Chapter 36: Lake Hylia

I found out that Slave Link was easily able to talk to Fado only because he had actually spoken to her while they had separated us. Honestly, it made perfect sense. After she saw that we were back, she told us that she would lead us out of the forest. On the way, I tried to ask her if my whole 'falling asleep is the way that people go' theory was correct or not. However, she wouldn't answer. Instead, she led us part of the way there and then she stopped. All three of us were a little bit confused, but then she explained.

"Okay, you three have to really promise that you won't tell anyone about us… at all! If you don't, or if you lie, then I'll leave all three of you right here right now. Don't think that I won't do it! I know how prone you are to telling people about yourselves, considering how much slave Link told me. However, you can't tell anyone about the Kokiri. After all, it's not your secret; it's that of the Kokiri's. Oh, and believe me when I tell you that I can tell if you lie or not!"

I looked at slave Link in wonder of just how much he had told her. I then realized that he had almost never joined one of us to tell anyone about it. Maybe it was that he simply hadn't held back when telling her because he didn't understand child sensitivity? I figured that that was probably it, all things considered. Either way, though, I turned to Fado and I very politely asked her if it was okay to tell Zelda. At this, she pulled a very annoyed face and deadpanned her voice while saying

"No. I don't care if even the Link that the Kokiri used to know told someone or not. You will not tell anyone of our existence; it's a secret to everybody! Even her!" Immediately, I put my hands up in surrender and promised because if the secret was that important, then I would oblige. I would simply have to rehearse something to tell Zelda alongside the other Links so that not even she would get suspicious. I understood the need that they had to keep themselves a secret. After all, there may have been many of them, but if they were a completely different race than hylians, then they would fall into the endangered category with their numbers!

The other Links agreed without any delay and Fado seemed to believe us. Perhaps it was the sincerity of how I said it that won her trust. Well, whatever it was, it worked and she led us to the edge of the forest. At the end, she simply told us to walk straight in a specific direction before she disappeared into the brush. We followed her instructions and we came out pretty much exactly where I had originally intended for us to come out! Frankly, it was rather amazing.

About one hour's walk later, we came across a very large lake. It was Lake Hylia! As soon as he saw it, future Link recalled that this was where he had woken up during his vision where he retrieved his transformation mask. Frankly, I was kind of amazed! Heck that probably meant that future Link knew the area already. Looking at the area, I realized that all that we knew about what we had to do was that we had to find some guy. We were given no real description other than the fact that he was the one who saw dark Link. Thankfully, though, slave Link spotted something very large floating on the surface of the water.

None of us could identify what it was, though. To slave Link, it looked like a boat. To future Link, it looked like a massive pile of wood. However, to me, it looked like a floating house. After approaching it, we discovered that it was a combination of the three. It was a house-boat thing that was made of wood.

Honestly, it was pretty awesome to see someone with the ingenuity to manage that. Looking at it, though, I saw that it would be impossible to get on to the boat from the water simply because it had a bit of a high wall that wouldn't be reachable from there. Future Link, though, seemed to have an idea. As usual, he was absolutely filled with them because he was by and far the most clever of the three of us. After telling us to stay where we were, he put on his zora mask and jumped into the water.

I watched as he swam straight towards the boat, just underneath the surface of the water and picking up speed as he went. However, as soon as he got close enough, he ducked underneath and swam under the boat. It was a little hard to see from where slave Link and I were, but we just barely managed to see future Link make a very large arching turn and pick up even more speed before he turned again, travelling MUCH faster. This time, when he approached the boat, he ducked a little bit and then turned back upwards to jump out of the water! The thing was, though, that he completely overshot the boat and ended up jumping back into the water on the other side.

It was very impressive, all things considered, but it left me wondering what he was planning to do about that. Before I knew it, though, he had climbed back onto dry land. Although, he didn't take his mask off, so he ended up looking down towards us as he explained that if he took the exact same route with one of us holding on to him, then he would be travelling slow enough by the end of it that we would land on top of the boat. As far as I was concerned, it made perfect sense. Therefore, I told him that I agreed, and we both stepped into the water, leaving slave Link to wait for his turn.

As it turned out, future Link had been totally right about the physics behind helping slave Link and me get onto the boat. After we all got there, future Link took off his mask and we looked around for a possible entrance to the house and found one rather quickly. As soon as I knocked, though, I heard a crash come from inside and I looked towards the other Links to see if they had heard it as well. Finding that they had, I waited for the person to answer the door while the others took position behind me. The man who answered looked like he was middle-aged, but still lively enough to be able to hold his own.

I quickly stated in an official tone that I was sent alongside my 'brothers' to inspect potential claims about a 'mysterious figure'.

"Oh, in that case, please come in!" He immediately told us, stepping aside to let us do so. Once inside, he offered us each seats and sat down with us to explain his sighting. Apparently, dark Link had been seen messing around with some sort of ancient machine. This man was only able to hide and watch from a distance. It took him quite a while to explain, but afterwards, he led us to said ancient machine (using his own miniature boat). Apparently, the machine hadn't worked at all for the past several hundreds of years, but dark Link had somehow gotten it up and running!

This machine looked like a weird cannon of some sort. Cannons weren't something that my dimension had access to, but I had seen a few in the movies that slave Link and I had watched back in future Link's dimension, so I knew what they were. Eventually, the man explained that he had watched dark Link climb inside and then it had exploded, shooting dark Link so far that he went out of sight. I then thanked the man for his contribution and dismissed him, making him go back to his home. When he was finally gone, the other Links and I looked over the cannon with awe.

After a while, I figured that the best way for us to be able to follow after dark Link would be if we were to take the cannon as well. After all, if dark Link did it, then it must've been safe, right? Plus, I had a good feeling about this. Apparently, the others did too, because neither of them argued. Either way, about an hour of actually figuring out how this thing worked was spent before we realized that it required an explosive and that there was only room for one person at a time. Slave Link quickly volunteered to be first, so I helped him get loaded up before future Link set a remote bomb inside another compartment and counted it down for slave Link.

After the explosion, slave Link was sent flying off into the distance and out of sight. The thing was, though, that we hadn't moved the trajectory of the cannon at all, yet it shot him almost straight upwards! This seriously confused me, but even after a few minutes, I still had a really good feeling about this, so I had future Link help me load myself in. After having heard the loudness of the explosion from slave Link being fired, I knew to cover my ears when the countdown reached zero.

It was very sudden and extremely loud (I was seriously glad that I had covered my ears), but it was worth it. As I was shot up and into the sky, the wind whipped my face and I had to shut my eyes up really tight to avoid something hitting them. However, as I felt my ascent slowing, I opened my eyes to discover that, not only had it shot me not exactly straight up, but it had also shot me just high enough for me to land on some… stone? I began to fall from the extra height, but it was only about two feet above this stone.

As soon as I did land, I looked up and around to find that I was on some sort of floating island in the sky! I then noticed slave Link a little ways away staring at something, so I walked up to him in order to find out what he was looking at. When I looked, I saw an absolutely massive looking building surrounded by what looked like an, albeit peaceful, whirlwind of clouds. I then heard future Link touch down back where I had and I motioned for him to come and see this thing. After he came and gawked at it for a while, slave Link asked if we thought that dark Link was in there.

I replied that he must've been and future Link claimed that he agreed, so the three of us began to walk up to the building with the full intent of discovering exactly what dark Link was planning!

Well, the next three chapters are, once again, dungeon chapters. Prepare yourselves! :D Also, next Saturday is the date of a festival in my town... well, it lasts four days, but the Saturday of the festival is always the best of them. This festival is called the 'Stampede' even though there are no stampeding animals. There is a rodeo, though. Therefore, please expect a super early-in-the-day upload... either that, or I'll be updating in between the parade and when the fairgrounds open. Thinking about it, the latter is the most likely. :/ Anyway, please tell me what you thought of these three chapters via a review and I'll see you all next week! :D