Chapter Twenty – The curse of Zora's Domain

I just received a report that Link found a way to defeated Volvagia. Although I'm highly skeptical about this report since only the Dodongo were capable of subduing the creature, let alone defeating it, and Ganondorf tricked Link into wiping out that species. If this is correct then I will send Sheik to Zora's Domain to inform Link of his next mission.

When Link finally awoke he noticed the large crack in the wall of the volcano had light shining through it. He got up and walked through the passage and when he got to the other side he found himself in the Dodongo's old field that was destroyed so many years ago. The path that led out of that area had been blocked for a very long time, but with the recent earthquakes all over the mountain, a new path was formed that headed up to the top of Death Mountain to where the great fairy, or Malon's mom as Link knew her, use to live before she moved to another cave near Hyrule castle.

Once he was at the top of the mountain he noticed a small part of the mountain that kept shaking. It was on the other side of a steep cliff, which made it impossible to get to, but as he drew closer he realized it was a gigantic goron.

"Goro?" the goron said confused as it popped up when it heard Link approaching. Its giant head loomed over Link as it stared down at him.

Suddenly Link realized this was probably one of the last gorons left in the world, and he still needed to try and get the broken sword fixed. Pulling out the sword, he showed it to the giant goron and was startled as it leaned in even more to get a better look and blocked the light from the sun. The goron put a hand down close to Link, and Link placed the broke sword in the giant hand then watched as the goron lifted it back up to his eyes for a closer look.

"That sword mine." The goron said as it struggled to look at the sword. "Work store in village long ago, before self get too big. Sold terrible swords, very high price. Break very quick. This terrible work mine. Eyes bad now, ash from mountain, but eyes see terrible sword mine. If get medicine, can make even better sword. Use special material goddesses give. Make master sword look weak. Zora King give medicine. Get for eyes. Make strong sword free."

The goron reached down and pulled out a tiny piece of paper that could barely be held in its fingers. "This pre- per-, um, preskiption." The goron said handing Link the prescription for special medicine from King Zora. The paper looked very old, and well wore, like he was using it a lot and had it for a very long time.

Once back on the mountain trail, he traveled down through Kakariko Village, and back out to Hyrule field. He knew getting the medicine for the giant goron was going to take him way out of his way, since he now had to stop by Zora's Domain and see the king, but he really wanted to see how powerful the sword would be once it was repaired.

Zora's river still looked exactly the same as it did from seven years ago; even the magic bean guy was still there. Link went over to see how the guy was doing and noticed he had a mouthful of magic beans and was no longer breathing; his skin felt very cold and it looked like he had been dead for a long time. Link felt he should do something since the guy was nice enough to give him a bag of his magic beans when he was just a kid, but he ended up getting thrown into prison before he could even try them, and the guards took them away from him.

Link picked up the large bag of beans and put them away, then rolled the body of his friend over to the river and pushed him in. As he watched his strange friend float out towards Hyrule field, it saddened Link to see him drift into the distance, but he knew in his heart he was off to a better place.

Continuing on he made it to the waterfall much faster now that he was older. He pulled out his ocarina and played Zelda's lullaby the best he could, but this time there was no yelling from the top of the waterfall, and the waterfall didn't split to allow him through.

Link tried to figure out a way to get in to see the Zora's, and knew something terrible must have happened to them. As night began to settle in, the air grew very cold and he wasn't wearing proper clothes to deal with the freezing temperatures.

Frantically looking around for some way through, he finally spotted a small sign off to the side of the waterfall. Moving closer to see what it said he noticed it was a message from the Zora's. It was too dark to read, so he shook Navi out of his hat to use her light to view the sign.

Going into hibernation for the winter. If you need access to our home you may enter through the waterfall. We lowered the strength of the falls to allow access.

Link wasn't familiar with what hibernation was, but it sounded like he was able to jump through the waterfall to get in. He didn't worry about reading the rest of the sign since he now knew how to get in and just glimpsed over it, but wasn't paying attention to what he was reading anymore.

Make sure to find a way to dry off before coming in any further as it's far colder inside than outside.

Jumping through the waterfall he quickly became soaked, but at least he knew he could dry off by a fire once he reached the village. As Link traveled down the path that led into Zora's Domain the temperature kept dropping faster and faster. His soaking wet clothes quickly started to freeze and became difficult to move in; and it was burning his skin from how cold it was. Wanting to take everything off to dry, he knew it would be inappropriate to appear before the king in such an indecent manner, even though all the zora's and goron's walked around completely naked, it was wrong for his people to behave in such a manner, so he kept his freezing clothes on.

Upon reaching the area the zora's lived he was surprised to see the entire village was completely frozen. The large waterfall he was thrown over as a kid was solid ice and not a sound was heard from the entire village. Fearing something evil must have happened there, he began noticing large red crystals spread throughout the entire village. As he moved closer to one he was horrified to see a zora was trapped inside. Suddenly he realized each crystal had a zora trapped within it. He wasn't sure what kind of evil monster did this to these innocent creatures, but he knew he had to stop it, and save the entire zora village.

Taking the master sword in hand he swung it as hard as he could towards the red crystal, but to no avail. The crystal was so strong it didn't even scratch from the master swords power. He tried a few more attempts, but quickly gave up due to how cold he was and his arm was now starting to hurt from swinging so hard.

Looking around for an answer to what was going on; he realized his only choice was to find the king. If he was still safe he would be able to find a way to save the rest of the zora's. He quickly made his way up the long flight of stairs that led to the king's royal chamber, but once at the top he was shocked to see the king was trapped within the red crystal as well.

The path to the sacred altar for Jabu Jabu was still open, so he decided to see if their god-fish might be able to help him figure out what was going on. As he stepped back outside he started to feel warmer, yet it was still freezing out there, and there was a lot of ice everywhere. On the altar there was something that looked like giant fish bones that must have belong to their god-fish. The evil creature that caused this devastation needed to be stopped. And as he stood looking at the bones, a large cave caught his eye on the far side of the area. He didn't notice the cave when he was a child, but even if he had there wasn't a way to get up there, but now that the water was frozen over, and he was much taller, he could reach it. Whatever was causing the zora to suffer must have been in that cave, so he made his way over to the cave and climbed up and went inside.