"Hey! What's going on?"

"Oh, my gosh! What happened to him?"

"Link's DEEAAAD!!"

"Calm down. He'll be fine."

"What happened to his leg?"

"Oh my gosh, he's DEEAAD!"

These were the first jumble of sounds Link heard when he awoke. Malo, Talo, Beth, Colin, Ilia, and Rusl (the only adult of the group) were standing over him. Link sat up uncomfortably and looked around. He was in front of his house, just where he had collapsed.

"Hey, you're awake!" Talo shouted excitedly. "Yeah, Beth kept saying you were dead, but I tried to tell her not to worry."

Malo glanced at Talo with a "yeah, right" expression. But otherwise, he kept silent.

Link tried to stand up, but his right leg wouldn't budge. He fell down again and recalled what happened. Not only had a few chunks been taken out of his leg, he had been hit with that strange dart from the creature. That dart had immobilized his entire leg.

"What happened to you, son?" Rusl asked Link curiously.

"You know I like to walk out back in the woods after herding the cattle," Link explained. "Out there, I was attacked...by some sort of creature. It looked like a scorpion with kind of a crab-like body." Link sighed. "I don't know. It shoots darts. It got my leg. I can't move it."

Talo looked over at the bloody wound on the back of his leg. "A little dart did all that?"

Link shook his head. "It scratched at it. I can't even get up!" Link complained again.

"Well, we'd better get you inside," Rusl decided. He picked Link up (who felt rather silly relying on someone else to move him), climbed awkwardly up the ladder ("I will have that replaced with stairs first chance I get," Link said after bumping his head on a few ladder rungs), and into Link's home. He was laid down on a couch.

"Ilia," Rusl said, giving instructions. "I'd like you to go find a winto leaf. They're supposed to help close up wounds faster."

"Not into the forest!" Link hissed. "That's where that thing attacked me. Who knows if that thing's little brother is waiting to avenge his brother's death!?"

Rusl nodded. "Winto leaves don't have to be found in the woods. They can be found right in Ordon village, if you know where to look. But still be careful, Ilia. If that thing's as dangerous as Link says it is..."

Rusl left the sentence unfinished. Ilia paused, then turned to Link and said, "Bye, Link. I'll be back soon. Don't worry."

Don't worry.

Those words hung around in Link's head, and he found it impossible not to worry.

"What was that thing?" Link said after awhile. "I've never even heard of it in my life. What kind of sick bug shoots darts at squirrels and eats them the way that thing does?"

Rusl thought for a bit. "You said that the thing had the body of a crab, correct?"

Link nodded. "And the tail of a scorpion, which shoots darts that apparently immobilize poor passerby legs."

Rusl thought some more. "I will admit, I have never heard of such a thing. Research must be done."

Colin held a steaming cup of tea in front of Link. "Dad taught me how to make tea, and I figured it might help soothe you up..."

Link accepted the tea gratefully. All he could do now was wait for Ilia to get back.

"How's your leg?" Ilia asked Link while she wrapped it in a big leaf. The leaf felt good against his bloody leg.

"I still can't move it." As if to prove his point, Link tried to move his leg. Like he said, it didn't respond to him at all. "That arrow must have had some sort of poison...or something...that immobilizes whatever it hits. Ow!"

That was just one of several "ows" Link had shouted during the processing of wrapping up his leg. Ilia apologized again and continued wrapping.

"We've got to find out about them," Link continued. "There's got to be some book. Something about strange and dangerous creatures."

Rusl frowned. "We don't have very many books in Ordon, and the closest and biggest library around would be in, of course, Castle Town. Going through the woods at this time would be exceedingly dangerous. But we may have no choice."

Link sighed. "I would go if my leg wouldn't stop acting like a rebellious child to me." Link grumpily tried to shake his leg around some more, but as always, it remained unresponsive. He sighed again and put his head back.

A week had passed. Link's leg still wouldn't budge. And it was then that Uli, Rusl's wife, who had helped in tending to him, decided that Link needed...medicine.

"You say that the immobilization in your leg hasn't even improved slightly in all this time?" Uli asked.

Link nodded. "Still as heavy as a rock."

Uli looked at the leg for a few more seconds. "It needs medicine. There are several medicines out there that heal immobilization, but they're all in Castle Town, and going there would mean going through the woods and possibly facing more of your attackers."

Rusl, who was sitting nearby with Ilia, replied, "It is necessary. And while we are there, we should check out the library for more information. A second trip to Castle Town would be even more dangerous, so although it might cost a lot of money, we'd have to buy almost every kind of medicine there. We'd better buy some books while we're at it." Rusl stood up and walked towards the door. "Tomorrow, we shall set off in a wagon. We will go quickly through the forest. We will probably be safe once we're out of the trees."

"I'll go, too," Ilia said. "I'll help find books and all that sort of thing. I want to help."

Rusl nodded. It was decided. Tomorrow, they would leave.

Link had waited impatiently for a long while. It was in the night two days later that Rusl, Ilia, and Colin (who had decided to go along at the last minute) entered back into Link's house. Link had been staring into the fireplace, thinking, when the door opened.

"You're back!" Link said happily. "Find anything?"

Rusl was carrying a box full of small medicine bottles, while Ilia was holding a stack of books. Rusl set the box down on a table, and Ilia plopped down in a chair, set the stack of books aside, and pulled one out and started reading it.

"You didn't have trouble on the way, did you?" Link asked nervously.

Rusl shook his head. "My son Colin, however, did say he saw the kind of creature that attacked you."

"We were passing by pretty quickly in the Faron woods," Colin said, "but I still saw it up close. It had a black, shiny body and, like you said, had a scorpion's tail and a weird, crab-like body. It almost attacked us. It raised its tail."

Link realized that all that had to have happened was a dart being fired and hitting someone in the wagon, and more people would have joined Link. Link glanced over at the book Ilia was reading. It was titled, "Enigmatic Mysteries of Old." Ilia was reading through it ferociously. Before Link could open his mouth to comment, Rusl explained, "She thought the book was interesting, so I got it for her. Something for the young ones in the wagon to do on the way back."

Link picked out a random bottle of medicine. It was a bright blue color. "When do I start with the medicine?" he asked.

"Now, if you like."

Link turned the bottle to the back and read what it was made of and what side-effects there may be. "'Some side-effects may occur,'" Link read out loud, "'including loss of equilibrium, exhaustion and...senseless babbling?'" Link read the phrase over and over again. "There's a side-effect called 'senseless babbling,' and I'm hoping that's a joke." Link put the bottle back. "Maybe I'll try another one."

The next one he picked up wasn't much better. "The side-effects here can be shaking hands, brief blurry vision, and going to sleep easily." Link shrugged. "Everybody needs a good rest now and then, right?" he said.

If only he knew.

He took a small gulp and swallowed. It tasted like eating leaves. It was pretty gross, but he managed to get it down his throat. "Not too bad," Link said finally. "So, according to this, I just take one spoonful a day for approximately two weeks."

"That wasn't a spoonful," Ilia pointed out, looking up from her book.

"Close enough," Link said, setting the tiny bottle onto a special spot on the table. He made sure it would always be there.

"Well, we'll be leaving now," Rusl said. "Remember to take your medicine, Link. Don't overdose on it, and remember that the box will always be there if you need another medicine bottle."

Link glanced at the big box and wondered how he could forget. He waved bye to them.

"If you want, I can stay here and give you some company, Link," Ilia volunteered.

Link was about to say no when he realized he really was awfully lonely by himself, sitting in bed, drinking awful-tasting medicine. So he said yes, and Ilia continued to read her book, pointing out nice tidbits on legends and myths long ago.

In another ten minutes, Link was asleep. He woke up very soon after, only about another ten minutes later.

"I miss anything?" Link asked groggily.

"No. Wait..." Ilia flipped back a page. She was concentratingly intensely now. "Link, I think I might have found the identity of your attacker."

Link tried to get out of bed, but fell over onto his back when his other leg wouldn't budge. Ilia didn't seem to have noticed. "'Walks like a beach-dwelling creature, stings like a desert-dwelling bug.'" A crab and a scorpion. Does that sound like--?"

"Yes!" Link exclaimed, still trying to get back up. "That sounds exactly like..."

And before he could continue, he was instantly asleep again. Ilia waited rather impatiently for him to wake up. When he did, he apologized quickly and asked her to continue.

"They're called the Constellatia," Ilia explained. "There's a long history that goes back with them. There was a man with strong magic powers who lived about two thousand years ago. Life quickly went wrong for him; his parents died early, his house burned down, and people shied away from him, thinking he was having such bad luck because he was a sorcerer. Filled with vengeance, he--"

A loud breathing sound told Ilia that Link was out again. She tapped him on the shoulder a few times with no response. She even pinched him and blew in his ear. It wasn't until the sixth pinch that he straightened up and shouted "ow!"

"Quit falling asleep."

"Sorry."

Link was already starting to see the disadvantages of the side-effects of the medicine he was taking. Ilia continued reading. "Filled with vengeance, he brought out his biggest powers and created at his disposal an army of deadly bugs which he called the Constellatia from the fact that he got his power with the number of stars visible in the sky, and on that night every last star was visible...that's what this book says." She paused. "The Constellatia quickly killed their creator and went loose into the world. A large group of people with strong magic finally managed to banish these creatures to the heart of the earth, where they were to stay for eternity."

"They didn't kill them?" Link asked quizzically.

"I'd imagine it was easier to seal them away than to kill them," Ilia explained.

"But they're here at the surface," Link wondered aloud. "Did they dig their way up?"

"It's awfully hard to dig so far up through solid rock and even magma..."

"They did have a couple thousand years to do it."

"Well, yes."

Ilia kept reading, but she found nothing else. "It doesn't say anything else, but that sheds some light on our mystery." Ilia yawned. "I'm pretty tired. I guess I'll go to--"

Link was asleep again before she had even finished her sentence. She sighed, closed the book, and left Link's house.