Tales of Symphonia Story, Tethe'alla Chronicles (3)

Quiz Start: After stepping inside, you found it just as pitch black as it had been before.
"All right, let's light those blue candles." Lloyd asked. Genis used a smaller version of fireball to light the candles you, he, Raine and Colette all held. The blue light illuminated the entire area despite only being illuminated by four candles.
"Wow," Zelos commented, "Those scientists didn't lie."
"This should do." Lloyd nodded approvingly, "Now we can explore this place."
"But it's...kind of..." Sheena trailed off with an odd look on her face as she looked around. Genis nodded,
" Yeah, the feeling of the mana here...the power feels unstable compared to the previous seals."
"Unstable how?" Regal asked,
"I'm not really sure how to describe it," Genis explained, "But imagine the mana at the other temples like...like solid ground. The mana here feels kinda like loose sand compared to that."
"We'll find out what's going on once we get further inside." the red-clad teen assured.

After heading through the strange entrance room you found yourself on a room filled with odd levels of pathways and strange blocks with faces on them. It was illuminated by a few strange white crystals.
"Wh...what the?" Lloyd noticed an odd jelly-like thing sitting just out of reach of one of the lights. "Is this..." Lloyd paused, and then asked, "A monster?"
"It doesn't really...look like a monster." you argue,
"No...this is...a Summon Spirit!" Sheena gasped,
"This is the Summon Spirit of Darkness, Shadow?" Colette questioned.
"It feels weaker than all the previous Summon Spirits." Genis commented, "About one-fifth the power. And the mana feels even more unstable than it did outside." Raine walked towards the figure and attempted to touch it, however her hand seemed to move right through it like it was fog.
"My hand goes right through it..." she commented, looking down at her empty palm, "Could it be that the power of the Summon Spirit has leaked out from the seal and taken on this physical form?"
"You mean...Shadow broke into five parts and leaked out of the seal?" you ask,
"So it seems." she nodded,
"Then how do we make a pact with him if he's all in parts?" Lloyd asked,
"Maybe we need to gather all the parts of Shadow together." Regal suggested, "After doing that, they'll be able to form back into the original Summon Spirit."
"We probably do." she then noticed the light next to Lloyd, and approached it. You all jumped when the shadowy thing followed her; however it stopped just as it came into the light while Raine got closer. "Look at this wondrous crystal!" she sighed, not even noticing the creature, "How does it function? Is it magitechnology? Is it the Summon Spirit's power?"
"Sis..." Genis sighed,
"Lloyd, look. It looks like this little fellow can't go into the light." Colette commented
"Ah-hah! It's the Summon Spirit of Darkness, so it doesn't like light!" Lloyd concluded,
"I wonder why the blue candle doesn't affect them then..." Presea wondered aloud,
"I think we have to search for a way to put out that light and lead the Summon Spirit into the core." Genis suggested,
"If we get all five pieces back to the altar, then maybe they'll be able to form Shadow again." you suggest,
"Well, where's his altar?" Zelos asked,
"....A...really long way down below us." you respond, "Many stories down."
"We have to take each one down their individually?!" Zelos exclaimed,
"Maybe if we corral all five of them into that wide open area below this floor," Colette pointed down to a dark area below all of you, "We can take them from there down to the seal without them getting separated."
"Okay, then. Let's get started and see what we can do." Lloyd nodded. He turned back to Raine, who was still looking at that light. "Professor! We're going now!"
"But I'm not done studying it!" she argued.
"Wait, how are we supposed to gather these things down there?" Genis asked, "They won't go past this light."
"....." you moved towards the light, resting your hand on it. You looked between the light and the sorcerer's ring on your finger for a long time, "The sorcerer's ring." you say finally, "There's a sorcerer's ring changer somewhere in here; the power it gets will be able to extinguish these lights."
"Alright then, let's go find that sorcerers ring changer." Lloyd suggested.

After wandering for a bit, you found yourselves on a long staircase, bordered on one side by a wall and on the other by a dark abyss. While walking down the staircase, Lloyd noticed a hidden door in something that resembled an air vent,
"It looks like I can go in through there. I'll go take a look." he volunteered,
"Are you going by yourself?" Colette asked, "Are you going to be okay?"
"Haha, don't worry. I'll be right back." he took Colette's blue candle, then said, "Wait here." He'd been gone for a few minutes when, in a small flash, the heads of your sorcerers rings all changed. They were now dark purple with a black cloud in the middle.
"Hey, Lloyd found a ring changer." Zelos commented, examining the head of his ring.
"Hey, Aura!" Lloyd's voice called form inside the vent, "Come up here, there's this weird thing here and I don't know what it does."
"Huh? Um...Okay." you took your candle with you as you climbed up into the vent, after a moment of climbing you found Lloyd standing in a small alcove with a sorcerers ring changer in it. There was a block in the wall with some form of odd face on it; Lloyd was looking at it intently.
"Hey," he greeted, "What is this thing? I tried pulling and pushing it but it won't budge."
"Hm..." you thought for a long moment, "Shoot that little impression in the middle with the sorcerers ring."
"Okay." he did as you asked, and a small fog of black seemed to take hold of the indentation, remaining there.
"Now you can move it." you tell him,
"But what happens when I do?" he asked,
"Uh..." you pause, "Well...how do I..." you shook your head, "You see the color of its eyes? Somewhere in this temple there's another one of these with the same colored eyes. When you move this one that one will move too."
"Really?" he asked, sounding excited, "That sounds awesome!"
"There're things like this all over this temple." you add, "But...you can only move one set at a time."
"So...when I shoot another block, I can't move this one anymore?" Lloyd questioned,
"Right." you nod, "Also, this one will move back to the way it was when we got here."
"So we've gotta be careful which ones we shoot and move, right?" You confirm his guess with a nod, "Alright then, let's move this one, then get to work!"

It took a few hours of extinguishing lights, moving face-blocks (what Colette named those odd blocks with the faces on them) re-moving face-blocks, and corralling the parts of Shadow before all five were finally in the lower, darker area. The latest shadow was now following Zelos around, and he seemed creped out by it.
"I thought you liked things following you like a lost puppy." Sheena taunted,
"I like women following me. Not these...things!" the redhead argued.
"We finally got them all here." Lloyd sighed, leaning against the wall, "Now, all we have to do is to lead these guys down to the seal." he looked to you, "That's on the bottom level right?"
"Right." you look to a ramp that descended down out of the range of the blue candles, "Down there."
"Man...that's really foreboding." Sheena commented,
"That's what this temple was like before we had our blue candles, wasn't it?" Genis asked, "C'mon, when we get down there it'll light up."

Even with knowing the way down, it was still quite a troublesome way down. The shadows were very slow to come down all those multiple flights of stairs; they would also freeze whenever a monster came close. Also, on top of that, there was one particular little part that would trail far behind the rest. Zelos and Genis eventually went back there, urging it to keep up by taking turns casting small fire spells at it. It would then flee from the light and indirectly keep up with you. Eventually you managed to get down to the altar. You recognized this area; this was the area where you and Yuan had pulled Kratos out of that coffin...Way down here...?
"Since Shadow's the Summon Spirit of Darkness, the opposite of that would be the Summon Spirit of Light, right?" Lloyd asked,
"Yeah. But...why do you ask?" Colette questioned,
"Well, Luna was saying she wanted us to bring Aska, so..."
"So we'll have to fight them both at the same time." you conclude,
"Yes...considering the time we'll need to spend to find Aska, we should save the Summon Spirit of Light for last."
"I wonder why Aska left the Guardian Tower of Mana?" Genis commented,
"He probably just ran away to find some chicks." Zelos responded simply,
"You're confusing him with yourself, Zelos." Sheen a said flatly, "Anyway, here we go." As you walked towards the altar, the five parts of Shadow darted past you, in single file, and then gathered into one mass on the altar. In a small flash the large summon spirit of Shadow stood there, looking at all of you.
"...Mithos and I..." his voice was like a loud, raspy whisper, "Pact..."
"Mithos..." Lloyd mumbled, sounding excited, "We're doing the same thing that the legendary hero once did..."
"I am Sheena!" all of you were used to hearing summon spirits say that they had a pact already, "I ask that thou annulst thy pact with Mithos, and establish a new pact with me."
"...Fight." he ordered
"He's coming!" Presea warned.

Battling Shadow was difficult, especially for you. You were used to sword fighting more than casting spells. However the fight was eventually won none the less.

"Vow..." Shadow ordered,
"You don't waste any words, do you?" Sheena mumbled to herself, "Umm...for the sake of creating a place in which the two worlds must no longer sacrifice one another, I ask that you lend me your power."
"....Agreed." he turned into a small atom shaped ball, and after Sheena touched it she was granted Shadow's pact ring, a ring with an Amethyst in it.
"Now all we need to do is form the pact with the Summon Spirit of Light, and we can sever another mana link." Lloyd announced, nodding, "All right, we're counting on you for the next one too, Sheena!"
"You got it!" she smiled.

"The way we found Aska before was by playing Mithos' flute, right?" you ask as you climbed back up the flights of stairs.
"Right." Genis nodded, "And we've gotten a Linkite Nut from Nova's caravan...which makes the same sound as Mithos' flute. So that means the flute is made of Linkite nuts."
"So now we need to find the Linkite Tree." Regal surmised,
"But the tree on the Ossa Trail is dead." Colette commented,
"There's gotta be another one somewhere...we just need to find it!" Lloyd responded determinedly, "We'll just use the Rheairds to fly around Sylvarant and look for some place that you couldn't get to unless you could fly. How hard could it be?"