"A long time ago... There was a man in this very village who had an eye they said could see the truth! Now usually, you have to train your mind's eye most strenuously to actually see the truth... But this fella, no, they say he had a different way of doing things... His house stood where the well is now..."
The Three Features
The air is stagnant.
Filled with the sweet and striking smell of decay.
It's not an entirely unpleasant smell, believe it or not.
No...
It's not enough to make your stomach churn. It's not enough to send you running. But it's enough. It's enough to make you stand there and think.
Ah... so this is what Death smells like.
And that is what makes you feel sick.
The thick air is damp, stale, and sticky. Yet somehow, you feel cold. Not the icy finger running down your spine kind of nonsense.
No...
This coldness is much deeper than that. It rests on your shoulders. Like a spiderweb-thin lace shawl. So very thin and light that it seems to merge with you. Sinking deeper and deeper into your skin, gaining weight as it buries into your flesh, before finally settling down like a cold steel casing around your bones.
Then a soft moan sounds, as if from far away.
Barely audible.
You're sure it's not you. This faint death rattle that echoes through the stone passage.
No...
You're so sure that it's not you, and yet... you pray that it is.
Because you know... you know that there is no one else there. You are entirely alone in the shadows.
If you were to stand within the corridor yourself, an uneasy darkness would settle around you.
If you were to stand there, you would feel the darkness embrace you like a soft blanket.
If you were there, you would feel all too aware of the emptiness. How the darkness would encase you.
Softly and silently smothering you.
Whispering...
Quietly promising terrible things...
This must be the realm of the dead, for there can be no hell greater than this.
Shadows and silence.
You would fade into the darkness. Too frightened to make a sound, fearful that you could no longer hear as well as see. Too frightened to move for fear that you are frozen. Too frightened to do anything for fear that you don't exist.
That is what true darkness is like.
Be grateful you are not in that terrible place, where even the goddesses fear to tread. Be grateful that you sit here listening to this wizened old woman tell you the story of a man's foolish wish to rival the power of the Triforce.
But what's more frightening... Yes, my child, even more frightening than the realm of the dead is that he succeeded.
/\/\/\
You know, of course, the story of the Hero of Time? How he traveled through time to defeat the Dark King Ganon?
Forgive me, of course you do.
Not a single dweller of the Surface doesn't know. But I digress...
Before the Hero of Time stood to face the Dark King, he needed help. All great men need help. That's what makes them great. The Hero of Time needed all the help he could get, so great was his trial.
He called upon the six sages. And with their power and Princess Zelda, the Hero of Time sealed Ganon.
What does this have to do with the man who spat in the face of the goddesses? Well you see, young one, like I said before, the Hero of Time needed all the help he could get.
The hero had great strength, wisdom, and courage. This I cannot deny. But even the greatest of men can be deceived by evil.
And so our sad tale begins...
~{ 0 }~
Once there was a man, who lived in this very village.
In the beginning, he was a humble and quiet man. He did not have much in the ways of strength or courage, but in wisdom he was unrivaled. And in his own way, he devoted his life to protecting the Light of the goddesses.
I do not know, nor do I care to learn, how he managed it. But after many years of... research, the man was finally able to complete his life's ambition.
An eye, plucked from his own head allowed the wielder to see no evil.
A face, that even the earth could speak no lies to.
And a stone, that would let you hear the very secrets of the earth.
But upon his success, the man grew prideful and vain. He claimed the Three Features were man's own Triforce...
He was even so foolish as to name it the Trinity. Feh!
The unity of the Three Features would grant the bearer godly power, or so he claimed.
I cannot deny that the Three Features hold great power, but that power came at too terrible a price...
But that is not a story for ears as short and young as yours. No... That story is for another day.
Regardless, the man fell deeper and deeper into the darkness he had tried to reveal to the world. And the darkness embraced him, promising terrible things. Consumed by his own shadow, the man was now empty.
Completely hollow.
So hollow that you could not see him past the darkness that had consumed him. He had turned into a monster of Darkness...the very thing he had set out to destroy.
One that no one could see.
The one-eyed beast plagued the world until he was finally stopped by the very things he had created. The Three Features.
Whether out of pity or recognition for all the man had done for Hyrule, the Shadow Sage did not kill the poor creature. Instead she sealed him within his own underground... research room. With water from the great Zora River aiding her, the Shadow Sage purified the land where a great evil had transpired.
But on still nights, if you stood by the old well and strained your ears, you could hear it. A faint beating so quiet that you might think it was your own heart. Some said that it was the Shadow Beast, still conducting his terrible rituals, trying to make a new Trinity.
/\
Oh my, fear not, my child.
The shadows cannot harm you.
The phantom is gone and will not come back...
I will always edit.
They say the one-eyed beast had his hands removed, but after the Hero of Time destroyed their undead fleshy prisons their spirits left to rejoin their Master. And once again the Master had his right and left hands...