Chapter 9: Race To Death Mountain
(Puzzles_and_Pebblit)
-Death Mountain Trail-
Death Mountain.
Hyrule's second largest mountain (after Snowpeak), the ancestral home of the Gorons, and the volcano in whose shadow Kakariko Village thrived.
Barring its semi-regular eruptions, the outside of the mountain was generally peaceful. The Gorons mainly conducted their business in the myriad tunnels and caves crisscrossing the mountain's caverns.
The crater was belching an oddly dark, thick smoke, but was otherwise quiet -
"Get back here!"
- until it wasn't.
Today's noisy race featured four contestants running at full tilt towards the mountain proper.
In the lead: a man with a long blue cloak and bright orange shoes with a pack over his shoulder. The other three were focused on him, marking him clearly as the target of this chase. It was also clear that he was tiring, but he kept the race competitive by periodically reaching into the pack and scattering paper into the winds behind him.
The paper would flutter aboutuntil a small, armored being sprang forth, looking around in confusion before turning to attack the pursuers.
At this point, one of two things would happen.
In second place: a woman in blue armor. The spear in her hands was an instrument of death; whenever a creature was summoned within her striking range, the weapon would flicker out and pierce through the monster's impressive-looking but thin armor.
Even the prowess of the spear-wielder couldn't keep up with the sheer volume of paper that the man in the front was throwing, and so cleanup duty went to the third-place runner: a girl in green. With her braids flying out from under her raised hood, a crossbow in each hand spat bolts far faster than a crossbow had any right to. Each shot struck home, either skating across the monsters' armor to their weak points or punching through the still-midair paper before the creature could manifest. It would still appear, but with a hole through its head, so it wasn't long for this world.
Whether by spear or crossbow bolt, when a monster met its end, it would poof out of existence in an explosion of purplish-black smoke. Most of the monsters took their armor and armaments with them, but some weapons would fall to the ground below, or even topple off the cliff.
And in last place: a boy, also in green. He is unable to interact with the frenetic chase atop the cliff, but it is free to rain discarded weapons upon him. They clatter onto the dirt path in his wake.
At the front, the cloaked man had opened up enough space that he could focus all his energy on a final sprint to the finish line, which the other two cliff-runners could see was one of the tunnels leading into the mountain's mines. As they watched, the man jumped to the entrance, turned to offer a mocking salute to his pursuers, and vanished into the darkness. The woman in blue followed suit without hesitation.
/_\
Outside the gate, Link was frustrated, to say the least. As Adira had said, the gate was unlocked, but it wouldn't budge. Also - like everything in this city, he thought darkly - the term 'gate' was a bit of a misnomer. Instead of a metal grate that could be seen through, this was a heavy stone slab. The result being, of course, that he couldn't see what was behind the gate in order to figure out what was sealing it.
That issue could be solved rather quickly, which was the source of the rest of his frustration. From her position on the cliff wall, Linkle had a perfect vantage point, but she was taking a long time to respond-
"Okay, I think I see it."
Val's projection betrayed none of Link's irritation. Which was probably fortunate. "What's going on?"
"The tunnel is...overgrown, kind of. Some kind of viny plant that's winding around the inside of the gate."
"Wait, that's it? This seems almost perfectly suited for us," noted Link.
"You still need some way to light the vine from here, though."
Link stepped back, casting his gaze over the top of the gate. He could see the overgrowth Linkle was talking about, but the sheer number of criss-crossing strands made it nearly impossible to tell which, if any, were the ones blocking the gate.
"Linkle! Can you follow the vines from the gate to where they enter the tunnels? I don't want to set the entire thing on fire."
"Sure thing!" A few more seconds of waiting. "Got it!" She pointed out three specific vines by shooting bolts into them.
Idly wondering how much ammo she had, Link pulled out his new(ly stolen) slingshot, asking Val "Those Deku Nut pellets we bought are flammable, right?"
He could feel Val smiling. "Don't burn the whole mine down." He snorted.
The first vine was on the far left, relatively isolated from its fellows. Ideal for his first attempt.
After firing a sighting shot with a regular pellet, he switched in a Deku Nut. As he let go - "Shinefinger!" - he released a small amount of magic. The flaming nut soared through the air, and the explosion released its contents into a small, concentrated inferno. Flickering flames belching a thick smoke spread down the vine (far faster than flames should). After a pause, Linkle confirmed that the first of the blockages had been reduced to ashes.
Blockages two and three fell similarly, but the third conflagration spread a little too far, and a gate slammed shut.
Whoops.
Above him, Linkle groaned. "That was the path that those two went down! Now we have to go around…"
Link put his shoulder to the stone "gate" and pushed, finally opening the path to Death Mountain.
"Objective complete; removed the blockage sealing the gate. This overgrowth is massive, though. It might come back unless we can destroy or wall off the source."
'Massive' was, as usual, an understatement.
For a wild moment, Link thought that the gate was in fact a portal to the Faron Woods. The vines he was stepping on definitely felt like Faron undergrowth. Above him, Linkle was staring forlornly at the shut gate. She called down, "The lever is on the inside." That made sense, and was also highly inconvenient for their current situation. A mirrored walkway led to the other high-level tunnel entrance, but as he eyeballed the distance, she confirmed. "I can't jump that."
Luckily, that was an easily solved problem.
While the vines were annoying blockages, they were also excellent Clawshot targets. Link tossed the gadget up to Linkle, who nearly lost her grip on it as it yanked her over to the other walkway. Task complete, she returned it to him before nearly skipping into the open second-floor tunnel. He himself stepped through the ground-level front door into the Goron Mines.
Goron Mines, 1F
It was immediately obvious where the inspiration for the Sanctuary's Fire Dome had come from. The humid heat felt exactly the same, and the rocky ground and walls matched the decor of the dome. At least in the places where he could see past the vines.
The room itself was a simple corridor with an opening on the left side. Sword and shield ready, he entered cautiously to find what was apparently a Goron locker room. Other than the odd implement knocked off course by a stray vine, everything was arranged in neat rows: helmets, hardened gloves, boots, and other equipment. The lack of pickaxes and other standard mining tools confused him until Val explained that Goron mining was performed via punching the rocks into manageable pieces with their immense strength. Hence the gloves.
Of course, they didn't fit him, no matter how attractive the prospect of being able to punch rocks was.
With his hopes dashed, he exited through the door on the opposite side into a small, two-tiered chamber. On ground level, another cramped corridor ended in a door reading "Shaft A". The second level of the chamber featured two symmetrical ledges on either side. Each one split off to a passageway halfway down and then met at Shaft A, one floor up.
As he stepped forward, Val murmured "Wait. I sense something."
A tense pause as Link looked around, wiping the sweat off his brow as he scanned for threats.
Finally, Val reported, "I'm sensing...two? Three? No, two spiritual energy sources. There's one that's powerful enough that it's warping my perception of the other one, and it's at the bottom of the mountain. I can't get a read on the specific location of the other one, although it's probably on a higher level."
"And the Gorons?"
"No sign, but then again with the interference from the bottom I wouldn't be able to track them even if they released enough spiritual energy for me to find."
"Hopefully this shaft leads downwards, then."
Destination established, Link stepped forward - and jerked to a stop with sword and shield raised as several dark shapes flapped out of their hiding spots amongst the vines tangled along the walls. Once they were far enough away from the plants, the dark shapes burst into flame.
"Fire Keese," Val informed him. "About as tough as regular Keese, but, you know. On fire. Be careful."
He very carefully did not send Val his instinctively sarcastic response, instead swapping his shield out for the Clawshot. New or not, it was still a wooden shield, and testing it against flaming enemies was just asking for trouble.
"Val, you got a count?" Before she could answer, he fired the Clawshot at the group nearest to him. The Keese in front swooped downward, dodging it. The one behind it took the claw to the face, and it punched through with minimal resistance.
Well, she'd have to subtract one-
The claw punched through the Fire Keese and kept going, latching onto the vine wall and pulling Link along with it. He had the presence of mind to stop the retraction after a second or so, but the sudden lurch left him disoriented for a moment.
As his vision cleared, one of the flames dancing across his eyes resolved into a Keese diving for his face. Link brought his sword around from the awkward position it was in, knowing instinctively that he wouldn't make it in time and bracing for the searing pain -
But a crossbow bolt speared the bat-like creature, pinning it to the ground for a fraction of a second before it exploded into black mist.
Linkle waved a hand (and by extension a crossbow) from the upper walkway, the other spitting a bolt that impaled another Keese.
The two of them made short work of the remaining bats, especially now that Link knew to exercise caution when firing the Clawshot.
Link called to the girl. "Thanks. I'm going to investigate that shaft; where are you heading?"
She glanced over at the second floor entrance to shaft A. Locked. Linkle made a snap decision. "Then I'll stay up here and see if I can find the guy we were chasing - by the Sages, I want my boots back…"
Boots?Val was as mystified as he was, so he instead wished her luck before advancing to the mineshaft. No time to lose.
Shaft A's design was simple: a mechanism in the middle that would bring a platform up or down as the user desired, with a staircase set in the wall for emergencies or long wait times. As Link stepped to the edge and looked down the shaft, it was clear which category this situation fell under.
The lift platform was locked in place. Not by a mechanism, but by the twisting, entangled vines that were apparently interwoven with the fabric of the mines at this point. Link estimated that it was in limbo between two and three levels down, far enough that jumping would present a not-insignificant level of risk.
The stairs, then.
2F
Even in this parallel world, Linkle was relieved that at least some things were similar to her homeland. For example, Death Mountain was still prominent on the skyline (except when she was in it, of course), cuccos were still as cute as she remembered, Rupees were the currency…
And Keese were really annoying, at least for people who preferred swords. Once again, Linkle was grateful that she'd decided to focus on crossbows instead of melee weapons.
Today's reason that crossbows were better than swords: Keese are small flying things that are difficult to hit when they're up close. When they're far away, however, they're target practice.
(Of course, most people couldn't peg small bats from a long distance one-handed, repeatedly, but her perspective was a little skewed.)
After saying goodbye to Link, she entered the second-floor hallway, not even batting an eye as more Keese detached themselves from the wall. No, she was an ever-moving, whirling tornado that spat crossbow bolts until all that was left of the creatures was the dark mist that marked their passing.
Come to think of it, the dust from a Keese explosion was much inkier than that of a Wolfos back home, or even one of the monsters that Jester had summoned during their chase.
Possibly different worlds' monsters died differently?
But she couldn't continue that train of thought for long - her whirling death-dance ended in the next room, crossbows askew in a striking pose, left foot in front of the right foot, which was...sinking onto a pressure plate.
And she rolled to the side as a gate slammed shut behind her, coming up with crossbows ready and pointing at possible threats.
Of which there were none. She was the only living thing in this room.
Linkle relaxed a little, replacing her right-hand crossbow on her boot and starting to explore the room she was trapped in.
Her prison was a circular dome of a room hewn out from the surrounding rock. Metal grates covered the entrance and exit doorways, as usual. The centerpiece of the room was the sundial-like structure in the room's center. Upon closer inspection, it was a lot more complicated than a normal sundial would be - no surprise there.
And of course there was no sunlight...
Instead of a unified shadow-caster, the ridge rising from the center was divided into three sections that matched the divisions of the dials below them. The top plane of the shadow-caster was also polished to a reflective shine. Evidently she was supposed to turn the dials in order to line up the numbers on the circle.
Or, given that the middle section was the only one out of sync with the others, she could just slide that into line -
And the ground rumbled as a mechanism responded to her actions.
After the world stopped shaking, Linkle surveyed the room once again. The first, most relevant change was that the gates covering the exits had lifted. That was simple...
Secondly, the room was no longer a closed, complete dome. If she followed the line that the shadow-caster made, it pointed towards a newly-formed circular hole in the wall. Through it she could see the central cavern of the mine: a complex web of metal walkways and contraptions.
That was currently crawling with monsters she didn't recognize. Lizards walking upright, wearing armor and wielding swords?
Some things here were similar to her world, and then some things were completely insane.
Ridiculous monsters aside, it was high time she kept moving; neither the boots thief nor the armored woman were anywhere to be seen.
B1F
Link could practically mark the exact step where the humid heat of the first floor gave way to a cooler, much more comfortable temperature to fight and explore in. Val explained that warm air tends to rise, making the underground caverns of the mines cooler than the higher ones.
"In fact, things like cuccos and gliders can gain more altitude when flying over fires or other sources of hot air."
"That'd be great if I had a sailcloth or something."
As they conversed, he continued down, down, down…
B4F
...and finally reached the bottom of Shaft A. He was now looking up at the locked-in-place lift platform. It quickly became apparent that there were a lot more vines holding the platform up than were visible from above, and they extended into the various surrounding rooms.
"This is going to take a lot more than a couple flaming Deku Nuts, I think…"
"Maybe not," Val said, tone slow and thoughtful. "Now that we're closer, I can tell that those vines are being magically strengthened. If we follow each vine to its source and cut off the flow, I put the odds of the plants falling apart altogether under the weight at about 84.6 percent? These kinds of magical enhancements tend to not have ontological inertia."
"Smaller words, please?"
"They don't stick around if you take out the source."
"Didn't you just say that? What was the point of that magic-speak then, showing off?" Val grumbled something about exact wording, but he ignored her in favor of surveying the room.
Mechanism for operating the lift, check. Two doors in the back half of the room, check. He focused on Val long enough to confirm that she had stopped muttering before asking "Can you tell where the large spiritual pressure is coming from?"
"It's on the left side, but I can't tell if it's on this floor or not. See how useful being exact -"
He stopped paying attention again and opened the left door.
This room ended about two feet from the door, in a sheer rock wall. Otherwise, it was completely empty. The only other interesting thing in this room was the hole in the center of the "far" wall. Looking inside, he could see a passage of some sort stretching out into the deep darkness.
He sighed, snapping his fingers to summon a thin flame for use as a makeshift torch. If he crouched, he could waddle forward slowly. It'd be hell on his legs, though. Another sigh, but then Val interjected.
"That's probably a bad idea."
"What, is this a lava chute or something? Nothing's burning."
"Remember, these are the Goron mines. Gorons can -"
He extinguished the flame. "Roll into balls for speedy movement. Makes sense they'd have a fast travel system."
"And since their shells are really strong, they also use it as a kind of delivery system."
"Meaning other things are likely to be traveling at high speed as well. Even if people aren't here right now, we should probably not take the risk."
The other door led to a hallway that curved gently to the right. He advanced, stepping gingerly around the vines that criss-crossed the path and killing any Keese he came across. As the hall turned, a passage split off, but most of the vines didn't follow. Interesting.
Unfortunately, the room that the passage led to didn't hold any answers as to the nature of the vines.
All Link saw after rolling aside the stone door was a Goron fast travel point and what looked like personal belongings. Another locker room, then. It didn't look like it had been abandoned mid-shift, but its users had evidently left in a hurry. The lockers on the first floor had been arranged in a fairly orderly fashion, but these weren't - had whatever befallen the Gorons started from the bottom and moved up?
His cycle of the room was complete, so he made to go back out, passing by the tunnel entrance as he did so -
A hiss and a scrape -
Link jumped straight up, narrowly avoiding the greenish blur that flew under him. At the apex of his jump, he drew his sword, bringing it down in front of him at an awkward angle that did more to ensure his assailant kept its distance than to do damage. As he landed, he finally got a good look at his opponent.
A human-sized lizard snarled at him, standing on its hind legs and brandishing a chipped curved sword. Its tail lashed behind it, a tail that Link noted with some shock had an axe blade attached to it.
Val chimed in, "That's a Lizalfos, a highly-evolved reptile that has learned to use weapons. This particular population likes to attach discarded blades to their tails, giving them another weapon when they spin around."
"...what was Farore thinking when she made these?"
"Evolution results in weird species, Link."
"What's evolution-"
The Lizalfos hissed again and struck. Link caught the inartful slash on his shield, but the monster's chipped blade bit and held in the wood, and a sharp yank brought Link forward -
As he was pulled off-balance, the monster spun, bringing its tail-axe around to carve out Link's stomach with scything force -
And Link desperately slipped his arm out of the shield's straps, jumping back to watch the axe head whip past his midsection before rushing in to stab at the creature's midsection in turn.
But the thing pivoted, now spinning the other way. This brought Link's shield back around while the axe blade tried to bisect him again.
This time, Link rolled forward, letting the tail-axe whip past him as he came up, and then jumped back, watching the creature warily.
"How do I keep losing my shield to random enemies?"
"This time you didn't even lose it to a human. Kinda embarrassing, wouldn't you say?"
Link gritted his teeth as the Lizalfos spun at him again. The loss of his shield was actually working in his favor for the moment; it made the monster's sword pretty much useless and forced it to rely on awkward spinning attacks that were easily dodged. As the tail came back around, Link stepped into the monster's guard, turning his back and bringing his sword across-
The tip of the monster's tail, and the attached axe-head, skittered across the floor.
Link didn't have time to savor his small victory, though; as the creature screamed, a slimy rope of some kind wrapped around his neck and began to squeeze -
But not for long, as he instinctively grabbed the thing and started channeling power into his hand. The monster's tongue was immediately retracted, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh.
He turned back around and stabbed the writhing monster through the heart.
As the Lizalfos exploded into black mist, Link shuddered. "That was disgusting."
"Yeah...I had no idea about the tongue thing; I suppose it's a close-range defense mechanism that doesn't usually get used much-"
"Because of the swords and tails and stuff."
The monster's sword was still embedded in Link's shield; he separated them and replaced the shield on his back, grimacing slightly at the furrow that now marred its surface. This was, what, the third shield he'd ruined in as many weeks? He mentally moved "metal shield" to the top of his to-buy list as he left the room.
2F
The next room that Linkle entered had a similar layout to the first room she'd been trapped in: a crystal placed in the ceiling above a mismatched sundial, and gates that slammed shut when she walked too far into the room.
This time, however, she wasn't imprisoned alone.
For whatever reason, this particular sundial room was a monster party. Five Fire Keese flapped down, two red Tektites hopped into action, and a hole in the wall released a large red blob that split into three, each one lazily oozing along the floor.
Not a problem, of course.
The Keese went down in three reload cycles, with a bolt to spare for one of the Tektites. That one missed, though, flying under the monster's leap. It was easy enough to dodge, though, and the blobs were far too slow to pose any kind of threat -
Until they weren't. One of them reared up like a snake and propelled itself at her with alarming speed. She stood her ground this time, pressing a switch under one of her crossbow triggers that extended a knife blade out into the creature, killing it. Clicking the button again to retract the blade, she noticed that the blob's remains were pooling into a viscous liquid that reminded her of Red Potion - wait, were those Chuchus? What was wrong with this world's monsters?
In true Chuchu fashion, the other two leapt at her in turn, and in turn they fell to her hidden blades. Two monsters left, both Tektites. Remembering how the first one dodged a shot, she was a lot more careful to peg them in the eyes at the height of their jumps, where they couldn't change direction.
As the last monster exploded, she thought about collecting the Chu jelly, but her three bottles were all full at the moment, and she was loath to part with any of the potions she'd left home with. It wasn't like they'd go bad.
The second sundial was only marginally harder to realign, and the room rumbled as the last one had to reveal another hole in the wall. From this angle, she could see that in the very center of the mountain was a rock shaft - probably where the main lava flow was located, as she saw branches split off to deliver lava to various parts of the mines. Attached to the shaft was a large polished stone, the purpose of which she couldn't figure out.
So she moved on.
When she was about halfway around from the exit, the passage split. Or tried to. The main path curved around, presumably to one or two more sundial rooms, while to the right it looked like there should a bridge to the central caverns.
Currently, however, there wasn't a bridge. The mechanism was there, but Linkle could see no immediately obvious way to extend it. And more galling was the fact that the spearwoman was already on the other side!
Well, just staring at her wasn't going to get her there. Keep moving, Linkle.
To the left was another mine shaft, but like the first, the lift was locked in place by twisting vines. She circled the upper level, this time not setting off any pressure plates, but she did accidentally kick a bomb flower.
Whoops.
Luckily, it didn't light. Unluckily, it rolled into a nearby hole in the wall and vanished.
Linkle winced and moved on, hoping fervently that she hadn't accidentally blown someone up.
Sundial room three. Navigating this type of room was becoming routine: gate clangs shut, monsters get rowdy, monsters get dead. Realign the sundial. This one was more annoying, since moving one of the three sections would also move a different section, and so she had to figure out the relationships between the sections before she could actually align them. Nothing she couldn't handle, though, and the room reconfigured itself once more. Now that this had happened three times, Linkle had an idea about what this entire setup was for: reflecting light. The polished sundials and stones in the central shaft were probably made for that purpose, but what the reflected light would do, she had no idea.
One more room to go, and hopefully she'd figure it out completely.
Of course, it was never that simple.
As the gate shut behind her in the fourth sundial room, a walking lizard jumped off the sundial and brandished a chipped sword at her, axe-tail lashing out behind it.
Not only was this monster's body ridiculous, it added to its ridiculousness with its choice of weaponry. What was wrong with this Hyrule?
Luckily, Linkle had a simple solution to such problems.
It leapt at her, swinging its entire body to double-slash with its sword and tail...and exploded into this world's inky black mist as Linkle poured bolts into its unarmored hide.
She once again thanked the goddesses that she'd decided to train in ranged combat.
The fourth sundial had more sections, some of which were linked, and some of which would turn in the opposite direction as its partner. Still, Linkle solved it fairly quickly, and finally the fourth room rotated into place.
Nothing happened.
Linkle palmed her face. Of course not, there was a rather important component of the system missing: directed, focused light. So next up: find a way to let the light into Death Mountain.
She hoped Link was having less trouble.
B4F
Link was definitely getting closer to the source of at least one section of vines, but that meant that he had to fight both the monsters and the terrain. Tripping over vines was a non-trivial concern, especially with his fairly mobile fighting style. These vines were also fairly resistant to fire, which annoyed him to no end.
But he made his way through, slowly, vanquishing every monster in his path. Luckily, the path was free of Lizalfos at the moment, but there was no shortage of Keese and Chuchus lurking in the nooks and crannies created by the twisting vines. He only miscalculated a roll and ended up sprawling once, and he'd crushed a Chuchu with a flaming hand in the process, so he counted that as a win and ignored Val's mockery.
As he neared the door to what Val identified as Mine Shaft B, the path branched to the left once again. Down there, Val, said, was the source of a large portion of the vines, as well as the large spiritual presence that was warping her senses throughout the entire mountain. At this, Link perked up and started moving faster, vines be damned. He'd probably have to fight whatever was inside, but the sooner he did that, the sooner he could get around without worrying about uneven footing.
And his suspicions were borne out once he wrenched the stone door aside, a task made easier by the vines wedging the slab open.
This was evidently the mine's treasure room; a hollowed-out cave containing piles of various valuables, from Rupee crystals to precious metals. Most of the items were locked up, however, a fact which depressed his spirits slightly.
(Val whispered "Kleptooooo...")
The walls were lined with Goron fast travel entrances, but most of them were sealed by dome-shaped rock covers. Most of those details were, of course, hidden behind the twisting mass of vines that was this area's defining feature.
Those vines met in the back of the room, where they coiled around a glowing...pile of rock? No, it had to be some kind of magical ore, but how did those help nourish living plants?
"Is that the source of the vines' magic? An ore deposit?"
"Magic at its core is energy, so if you can just translate that energy from the potential energy in some precious stones to the chemical energy used to keep vines alive, you can get something like this. Very difficult, though; volcanic rocks are Din-aligned, life is Farore-aligned, and it would be very easy for the F-energy to resonate with the D-energy and cause a feedback loop - oh, very clever. Using N-energy to mitigate the natural amplification of the D-energy…"
Link's eyes had glazed over about halfway through the first sentence.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry. Look, magic has three main elements: fire, water, and wind. Water puts out fire, wind scatters water, fire is strengthened by wind. Most people focus on one element, so mixing elements like this is the mark of an especially powerful or creative mage. In this case, whoever set this up is using all three elements, mixed together in various amounts to make sure that the energy from the ore is keeping the plants alive. Even worse, there's really no quick and easy way for us to take it down without turning the entire room into a brick oven. Bombing it is pretty much the only solution, but - "
"We don't have any…"
And as Link took a step forward, a gate slammed shut and another problem reared its head. Quite literally, as some of the glowing ore broke off, gathering loose stones and parts of the walls and floor to itself in a whirling maelstrom of rock that resolved itself into a vaguely humanoid shape.
"Uh, Val? I don't think my sword works on solid rock."
"Oh dear. That's an Igneo Pebblit, a stone golem made from volcanic rock. Very strong, very durable, very slow. There's a weak point on the back where the ore sticks out; blunt force trauma is advised. Do NOT light the ore on fire, unless you want the brick oven effect I was talking about."
"Oh, I wish I had a hammer. Or those Goron fist-things I saw earlier."
Well. Time to improvise.
With a terrible crashing sound, the Pebblit ripped a chunk of stone out of the ground and hurled it at Link, who dove to the side - and dove again as another rock sailed through where his first roll had landed. The thing had two hands, after all. And no lack of ammo; Link instantly decided to close in and see if he could get around it that way.
He ducked under another thrown stone, hurdled the next, and he was now close enough that the Pebblit decided to bring its rocky arms up and smash them downwards at him. Link didn't stop moving, diving through its legs to come up behind it, eyes frantically searching - there! In the center of its back glowed a vein of magical ore, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Link pulled the Clawshot from his belt, firing at the ore. Luckily, it held, pulling him in and anchoring him somewhat tenuously. With his free hand, he drew his sword, and with a grimace he started bashing the ore with the hilt, hoping to chip some off.
It was working, but very slowly, and meanwhile the Pebblit had started spinning -
Link detached the Clawshot, jumping off and shaking his head to try and mitigate the dizziness.
It didn't help.
Neither did the giant rock that the Pebblit hurled in his wake. Luckily, Link's stumbling brought him out of the path of the projectile, but the spinning torso of the Pebblit had imbued it with some angular momentum. This resulted in the stone spinning across the ground to clip his arm. Luckily it didn't seem to be broken, but it was surely going to bruise. The heart count reappeared in the upper left of his vision, but he ignored it.
This Pebblit was, perhaps, one of the worst possible opponents for him to face as he was. He had no way to scratch the thing unless he climbed up its back and started whacking the ore with his sword, a slow process that would likely do more damage to his weapon than to the enemy. He wasn't keen to test Val's assertion that lighting the Pebblit on fire would cause a catastrophic overload, either. If only he had access to bombs…
And no sooner did that thought cross his mind than a blue ball came rolling out of one of the fast travel tunnels. Behind the Pebblit, but Link wasn't about to start chucking rocks at a gift Cucco. Chucking rocks, heh.
"Val, is that what I think it is?"
"If you're thinking 'bomb', then yes! Why now, though?"
"Figure that out later!"
The bomb wasn't smoking, so the fuse had gone out somehow. Blessing of blessings. Now how was he supposed to get it lit and deliver it to the Pebblit's weakness? His mind flashed back to the battle against the bandit archer on the Bridge of Hylia, right after he met Lanayru. Somehow he doubted it would be as easy as that time.
Ernest's saying popped into his mind again. If it's easy, it's not fun. The fact that this kept coming up in battles to the death was probably a sign that he needed to reevaluate some of his life choices, but - he ducked a flying rock - he could figure that out later…
First step: acquire bomb. The Clawshot made that easy; a snap shot after the next projectile brought the bomb through the Pebblit's legs and to his waiting hands. He fumbled a bit detaching it from the Clawshot, but after the next rocky projectile sailed past his head, he'd reached his planned loadout: right hand holding the Clawshot, left hand holding the still unlit bomb. Link ran through the motions he would need to complete in a short period of time: shoot-stow-light-throw. Shoot-stow-light-throw. Going over those steps before the fact would hopefully ready him to pull it off when he needed to.
He ducked another flying rock.
Step two: get to the Pebblit's back with a minimum of injury. Luckily, the thing was tall enough that he could slip between its legs, as he had demonstrated once already. Should work the same, even at high speed. And if he screwed it up, he wouldn't have very long to appreciate that fact.
Val chimed in. "We can't keep dodging rocks forever, Link, do you have a plan? You've been quiet."
"Uh, yeah. Just waiting for an opportunity…" He moved side to side, slightly. There.
The Pebblit was apparently capable of frustration, too; it carved out a bigger rock than normal and raised it high -
"Now!"
Shoot. Link aimed a snap-shot at the opened treasure chest directly across from him. The claw bit, held, reeled in, and Link pushed off to fly parallel to the ground. His hat flattened itself against his head as the Pebblit's rock whizzed past, and then he was behind it -
Stow. Link made an executive decision to modify that step slightly; instead of detaching and storing the Clawshot he elected to let go instead, skidding to a stop and placing his finger on the bomb's fuse.
Light.
("Redfinger!")
Throw -
As the smoking bomb flipped through the air, Link dived behind the treasure chest, hastily grabbing the Clawshot too -
And the cavern rained rocks.
Link covered his head with his shield and hoped Linkle was having less trouble.