Chapter 2: The Conflict Begins
Almost as soon as the last three champions of Hyrule had stepped into the transportation devices, a strange creature tumbled out of the air just outside the laboratory on the banks of the lake, and landed on his face in the mud. He was, by hylian standards, somewhat frail. He tired easily, was bad with magic, and extremely vulnerable to disease and illness brought on by some types of malnourishment, but he was alive, and except for a few scrapes, he wasn't even injured either.
The creature's name was Mark Fitzgerald. He was a former lawyer, a student of philosophy and psychology, and something of an amateur historian, but he was also a kind of person that Hyrule had never seen before, and in fact, he'd never seen Hyrule in his life either.
As quickly as he could, Mark stumbled to his feet and brushed off his jacket. He had no idea where he was. Only minutes before, he'd fallen into a strange device, being gradually pushed forward by a crowd of people, but suddenly, he felt like he'd collided with something large and hard, and had wound up in that place, wherever it was.
Swiftly, Mark looked around for a few moments, trying to get his bearings and figure out where he'd ended up, but he didn't recognize the lake, the building, the mountain range, or the pass leading over the water to the south. In fact, nothing that he could see in that place was terribly familiar, and it only took him a couple of seconds to realize the truth; that device, which had carried off the champions of his world, had also gotten him hopelessly lost in some place he'd never seen before.
By the time Mark had come to grips with all of that, however, he'd also started to notice that a large, powerful-looking creature had taken an interest in him, and that creature, at least, looked familiar, since Mark had seen lots of horses before. Of course, he hadn't been expecting to see a horse. He was a city person, after all, and although, like everyone, he'd seen pictures of horses in books and on television, he'd never seen one in person before.
After a moment, though, Mark's thoughts started working, as he considered the horse, and just what it meant for him. After all, the horse was wearing a saddle and reins, so it must have been owned by someone. In fact, Mark thought for a moment, it was unusual to see a horse with a saddle roaming free on its own like that. Most of the horses that he'd seen on television only left their enclosures when someone was riding them. That might have been just a televised fabrication, of course, but somehow, he doubted it. It just made too much sense to be a lie.
Still, if the horse did belong to someone, then there had to be people nearby; people who could tell him where he was, or even how to get back home. Maybe, he thought after a moment, the people living in that place would even thank him for bringing their horse back to them. The moment the thought occurred to him, Mark decided that that was exactly what he was going to try, and quickly, he reached for the reins of the horse with one hand, trying to be as gentle as possible with the suspicious-looking beast.
However, as Mark approached it, the horse seemed to glare at him with wary eyes. After another moment, Mark tried to calm it down by reaching out for the creature's mane, but it drew back in suspicion the moment he did, and circled around him, examining him from every angle.
When that happened, Mark could tell that that horse was definitely not ordinary, because although it was obviously still a beast of burden, it was also displaying great curiosity; something that Mark had never heard of a horse doing. Just then, however, a shout came from the large building nearby; which was tall, and perched over the water of the lake underneath it on thick, wooden supports. When Mark turned towards the source of the voice, however, he saw a man rushing out towards him, but there was something odd about that man. His ears were much longer and more pointed than any ears that Mark had ever seen in his life.
"Hey!" the man with the long ears said, looking at Mark in worry as he rushed forward, his thick, brown hair shivering in the light breeze, "I'd be careful around Epona. She's kind of picky about who she lets touch her."
When he heard that, however, Mark drew back from "Epona," and walked closer to the pointy-eared young man, already feeling thankful for the warning, though he'd started to notice the horse's choosy temperament already.
"Excuse me." Mark began, feeling a little nervous about the strange situation that he was suddenly in, "I'm sorry. I didn't know. Um... The thing is... I'm not sure where I am, exactly."
By that time, however, the pointy-eared young man had begun to stare quite hard at Mark's ears, as if he was just as shocked by Mark's ears as Mark was by his. For a few moments, it made Mark feel almost embarrassed.
"Yes." the man said after just a couple of seconds, eventually ignoring the visitor's ears, "I can tell you're not from around here. You must be lost. Alright. I'll tell you what I can. My name's Colodine, and we're at the Lakeside Laboratory in the kingdom of Hyrule. Now it's my turn to ask a few questions, I suppose. What's your name, and how'd you get here?"
"Um... Mark." the former lawyer admitted quickly, "I'm not really sure how I got here, but I come from a country; not a kingdom. Are you saying you're living under a communist dictatorship?"
However, those words just seemed to have confused Colodine, as if he'd never heard them before in his life, and when he finally replied to them, he didn't look as if he'd really understood the question at all.
"We're ruled by King Daphnes Nohansen Hyrule, and governed by the kingdom's guards. They're the ones who enforce justice."
Mark had been hoping for a clearer answer than that, but for the moment, he decided to take it as a yes.
"Well," Mark said at last, putting one hand over his forehead in frustration, "If I don't know how I got here, and neither do you, it won't be easy to get back."
"You can't stay here, unfortunately." Colodine replied, looking a little concerned as he glanced back towards the building he'd just emerged from, "There aren't any guest bedrooms at the laboratory, but if you want, you can go north to Kakariko Village. If you're trying to get home, someone there might be able to help you, and in the meantime, they can probably give you a decent place to stay."
After what felt like several seconds, Link, Stalflare and Byrna found themselves somewhere completely new, and it was a very disturbing place at that. The walls around them were dark and dingy, like a foul dungeon, but it was easy to see that the place wasn't meant as a prison, exactly, because the single door on the far end of the room didn't have a lock. Aside from that, however, the only real comfort in that room was the presence of Link's other friends; Ruto, Darunia and the Princess Zelda.
After a few seconds, Link reached for the doorknob on the far side of the room and turned it, but stopped almost immediately, because he could feel that someone else was turning it from the other side. In response, Link stepped back, as the door was opened from the outside, and by the time it was all the way open, Link's eyes started to widen, at the sight of the person standing there.
The person who'd just opened the chamber door appeared to be a hylian of some sort, but he had a terrible look of depression in his eyes, reinforced with malignance and misplaced pride. Evil was written across every line of the man's face. In spite of how he looked, Link knew that he wasn't a hylian at all. In fact, he was more like some kind of monster. The hylian-like man wore black armor, and carried a long spear with many jagged edges, which was clearly designed to avoid delivering a clean blow. Every aspect of him seemed to be sculpted around hate, fear, malice and violence.
"You're some of the last to arrive." the hylian-like guard said, in a tone of voice that betrayed that he was both disgusted by Link, and very afraid of him too, "Follow me."
The evil man turned immediately, and walked back out through the door, and down the hallway beyond, and not sure what else to do, Link just walked after him, with the others following down the hallway which, though large, still managed to feel confining, just like the room they'd arrived in. Link was first in line, followed by Zelda, then Stalflare, Darunia, Ruto and Byrna. As they walked, the evil man seemed to be attempting to explain something about the upcoming event, but he clearly wasn't trying to help them, exactly, and there was even a sense that he would have liked nothing better than to see them all smashed against a rock.
"My master demands that I take you to entry hall thirty, so that's what I'll do. Once you get there, you'll be among other champions, and you'll be told the terms of this contest. It's not for me to say any more about what they are."
Soon, the hylian team had reached the end of the hall, and the man opened the large, wooden door that was there, and motioned for Link and the others to proceed inside.
As soon as they entered the chamber beyond the doors, Link started to feel worried again, and all the others were astonished at the sight in front of them. All around them were creatures; each obviously with their own talents and abilities, and no two looking exactly the same.
Link could see fifty-foot dragons, tiny bipedal animals and insects, enormous giants, and even creatures with more arms, legs, or heads than hylians had. There were beasts that had horns on their lips, creatures with many eyes, no eyes, only one eye, many mouths, and even some that seemed to be made out of water, wind or fire. There were beasts that wore nothing, and creatures dressed in red, brown or black. There were even a couple wearing cloaks. They were all unique creatures, but the room that contained them was nothing unique at all. It was a massive courtyard, with charcoal-black walls on every side, lined with huge spikes, facing inward. However, Link only had a few seconds to look around at all of those powerful-looking fighters, before he heard a deep, yet clear voice speak out, seemingly from the heavens themselves.
"Excellent. You're all here. I can begin."
That strange, deafening voice seemed to have scared a number of the people in that large, walled-in area, but they all seemed determined as well, just like Link and his friends were, and that was when Link realized that they must have been champions from other lands; people who, like himself, were only trying to protect the safety of their own home-worlds. Once he realized that, Link started to feel pretty bad about that apparent competition. After all, many of them were probably great heroes, and he didn't want to hurt anyone who was willing to be heroic.
"I'm the master of this conflict." The thunderous voice said, "My name isn't important. What does matter is that right now, I have all the power I need to kill all of you, and everyone you love if you refuse to comply with my terms."
When the voice said that, everyone in that area fell silent; even the few who'd been shouting, in the hopes of being heard. The voice continued, however, though it made no effort to calm the various fighters down after that devastating announcement.
"All of you are great champions of your people. In fact, you were chosen just for that purpose. The champions of five thousand worlds now stand in my courtyards. I have sixty-four of these courtyards, which I made with my powers, so each one contains several hundred fighters. Now, I'm going to be honest with you all. Shockingly few of you will proceed into the conflict itself. In fact, only one team from each courtyard will fight in the conflict that I've arranged. However, just to be cruel to those of you who won't make it in, let me tell you what we're fighting for."
As the voice said that, an image appeared in the air above the courtyards, which resembled an enormous gemstone, glowing with some kind of blue light.
"This gemstone is very rare and special." the voice explained casually, "Only one exists on each world, and they're all connected. When you channel a spell, or other form of energy into one gem, it comes out of all of them. Therefore, if I were to place this gem in a fire, all the gems everywhere would surround themselves with flames. But, I've done something far more important with this gem. I've imbued it with a portion of my magic. It took a lot of effort, but right now, whoever receives this gem will be able to wish for anything they want; money, love, power or anything else, and all forces everywhere, in all realities would rise up to grant that wish. There's only enough magic for one wish like that, but it's an impressive prize nonetheless."
With that, the image of the stone vanished, and a long list with names on it appeared in its place.
"I've written down all your names on this list." the voice continued a moment later, "If you fail before or during this conflict, your name will be crossed off my list, and you and all of your companions will be returned to your home-world. Then, your participation in this conflict will end. When the number of whole teams has been lowered to sixty-four, there's going to be a tournament of sorts, to determine who's the greatest. That team will do battle with a team of my choosing. If they claim victory, the stone will be theirs, and the fate of your worlds will be in their hands, but if I claim victory, every universe but my own will collapse in on itself, and everything that you've ever known will perish. Because of this, the only way to save your worlds is to defeat me and claim my prize. To make a long story short, it's definitely in your best interests to do as I say."
Link frowned as he listened to that mad speech. If any of what that voice had said was true, then things were even worse than he'd thought.
"The specific rules of the conflict itself will be explained to you later, if you happen to be one of the few who makes it in." the voice continued callously, "Most of you won't have to know any more than the rules of this one first fight. You've been gathered into sixty-four courtyards, and your weakest members will decide whether or not you win your chance at the competition itself. Those gathered in each courtyard will fight with everyone who isn't on their team. You'll fight until your enemies are either dead, or too injured to continue fighting; whichever comes first. If one of the members of your team falls in this battle, your team loses, and will be transported at once back to your home-world with the knowledge that your destiny lies in the hands of others. The winner is the last full team of six that's still in any condition to fight. This combat will begin in ten minutes, so discuss strategies amongst yourselves in the meantime."
"This is insane!" Zelda exclaimed to Link and the others, almost as soon as the strange conflict master had stopped talking, "Does he really expect us to fight, and even kill champions like us?"
"Yes, he does." Link replied, though he was looking more thoughtful than upset, "I'm impressed by how well he's planned it all out, too."
"What?" Zelda asked in frustration, seeming shocked that Link would even suggest agreeing to that kind of barbaric contest, "Are you saying we should kill these people?"
"Well, yes." Link replied, looking very calm about the whole thing, "We don't have much choice. Our only other option is to refuse to fight, which would hardly help our cause."
"I can't just take a life like that." Zelda insisted, however, looking very determined, "It's not in me."
"He doesn't want us to take lives," Link replied, however, with a firm shake of his head, "only to kill or injure. That's why he offered us the prize of a single wish if we win. For people with no real ethics, a wish would mean total control, but for those with high moral standards, like ourselves, that wish would mean the resurrection of everyone and everything harmed by his foolish game. When you think about it that way, it's even more important for us, or someone else like us claim victory in this conflict. I'll bet that some people have already died because of him, and if we want to set that right, we need the wish he's offering."
Zelda felt like slapping herself across the face. Impa had been absolutely right to tell her that she was lacking in observation. She hadn't even been able to determine that simple solution to those moral difficulties, and Link had. It was a little hard to face, but Zelda could tell that in that area, Link was far superior to her.
"So, do we have a plan for how to win?" Ruto asked, immediately focusing on what Link had been saying. However, the Hero of Time was already starting to look grim.
"No," Link replied in an irritated tone of voice, "and don't bother trying to come up with one. The person orchestrating this conflict has a sick sense of humor. That comment about making plans when we know nothing about the powers our foes possess was obviously meant as some kind of twisted joke. Besides, even if we did know anything about our enemies, we're going to be in the middle of a massive free-for-all, and any plan we made wouldn't survive long in that kind of environment."
"So we can't plan for anything?" Darunia asked, starting to look badly disappointed, but as soon as he realized how upset his friend was, Link decided that it would probably be best to say the one thing that might comfort him.
"No." Link added, "There are a few rules we can follow, if you need tactics. Don't make too much noise, strike from behind unless it's absolutely impossible, and whatever you do, don't get injured. Apart from that, be ready to get creative. You never know what kind of strange abilities or weapons these champions might have. Also, it's probably not a good idea if we're separated from one another too much in the middle of the fight. If we need to support each other, I'd rather have an easy time reaching you all."
"That's all good advise in any battle," Darunia said in a disappointed tone of voice, "but I was hoping for something a little more concrete."
"Yes." Link replied bitterly a moment later, "Me too."
Link's team, and in fact, many of the teams in that chamber spent the rest of the time before the start of the fight carefully observing the people around them, in an attempt to determine their powers and weaknesses somehow, but they hadn't even had a chance to glance at a quarter of the fighters in that area, when the word "begin" was shouted across the courtyard, and chaos descended on them all like a ton of bricks. Everyone seemed to be hitting, or slashing, or firing at everyone else, and Link found that there was little enough space in the courtyard to move, much less dodge the attacks being aimed at him from all directions.
"In that case, I'll have to make some space." Link thought to himself, as he ducked under an attack formed from compressed air, he shoved both hands to the ground. With that, the dome of flames that constituted Din's fire rushed out from his body, consuming several nearby creatures in a blazing inferno, which, in turn, caused them and several others (apparently members of their team) to vanish. Zelda had begun breaking chunks of stone out of the walls, and using them as blunt weapons with her telekinesis, turning invisible when the need arose, so that she could ambush her enemies without being seen. One dragon, and apparently, his entire team were vanquished by one of those flying boulders.
As the only winged member of Link's team, Stalflare took flight immediately, towards the airborne opponents in the courtyard, swatting aside arrows and other projectiles with his wings, and dodging some of the more magical attacks with his fantastic speed. Of course, Stalflare could tell that most of the flying creatures there were far weaker than him, and those few who could match his strength didn't seem to be sorcerers in any sense, so he went after the weaker ones first, hoping that by doing so, he might strike down the rest of their teams by default. In a fight of that nature, after all, that was the real point.
Byrna had transformed both of her gauntlets into projectile weapons again by that point, and was firing off pressurized shots at any face she didn't recognize. Only a couple survived that attack head-on, but for the most part, they were busy fighting with the other teams, and didn't have time to react to every attack leveled against them.
Ruto and Darunia proved to be an excellent team when it came to dealing with physically-weaker fighters. They'd lift the smaller fighters clean off their feet, sometimes one in each hand, and hurl them across the room, where they'd either collide with other warriors, or with one of the walls. It wasn't typical for them to get back up again after taking that kind of punishment.
Once his assault had begun, Link himself seemed like a virtual whirlwind. The Master Sword dashed one way, then another, cleaving weapons and limbs alike, with a swiftness which, to someone of Link's kind disposition, must have taken all of his self-control. Whenever he could get free of his opponents, he'd either check on his allies, or release a volley of arrows into the air. One particularly strong flying creature was downed by an ice arrow and shattered to pieces on the floor, and on a couple of occasions, when Link was faced with an enemy of a humungous size, he'd put away his weapons completely, lift his foe up by one of their feet, and throw them against the spikes lining the courtyard. If not for the fact that each enemy and their entire team vanished at the first sign of failure, there was no doubt that the arena would have been a much more terrible mess by the midpoint of the fight.
At last, when each member of Link's team felt like they'd beaten a dozen enemies by themselves, the battle had gotten all the way down to only two teams, and Link and his allies found themselves facing only six powerful-looking enemies. Zelda and Link both had minor cuts on their legs by that point, and Byrna's left cheek had been slashed up by a flower petal of some unnaturally-sharp variety, but a collection of stone giants stood before them; the last champions in the courtyard, aside from themselves.
In some ways, of course, Link suspected that that fight would be the hardest one, since there weren't any extra enemies to distract either team. That could, he realized, turn out to be an advantage for either of them. Given what was at stake, Link knew that he couldn't afford to get overconfident, though. Quickly, the Hero of Time fitted another ice arrow into his bow, and Darunia curled up into a ball. Byrna seemed to be servicing her weapons quickly, while Stalflare and Zelda both stood behind Link, their eyes glowing brightly with magic power, as they prepared their own new attacks.
One giant of about fifty feet tall led the charge against Hyrule's defenders, with a large, stone club in one hand, prompting a swift reaction from the Hero of Time. Link leapt on top the club in one enormous jump, midway through that first swing, and fired off his ice arrow before leaping back to the ground again. The ice arrow caused a thick-looking frost to start spreading across the giant's shoulder, but unfortunately, it didn't seem to have done any more damage than that. Then, suddenly, Link's entire team heard a clear message inside their own thoughts.
"Cover your eyes."
All of Hyrule's champions immediately realized that the thought had been a warning from Princess Zelda, and they all reacted quickly, each shielding their eyes in their own way, as Zelda's own eyes let out a series of blinding flashes, which seemed to distract and stun the stone giants for a moment, but they still didn't look as if they'd really been hurt by that low-level spell, so in another moment, she and Stalflare attacked again, with spells of fire, exorcisms, and even attempted earth-control and transmogrifying spells. The problem was, however, that the giants seemed to have some form of protection from magic, and the spells of the hyrulian team weren't having much of any effect at all. Just then, however, Darunia unrolled in front of one of the giants, and pulling out his hammer, struck one of them right in the leg.
The moment the blow made contact, the giant's stone leg seemed to be tearing itself to pieces on its own. In fact, it was shattered so thoroughly, that it seemed to have almost disintegrated. At first, the giant tried to balance on one leg, as if somehow hoping to save its team from defeat, but in an instant, Link had run up to the fighter with his own Megaton Hammer, and struck the giant's other leg as hard as he could, while dodging the attacks of the others. Almost at once, the other leg blew apart, and just like that, the stone giants were gone, and Link and his team were alone in the courtyard of the being who called himself the Conflict Master.
"Well, that certainly took long enough." the voice said from above in mock-irritation, "At any rate, you've won your own preliminary fights, so you'll be competing in our little conflict after all. Winners, please walk through the red door to the front of the courtyard."
As the Conflict Master said that, sure enough, a large, red door seemed to appear from nowhere, leading, apparently, to a new section of the building, but Link still wasn't dropping his guard. In fact, he was more wary in that moment than he had been during the entire fight.
"Is there anything dangerous behind that door, Zelda?" Link asked carefully, not looking away from the door for even a second as he spoke, but after focusing carefully on the door for a few seconds, Zelda eventually shook her head and shrugged.
"This whole place is dangerous, but I don't sense any more champions there."
It still took Link a couple of seconds to nod in acknowledgement of Zelda's answer after that, but their path was clear enough. After all, it seemed to have been planned out for them very thoroughly.
From the darkness that resided in and around every universe, the master of the conflict observed the names of the fighters who'd progressed into the conflict itself, and he was pleased to see that Hyrule's team had been one of them.
"I knew they'd be able to make it at least this far." the master of the conflict said aloud to himself, once again in his normal, less-thundrous voice. It was a voice that was both young and experienced, yet tainted by corruption and brute force as well. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old, but he was the most evil mortal who'd ever existed.
Standing by the Conflict Master's side was a young woman, who was among the mightiest of his servants. She'd been watching the fighters from Hyrule, just as she'd been told to, though her view of them and their fight had been a bit different than his.
"Of course you knew." she said, sounding very disinterested in the whole thing, "Honestly, I found the fight rather boring. Hardly any of them were in any real danger at all."
"Of course it was boring." the master of the conflict replied, almost casually, "The real conflict hasn't started yet. When it does, the rules will be different. Trust me. There's going to be pain for the Hero of Time and his friends. He and his people are going to face suffering, and they're going to face death. They'll have to, if they even want to have the chance to prove the strength of their own resolve."
Then, the evil one started laughing, and although his voice was a beautiful one by nature, the evil intent that it was filled with made that laughter painful to hear.
When the fight was over, Link had been expecting to be met by the same evil guard who'd brought them to the courtyard, and as it turned out, that was precisely what happened. As soon as the group from Hyrule opened the red door, the guard was waiting on the other side, clearly expecting them to follow him again, though he didn't suggest it aloud.
"You've been designated team thirty," the guard said, as he led them down a sparsely-lit corridor, "so you're being given temporary quarters here. It'll be some time before your next fight, so you'll have a while to get used to the resources that we're giving you."
Soon, the group of seven arrived at a door labeled with the number thirty, and the guard opened it for them, to reveal a short hallway with several doors, labeled with the numbers one through six.
"You can divide the rooms up amongst yourselves." the guard said warily, "Each room is completely identical. They contain a bed, a chair, a desk, some writing material, and a set of drawers to put your belongings in, all of which are enchanted to change their own shape, size and structure to suit your needs. Each room also contains a teleportation device, so that you can return to your own world if you don't like our accommodations, but if you don't return for your assigned fights, you'll forfeit your chance to fight."
It all seemed, to Link, like a lot of trouble to go to, trying to be nice to people who were going to be fighting for their lives very soon, and there was one thing that puzzled him more than anything else.
"How do you know we won't come back with weapons?" Link asked, but the guard's reply to that came disturbingly quickly.
"On the contrary," the guard explained, though he still looked nervous as he spoke, "the master both expects and encourages that you do. In your future fights, you'll need as much weaponry as you can lay your hands on."
It was clear that Link hadn't been expecting that answer. He was so used to fighting ordinary opponents, who struggled for every possible advantage, that the idea of the master of the conflict encouraging the use of additional weapons was both new, startling, and when he stopped to think about it, just a little terrifying. After all, it meant that the Conflict Master clearly had no fears for his own life.
"Will we have to use our own teleport platforms to get back here if we leave?" Byrna asked next, though she didn't really look like any answer to that question would have upset her too much.
"No." the guard replied with a shake of his head, "Our devices teleport themselves too; not just their cargo. It's a very useful advancement to the technology, in our experience."
Byrna seemed to just be nodding to herself a moment later, as if puzzling over how, exactly, to replicate that feat, but she obviously didn't have any more questions, so Stalflare spoke up next, looking as perturbed as always.
"How long do we have before the next battle?" Stalflare asked.
"It's hard to say." the guard replied with a shrug, "It depends on how long some of the other battles take, but I'd say between eight and twelve hours."
At first, Link spent a few moments looking into the eyes of his friends, to make sure they all felt the same way he did, but he didn't really have anything to worry about. At last, he spoke to the guard again, and in that moment, he was speaking for all of them.
"We're ready anytime."
A few moments later, the guard left the room, seemingly in a much bigger hurry than he had been on the way there, and Link was left alone with his friends again. It was only then that any of them really felt like they could speak freely.
"Considering the kind of competition we're being faced with so far," Stalflare said, almost before the door had closed behind the guard, "I barely feel like I need to sleep at all."
"Still," Link replied, looking suspiciously after the retreating guard, "there's something about this whole situation that tells me things are going to get a lot worse. This 'master of the conflict' is obviously our biggest worry, if he thinks he's immune to any weapon that we could possibly retrieve from Hyrule."
"He is immune; at least for now." Ruto observed, "If we want to hurt him, we have to find him first."
The truth of that point was undeniable. As long as the "Conflict Master" hid himself in the shadows, and only spoke from the skies, it was impossible to determine his location, much less attack him. That made their situation look pretty grim. Still, it was always possible that things would look better in the morning, when they'd all had a chance to attack the problem from a fresh perspective. In the meantime, there was one more thing that Link wanted to try.
"The rest of you can go back to Hyrule if you want." Link said, suddenly looking even more serious than he had before, "For tonight, I'm sleeping here."
Stalflare had spent the last several moments healing up the minor cuts and bruises that they'd each received in that last big fight, though he had to admit that wounds or no wounds, he didn't relish the thought of falling asleep in a dark, foreboding place like that.
The moment that Ruto opened the door to the room she'd picked, which was number five, it was apparent to her what the guard had meant about the contents of the rooms changing to accommodate their inhabitant. When she set foot in her room, she could see the furniture changing size and composition, to resemble the kind she had in her own room back home. The ceiling rose up nearly a foot to accommodate her rather large height, and her bed was the best part of all. Instead of a regular bed, it had become a recess in the ground, measuring almost eight feet in every direction; full of water, and containing several varieties of fish, coral and seaweed. It was a micro-ecosystem; full of life, and it seemed to almost pulse with the energy of innocent, non-sentient creatures. It was the environment that Ruto had, over the course of her life, gradually become accustomed to.
Slowly, Ruto gripped the edges of the small pool, and lowered herself into it, savoring the feeling, as her skin and gills started to grow hardier, the moment they made contact with the water. The fresh water did what it always did to a Zora of her class; it increased her endurance to heat, cold and pressure, to aid in her underwater survival. That was what it meant to be a zora; dominating both land and water, as long as there was a full supply of both.
In such a comfortable environment, Ruto's thoughts began to wander onto all manner of subjects. Mostly, though, what she was feeling was self-doubt, and she found that she was asking herself a number of unpleasant questions. What was she really doing there anyway? Had she gone just because she wanted Link to feel like she wasn't a whiner, or someone who made excuses for her actions? Did she actually want to improve herself in some way, or did she just want to impress Link? Those were the kinds of questions that, for several moments, swirled through her head, like water going down a drain.
For whatever reason, it was the words of Link that echoed most sharply in Ruto's head. He'd more or less told her that he had no problem with her being a zora; that being of a non-hylian race was no real obstacle to romance. Still, being called a whiner had hurt, most of all because Ruto knew that there was at least some truth to it. She had been raised as Zora royalty, after all.
Maybe, she thought for a moment, if she'd gone to a hylian school as a little girl, she might not have wound up being spoiled by her father, who'd also been spoiled throughout pretty much his entire life. She'd never really seen anything wrong with making someone else do things for her, even if she could have done them herself. It was just part of being royalty. She only started to see problems with that way of life when the other zora had decided to take action against the hylians, and her kind of leadership was seen as insufficient, so there'd been a revolution.
Her father had been unable to survive the stress placed on him during that time, and she'd been forced to flee to the Water Temple, which had become the only place where she could really be safe from the other zoras.
It was a lot for one spoiled, little rich girl to have to go through, and it had been much more painful for her than anything else she'd ever experienced. When Ruto thought about it that way, it really irked her that Link was calling her a whiner, just because she'd complained about all that rotten stuff she'd gone through, or made a few excuses for herself. She had, after all, been dealt a bad hand in life, and if that didn't give her the right to complain, she couldn't imagine anything that would have.
"I have every right to complain." Ruto said to herself defiantly at last, "The last three years were completely miserable. I lost my kingdom, my people, my lo..."
However, Ruto stopped herself before she could finished that sentence. She didn't dare to say that she'd lost her love, as if that was a part of her seemingly-constant bad luck. She'd ruined her chance at love with Link through her own bad behavior, and she had to wonder if deep down inside, she was only participating in the conflict to overcompensate for that, as if pretending to be some kind of hero could somehow get her that chance back. In fact, Ruto was starting to wonder if she'd really joined in Link's plan to prove something to him, or to prove something to herself instead, and she wasn't sure at all. She was having a hard time telling how she really felt, and it confused her to no end.
As she contemplated those things, however, Ruto heard a knock at her door, and although she wasn't sure who it was, she quickly responded to the person outside.
"Come in."
As it turned out, the person who stepped through the door a moment later, closing it behind her was Princess Zelda. She was dressed in her pink gown, and looking tired and worried, but that didn't concern Ruto too much, until Zelda explained why she was there.
"You were thinking too loud." Zelda said, nearly scaring Ruto out of her wits, as she remembered her friend's telepathic abilities, "I heard you from my room, all the way at the other end of the hall."
Ruto blushed horribly once she realized that Zelda had been listening to all her doubts and feelings; even the ones about Link.
"I'm not going to scold you for how you feel about Link," Zelda said swiftly, apparently trying to calm Ruto down, "but you might want to think about making some choices for yourself. If you're not contented, just do something about it."
"So you think I should leave this place if I'm content with who I am?" Ruto asked, almost hoping that that was going to be Zelda's advice, but the Princess shook her head almost at once in reply.
"No." Zelda said quickly, "For the time being, you have to follow through with this. It's your duty."
Ruto had to spent a few moments thinking about that. As a young princess, she'd paid much more attention to her privileges than her duties, but she couldn't ignore the fact that those duties did exist. At last, she replied to Zelda, though she still felt a little confused and unsure of herself as she did so.
"I guess it doesn't matter why I got into this, really. It won't change the fact that I'm here."
"Worry is the same way, you know." Zelda replied, though she seemed to be feeling a little better already, "You can't use worry to change your situation in life. All it does is make you less prepared to deal with it."
"I'm running over a lot of things in my head; things I've done in the past, and things I haven't done." Ruto admitted sadly, "But it's mostly because I have to think about something."
"In that case, think about your future." Zelda suggested, starting to smile again, "Dwelling on your past follies is bad for your psyche, and it doesn't fix them."
"But what if I'm not sure about something?" Ruto asked, her doubts suddenly returning all at once, "What if there's something I just don't know about myself or my feelings?"
"Then you don't know it." Zelda replied with a casual shrug, "You just have to make the best decision you can, and always try to do what you think is right. That's the way hylians live their lives, and it's a nice policy for anybody. If you think you've made mistakes in the past, that's alright. So has everyone, but you can't let it bias your judgment in the here and now. You have to do the right thing now, even if you didn't always when you were younger."
"You're talking as if you did bad things too, when you were young." Ruto said, finally smiling again, although she was quickly becoming interested in what kinds of rotten things Zelda herself had done as a child.
"Well..." Zelda replied, looking a bit hesitant when Ruto brought that subject up, "Childhood is the time of inexperience and mistakes for all hylians. Even I once played a stupid prank, a long time ago..."
"Tell me about it!" Ruto exclaimed, already feeling enthusiastic, and eager to know the princess's childhood secret, since Zelda obviously knew hers.
At that point, however, it was Zelda's turn to blush, because she didn't look willing to share any information about her own childhood at all.
"No." Zelda said, almost looking terrified for a moment, "I... Well, I... I don't think that would be for the best. I'm a different person now, and as I've just told you, I'd rather not dwell on past mistakes."
Then, without another word, even to say good-bye, Zelda rushed from the room, and Ruto had a feeling that in the future, Zelda was going to regret bringing the subject up. After all, she shouldn't have been listening in on Ruto's thoughts anyway, and under the circumstances, Ruto didn't feel the least bit badly about how uncomfortable she'd made Hyrule's princess feel.
In fact, Ruto was worrying so little that latter on in the evening, she found that she wasn't having any difficulty getting to sleep, but Zelda was up for quite a while after that.
"Not that I don't appreciate having a guest," the woman, whose name was Ramie said as she sat down in a wooden chair on the other side of the table, "but if you're really going to stay here, then I think you should tell me a few more things first. To start with, I'd like to know a little more about what you are, exactly."
Mark was a little surprised by that request, because he'd been sitting in that place for nearly ten minutes, eating a dinner that Ramie had just offered to him. At last, however, he put down the fresh, cold milk that he'd been finishing his meal with, and looked up at Ramie again, feeling a little worried. He could certainly tell her everything she wanted to know. She was a very nice woman, after all, and she'd gone to a lot of trouble to make the upstairs room of her shop a suitable guest bedroom for him. On top of that, she'd even given him a free dinner that night, but the problem was that even if he told her everything about who he was, and where he'd come from, he wasn't sure that she'd believe him. Eventually, though, after a brief, confused sigh, Mark decided that the only thing he could really do was tell her everything he knew, and hope she took it well.
"I'm a human being." Mark began, starting with the most basic facts about himself, "I come from a city that's really far away, I guess. I'm not even sure how far away it is, in fact. There was some kind of machine that brought me here. It was pretty strange-looking, and it had a bizarre, blurry-looking area between the top and bottom, but it didn't look like there was anything really causing that weird blur. I was pushed into that blurry area, and then I ended up here. I'm not even really sure how it happened."
"What kind of city do you come from?" Ramie asked, though fortunately, she didn't look like she was having any trouble believing Mark yet, so after a moment's hesitation, he decided to answer that question as well.
"The city I live in is called New York. It's a very big city, and the buildings there are huge. They're made from glass and metal, and they stretch up to the sky, like towers. It's really something to see."
Much to Mark's surprise, Ramie was still apparently believing him, but there was a look of confused curiosity on her face, which he couldn't decipher, at first, until she interrupted him; obviously eager to ask him a question of some kind.
"Why?"
"What do you mean?" he asked her, really not understanding what she meant.
"Well, why would anyone build a building with walls that aren't comfortable to the touch? More to the point, why would anyone build a building more than three stories high? Shouldn't people be allowed to live and work on the ground from which they were made?"
Mark was very surprised by those questions, since they certainly came from an alien sort of perspective, but after getting over his initial surprise, he tried to answer them quickly.
"Well, some people don't have much choice." Mark explained, "You see, there are so many people in one place, working so hard, that people have to build upward, to keep the city from getting too crowded."
"I'm sorry. That's very sad." Ramie replied a moment later, really looking as if she pitied Mark, "I can't even imagine what it would be like to never see the beauty of an open plain, or a sprawling desert. It must be terribly taxing to have such a crowded world."
However, by that point, Mark could see that Ramie had misinterpreted what he'd said, and hurried to correct her as best he could.
"Oh, the world isn't crowded," Mark said quickly, "just certain areas of it. We do have plains, deserts, and things like that, we just gather in large groups in pretty small places, like the city I live in. Twenty-five million people live in New York City alone."
A hundred questions seemed to be dashing through Ramie's mind at that point, because her expression was constantly changing, but she seemed to be sitting on most of the questions that had occurred to her. Eventually, though, she started giggling, and Mark got the distinct impression that she wasn't believing him anymore; an impression that was validated the next time she spoke to him.
"Oh, that's nonsense." Ramie replied, her laughter finally dying away, though she continued to smile in good humor as she talked, "No one would ever decide to live on top of their brothers and sisters, like bunkbeds into the sky. You must be joking with me."
Mark simply scowled at that point, though. He was starting to realize that explaining things to Ramie wasn't going to be easy.
By the time the sun set, sure enough, Mark hadn't made any further headway in explaining himself and his culture, and Ramie's reactions to his explanations were mixed. Sometimes, she'd seem to find Mark's explanations amusing, while other times, she'd tell him not to say things like that, especially when he'd get into specifics about human practices and policies. In fact, after a while, Ramie seemed to just be feeling irritated by his explanations as a whole, and just told him that it might be better if they didn't discuss things like that for a while. By that point, Mark was about ready to give up, and although it frustrated him that he couldn't explain things about the human race to Ramie, he was, in a sense, a little relieved that she was going to let him off the hook.
"I'll be leaving for my own house in a moment," Ramie eventually said, once the sun had been down for several minutes, "but I want to be sure you know your way around this place first, so if you follow me, I'll give you the full tour."
At once, Ramie picked up a candle from a table nearby, and started to walk upstairs, and although Mark was feeling exhausted from all the stress he'd been under during the day, he knew that he'd be better off doing what she'd said; at least for the moment.
At the top of the stairs, Ramie pointed out three doors in a short hallway, telling Mark that one led to a washroom, one to a clothes closet, and the last one to a bedroom, although she seemed to be trusting him to determine which one was which, and told him that anything he found on the upper floor was his to use, as long as he didn't remove it from the building, but that the items downstairs weren't for his use, except, of course, for the candle. As she said that, she handed it to him and told him good-night, walking downstairs and out through the front door. That was the last that Mark saw of her that night.
Mark had been in all sorts of places, and met all kinds of people over the course of his life, but he'd never met anybody who reacted quite like Ramie. She seemed to simply dismiss a lot of basic, human concepts as mere moonshine, like public employment, homes and food bought through free enterprise, and the necessity of pragmatism to adapt well to corporate greed. The problem was that in his various jobs, Mark had seen so many of those things, so often, that he couldn't decide whether to pity Ramie for her naiveté, or envy her. It was very confusing, and he was still puzzling over Ramie a few moments later, when he drifted slowly off to sleep.
The next morning, Link got up and put on his clothes and equipment, then for a while, he just sat around, debating whether to write something, or practice archery on the opposite wall. After a few minutes, however, Link's decision of what to do next was made for him, as the guard he'd seen on the previous day opened his door and made an announcement.
"You and your team will be the first to fight this morning. Be sure you're ready."
It was a very abrupt sort of announcement, made no less so, Link realized, by the fact that as soon as the guard had finished speaking, he'd left in a hurry, closing the door behind himself. In fact, unless Link had badly misjudged the man, he could have sworn that the cruel-looking guard was terrified of Hyrule's champions.
At once, Link got back to his feet again, grabbed his bag of equipment and his sword, then rushed to let the others know what he'd just been told, though they were all awake and dressed by that point anyway, except for Zelda, who was still in bed, so Link had to wake her up. It was a job that he wasn't exactly comfortable with, but there were, he knew, worse things.
At the end of ten minutes, all of Hyrule's champions were dressed and armed, and the group proceeded out of the living area they'd been given together, and down the corridor in the direction that the loudest noises and sounds of activity seemed to be coming from. After all, Link supposed, that must have been the place where they'd be fighting very soon.
As they walked forward, and the sounds from the more open area ahead grew louder and louder, Darunia looked over at Zelda, and could clearly see the bags under her eyes, which obviously meant that she hadn't gotten much sleep on the night before. Some of the others could see them too, but hadn't brought it up. However, Darunia was obviously worried about the princess, and after a few seconds of watching her carefully, he asked, "Are you okay? Did you sleep well last night?"
"I'll manage." was Zelda's reply, though Darunia still seemed to have found it worrying, since after all, they might need to excel just to survive in the near future.
For a moment, Link glanced around at his other companions, to try to get a handle on how each of them was feeling, and he was surprised to find that the emotions of his friends were written all over their faces. Stalflare looked understandably worried, of course, but there was also a strange shade of guilt in his expression, which Link didn't bother asking about. Byrna didn't seem worried at all, though. In fact, as little as the rest of Hyrule trusted science, it was obvious that Byrna had every confidence in her mastery of it, and in the bizarre machines that she was wearing. Darunia only seemed worried about Zelda; not about himself in the least, and as for Ruto... Well, Ruto seemed pretty confused, as if she was debating with herself deep down inside. She'd seemed a little nervous to Link on the night before, and some of that nervousness was obviously still lingering in her thoughts, forcing her to wrestle with herself over some problem or other. As for the Hero of Time, he looked at all of it objectively.
Link looked around as he walked down the corridor. It was a corridor made from dark stones, which seemed to have sharp edges protruding outward, and candle-holders resembling demons every few feet along the walls. At the end of the corridor was a dim light, like the light that comes through dark clouds in the daytime, and for a moment, he listened to the footfalls of his team behind him. He could hear the footsteps of a greide zwooda, two hylian women, one female zora, and a large, male goron as they followed him down the corridor. They were his friends, and since they were all in the same predicament, he knew that he could count on them in a pinch.
As Link stepped out of the corridor, however, he recoiled in horror from the sight in front of him. Walls of electricity surrounded them, beyond which he could see what looked like hylians watching, but their eyes were cruel; contorted. Above them the dark clouds allowed only a little light to be shed on the scene before them. In the center of that enormous, open hall were two large machines, which resembled vast, clawed hands, with lightening gems attached to their palms. Link could tell that they were a device that was used for transportation, but he had no idea where they led to.
However, the most hideous sight he saw there was the figure standing between the two machines, which was all the more terrible since, in some ways, she resembled Princess Zelda. She was shaped the same as he'd always seen her, but dressed in an ugly, black, short-sleeved shirt, and shorts that were much more revealing than tastefulness allowed for. Her eyes gleamed, not with kindness, sincerity, gentleness, and reason, but with malice, hatred, envy, and madness.
"Hero of Time." Zelda said scornfully, "You came here to play our little game, didn't you; the game you've been preparing for all your life? Don't you just love what you're about to do?"
Link grimaced at her choice of words, because there was no love in that hall. Except for himself and his friends, in fact, there was no good at all; only terrible evil, and although he could feel a force of greater evil nearby, the most wicked creature in his range of vision was Princess Zelda.
For a moment, Link spun around, trying the take the whole scene in, and wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him. What he was going through in that place was unmistakable; and the sights and sounds of the whole thing were very familiar to him. It was exactly the same, in fact, as his vision from the party, except that Zelda was in front of him, and also standing behind him. Understandably, however, the mouth of the Zelda behind Link was open in horror at the sight of the grotesque, twisted parody of herself and everything that she stood for. However, it seemed that Zelda's shock and dismay wasn't even going to slow down the other, cruel Zelda, because almost as soon as she'd seen the stunned look on Link's face, she continued to speak to them.
"Let combat begin!" the evil Zelda standing in front of them all said, motioning for a tall man to step forth from the shadows on the other side of the area, "Remember, you fight for the fate of your entire worlds!"
"Wait a minute!" Link yelled in desperation, so loud that all at once, nearly everyone in and around that area fell silent in surprise, as well as something that looked like fear, "There's a problem here. Something's very wrong. We still have no idea what's going on here, or what we're supposed to do."
However, although the crowd had clearly been shocked by Link's exclamations of anxiety, the wicked Zelda in front of them seemed unimpressed, raising one eyebrow in disdain, as she looked over their group.
"You'd know more if you were here earlier."
Suddenly, however, the voice from the day before gave a command; once again seeming to speak from the skies themselves, and the Zelda before them froze in terror at the sound of that monstrous voice.
"Zelda. I wish for you to explain whatever they need to know."
The black-clad Zelda swallowed after a moment, but soon, she was looking Link right in the eyes again, and as soon as he saw that, Link was filled with the desire to turn away in disgust.
"So what do you need to know?" she asked, gesturing to the group of figures standing across from them, on the other side of the area, "You're here. You're armed. You're fighting them."
"Who are you?" Link asked, mostly because it was the first thing on his mind.
"I am Zelda." the darkly-dressed woman replied with a deep pride and vanity that was sickening to see, "I am first princess of Hyrule, second in rank, after its ruler. I've been chosen to explain this conflict to you, and introduce you to its rules, and your enemies."
Link didn't buy the idea that that person was Zelda, or that she was the princess of Hyrule, but he could tell that she wasn't about to get any more specific than that for the moment, so he just decided to ask something else.
"Are you asking us to fight each other in a small space like this one," Link asked after a moment, "or will we be using these machines to go to our real battleground?"
"Right." the being that called itself Zelda replied, "Your battlefield will be reached through these teleport devices."
"One more thing." Link continued, still frowning sternly at the creature that was impersonating the hylian princess, "You said that if I'd arrived earlier, I'd know more. Kindly tell me what I would have known, please."
"Zelda" grimaced in embarrassment when Link said that, as if she wanted to kill him, but was too scared to try. In the end, though, she began her explanation instead.
"This is the Conflict of Champions. Sixty-four teams of six enter, and compete in a series of fights to decide who will claim final victory. There are two fight-terms that you might want to learn. The 'team fight' and the 'single fight.' Each team fight is composed of, at most, six single fights. A single fight is when one member of one team fights one member of the other team in a one-on-one conflict. A team fight is composed of six or fewer of those."
"When each team has a full six fighters, six single fights occur, so that each fighter competes in one match. If each team has five fighters left, there would only be five single fights in the team battle, and so on down to one. If the teams are lopsided, the team with fewer members has to decide for themselves who they want to fight in more than one battle, since every team member on the other team must fight at least once. For example, if there were six members on one team, but only four on the other, there would be six fights, and one fighter would have to fight three times, or two would have to fight twice each. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Link simply replied, nodding with a sort of blank expression, "but what determines a victory in a team fight, and how are the fights arranged?"
"It's very simple." the wicked Zelda replied, looking grudgingly at Link the whole time, "Obviously, the winner of a single fight earns a point for his team, but there's one more thing to consider, and that's the circles on either side of the raised platform."
At that, she pointed to two white circles, which seemed to have been painted on the ground; one on each side of the area. One of them contained the fighters who were apparently Link's designated enemies, while the other circle was right behind Link's team. Obviously, however, they had some kind of significance for calculating team points.
"These are your team areas." Zelda explained impatiently, "While the fights are taking place, you must be either in these circles, or on the teleport platform, but no closer to the door. After the last single fight is finished, a ten-minute timer starts. At the end of that time, the number of members on each team that have left this area for their quarters is tallied up, and calculations are made based on that, and on single fight victories. Basically, you can win if all of your members survive, even if you don't win all the single fights, by making it to the exit first, but you have to win at least some of the fights, otherwise, the best you could hope for would be a tie. When a team wins or loses, they're informed of that after the fight. If it's a tie, the last team member to leave the area loses it for his team. If it's still a tie, we may call in some overtime fights to eliminate more fighters, but I have it on very good authority that that won't happen in this conflict. As for the arranging of the team fights, look here..."
As the evil Zelda said that, she pulled a chart out of one of her pockets, which showed a single line on top, which split into two, then four, then eight, each line dividing in two as it went downward, until there were sixty-four. Link could tell what she meant immediately. It was a basic kind of tournament format.
"As you advance through the six rounds of this conflict, if you do, you move on to tougher teams, who've also advanced through as many rounds as you. It's fairly simple to comprehend. A lot of sporting events are more complicated. Now look up."
Quickly, Link did so, and there, he once again saw the electrical ceiling of the area, still pulsing with the energy that made up the strange, magical barrier overhead.
"When you step into our teleporters," the wicked Zelda continued, "You'll be transported to a random place in one of the home-worlds of the teams still remaining in the conflict. That way, as a team progresses forward, the chances of them winding up in their own reality grow greater and greater."
"Giving them a home-team advantage." Link surmised aloud.
"Or perhaps a home-team detriment." the cruel Zelda suggested with an enigmatic glee of some sort, which Link didn't really recognize, "Meanwhile, those people sitting over the electric barrier will be watching the fight, since the 'transparent ceiling' will monitor your battle, and project images of it on both sides. You'll observe the fight of your companions. So will the other team, and the spectators, who you must have noticed on the way in."
Link nodded, and although he was still feeling a little worried by the indistinct kind of threat that still hung over them all, he was also feeling relieved enough to reply to the dark Zelda.
"I think that's about all I need to know. So we just have to win and leave. It sounds simple."
"Simple indeed," the twisted Zelda replied, "but perhaps not so easy. Now, are you ready to begin?"
For a moment, Link looked back at his team. Zelda had begun to shy away when she'd first laid eyes on her doppelganger, but obviously, she'd just changed her mind, and was facing the vision in front of her with courage again, determined not to let herself be bothered by it.
"Give me a moment to discuss this with my team." Link said, turning back towards his friends again, but the moment he was close enough to the others that the slightest whisper could be heard between them, he asked his own Princess Zelda an urgent question.
"What can you tell me about them?"
As Link said that, however, he gestured, not to the dark Zelda, but towards the group at the other end of the room, and surprisingly, there seemed to be only four of them. There was a little boy, dressed in deep purple tights, a tall man wearing black pants and shoes, as well as a red shirt, one average-sized man, who wore only a swimsuit, and whose breath seemed to give off steam of some sort, and a fairly tall woman, who was dressed in gleaming white robes.
Zelda closed her eyes for a moment, clearly trying to read the minds of the other combatants, but at last, she opened her eyes again, and Link could tell immediately that the news she had to give him wasn't good.
"There's something hanging over them that's protecting them from deeper probes, but there are definitely six beings over there." Zelda warned Link quietly, "Perhaps the other two are merely invisible, or very small, but they are there somewhere. I'm having difficulty determining anything else about them except that their whole group seems less desperate about this whole situation, and more annoyed to be here, as though they've just been disappointed for the first time, or don't really understand what's at stake."
"Hmmm..." Link muttered as he scanned their opponents slowly, noticing that the fingers and eyebrows of the other team were slightly longer than hylian ones, and correctly guessing that that was a common trait on their world, but it was difficult to learn anything else about them without some relevant frame of reference.
"It's obvious that the tall one wants to be first." Link observed aloud, "I'll go..."
However, almost at once, Byrna yelled in enthusiasm, "No you won't! He's mine!"
"What?" Link asked, surprised by the sudden outburst, "You want to go first?"
"There's something about that one." Byrna clarified, however, calming down a little once she realized that Link wasn't standing in her way, "I just feel like I should be the one to fight him."
"Suit yourself." Link replied as his armor-wearing friend walked up to one of the teleporters. Given how little they knew about their new opponents, Link decided, Byrna might as well fight first. Without more information, it wouldn't have been possible to develop any better strategies.
"In that case, let the fireworks begin," the cruel-looking Zelda concluded, stepping backwards into the shadows as the first two fighters approached the teleporters in the middle of the central area, "and as I said before, you fight for the fate of your worlds!"
Mark woke up on the morning after his arrival, to find the sun shining through the window of his new bedroom, and from that position, he could hear the crowing of a rooster as well, something he'd never heard in person before then. He was a little groggy at first, but he'd managed to get plenty of sleep on the night before, and waking up that early gave him all the time he needed to contemplate Ramie's words on the night before.
During the last night, Ramie had told Mark that if he wanted to stay in those rooms for long, she needed to know a few things about him. At the time, Mark had been too tired to even realize what that comment signified, but when he got the chance to think it over, he understood that it must have meant that Ramie was going to let him stay there; at least until he could find some way to get back home. However, Mark had to wonder just what else Ramie was going to want from him in exchange for that small room and the bathroom down the hall.
When he thought about it a little more carefully, Mark had to admit that Ramie's actions had surprised him quite a bit. After all, she'd let him sleep in a room right over her shop, trusting that nobody would gossip about it, or more importantly, that he wouldn't rob her shop when she went home for the night. Still, in some ways, it seemed like Ramie was incredibly naive, because she hadn't even acted as if those risks existed. That kind of trust was priceless, and Mark was very worried about what Ramie was going to demand from him in exchange for it. Still, his problems weren't going to solve themselves, so after a moment, Mark got out of bed, only to discover that the suit he'd put on the end of his bed the evening before had been taken during the night.
For a moment, Mark was close to panicking over that, but once he calmed down, he started to realize that the suit was probably just being washed. After all, it didn't make sense for someone to break into his room, just to steal his clothes.
Swiftly, Mark got up and searched around for something else to wear, finding a odd-looking suit of brown, green and blue clothes in the closet, which Ramie had said was his to use. He put them on, and found, to his astonishment, that although they appeared roughly-woven, they felt like silk when he wore them! He'd never been so comfortable wearing anything before in his life.
The new clothes that Mark had found in his closet hadn't been there the night before, so he supposed that they must have been put there that morning by whoever had taken his old suit. Swiftly, he walked downstairs and left Ramie's shop to look around for her, but she wasn't anywhere nearby. After searching for a couple of minutes, though, Mark was just about to head towards the northern parts of Kakariko Village, near the windmill, when he saw Ramie entering through the village gate from the south, just like he had on the day before. She was wearing the same clothes that she'd had on yesterday, and she wasn't carrying anything in her hands at all, which she seemed to be opening and closing, as though warming them up for a workout. As soon as she saw Mark, however, she rushed over to him with a smile on her face.
"I see you're up." Ramie said the moment she was within earshot of him, "What do you have planned for today?"
"Well, what would you like me to do?" Mark asked politely, almost hoping that she'd be direct and tell him what she wanted in exchange for the room. However, far from being direct, Ramie started frowning when she heard Mark ask that question.
"Lesson number one about Hyrule;" Ramie said firmly, "make decisions for yourself."
"Sorry." Mark stammered, genuinely shocked by Ramie's reaction, "I'm just a little confused. You've given me so much; good food, a place to live, a very comfortable suit of clothes... By the way, do you know what happened to my old clothes?"
"What?" Ramie asked, looking very surprised at being asked about Mark's old suit, "Those old things? They smelled weird, so I threw them away."
"You WHAT?" Mark nearly roared, feeling absolutely infuriated at first, although he swiftly calmed down by reminding himself of everything he was getting from Ramie in exchange. The loss of one suit of clothes wasn't a bad deal, if it was all that he had to lose.
"Sorry." Mark continued a moment later, feeling a little ashamed of himself for shouting at her, and rubbing his eyes a little; trying to clear the cobwebs of the early morning, "I meant to say that you gave me so much, and I'd like to know what you want from me in exchange."
At first, Ramie just looked befuddled, as though someone had asked her very seriously what the sound of one hand clapping was. After a bit, however, she asked, "Why would I want something from you in exchange?"
"Why would you...?" the question hit Mark like a bolt of lightening. What kind of person was Ramie? How could she run a business with an attitude like that? Surely, Mark thought, the other members of her species must have been eating her alive in the business world if she was really as generous as she claimed to be.
"Of course, if you're going to live here, you might want to find something constructive to do." Ramie continued before Mark could even get over his shock, "I've heard that Talon is still looking for someone to take care of his cuccos."
When he heard that, Mark started to calm down. Business was still business, after all, and jobs were something that he understood.
"Fine." Mark replied with a smile, "What does the job pay?"
"Just the usual service wage." Ramie replied with a shrug, "Why does that matter?"
Just like that, Mark found himself back on unexplored ground again, surrounded by mysteries, and not sure which one to start with. In the end, though, he decided to face the most concrete mystery first.
"What's a service wage?"
"Well, look." Ramie began explaining, as though describing simple math to a young child, "There are two types of businesses; sales and services, right?"
"Right."
"So when a person sells goods, they get their rupees from customers, right?"
Supposing that rupees were the currency in Hyrule, Mark just replied "Right."
"Well, people who provide services can't do that, so instead, they meet with employer representatives, arrange a job with one of them, and establish a contract of service. Service wages are always the same, but the service wage contract can be terminated at any time by either party. The current service wage is fifty rupees a week, but it's changed in the past, depending on how many rupees employers can get hold of. There aren't that many employers, though, and most of them live in the castle town. The job of the employer is one of the most necessary ones in Hyrule, because their job is to spend their time gathering rupees, in order to support the people who grow food, weave clothes, draw water and build houses. It's a difficult job, though. The crown is a minor employer too, from time to time."
It sounded like a fairly simple economy to Mark. Citizens spent money on goods, private employers spent it on services. Still, with that kind of system, the taxes must have been enormous, since the employers must have needed to get their money from somewhere, so after a moment, Mark decided to bring that up.
"That sort of system can't make things easy on the taxpayers."
"What's a tax?"
Mark almost fell over when she asked him that question, and for the next several moments, he silently wondered to himself if maybe they called taxes something different in Hyrule. Surely, she must have known what Mark meant. He tried some re-phrasings of the term, but she just commented that she'd never heard of anything like it. When he asked her where employers got all of their rupees, however, her answer at least gave him a little bit of information.
"They find them in all sorts of places," she explained, "in the grass, under rocks, underground... Rupee-finders all receive service wages, just like everyone else."
"But if they find them so easily, couldn't anyone?"
"Sure, but it would be hard work, and it wouldn't be very productive. Most people prefer to do the regular jobs. Most of them are easier, and they leave some extra time for fun."
Just like that, Mark was starting to get a vague picture of what Ramie was talking about. It seemed like the kind of system that might easily be exploited by a dishonest rupee hunter, but Ramie obviously hadn't realized that.
"What if a rupee-finder decides to take the rupees for themselves, instead of returning them?" Mark asked after a moment, determined to understand the weak points in the weird, hylian economy.
"If they take any rupees, then the amount is just taken out of their wages for that day." Ramie replied, "If it's more than fifty, they forfeit the day's wages completely."
"What's so bad about that?" Mark just asked. In his mind, after all, that didn't sound like much of a punishment.
"Well, nothing really." she said in reply, "The thing is, people who do that are seen as being a little odd. There've been a few in the past who've done things that way, but only one was a hylian, and before long, they discover that it's not such a big deal, really."
"Why?" Mark asked, already convinced that he had all the information he needed about the hylian economy, "From the sounds of it, a few weeks of that, and you'd be set for life."
"I'm sorry?" Ramie asked, however, looking confused again, "I beg you're pardon. I'm not familiar with the phrase 'set for life.'"
Once again, Mark was surprised by that, but he started trying to explain himself quickly, saying, "It means you'd never have to worry about food or water, or a place to live until the day you die."
Ramie just looked puzzled again, however, but finally said, "Nobody ever worries about those things, but why would rupees help? You can't eat them, drink them, or live in them."
Mark chuckled, however, saying, "You can use them to buy food, or a house to live in."
Ramie's face fell, however, the moment that Mark said that.
"No you can't." Ramie insisted, looking genuinely shocked by the idea, "Food, clothes and housing aren't purchased with money. They're earned through the hylian service trade. If you have a job in Hyrule, you just talk to the farmers, the weavers, the mages or the carpenters, and ask them whether they need your help. They ask you for a favor or a set of favors, you do the favors for them, and they give you the food, or the clothes, or start work on your house, if you need one. The service trade is just as dependable as the rupee market; more so, in some ways, since it's based on an honor system instead of random factors."
At once, Mark was consumed by even greater curiosity, but Ramie seemed to be tired of answering his "ridiculous questions" and told him that first, he should spend some time talking to people in town about potential jobs. Mark was still very confused, and more than a little worried, but there was no denying that a job was the first step to getting along with those people better, and the first step to understanding their strange, alien way of life.