Chapter Twenty Two – Morpha's minions
I received a new report today from Sheik. It seems he informed Link of the situation with the zora's and the water temple. I forget if I explained to Sheik what Morpha was, but I'm sure Link will be able to figure it out. My father always hired Morpha to drain Lake Hylia and clean the water temple, so I did the same this year as well. I just hope Link will be ok going there without Sheik to guide him through the temple, but Sheik did say there was already someone there to help him.
After traveling all day Link finally reached Lake Hylia, but a lot seemed to have changed over the years. The water was much lower in the lake and people were rushing around the area while carrying bags. Link approached a guy as he was heading towards him with a bag full of what appeared to be trash, and pointed to the bag confused.
"Oh, hello there." The guy said while still jogging in place. "We're the workers of Morpha and we're here to clean the lake before the zora's wake up in spring. The Hyrulian family pays us to do this every year, but this year the lake seems to be worse than usual. That's why everyone is working so hard. Most of management is inside the temple making sure the water levels are adjusted properly so we can work on the lakebed. If you have some free time you should go in and have a look around. Normally the water is so deep it's impossible to dive all the way to the bottom of the lake, and even if you could, the temple is kept fully flooded so you can't breathe down there anyways. Right now we have a lot of the rooms drained, so this is the best time to see what it looks like inside."
Without another word the guy took off back to work and Link stood there trying to understand why these people would want to work for the monster Morpha? The only thing he could come up with was the monster was somehow controlling their minds and only he would be able to free them. Heading down the hill towards the water he was suddenly attacked by a scarecrow he was walking by. The scarecrow grabbed Link up in a tight hug and began to swing him around wildly. Link tried to reach for his sword, but he was being swung around so much he wasn't able to do anything except hope the scarecrow would stop. "I still remember, I still remember!" The scarecrow yelled while swinging Link through the air and dancing around. "I still remember that song after all these years."
When Link was finally freed he tried to regain his focus and make sense of what it was yelling, but when he finally understood what was being said he was even more confused since he never met the scarecrow in his life. "I'm going to play that same song you played for me so long ago." The scarecrow pulled out a misshaped and busted ocarina and began playing horrible music while it began to dance around. Link tried to get the scarecrows attention, but since he couldn't talk he was forced to listen to the noise, and hoped it would stop soon. After standing there for what felt like hours he realized the song was never going to end. It was only then he heard some of the workers talking a little ways away.
"Can you believe that guy is still listening to that scarecrow?" one of the guys said laughing.
"It only starts playing if someone gets too close." Another guy said annoyed.
"Don't worry guys; this will be the last year we'll have to put up with it. We got orders to destroy it this year." A third guy said with a grin.
Realizing he wasted a lot of time for nothing he walked away from the scarecrow, and left it playing its song. The scarecrow was so wrapped up in playing the song it didn't even notice he walked away. Once free he decided to check out the old house near the lake that was turned into a lakeside laboratory. It was well known a genius scientist lived there a long time ago and was said to have gone completely crazy after losing his wife and son somehow, but if he was still alive there was a chance Link could deliver the frogs to him and get the medicine made for the goron.
As he entered the laboratory he could hear a man yelling very loud. "DON'T YOU DARE TALK TO ME LIKE THAT WOMAN! I'M A GENIUS AND I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"
Link wasn't sure what was going on, so he quietly began moving through the room. The room was dimly lit and there were piles of junk all over the place. "I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE WOMAN!" There was a slight pause then he continued, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU THINK YOU HEARD SOMETHING?" the man said angrily. Link peered around a pile of junk and looked towards where he heard the voice coming from, but there wasn't anyone there; all he saw was a giant tank of water that had a rotting shark trapped behind some bars in a cave-like cage.
As he continued to look around the room he was frightened as he realized the old man was standing right behind him staring at him quietly. He appeared to be malnourished with no meat on his bones at all, and he was missing many of his teeth. His back was hunched over, but even if he was able to stand upright he was so short he would only come up to Link's chest. The man had a crazy look in his eyes as he stared silently at Link, and then blinked each eye separately.
"My goodness child," The man said laughing. "I don't get many visitors anymore. It must look a mess in here. I keep telling my wife to clean the place up-" The old man tilted his head to look at the tank behind Link as he began to yell. "-BUT MY GOOD-FOR-NOTHING WIFE IS NEVER WILLING TO HELP CLEAN!" After a moment he got angrier as he glared at the tank even more. "I'VE TOLD YOU BEFORE; I DIDN'T MEAN TO TURN OUR SON INTO A SCARECROW. WHY CAN'T YOU DROP THAT ALREADY?" There was another pause then he continued again. "NO I'M NOT GOING TO CHANGE YOU BACK. YOU'RE AN EVIL SHARK AND YOU'RE GOING TO STAY AN EVIL SHARK." After a moment of silence he threw his arms up in the air angrily as he said, "THE BOY DOESN'T NEED TO HEAR ABOUT THAT. LEAVE HIM OUT OF THIS!" Link wasn't sure what to do, so he decided to get his business done and get out of there as fast as possible. Pulling out the frogs the old man instantly focused on what he was holding.
"Oh, you have those." The old man said surprised and quickly grabbed Link and pulled him into a dimmer area of the laboratory that was surrounded by so much junk no one could see them. "I can't let my wife see I got my hands on these again. She never stops yelling at me about how bad they are, but they're just so good. That woman needs to get off my back and let me do what I want."
The old man continued to look around as if he was expecting her to come around the corner at any moment, but there didn't seem to be anyone else in the laboratory, so no one ever appeared. "This should cover the rest of the order for the giant goron I've been doing business with. I'll have to get the ingredients together since I wasn't expecting to get the rest of my payment until spring, but it shouldn't take too long.
Link was confused by this. He thought the frogs were the ingredients, as Link was thinking this the old man seemed to see what was on his mind and started to laugh, "You thought the frogs were needed for the goron's bad habit? No, the frogs are a form of payment for my bad habit so I'll make what the goron wants. Now that I got my payment I'll need a day or so to complete the order before you can-"
Suddenly the old man stopped talking abruptly and stood motionless for a moment, and then with a painful look of being in trouble he began yelling once again. "WOMAN, I TOLD YOU BEFORE IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT I'M DOING!" There was a moment of pause then he continued again. "WELL IF YOU'RE SUCH AN AMAZING WITCH THAN WHY DON'T YOU JUST MOVE TO KAKARIKO VILLAGE AND MAKE POTIONS FOR A LIVING? IT'S CLEAR YOU'RE COMPLETELY USELESS AROUND HERE!"
The old man turned back to Link, "Sorry you had to hear that. She's still mad that I turned our son into the scarecrow outside, and while I was trying to figure out how to turn him back to normal she kept threatening to leave me, so I was left with no other option but to turn her into a shark. I'm sure I can change her back, but now that I have some frogs again I think I'll wait until after I enjoy these.
He winced again then started shouting towards the tank where the dead shark was kept, "NO I DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT FROGS. I SAID LOGS! OPEN YOUR EAR WOMAN! IF YOU'RE GOING TO LISTEN IN ON MY CONVERSATIONS YOU NEED TO GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!" Then he turned back to Link again. "You better leave before she realizes what's really going on here."
Link was glad the old man was allowing him to leave, and he quickly left the laboratory and started heading down towards the entrance to the temple that was located deep beneath Lake Hylia; and with the lake mostly drained it would be a lot easier to get inside. With some water still in front of the entrance, he hoped the gift he got from the zora king would allow him to breathe underwater. Diving in Link began to swim down as fast as he could, but the moment he began trying to breathe he quickly realized something was wrong as his lungs began to fill with water and he struggled to get back to the surface, but it was too late and everything went black.
When Link came to he was on the bank of the lake with a guy from Morpha leaning over him after just giving him mouth to mouth. Link coughed up the rest of the water he breathed in, but still felt lightheaded. "Are you ok?" the guy that saved his life said. "You need to be more careful if you're trying to enter the temple. Only the zora have the ability to breathe underwater and go into the temple using the main entrance. You should have taken the hidden passage way that's currently open to get in."
Link wasn't paying attention to what the guy was saying as he quickly sat up. Suddenly he noticed he had drawn the attention of all Morpha's minions that were out on the lake and they were beginning to come over to see what was going on. Jumping to his feet he took off as fast as he could towards the main entrance once again and took a much deeper breath than he did last time and dove into the water. He knew the tunic wasn't working for him, and he would have to ask King Zora how it works later, but at that moment he knew he needed to get into the temple and defeat Morpha at any cost.