This is a little spin-off from Zelda Heroes. Rusl, Ashei, and Shad (aka Team Eye), are now focusing more on being a detective agency and silly things are bound to happen. I think I characterized them right in ZH, but I might be a bit rusty, especially with working on Knil the Shadow right now, too. Anyway, I own nothing!

Episode 1

"Rusl, where is this house you bought with our reward money, yeah?" Ashei complained as the trio trudged up the hill.

"Patience, we'll get there soon enough," Rusl replied, panting with a good-natured smile of joy of exercise.

"You said that an hour ago…" Ashei muttered darkly. They finally reached the top of the hill and Shad, a couple of minutes later, stumbled, wheezing and sweating, to their side, laden like a pack mule.

"Not to be…a bother, but…why am I the…one carrying the luggage, again?" the bookworm inquired, finally collapsing in a heap.

"Well, you were going on about how it wasn't that heavy, so I gave you mine too, remember?" Ashei taunted. Shad looked guiltily at the ground.

"Well, yes…but, Ashei…" he started to protest.

"Behold!" Rusl pointed over at the other side of the flat space at the top of the hill. "Team Eye's new Headquarters!" It was a wooden house with two floors, several windows, and, at least, a couple of doors. Shad dropped the luggage and struggled to his feet, looking with awe at the building.

"An eye opener and no mistake," he breathed.

"It certainly looks more comfortable than the inn," Ashei admitted, hiding how impressed she was that Rusl found such a good house and plot of land for 10,000 rupees. Surely most aristocrats of Castle Town couldn't brag about such a thing.

"Well, come on, let's go inside, shall we?" Rusl set off for the house, leaving Shad to scramble to pick up all the luggage again. Ashei, taking pity after watching him struggle for a minute, crouched down and picked up her bags. It had been rather low to make him carry them, as her bags had things like weapons, armor, and training paraphernalia in them, as well as clothes.

"Come on, nerd boy," she goaded in her usual flat tone before setting off after Rusl.

As they approached the door, Rusl pulled out a key ring and unlocked the door with a skull key.

"After you," he waved his arms to point at the door. They went inside and he followed them, shutting the door behind him.

"So…this is the new HQ?" Ashei looked around skeptically at the empty room. "Where's the furniture, yeah?"

"Well, there's a table in the dining area," Rusl lead them over to it, after they dropped their bags. "And chairs to go with it,"

"And a stove?" Shad asked, holding his glasses with two fingers as he looked around for one. "Where is the counter, or the pantry?"

"Well, that's the thing…" Rusl scratched the back of his head.

"YOU MEAN THERE'S HARDLY THE BASICS IN HERE, YEAH?" Ashei's voice scared off some birds a mile away.

"Now, now, Ashei, as long as we have beds, we can make do with food," Shad attempted to calm her down.

"This explains why the house was so cheap, yeah!" Ashei raged around the room. "There's hardly any furniture and no place to store or cook food! What are supposed to do, yeah? Forage and hunt everyday?"

"Well…until we get some more capital coming in," Rusl replied, a cautious distance away. "We have a postbox outside and I've put flyers around Castle Town, so we should get some jobs," Ding, ding, ding! The postbox's bell rang from outside.

"Mail call!" the postman yelled from outside.

"Speak of the dark realm," Rusl hurried outside.

"Good news," Shad's voice came from down the nearby hallway, where he had, apparently, fled to moments earlier. "There are three bedrooms, each with it's own accompanying twin bed, and a washroom containing one washtub and a mini-burner for water heating,"

"Is there a kettle?" Ashei asked, expectant of the negative.

"No, I'm afraid not," the bookworm appeared from the door at the end of the hall. Ashei slapped her forehead.

"Typical…" she muttered. Just then, Rusl came back into the house.

"Hey, we've got our first job!" he said excitedly, waving the letter around. "Someone named Princess Agitha wants us to head over to the Faron Woods and collect some special sand for her so that her bugs will be more comfortable,"

"What?"

"Come again?" Ashei and Shad, respectively, replied.

"You guys heard me," Rusl put away the letter. "Now, pick a room and take your things there, we're heading out soon!"

"It is 16:48," Shad objected, pointing to his pocket watch for emphasis. "We won't have enough time to go there and back before nightfall,"

"Listen to nerd pants, he's right for once," Ashei agreed.

"Hey!" Shad protested to the insult.

"Fine, fine, we'll go tomorrow," Rusl relented, going off to his room. "You two draw straws for the two rooms. I've got the one by the washroom," Ashei and Shad looked at each other.

"No need, Ashei, I'll simply take another gander around the premises whilst you choose a chamber to inhabit," Shad offered. "I shall manage with the remainder," Ashei rolled her eyes at his silver tongue and hefted her bags into the nearest room, which happened to be the furthest from the bathroom.

"Hmm…no firewood nor place to store it to speak of, and an outhouse. A ramshackle one at that," the bookworm muttered, holding his glasses as he looked around the yard. Heading back inside, he observed the kitchen's lack of stove, counter, and pantry, and the sitting room's lack of any furniture at all.

"So what's the word, yeah?" Ashei asked flatly, approaching suddenly and making Shad jump.

"No firewood or corral for it, nor furniture in the sitting room. The only latrine present is a rather poorly-constructed outhouse in the rear yard," he reported in his English tones. "This abode holds the barest of basics,"

"Well, we'll make do when we've completed a few jobs," Rusl assured them from the opposite wall. The sitting room was the room the front door was in, after all.

"What is that, a clock?" Ashei raised an eyebrow as Rusl hung in on the wall. It was a simple clock, similar to the ones in Termina, but, instead, it had two hands that pointed to the numbers and a pendulum that swung with an annoying tick-tock noise, though it still had the sun/moon panel.

"Yes, it was in my bedroom," the swordsman replied. "With this, at least we'll know the time," The clock chimed 17:00 as he finished speaking.

"That thing better not keep me up tonight or it's broken trash," Ashei warned darkly, heading back to her room. Rusl sighed.

"Well, Shad, I best be going out to fetch some food," he said, heading for the door. "I'll be back by sunset,"

"Good luck," Shad replied before Rusl left. Sighing, the bookworm lugged his baggage to his new bedroom and placed it in the corner before beginning to unpack.

The next thirty minutes were the simple process of unpacking and arranging his belongings around the room to his liking.

"I'm back!" Rusl called, coming in the door with three butchered pheasants. Ashei and Shad came out of their rooms to see what he'd fetched.

"My word!" Shad held his nose and averted his eyes. "What are those?"

"Pheasants," Rusl replied nonchalantly.

"Right…" Ashei's nose scrunched at the scrawny birds.

"We'll have to cook them outside, as we have no stove," Rusl continued. Ashei and Shad looked at one another as their de facto leader walked outside, whistling a tune, and began to de-feather the birds.

"This life will take some getting used to," Shad commented, straightening his glasses and glancing at the gory scene outside, only to quickly avert his gaze again.

"Eh, I've lived like this for years," Ashei said dismissively, giving a one-handed shrug. "But I still like basic comforts, yeah? And Rusl thinks he can just expect us to stay here and rough it with him,"

"Well, Ashei, best not become overly rebellious," Shad replied, looking at her. "It's only for a short while, at any rate,"

"Shad, bring me some salt!" Rusl called from where he had, now, built a fire and crudely constructed a spit to spear the birds on.

"At once!" Shad hurried over, shying around the bloody and feather-strewn section of earth, and pulling out his small container of salt that he always kept in his belt packs.

"So when are these birds fit for a Queen gonna be done, yeah?" Ashei asked, casually walking up.

"Oh, in a couple of hours, give or take," Rusl responded, turning the spit.

"I do hope they don't taste dreadful," Shad shuddered, remembering the last time that Rusl cooked something he'd found.

"As long as it's not poison, I can manage," Ashei claimed boldly, turning and heading back into the house. Being a city boy, Shad couldn't really say the same about his edibility preferences. He sighed as he looked at the slowly roasting birds, fighting back a gag at the shriveled heads.

"Well, good night you two!" Rusl announced, one unappetizing supper later. "Don't stay up too late, we have work to do tomorrow. Ho, ho, ho!" he left laughing, a half-burnt candle in hand.

"Laugh it up…" Ashei muttered grumpily. "Well," she glanced at Shad. "Don't let the Hylian Leeches bite, nerdy,"

"Now, Ashei, you know that they only congregate around Lake Hylia and other damp regions," the nerd replied.

"I meant that I was-" she gave an annoyed grunt and headed for her room.

"Good night to you as well," Shad called after her, a smile on his face. Ashei gave a backwards wave of her free hand before shutting her door behind her, cutting off the light of her own short candle. Shad headed to his own room and shut the door behind him. He headed over to his garment bag, carefully setting his stub of a candle on the pile of suitcases that served as his bedside table, and opened the drawstring, pulling out a set of flannel pajamas. Unlike Ashei and Rusl, he was uncomfortable and unaccustomed to sleeping in his day clothes when he wasn't abroad (and wasn't too fond of it then, either), so he had bought these clothes a while back for night wear. Of course, they hadn't seen use in a while, as they had all been staying in the same room at the Stock Pot Inn for the year that they were there, but now they would be worn again.

After donning the pale green pajamas, the nerd laid down on his bed, wishing for an oil lantern to read by, but there wasn't one and, being financially-challenged, the team wouldn't have a lamp in every room for a while. Setting aside his glasses, he blew out his candle, he pulled the travel blanket from his bags up to his chin, trying to ignore the lack of pillow, drifting off to sleep as he thought of what the next day would bring.

Okay, so we know their first crappy job. You're welcome to suggest funny or interesting jobs in a review (within some parameters), so that we can laugh about making them do unpleasant things for a living. Keep in mind that I'm working on another story right now, though, so I may or may not write more on this one, or even finish chapter 2, which is about half-done or so.