maze is child's play. Even the briefly-frenzied Poe at the center just waggles one finger at you in a scolding manner before it gets on with its patrol. This leaves you facing a stone pillar that runs from the floor clear up to the top of the dome, with a ring of electrified copper circling it some twenty feet up and spitting sparks at the matching rail that runs along the top of the nearest wall. Most of the pillar is made of the same bland grey stone as the walls, but there is a section of it, shoulder-high to you, that bears a circular discolored patch identical in all but shape to the illusion covering the concealed passages.
You look at Briar.
Briar looks at you.
The Poe, passing on its latest circuit, ignores both of you.
"For the sake of argument," you say to Briar, in a tone of voice that makes it clear this is pure hypothetical speculation, "if I were to reach out and stick my hand in that hole in the wall, what do you suppose would happen?"
"Something that would require me to heal you," Briar replies. "A lot."
You nod. "That's what I was thinking."
Turning back to face the pillar, you study the circle in stone intently. You can sense more Illusion magic woven about it, and when you bring up your Mage Sight, the image of the off-colored circle wavers out, revealing a moderately-large alcove set into the pillar. It's about a foot across and half that deep, like the better part of half a sphere carved out of the mass of the stone.
Gained Mage Sight C (Plus)
Resting atop a small shelf in that not-so-hidden recessed space is a flat triangle of golden-colored stone. There are no markings on it, and it gives off no magical signature that you can detect, but nonetheless, you suspect you've found the first of Navi's three "keys." You could just reach in and take it, but even though you can't sense anything that suggests danger, after facing the - shudder - puzzle door, the swarm of Keese, the Poes, the lightning rails, the moving floors, and the hidden doors, it just seems too convenient that the last thing keeping you from your prize would be an illusion so simple that you don't even need to break it to beat it.
Sensing no life-force or spiritual essence hidden in or around the small space, you nonetheless draw your sword, wave Briar back to a safe distance, and then poke the tip of the blade through the illusion.
In rapid succession, there is a whoosh, a crackle, and a metallic clang, as an electrified scythe blade drops from the top of the depression to rebound off the edge of your sword. Through the snapping energy discharges into your weapon, your hands register only the faintest hair-raising tingle, and your Goddess-given sword isn't even scratched by the impact. Despite that, you can't help but stare at the tripped trap that could very easily have taken your hand off, defensive spells or no, and mentally remind yourself (again) that "fairy" does not equal "nice," no matter what Disney would have everybody believe.
Gained Trap Sense F (Plus)
Although you're pretty sure now that there are no further surprises waiting, you decide to fish out the stone triangle using the tip of your sword. Just in case. As the item passes out of the area of the illusion and falls towards your waiting hand, your still-active Mage Sight abruptly registers a magical signature - Abjuration, Conjuration, and Summoning, all woven together in a pattern that is quite obviously incomplete.
Gained Nayru's Favor F (Plus)
Gained Stone Triangle
"One down," Briar notes, studying the object in your hand. "Shall we get out of here, then?"
"Let's," you agree, tucking the triangle away in one pocket.
You backtrack out of the maze and the dome with no further issue, and then pause, wondering where to go next. One of the remaining domes lies to the northeast, and you basically have a direct route there - across an open field patrolled by several Poes. The more secure, slower route would be to fly north first, over or through the trees that lie that way, then cut east when you're closer to the dome. You could also head directly east to the other dome, but that path would take you across the open, haunted grassland, and then over or through a wood that you know to have a large number of bird-spirits hanging about. Or you could skip the other domes, backtrack along the route you took to get to this one, and then head south, either to investigate that small lake or the standing stones.
Having retrieved the first of the relics that you need to escape the Silent Realm from one of the three domes, it seems fairly likely that the remaining items will be located in the other structures - and since you can reach one of those by following a route that doesn't appear to have any spirits of any kind watching the sky, why would you go any other way? Yes, it'll add a little travel time, but you've got twenty hours and change left to work with; another half-hour isn't going to kill you, or run your array of support spells down.
So you head north, at first flying low over the grass, past the ring of water-bearing statues and across the small field to the treeline, then - slowly - along the tops of the trees, just out of reach of the highest branches. The canopy is thick enough that you can't see the ground, or the glow of any Poe-borne lantern flames - and more importantly, if any of the specters carrying those lanterns are in the area, they can't see you, either. This and the lack of birds or small animal spirits makes for a pretty dull flight, and you find yourself wondering what exactly is to be found down there... but you shake your head and stay focused on the task at hand. Not too long after that, you make a long, slow turn to the right, heading for the dome that now lies directly east and ahead of you.
As you get closer, you're able to determine that this dome is almost a mirror-image of the first, but for two details. Firstly, as the trees below you thin out, they're replaced not by grass, but by a dusty field that soon turns to rock and sand. Secondly, the two bowl-bearing statues that flank the dome's sole entrance do not hold water, but fire; you can see them burning steadily, the orange-hued light surprisingly cheerful amidst the greenish haze that overlies the entirety of the Realm.
"One of Din's places?" you say aloud.
"Looks like it," Briar agrees from your pocket.
Except for a dull glow to the south that's probably a Poe, and some flittering shadows on the edge of sight to the southeast that might be a flock of birds, there are no creatures in sight. As such, you feel no hesitation about setting down in front of the dome. The doorway does indeed appear to be identical to the first dome, aside from the contents of the bowls... or perhaps braziers is the correct word, given that they hold fire? Floating over to the nearest statue in the outer ring, you peer down into the top and find that these bowls are just as empty as the first set, but when you approach the door and inspect the statues, you discover that neither of these bowls can be separated from its bearer. At least, not without resorting to considerable force, which would probably shatter the vessel anyway.
Not that the idea of working great and terrible violence on one of these treacherous, nigh-incomprehensible Hylian puzzles isn't appealing...
You let out a breath and get a firm grip on your emotions. You're not sure what it is about these puzzle-locks that keeps setting you off, but you seriously doubt that throwing the magically-powered equivalent of a two-year-old's temper tantrum is how to go about solving them. Not to mention it would be embarrassing as hell: Briar would never let you live it down; and she'd tell all your close friends as soon as you got home, which would bring on even more shame.
Besides, it seems pretty obvious that the solution to this puzzle is to light fires in all of the braziers in the outer ring. The bowls may be devoid of anything resembling fuel, and there may be nothing in the immediate vicinity that could fill that role, but the nearby forest is an abundant supply of wood. All you need to do is scrounge up some loose sticks, break them down into enough kindling to fill all the bowls, and then light 'em up. It probably wouldn't even take you more than thirty minutes - forty-five at the outside.
As you turn to face the forest, however, it occurs to you that using your wits and the tools to be found in your environment is a fairly cerebral approach to solving the problem before you. Not that there's anything wrong with using your brain to beat a problem, but it's how a normal human or a Hylian would probably handle this situation.
You are not exactly normal. You have magic. You have POWER. And isn't using Power to open up a chamber that seems very likely to be dedicated to the Goddess of Power how you should be going about this?
On that note, you could easily modify a Spell of Continual Flame to light all the braziers at once. You don't need the magic to last forever, for days, or even for hours - one hour should be more than enough. Swapping out the spell's usual permanence and smokeless, heatless, non-burning flame-like light source in exchange for the ability to fill a dozen bowls with real fire at range, simultaneously, is well within your skills. It won't even cost you that much mana.
Deciding that you weren't that eager to go picking up a bunch of sticks, you let your flight spell lift you up until you have an unbroken line of sight over the bulk of the dome to each of the unlit braziers that encircle it. Then, extending your hands before you with your palms facing each other and your fingers splayed as if to grasp something, you channel your mana and call out: "Let there be FIRE!"
Fire responds in appropriately dramatic fashion; Briar recoils with a yelp as the steadily-burning braziers flanking the doorway below suddenly roar up towards you, until a pair of three-story-tall jets of brilliant flame are meeting under your hands. The unleashed energy rapidly coalesces into an orb that briefly blazes like a newborn sun, before shattering and unleashing a dozen hissing streams of flame in as many directions. Three shoot over and/or behind you, while five more sail over the bulk of the dome, and the remaining four split evenly to go streaking off to your left and right. In all cases, the burning bolts hit their marks cleanly, guided by your magic to the twelve waiting stone bowls.
As one, the fourteen ignited braziers settle into the turf. You hear a deep "click," and the dome's stone door vanishes.
Gained Conjuration E (Plus)
Gained Fire Elementalism D (Plus) (Plus) (D)
Gained Hyrulean Theology E (Plus)
Gained Puzzling F (Plus)
Briar looks at you. "Flashy, much?"
"I really didn't expect the fires to flare up like that," you admit by way of apology, "but yes, flashy was kind of the idea. I may not be able to dance for Din, but I can still put on a show for her." You smile in a self-satisfied manner.
Briar gives you a look of annoyance before zipping into the now-open dome. You follow quickly, pausing just long enough at the entryway to bring up your passive senses and give the structure the once-over. Like the previous dome, this one gives you a headache-inducing impression of warped space-time, as well as a sense of a Guardian-level spiritual presence. Unlike its counterpart, you're quite certain that the spiritual energies contained in this dome are coming from just one entity.
Wonderful.
Entering the dome, you soon find it to be a reasonable match for the first one. Eighty-five across, with about thirty feet between the highest point of the dome and the floor that spreads out beneath the encircling walkway. There are differences, however. For starters, the walkway has spike-headed steel bars jutting up from its outer edge and down from the curved ceiling, forming a cage along most of its length; only a ten-foot-wide space directly in front of you allows passage to the area below, and that only in the form of a straight drop-off. Where the first dome was filled with walls, rotating floors, illusions, and a hidden trap, this one is downright empty, holding nothing except a broad, evenly-distributed mass of black sand. Based on the dimensions of the other dome and this structure's close similarity to them, you'd guess the sand to be no more than six inches deep, if that.
You frown. Something about that sand makes your skin crawl. You're not sure what... unless it's the Guardian standing silently at the center of the arena, a Triforce-branded shield affixed to its left arm and a one-handed but still giant sword drawn and held point-up in its right.
Hovering near the spike-free entrance to the pit, Briar turns and gives you a bright, fake smile. "You were saying something about putting on a show?"
"Nobody likes a smartass, Briar."
Since you've got another fight with a Guardian on your hands, you decide that you'll have to re-cast the Spell of False Life you had up for the previous bout. It worked well enough then to justify its cost, and you can largely-eliminate that by taking the time to ritually cast the spell. After some consideration, you add a Spell of Fire Resistance to your list, mainly because this trial seems to be overseen by Din, and Fire is a Big Deal for her.
It takes you four minutes to cast these two spells. The Guardian doesn't so much as twitch, no creatures leap out of hiding to attack you, and no traps go off in response to your magic. You weren't really expecting something of that nature to happen, and it's rather nice to be proven right.
Since both spells have fairly extended durations, you go ahead and ritually cast a Spell of Flight, in the hopes of shoring up your speed and maneuverability. When you stop to test the spell a few minutes later, it... doesn't quite work. Oh, you can definitely move faster, and this spell isn't conflicting with the more powerful one you already had up - but when it comes to the mystical equivalent of your maneuvering jets, the spells also aren't synergizing the way you'd like them to. It seems that you can either use the shorter-lived spell that gives you more speed, or the twenty-four-hour one that gives you greater endurance in the long aerial haul. You can't use both at the same time.
On the up side, ritually casting all three spells barely took anything out of your mana reserves. It's a little hard to say exactly how much energy you burned, your sense of your internal energies not being so conveniently precise, but at a guess... half a percent, maybe?
You decide that rituals are excellent, and you should totally use them more often.
Gained Mana Control D (Plus) (Plus)
Unfortunately, you have to skip ritual-casting now, because your Spell of Flight would burn out before you got done with everything you still wanted to cast - the first of those being a Spell of Shielding, which causes a glowing circle of red runes on a transparent white field to briefly blaze into view in front of you, before fading from sight. The spell is still active, and the shield will reappear if something crosses the area you mentally direct it to defend. Like your Spell of Flight, however, it's rather short-lived, so you'll have to tend to this next part quickly.
Fixing your attention on the sand, you begin cycling through your senses. You cannot see, hear, or smell anything suspicious about it, so the mundane stuff is out. Ki Sense gets nothing, Spirit Sense comes back negative, Corruption Sense - called up on a whim - also tells you nothing, Mage Sense, also noth-
-wait a minute. How can you be getting "nothing" off of the sand? This whole chamber is inside a pocket of warped-space time, and just about everything here was conjured from raw aether less than two days ago - relatively speaking - and should be in the process of breaking back down into its component non-stuff. Navi's magical signature should be all over this place like Moblin on a fresh bowl of dog food, so why aren't you seeing it?
On a hunch, you cast a quick, dirt-cheap cantrip, the most basic of basics, and try to telekinetically move a bit of the sand. It's the equivalent of brushing your fingertip along the top of the miniature dune, only at range, the kind of spell you could almost cast in your sleep.
It fails. The miniscule amount of mana you gathered to fuel the effect just sort of slips from your metaphorical fingertips. It doesn't even diffuse into the air as failed spells normally do; instead, you can see it being absorbed by the grains of sand you aimed it at. They soak the mana up like the driest of sponges suddenly dropped into a puddle.
The sight makes your blood run cold.
The black sand absorbs magic.
"Is everything okay, Alex?" Briar says, worriedly. "You got kind of pale all of a sudden."
You let out a breath. "I'll get back to you on that in just a minute, Briar. There's something I really need to check, first."
"Okay."
Raising your left hand, palm up, you call upon your knowledge of Conjuration magic and command a single bead of clear, colorless glass to come into being. Though you're kind of in a hurry to get some answers about just how much of a threat that black sand is to you and your magic, you force yourself to take the time to ritually-cast the Spell of Creation, with an eye towards conserving energy and enhancing the results of your work. What you finally get for your trouble is the requested bead, which is, as far as your senses can tell, as completely real as a similar bead you might pick up from that arts and crafts store downtown. The ritual casting helped, as did your better-than-average grasp of the mysteries of Elemental Earth, but you think the real key to this tiny bit of true creation was how hard you tweaked the spell's matrix in favor of "duration," sacrificing most of its potential "mass" and "complexity" in the process.
Gained Earth Elementalism D (Plus) (D)
Bringing up your right hand, you trace a simple mystical sigil across the surface of the glass sphere, letting a trickle of mana flow through the tip of your index finger. Once the Arcane Mark is in place, you turn the bead over and trace a second, different glyph on the other side. You then cast another cantrip, essentially the same one you tried to use to move the sand, and slowly levitate the bead towards the arena, turning it marked-side down as it goes. You can't avoid taking a quick, nervous breath as the sphere crosses the line that marks the edge of the stone walkway and moves out over the black sand, more than half-expecting to see the magic fail and the bead fall, but that doesn't happen. Even as the little bit of glass sinks closer and closer to the sand, you don't sense your spell weakening in the slightest.
That alone is a tremendous reassurance. If that black sand were some kind of physical manifestation of anti-magic, it would be radiating a relatively huge field that would cancel out virtually any magical energy that got too close. The fact that your puny cantrip is still functioning even within fifteen, ten, now five feet of the sand is a good sign that you aren't, in fact, dealing with the scourge of all sorcerers, but something else.
Finally, the bottom of the bead touches the sand. You wait a moment, unable to tell at this distance what has become of the Arcane Marks, and try to will your spell to lift the bead back up.
...
The bead begins to float back to your hand.
Not too long after that, it's close enough for you to inspect the marked sides - only for you find that one of them, the one that came into contact with the sand, is gone. With the exception of a smudge where the natural oils of your skin have stained it, that side of the sphere is clear of any physical or magical contaminants. The other mark remains intact. From this, you can say with some confidence that the black sand will, in fact, absorb magical energy that it comes into direct contact with. At the same time, barring that direct contact, it does not appear to affect spells placed on objects that touch it.
"In answer to your previous question, Briar, I'm feeling a lot better all of a sudden."
"Good. Now what the heck just happened?"
You quickly explain what you were doing, and why. Briar's reaction to the news that her mother laced the floor of this dome with magic-eating sand is... less shocked than you might have expected from a creature as magical as a fairy.
"You're not surprised," you state.
"Not completely, no," she admits, glancing at the arena. "I mean, the black sand is new to me, but setting up a trial-by-combat where neither side can use magic to rig the terrain in their favor, and instead have to pit their strengths against one another directly? I've heard of some of Din's more serious followers doing things like that. I didn't expect Mom to be quite so thorough for these trials of hers, though." Briar turns back to you. "How is this going to affect you?"
"As long as I'm just touching the sand with my feet, it won't do a thing," you reply honestly. "My flight spell and the defensive wards I set up are all anchored here" - you thump your chest with one closed fist - "and here" - you follow up by tapping your head - "to ensure that the vital organs are protected as long as the spell lasts. Sure, the matrix extends outwards to cover the limbs, but those are secondary components, not the core of the spell; they can and will be replaced if they're overpowered. And since I don't customarily cast spells with my feet, my other magic will be fine."
"And if that Darknut down there manages to knock you flat on your back?" Briar asks. "What happens then?"
"...at that point, I'm pretty much screwed," you admit. "At least, I don't think he'll be inclined to stop attacking so that I can brush all the sand off and re-establish my defenses." You frown at your sword, and heft it slightly. "I can't afford to let this touch the sand, either. Goddess-sent or not, it's a summoned item, not a conjured one. It might be able to withstand contact with a few grains of that stuff, but if it gets thrust into the sand or comes down flat on top of it, it'll vanish for sure."
"So what are you going to do?" Briar asks.
"I'm going to fight it," you tell Briar plainly.
Gained Din's Favor E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Farore's Favor F (Plus)
Gained Totem of the Raging Boar D (Plus) (Plus)
The fairy sighs. "I figured you'd say that. Please tell me that you at least have a plan."
In point of fact, you do. It basically boils down to making yourself as well-shielded and hard-hitting as you can, then sheathing yourself in acid - which you already know messes up the Guardians' armor - virtually paralyzing the big guy guy, hitting him with the most concentrated blast of corrosives you can muster, and finally taking him apart while he's still having trouble moving.
Briar listens, and while it's clear that she's not thrilled with the idea of you picking another fight with one of these giant undead knights, she doesn't voice any objections to the overall plan. She does suggest a slight change in the order which you cast a couple of your spells, so that the shorter-lived ones will have the most operational time possible left after your preparations are made. She also recommends that, if your plan to disable the Guardian and strike it from a blind spot works, you use a slightly different variation of the spell you had in mind.
As such, you cast a Spell of Heroism to augment your striking power, followed by a Spell of Feather Stepping, so that you'll be able to walk on the sand as if it were as stable as the stone you're currently standing on. Finally - since it seems appropriate - you call on Din to help you transform some of your considerable magical energy into a more physically-tangible form, a barrier that will help demonstrate your Power by denying your opponent the ability to touch you. From the way the magic blazes into view at the conclusion of the ritual, shining red and gold, you think Din approved.
Renewing your Spell of Shielding, which had lapsed during this new set of rituals, you begin gathering and shaping your ki, holding a Body Flicker at the ready in case your plan goes sideways.
"Remember, Briar," you say with a calm you don't entirely feel. "Stay clear."
"Yeah, yeah... don't get splattered out there, you hear me?"
"I won't," you assure her, as she flies off. Once she's out of range, you cast another spell, one that causes the air around you to turn slightly greenish and give off an acrid chemical scent. With the Aura of Acid in place, you leap off the edge of the walkway and let your flight spell carry you quickly to the arena's sandy floor.
As soon as you touch down, there is a loud clang from above and behind you. Looking up, you find that - as you feared - a concealed portcullis of iron spikes has slammed down over the single gap in the walkway's cage-like lining. You blink in surprise as dozens of Poes suddenly start to appear along the elevated path, some of them entering through the door and spreading out along the walls, while others phase in through those very same stones. Lanterns and scythes are present in abundance, but so are... banners? Horns? Is... is that a box of popcorn? And that's... that Poe is wearing one of those giant foam hands...
You're tempted to stare, but the presence of your active and more short-lived spells helps you to keep your focus. As the gathered Poes - and where the hell did they all come from, you wonder? - let out a collective moan that you suppose is meant to be a cheer, the Guardian responds with a flash from its eyes, a clanking of armor plates, and a single sepulchrous bellow as it raises its sword in salute and challenge.
You respond by casting a Spell of Armor Locking. Ghostly chains whip out of nowhere to surround the Guardian, anchoring themselves on its heavy armor and then pulling tight. The giant bellows and struggles against the unexpected bonds, but after a moment of creaking strain, your transmuted chains hold.
Without hesitation, you activate your Body Flicker, vanishing from the edge of the arena-
Gained Body Flicker D (Plus) (Plus)
-and reappearing behind the Guardian, in its proverbial shadow. Instantly, you hear a hiss as your aura goes to work on the giant's armor. The Guardian snarls and takes a step, trying to turn to face you, but you easily match its staggering movements, turning as it turns. A moment later, you cast your next spell, leaning back for a moment and then snapping foward, jaws agape, as you unleash an explosive gout of sizzling acid. At this range and with your target half-paralyzed, you can't possibly miss - and you don't. The acid sizzles as it covers the Guardian's back from helm to heels, from shoulder to shoulder. You actually have to back off a couple of steps to avoid getting caught in the backwash.
You have to admit that Briar's suggestion to expand your Spell of Dragon's Breath as a cone rather than a line was a good one. A linear attack probably wouldn't have covered as much of the giant's body as this more diffuse blast. It's just one more confirmation that having a fairy partner is a good thing.
Gained Elementalism E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Feeling quite satisfied with how your plan has progressed so far, you step back into sword range to go to the next - and hopefully final - step. The Guardian's next action forces you to abandon that plan and backpeddle frantically, as the armored giant throws itself onto its back. The good news is that the impact isn't so violent that it sends up plumes of the accursed spell-eating sand, at least, none so large that they threaten to reach you and your multi-layered magical defenses. The bad news is that the sizzle of your sorcerous acid at work on the Guardian's armor cuts out almost instantly, while the many chains binding the giant burst and vanish.
The audience of Poes moan. It's hard to tell if they're booing or cheering.
Before you can come up with a new plan, you hear a strange crackling sound and notice wisps of black smoke rising from below you. Looking down, you find that quite a large patch of the black sand, including the stuff beneath your feet, is starting to glow. Rather brilliantly, in fact.
Almost before you've consciously registered the glow of the sand before you, beneath you, and around you, you've already grasped and shaped the ki necessary for a Body Flicker. There is the usual rush of sound as the world blurs around you, and when things come back into focus, you're-
BOO-BOO-BOOM!
-standing at what should be the "west" side of the arena, whirling about in alarm at the staccato sequence of detonations. It's not the noise that has you worried; it's the question of how big those blasts were, and how much of the black sand they just kicked into the air. The answer to the former problem proves to be "considerably smaller than the traditional sorcerous fireball" - you'd estimate that, rather than a truncated sphere of pyrokinetic destruction some forty feet across, you're looking at six, maybe seven individual explosions, each covering an area no more than five feet across. The flip side is that, unlike the classic Fireball, these blasts appear to have been as much kinetic as thermal in nature, each one sending out a spray of the black sand a good fifteen feet from its respective epicenter.
Your emergency maneuver with the Body Flicker got you clear of the whole display, but looking down, you aren't terribly surprised to see small motes of light just starting to appear amidst the dark material beneath your feet, not unlike the first few sparks of a fire just beginning to breathe to life amidst its fuel. Thinking on it, you suspect that your Spell of Acid Aura is at fault here; while the rest of your array of spells are reactive in nature, that one is very proactive, automatically "attacking" everything within five feet of you, which would naturally - and almost unavoidably - include whatever you happen to be standing on. That leaves you three choices for dealing with the problem: one, keep running all over the arena and pray you don't get cornered or forced to backtrack into an unstable area; two, take to the air and stay at least five feet away from the sand at all times; or three, shut off your aura and avert further explosions entirely.
There is a metallic clanging and single deep thud from the blast-riddled center of the arena, where the singed but overall intact Guardian has just regained its footing.
Deciding to live dangerously, if only because it'll put your opponent in harm's way as well, you leave your Acid Aura in place and start moving, closing in on the Guardian. As you advance - not so quickly that you're throwing yourself onto your enemy's waiting blade, but fast enough to get clear of the volatile sand so that it doesn't get past the "ominous glowing and smoking" phase - you imbue your sword with the green-tinted energy of corrosion, collapse, and ruination, preparing your next strike on the Guardian. Your Blessed Blade absorbs the magic with a distinctive sharp-sounding chime.
Gained Spell Combat F (Plus)
Gained Spellstrike F (Plus)
The Guardian watches your advance with the air of a veteran warrior, sliding its shield into your line of approach but just slightly off-center, while holding its sword at the ready. It makes no move to charge up a Sword Beam, likely realizing that doing so would open a hole in its defenses; instead, it shifts its armored feet, adjusting its stance from one meant for sturdiness and augmenting the power of strikes to one that, while less stable, will enable it to turn much more quickly - relatively speaking, at least. It would seem that your opening gambit of the Body Flicker has made the steel-clad specter wary of repeat performances - and based on what you've seen of this Guardian and its predecessor, the giant might just be able to turn around fast enough to meet such a back-attack with its shield or its blade. "Might" is not a guarantee, of course, and it's possible that you'd be fast enough to get in, land your blow, and then get clear before the Guardian could retaliate... and then again, maybe not.
Thinking fast, you decide that you could try circling your enemy, letting your corrosive aura eat at its defenses until it gets impatient and lets its guard down to take a shot at you. You could even try to time things so that it gets caught in a few more of those magic-eating sand bombs, shaking it up - a risky approach, considering how close you'd be to the blast(s) and the accompanying spray of black sand, but one that would certainly distract the Guardian if it went successfully. Or you could just stick with the Body Flicker, and try to land somewhere other than directly behind the Guardian, at an angle it wouldn't expect: to the right, directly before its blade; to the left, where its shield would be ideally positioned to absorb your attack, or just smash your face in; or even directly in front of it, taking the greatest risk in the hope that the creature will be too surprised to follow up and crush you.
Circling the Guardian from a couple of strides beyond its striking range, you gather your ki in preparation for your next two moves. The timing will be critical: if your actions are too close together, the Guardian will not be in position; but if they are too far apart, it will see through your ruse - and most likely pulverize you.
There is a burst of smoke as a ki-infused image of you appears off to the Guardian's left, bent forward as if running all-out. To your eyes at least, the Doppelganger's appearance can only be described as "smeared": the edges are vague; the colors sort of run together; and the front of its head looks more like a smoothed-over lump of clay than an actual face. You're not sure if the black sand is screwing with it or if all your prior copies have been this bad, and you just hadn't noticed.
Gained Doppelganger E (Plus)
Whatever the case, the clone's existence is enough to get the Guardian's attention. It shifts slightly to the left, head turning to track the movement of this new presence. You gauge the response, focus your ki, and then push off-
-coming out of the Body Flicker to the giant's right, beyond the shifting field of its vision, peripheral or otherwise. Even through its armor, you can see the Guardian suddenly go tense at your disappearance from your previous location, so you waste no time in striking out at its sword-arm.
Gained Sword Training E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
The ring of blessed, spell-imbued sword-steel on spectral armor plate is distinctive, and it is followed almost instantly by the angry hiss of supernaturally-potent acid going to work.
Unfortunately, the NEXT sound you hear is the angry bellow of the spectral warrior and the clanking of its armor as it whips back around to confront the confirmed threat - which is to say, you. It doesn't try to attack you with its weapon or the arm holding it, but whatever mercy there is in that gesture is more than made up for by the five-foot-wide heavy metal plate that comes swinging around to smash into you. The sound the shield makes as it slams into your defenses is not unlike the clanging of a great bell, or perhaps several of them together, as your multi-layered wards first try to deflect, and then absorb the blow.
The fact that the Guardian's strike sends you staggering backwards shows clearer than words that your defenses aren't wholly successful, but by the same token, the fact that you're able to keep your feet - let alone consciousness - illustrates that they didn't completely fail in their purpose.
Your Spell of False Life is gone, however. Giant armored sucker hits like a freight train.
Gained Endurance E (Plus)
Gained Strength F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Strength Control E
As you shake your head to clear away the Cuccoos you see the Guardian raising its blade in preparation for an attack. You can see a large blackened, melted-looking section about a steadily-deepening gash in its forearm, but the spirit either isn't inconvenienced by the damage or has chosen to ignore it in favor of getting in a strike.
You find the notion of trying to block a blow from a sword that looks longer than you are tall to be a Really Dumb Idea. Evading the blow by moving to your right would just put you back in optimum range for another shield-slam, while going to your left would leave you in range for a follow-up side-slash from the Guardian's blade - and given the length of the weapon, you can't see yourself backing out of its striking range in time. That just leaves one direction for you to move, doesn't it?
With your focus shaken by the Guardian's opportunistic shield bash, you don't feel confident in your ability to shape another Body Flicker before the sword comes down - not when your ki is still unsettled from the expenditure of the last technique. So instead you push forward the old-fashioned way, ducking your head and shoulders to avoid the descending edge of the Guardian's blade.
Gained Evasion E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Speed E (Plus)
There is an uncomfortable whisper of air upon your bowed head and upper back, but you get inside the sword's range before it can properly connect.
Of course, this leaves you staring at the Guardian's shiny steel belt-buckle from a range best described as "way too close." The fact that you can smell the fumes being released as the armor deforms under the assault of your corrosive aura brings you little comfort - quite the opposite, really, given how it's starting to make your eyes water. Even through the building haze of those eye-protecting tears, you're pretty sure that the black sand beneath you and your opponent is once again starting to glow in places. And that's not even taking into account how if the Guardian closes its arms and squeezes, you'll be doing your best impression of a Chu in short order.
Yeah, being this close to the giant armor-plated undead killing machine is just asking to be horribly mutilated. You'll pass.
Resisting a momentary impulse to do an impression of the Road Runner, you focus your ki and dash away in a fair approximation of one of the animated character's zero to sixty takeoffs.
Gained Body Flicker D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Once again, you come out of super-speed just a few steps shy of the arena's outer wall, although this time you're off to the right of the entryway. Wanting to avoid more exploding sand, you quickly turn about and start moving to your right, along the wall and to the far end of the arena from the door. The black grit beneath your feet hisses slightly as it absorbs the aggressive power of your aura, but you do not see even the smallest points of light amidst the dark grains. Speaking of your aura, you note that its power is on the wane; you estimate that you have another ten seconds before it gives out. This isn't unexpected, as the basic spell isn't meant to last very long - no more than two minutes, tops, and that only when cast by a true master of magic - and you didn't bother to adjust it for greater duration when you cast it. You could recast it, but given the volatile terrain and the more mundane danger of getting close enough to a large, hard-hitting opponent for the aura to do its work, you might be better off saving the mana for something else.
The Guardian, for its part, has turned to follow your progress, and now, at last, you can see its blade glowing with the gathering power of a Sword Beam. There is an unmistakably admiring "Oooo" from the spectating Poes as the weapon's light shines through the arena
A plan comes to mind, and you've shaped the ki for your next Body Flicker almost as soon as it does. Before you can start forming a Doppelganger, however, the Guardian launches its attack, forcing you to evade. Since you already have the Body Flicker prepped, you decide to use it and try to salvage your chosen plan; after all, you can still throw out a Doppelganger once you're behind your foe, right?
As it turns out, no, you can't. This Guardian's Sword Beam isn't as massive as the one launched by the first armored spirit you fought, but it appears extremely dense, hinting that it contains just as much power, if not more. In addition to that, it doesn't come at you along a straight line, but instead follows a spiralling course, ringing metallically and spitting blue-tinted sparks as it flies through the air. It's this unexpectedly wide and wild flight path that catches you by surprise and in the middle of your Body Flicker, unable to correct your course to avoid something that's moving only slightly slower than you are.
The beam hits you in the upper left chest, just below the shoulder joint, and the impact is... painful, to say the least. And also horrifying, as it knocks you for a literal loop, threatening to dump you flat on your back in the sand. Only a desperate mental YANK at your flight spell keeps you from ploughing into the magic-eating dust, and that still leaves you tumbling through the air, fighting your momentum and trying not to crash. In the end, you hit the arena wall, about eight feet up. The "landing" isn't violent enough to injure you, but that's a minor blessing after the hit you just took. You have a bad feeling that if it weren't for your multi-layered defensive spells, you might just have gotten several bones broken; as it is, you won't swear that something isn't cracked, or at least horribly bruised.
Spread out on the wall, leaning about twenty degrees too far to the right and feeling entirely too much like a bug on a windshield, you have a very good view as the Guardian thunders towards you in a charge, shield leading and sword held trailing to one side - glowing? You mean this guy can charge Sword Beams on the move?! Damn it, that is just not fair...
As your enemy approaches, time seems to slow down - and for a rare novelty, it's not because of any supernatural enhancements you have up and running. You've basically got a runaway pickup truck on legs coming at you with Malice Aforethought, and from the looks of things, it's intent on using its mass, its shield, and the arena wall to make some Alex-flavored meat sauce, which it then plans on stabbing with an exploding sword. Or something like that.
Part of you wants to rage at the indignity of your imminent doom. To be beaten like this, in single contest with an overgrown brain-rotted ghost, to be stuck hanging here helplessly, useless, as the end approaches, to lose Briar over such a ridiculous thing - to just be beaten! It rankles fiercely, and can't help but stir up hot, bitter anger.
The rest of you says nuts to that and reaches deep within, past the bubbling fury, for the Power that will enable you to survi- no, to WIN this. That which you already have is formidable, but it isn't enough.
You need More Power.
Golden energy flares.
Gained Farore's Favor F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Maximum Power E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Pain Threshold E (Plus)
Kicking off from the wall, you leap for the sandy floor and rebound into a dead run, charging at the oncoming Guardian. The giant's stride falters at your sudden display of potency - or perhaps it's the explosions you can hear and feel going off in your wake that have the big guy startled? Well, regardless, the steely sentinel's second of shock provides an opening, one that you do not hesitate to exploit. Grasping your Blessed Sword with both hands, you strike at the Guardian's acid-seared forearm with a roar of defiant promise.
Gained Strength F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Threat E (Plus)
Gained Warrior Born E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
There is impact, noise, a feeling of resistance - and then you are past the Guardian, still running, still being pursued by explosions. Over the ruckus, you can hear the ghostly audience wailing, but whether it's in ghoulish glee or deathly dismay is beyond your ability to discern.
Through the gilded haze of your aura, you can't tell what's become of your various enhancement spells, but you can feel your reserves dropping rapidly.
What do you do?
You have the momentum; why surrender it?
Feet thumping against the dark sand - and sinking or skidding awkwardly every third step or so, you notice with some concern - you make a U-turn that you hope will keep you clear of the blast radius of your "wake" and let you come at the Guardian's acid-weakened back before it can get its less-compromised frontal defenses directed your way.
Gained Speed E (Plus) (Plus)
As you're coming about, you're able to see that the latter is too much to hope for. While the Guardian has indeed had the lower quarter of its right arm hacked off and is spilling a kind of greenish fog from the stump of its severed forearm, the resemblance to a mortal warrior in the middle of bleeding out is only that - a resemblance, not an actuality. Wounds such as this mean little to the walking dead.
Or perhaps not so little, you correct yourself, as the Guardian's eyes flash burning red at you, right before it sweeps its left arm forward in a motion that causes its massive shield to come loose and soar at you. Fortunately, between your native abilities and their augmentation by your unleashed aura, you're able to see the attack coming in plenty of time to duck it.
Gained Weapon Defense E (Plus)
Having divested itself of its shield, the Guardian reaches for a sword sheathed at its left hip, one you couldn't really see before because of the bulk of the shield always being in the way. The giant has some trouble drawing the blade - which you can't help but notice seems larger than the one currently lying in the loosened grip of a severed gauntlet near the edge of a blast crater - which gives you an opening to act.
The question is, what do you do with that opportunity? Should you attack head-on, and hope that the combination of acid and explosions has weakened the Guardian's frontal armor enough for you to cut through? Should you try to, ahem, "disarm" the giant warrior completely? Take one of its legs, perhaps? Or maybe you could slip around behind... no, on second thought, the Guardian is much too close to the arena wall for that option to seem like a good idea. You'd have no room to maneuver if something went wrong, and you can't Body Flicker out of harm's way with your aura burning like this.
Think fast.
The idea of hacking the Guardian's other arm off has a strong appeal, both for the symmetry involved and the fact that it would rob the giant of any means of using its most dangerous attacks, but you're concerned that, after being covered by that heavy shield for most of the fight, the armor covering its left arm would not have been weakened enough by your now-lapsed corrosive aura for you to cut through. Besides that, you have before you an opportunity to literally bring the Guardian to its knees.
Coming at the ghostly goliath from almost straight ahead, you hold your sword slightly high, trying to make it look as if you're going to strike at the armored thigh - what's the name, cuisses? - rather than somewhere lower down. The Guardian sees you coming, reads the attack, and manages to draw its blade in a clumsy reversed grip as it pulls its remaining arm across its legs to guard. With the flat of its heavier blade tucked against its forearm for stability, it has a pretty solid defense for something done so hastily.
It's a good thing, then, that you were trying to feint. Letting your blade dip low, you start leaning to the right, preparing yourself for both your attack and your subsequent exit. The Guardian sees this, as well, but it was slow on the draw to begin with, and your true target - the gap between the bottom of the greaves covering its lower leg and the armored boot upon its foot - is quite an awkward spot to defend. Normally, it's almost as difficult to strike at, but when your target is twice your height... well. Suffice it to say, the term "ankle-biter" exists for a reason, and your sword has much more bite to it than any gummy-mouthed toddler.
Gained Strength E
Gained Sword Training D
Your aim is good but not perfect, and as your blade catches on the lower rim of the Guardian's right greave, you immediately recognize that the level of resistance offered by this piece of armor is greater than that briefly given by its acid-ravaged vambrace. However, while it may not have been directly targeted by any of your spells, this section of the armor did not escape some degree of damage from your elemental aura - nor did it get away unscathed from the explosions the Guardian has been forced to endure. So it is that, driven by superhuman speed and strength and backed with a mote of divine potency, your sword is able to cut through the armor and briefly taste the unliving essence beneath.
The Guardian staggers as you dash away, too busy struggling to keep its footing to take a swing at you.
And then the black sand, overloaded by the passing of your surging aura, goes off almost directly beneath the giant's damaged leg.
Making another long turn to escape your closely-pursuing explosive trail - a course that takes you along the arena wall for some distance - you're shortly able to see that the Guardian is down and on its face. Its right leg is still attached, but the foot hangs in a way that suggests it won't be able to support its half of the giant's considerable weight, and that's assuming the warrior can get itself upright. A daunting task, seeing as how it has but one arm to work with, and that hampered by its only real remaining weapon.
While your gambit worked, there is one cause for concern: your feet are definitely dragging in the sand now. It would appear that your radiant aura has finally gotten around to wholly disrupting your active spells of support and defense.
You can't pass up the chance to hit your enemy while its defenses are at their weakest point. Once again, you rush towards the Guardian, willing yourself not to slip and stagger through the sand as you go - and strangely enough, for the next few strides, it's as if your Spell of Feather Stepping has returned to full functionality. That... doesn't match up to what you've previously observed about how your surging aura interacts with enhancement spells... but there's no time for you to investigate the matter just now.
You have a weapon.
You have a target.
You have an opening.
When you're close enough, you raise your sword high with both hands and leap at the Guardian, trying to time the strike so that the momentum of your descending body is put behind the blow - and then, in mid-air, images flash before your mind's eye of a blond man-child in green executing similar moves, sometimes landing on his foe swordpoint-first, other times striking with the edge. You also see a much larger man, red-haired and black-armored, performing a similar but distinct technique. The vision startles you, and you hesitate, unsure if you should emulate one of the warriors, or ignore them both.
In the same moment that they appeared, the memories are gone, leaving you descending towards the Guardian's armored back, which rises slowly as the specter one-handedly pushes its body up from the sandy floor. Feeling a sudden upwelling of alarm as your brief opening closes, you bring your sword down with a yell. The Blessed Blade flashes, drinking freely of your surging power, and there is a stunningly loud noise as it connects with the Guardian's armor - not with a downward thrust that would have had the best chance of piercing the corroded cuirass, nor with a hammerblow that would have rung the Guardian's helmet like a bell, but an axe-like chop that comes down on the heavy metal collar covering what would be the back of a human's neck.
Gained Finishing Blow F
Gained Leap Attack F
Normally, a blow like this would have failed completely, armor being specifically designed to turn blows against such critical areas. However, this part of the suit has been badly compromised by your prior use of the Spell of Dragon's Breath, and now it's being tested by a Goddess-given blade backed by the full force of a sorcerous aura that carries motes of divine power in and of itself.
In short, the armor fails. With a terrible screeching sound, your shining sword tears through the collar and into the undead flesh and energy behind it, causing the Guardian to roar, snap its head back, and give a violent upwards heave. The intensity of this reaction, coupled with the shock you experienced when your blow landed, tears your weapon from your slightly-numbed fingers and sends you staggering backwards.
When you see the sand where you landed gleaming brightly, you try to turn the stumble into a reverse jump, throwing yourself away from the Guardian and shoving as much of your aura in front of yourself as you can, forming a crude shield. The move comes just in time, as the sand goes off like a landmine, catching you in the blast; when you hit the arena floor a moment later, you do so on your back in an ungainly sprawl and skid. If your aura and remaining enhancements hadn't already been stripped away by the sandy shrapnel of that explosion, you'd have lost them now for certain. On the positive side, your last-second defense with your aura seems to have soaked up the worst of the punishment. Your back aches and your ears are ringing from the blast, but that's about the worst of it.
Gained Endurance E (Plus) (Plus)
The Guardian has not fared so well. Its abrupt, pained reaction to your attack almost carried it back to its, er, foot, just in time for the sand to go off and blow it backwards into the arena wall. The pommel of your sword appears to have hit the stone first and at the worst angle possible for the giant, because the blade now protrudes from the Guardian's helmet like the sharpest tongue in history. The steel-clad spirit's form is just beginning to settle against the stones, the light of its eyes fading.
Above and around you, the Poes raise a wailing chorus.
At the sight of the Guardian's fading eyes, you recall how the warrior raised its sword to you at the start of the fight, its eyes shining to life - and how you responded by hitting it with a spell and then attacking it from behind at high speed. You don't exactly feel guilty about your choice of tactics, but you do feel an urge to return some of the respect your opponent showed you. And since it doesn't seem like it would do any harm, you go ahead and do precisely that, hauling yourself back to your feel, straightening your shoulders, and bowing like you would after a formal bout at Lu-sensei's dojo.
Gained Warrior Born D
As you straighten up, you see the Guardian's eyes flare bright white. It might be your imagination, but the helmet seems to tilt forward in a nod.
Then the eyes go dark, the armor goes limp, and the moaning of the Poes is briefly joined by another spectral voice that seems to trail off into infinity. Wisps of green-white energy pour from the defeated Guardian to swirl around its body for a moment, before coalescing into another Stone Triangle, which falls to the black sand floor with a faintly audible thump. A moment later, your attention is drawn by a bang and a rattle, as the portcullis-like gate that locked you in the arena begins to open itself. The Poes, meanwhile, are disappearing much the same way they arrived, taking their... accoutrements... with them.
This leaves Briar to fly down towards you. For once, she does not make to sit on your shoulder or atop your head, instead hovering just outside of arm's length to regard you cautiously.
"Are you alright, Alex?"
"Yeah, I think so," you reply, shifting your shoulder where the Sword Beam hit you. "Got a fresh load of bruises that could use some healing, and that last blast took out my spells, but other than that, not bad. Just let me get my sword and we'll get out of here."
'Getting your sword' proves fairly easy. True, it's kind of out of your reach - even a slumped down and lifeless Guardian shell still has its neck higher off the floor than you can easily jump, at least from a sandy surface - but it's not wedged into the ruined armor so tightly that you're unable to pull it free with a determined use of cantrips. As the hilt settles into your grip, you pause to inspect the weapon, and are pleased to see that it isn't even scratched; penetrating armor can be just as nasty on the weapon used as it is on the target, but you appear to have lucked out. Propping the blade over your uninjured shoulder, you crouch down and pick up the Stone Triangle, brushing away some of the clinging black grains.
Gained the second Stone Triangle
Tucking the item away, you look around at the arena. The Poes have all vanished, leaving you, Briar, and the wreckage of the Guardian alone in the pit. Speaking of which, how should you get out?
You give the fallen Guardian's swords a brief glance, but you decide to leave them where they lie. They're simply too big to have any sort of practical use for you, even if you grow up to be seven feet tall - and while you could work something out with shrinking spells, you're leery of taking the weapon of a warrior-spirit to the Hellmouth. Even if the guy DID seem to approve of you at the end.
Walking over to the wall below the arena's now-open gate, you inspect the surface, and nod in satisfaction at the rough construction. There are plenty of hand-holds and foot-holds available, enough so that even an inexperienced climber shouldn't have any real trouble getting out of this pit of exploding sand. You'll just have to take it slow and steady, and be sure to use both hands. On that note, you levitate your sword up and through the gate, letting it lie on the bare stone floor beyond, well clear of any threat to its continued presence the sand might pose.
Then, you start climbing.
You note almost immediately that this wall is like nothing you've tried to scale before. There aren't that many trees in Sunnydale that are big enough to be worth climbing, and none of the various playgrounds and gymnasiums you've patronized over the years had a rock wall on hand, just lots of wood, metal, and plastic. Still, there are small ledges and holes aplenty to work with, and Briar is with you, slowly pointing out a path that allows you to make your way up with minimal fuss and bother. Your arms - and particularly your fingers - are starting to ache a bit as you near the top, unaccustomed to this particular use, but your strength serves you in good stead, and soon enough, you've hauled yourself over the ledge and through the gate.
Gained Climbing F (Plus)
After dusting yourself off - and making sure to get every last grain of black sand that you can find - you retrieve your sword.
"One dome left," Briar says. "Shall we?"
"Hang on a second, Briar. I've got an idea I want your opinion on before we leave."
And you proceed to outline the plan that came to you while you were climbing up. The dome is quite secure, and will be more so once the door's shut, so why not use it and spend some time honing your skills and resting to recover your strength? Briar listens and seems to approve, right up to the point where you start suggesting spells. Then she shakes her head.
"Sorry, Alex, but it won't work," she says bluntly. "That blood transformation spell you want to cast? The stuff it creates lasts for a few seconds, and then it's gone. The sleep-enhancer takes a full minute to set up, and it's a divine spell besides, one that's on the edge of your ability to cast at all. Even if you performed it as a ritual, you wouldn't be able to shorten the casting time."
"Well, what if I cast the Spell of Blood Money as a ritual?" you venture. "Extend the duration of the- Briar, why are you giving me that look?"
"Did you SERIOUSLY just propose to take TEN TIMES AS LONG casting a spell that requires you to BLEED the ENTIRE TIME you're casting both it AND the follow-up spell you want it to empower?"
You open your mouth to speak, close it, raise a finger and re-open your mouth, and pause again. Yes, you did kind of suggest that, didn't you?
"Alex," Briar says seriously, looking you square in the eye, "as your teacher, I'd like to think that I have a pretty good idea of what your abilities in magic are - and casting spells while you're dealing with blood-loss is not something you're ready to experiment with. More to the point, as your friend, if you try it, I will knock you on your ass, even if I have to get one of these Guardians to do the punching for me. And then," she continues firmly, "when we get back to Sunnydale, I will tell Cordelia what you did."
You wince, having no difficulty picturing Queen C's reaction to such news. "Low blow, Briar."
"I'm short. That's the only kind I have."
Briar seems... rather opposed to your plan. What do you do?
"Okay, change of plans," you say. "We stay in here, where the locals are..." You pause, considering the recently-present and now-absent crowd of Poes, and change what you were going to say. "...less likely to wander by and attack us. I conjure some food, get in a little practice, and then use a spell to try and speed up my ki and mana recovery for a few hours. When that's done, we move on."
Briar thinks it over. "I could use a snack," she admits. "What happens when the door closes on us, though?"
"Didn't I tell you before?" you ask with a slight frown. "The wards on the domes don't stop anyone from teleporting out, just in."
"Oh. Okay, then. One more thing, though; do you want me to fix you up while we're taking five?"
With that settled, you start casting the Spell to Create Food and Water - or rather, a modified version of it. The basic form takes ten minutes to cast and, given your current level of proficiency in Conjuration Magic, will feed roughly twenty people for a full day. As you're just looking to get a quick meal for yourself and Briar, that kind of output goes beyond the territory of merely "excessive" and into that of the blatantly "wasteful," particularly with regards to the mana investment. So for a rare change, you focus on minimizing the results of a spell, and try to conserving energy by cutting down on the yield of this particular piece of magic.
Gained Conjuration E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mana Control D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
As you conclude the spell, there is a faint pop of displaced air and a rattle of cutlery as a clay platter appears on the floor before you. There is a modestly-sized bowl of what appears to be chicken noodle soup, a few pieces of freshly-baked bread that are warm enough to melt the generous helpings of butter spread across their faces, one glass of cold white milk, one glass of equally cold clear water, and a bright red apple. And there, resting neatly on the floor on the far side of your tray, is a fairy-sized replica of the first platter and its contents, with the apple switched out for a single blueberry.
Incidentally, peering under the bowl of soup, you can see the Triforce emblem on the tray, a silent reminder that this particular spell is typically divine in nature.
You and Briar sit down and dig in. The food is unusually good by the standards of your chosen spell, which is supposed to produce "simple fare" - typically tough biscuits, VERY chewy jerky, and the occasional dried fruit, with tepid but clean water as the only beverage. You suppose that you must have done something right when you modified the magic, or perhaps one or more of the Goddesses gave the spell a bit of a nudge. Din would seem the likeliest candidate, since you're still in the dome dedicated to her, but chicken noodle soup doesn't really seem like her style...
Regardless, it doesn't take much longer for you to finish your meal than it did to make it in the first place. You spend another ten or fifteen minutes relaxing and letting the meal settle, until there is a grinding click from just outside the entryway, and the dome's front door reappears. The re-sealing of the entrance doesn't diminish the available light too badly, and while your Spell of Low-Light Vision was dispelled in the pit, your eyes have adapted reasonably well to the gloom. You can only see a quarter, maybe a third of the way across the dome's interior, but that's no hindrance for what you have in mind.
As per your plan, you draw your sword and begin working on infusing it with ki, in the hopes of improving your Sword Beam technique. You accomplish this by the fairly simple process of charging up the blade and then swinging it to let the attack fly. The resulting bolt of energy is positively pitiful in comparison with the ones you've seen the Guardians throw around, barely as wide as your weapon's blade and only reaching fifteen feet.
Gained Sword Beam F (Plus)
There's another issue, you note with a frown. While your general ki control is pretty good, this particular technique is unavoidably wasteful. You burned slightly less than one percent of your remaining ki with that first test-blast, and if you keep going like that, your reserves are going to look pretty sad when the planned hour of practice is up. That can't help but have an impact on what you're planning to do for the next two hours, the more so since you currently can't form spiritual energy without starting with ki and trying to break it down. You suppose that you could try to stretch your reserves by using a less powerful version of the Sword Beam, but your technique is poor enough that you might not be able to make it work at all if you go that way. More to the point, the more ki you burn in this spur-of-the-moment training session, the less you're going to have when you rest, and the slower your recovery will be.
You decide that you can afford to have Briar use up one of her full-power healing effects during your training. Aside from refilling your ki, it'll address the damage you took from your last fight, which will make just about everything else you plan to do easier.
Before that, though, you spend some time just messing around with your Sword Beam technique, in the hopes of getting a better grasp on how it works and what you need to do to improve it. You go through the technique step by step, with Briar watching and advising as best she can - ki isn't her thing, but this particular move comes straight from Hyrule, so she knows a bit about it and can infer a fair bit more. While slower than simply spamming the attack, this process is also considerably more productive. Which isn't to say that you don't do some beam-spamming. Being able to fire off semi-automatic Sword Beams could be an interesting asset. Beyond this, you explore the differences between Sword Beams produced by thrusting your blade and those generated by slashes, and also have a go at recreating the Guardian's Glowing Spiral of Doom - to no avail, unfortunately.
About twenty-five minutes on, you lower your sword and let out a breath that is more labored than it should be. You knew, of course, that ki depletion does nasty things to one's endurance, but you've never pushed yourself quite this far before, even in the tournament or the craziness surrounding it. The symptoms are... surprisingly intense.
"You okay there, Alex?" Briar inquires. "Because if you say yes, I'll call you a liar to your face."
"And you'd be right," you admit, leaning on the Blessed Blade slightly. "I think I could use a bit of that fairy magic right about now, Briar."
"Sure thing!"
Glowing brightly, Briar swirls up and around you, trailing sparkling motes of magic. As they settle on your body, you feel a deep, soothing warmth that chases away the fatigue in your muscles and quickly fills the empty place in your consciousness where you keep track of your ki reserves. It also loosens the stiffness in your chest and shoulder where the Guardian's attack clipped you. You try to pay attention, hoping to work out exactly what it is that Briar's magic is doing and how the so-called pixie dust is amplifying it, but it's kind of like trying to study an explosion from the inside - it's over very quickly, and you're rather distracted for the entire time. You do note that the effect has the usual Conjuration/Necromancy mix of most healing spells, but it also has a remarkably strong aura of Transformation, something you weren't expecting.
Gained Ki Recovery E
You spend another ten minutes after that practicing your own Sword Beam, and you can't help but notice that when your ki is topped off, you get a somewhat larger, brighter, better-defined, and faster-moving projectile than you do when you're tired. Since your only potential targets are stone and steel that won't even notice the modest level of force you can currently dish out with this technique, you're left to wonder if these "enhanced" Sword Beams are also more damaging than the low-end variety. You wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, but it's something you'll have to test another time; though only two-thirds of the hour that you originally thought to dedicate to this particular type of training have passed, you've decided that you'd be better-served by conserving your ki instead.
Gained Sword Beam F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Setting aside your weapon, you sit yourself down in a meditative position, close your eyes, and turn your attention inward. About twenty minutes of controlled breathing later, you feel sufficiently-calm and focused to reach for your ki and begin exploring the impressions and images that it creates in your mind's eye. Visualizing the flow of your life's energy as a river, you start looking for a "current" that feels like Ichigo or Kagome's auras - as the strongest spiritual presences in your experience, they make for convenient benchmarks. It doesn't take you too long to locate the energy you're looking for, but tracing it back to its source proves considerably more time-intensive. One of the other currents feels considerably stronger than the one you're trying to follow, and its interference keeps throwing you off, but you do make progress.
Gained Spiritual Control D (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Power E (Plus) (Plus)
In this case, said progress is measured by how much that bright, distracting current fades into the background along with the rest of the river that is your ki, until they are mere shadows at the edges of the bright stream of pure spiritual power you are following. By tracking this back to its source, you'll have taken a major step towards harnessing the energy of your soul directly, without all this time-consuming medita-
There is no warning. One moment you're imagining yourself swimming down against a gently-upwelling current of liquid light; the next, you are staring up at something huge that has simply appeared before you, radiating heat, power, violence, and pure THREAT in roughly equal and immense amounts. It has a vast bristly mane, tusks that would shame an elephant, and blazing golden eyes that glare down at you like two angry suns.
The Raging Boar opens its tusked maw and bellows with the force of a hurricane.
And the next thing you know, you're opening your eyes to stare up at the shadowed ceiling of the dome. It takes you a moment to realize that you're lying on the floor, when you were sitting up before.
"Alex?!" Briar cries out as she zips into your field of view. "What happened NOW?!"
"I think my spiritual totem just said, 'hi,'" you respond faintly as you sit up. "How long was I out?" you ask, trying not to recall what the big pig's breath smelled like. Good grief, is THAT what Kahlua and Altria saw when their auras clashed with yours? You may not have been giving those girls enough credit.
"Um, about ninety minutes."
That tallies with your internal clock, as well as the complaints your butt is lodging. You've used up the time you were planning to assign to working on harnessing spiritual energy, and you're not entirely sure if you want to make another attempt. On the one hand, you were making real headway, and you think you were right on the edge of a breakthrough. On the other hand, GIANT. ANGRY. BOAR.
Okay, so there's a GIANT RAGING BOAR in your soul. You knew this already, and it's done you no harm thus far. You could just leave it alone for now... but you don't want to.
While you haven't gotten around to doing any serious in-depth research on the subject of animal guides, what little reading you have done on the topic keeps mentioning how one of the major defining traits of the Boar, in any incarnation, is stubbornness. When a Boar gets an idea into its head, it takes great effort for anyone to shift that notion - and this Boar just chased you out of your own mindscape. If you don't go back in there right now and make it clear that your soul is YOUR SOUL, the Boar might decide that it's okay to chase you off every time you show up. And that simply would not do.
Gained Din's Favor E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Farore's Favor F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
"You're going back in, huh?" Briar asks, as you resume your meditative position.
"I still want to try and access my spiritual power," you reply. "Besides, I can't let Porkchop get the wrong idea about which of us is in charge, now can I?"
"I suppose not. Well, good luck, and try not to get trampled or gored, because I'm no good at treating spiritual wounds."
"...I'll keep that in mind."
You close your eyes and slip back into meditation. It seems to go a bit faster this time than before, and when you reach the mindscape of the river of ki, you have a much easier time navigating the spiritual current down towards your soul. Practice makes perfect, you guess.
Since you're expecting its presence this time around, you're able to spot the Raging Boar at a fair distance, first as a black blot against the light of your soul, but soon as a distinctly piggish silhouette. Despite the lack of any solid terrain, the totem-spirit appears to be pacing back and forth, grunting to itself. It pauses in mid-stride, and you faintly hear a wet snuffling - and then, with a squeal like a rusty chainsaw, the Boar turns to face your approaching avatar, legs spread wide, its stiff shoulders and bristling mane making it appear larger than it actually is.
You maintain your course, keeping your gaze locked on the Boar's glowing, bloodshot eyes and your face fixed in an expression of unwavering resolve.
The Boar's nostrils flare in a snort, and it begins scraping at the liquid light beneath it with one black iron-hard hoof, a wordless warning.
You continue to approach, projecting confidence and authority.
Throwing back its head in another thunderous bellow, the Boar charges!