E1pnvn's Note: Thanks to all the people who reviewed! For being so nice, I now offer you this blessing: "As you slide down the banisters of life, may the splinters never point the wrong way". Haha. There are also specific thank-yous for all of you below the story. And, moving on, here's chapter two! Just so you know, I changed the whole story behind the Skulltullas around a little (ok, maybe a lot). I just thought it would be easier to write about my own characters than about some guy and his bazillion kids. So, just kind of keep an open mind during this chapter and you should understand everything... I hope. Anyway, on with the story. Don't forget to read and review people! Thanks!
DISCLAIMER - I don't own Zelda, but if I ever find a genie in a magic lamp, you can bet that that'll be my first wish.
SKULLTULLA HAUS
By E1pnvn
Chapter two -The Sheikah's Curse
I don't know how long I was unconscious for, but I eventually started to come back to myself. I didn't open my eyes, feeling too tired to do so, and allowed my mind to slowly recover. It took me awhile to remember all that had happened. But when I did, I suddenly didn't feel tired anymore. My first instinct was to get up and run away as fast as I could in any random direction... But then I heard voices. They were coming from right next to me so I kept my eyes closed just in case their owners weren't friendly.
"Do you think I scared her?" said one voice. It was soft and deep and sounded vaguely familiar, although I couldn't decide on where I'd heard it before.
"No, Jonas. I'm sure she just fainted because she was happy to see you," said a second voice. This one was deeper and not as gentle.
The first voice, which I assumed belonged to someone named Jonas, sighed.
"Right... That was a stupid thing for me to say," he said. "I'm just feeling guilty, that's all. I didn't mean to scare her. And she might have hurt herself when she fell..."
"Oh relax, will you?" said Jonas' companion. "She'll be fine."
"You're probably right," said Jonas. "But the least we can do is take her to one of the beds to rest in. I don't like that she's lying on the floor like that."
"Are you kidding?" said Jonas' friend. "The beds here haven't been used in years. They're probably all full of bugs and junk."
It was here that I decided I couldn't keep still any longer. The thought of being carried by two strangers to a bed full of who-knows-what just wasn't very pleasent by my standards. I sat up with a yelp and opened my eyes.
I instantly regretted it. I was sitting on the floor of the portrait-hall and hanging next to me were two of the horrible giant spiders. One of them was the one I'd encountered before. The other looked just like the first, except that it had brown eyes and a brown tuft of hair. I screamed when I saw them. Without thinking, I scrambled to my feet and started down the hall, away from them. But the monsters had other plans. The red-haired one scurried along the ceiling and dropped down in front of me. It started to say something, but I just turned around and ran in the opposite direction. To my great dismay, the second beast came down in front of me to block my way. I looked around frantically, but there was nowhere else to run. I was trapped between the two spiders. Horrified and defeated, I sank to my knees on the floor.
"P-p-please don't hurt me!" I begged. I covered my face with my arms, expecting them to come eat my head off at any second.
"Don't be afraid, m'lady," came a familiar voice and I tentatively lowered my arms to see who had spoken.
It was the red-haired spider. "We won't hurt you," it said.
I recognized the voice as Jonas'. So THIS was Jonas? These things had names? I looked at him warily.
"Wh-what d'you want?" I asked.
"We just need some help," said Jonas. "All we ask is that you listen to what we have to say and help us if you feel like it. We won't force you into anything."
I was suspicious and more than a little freaked out, but I nodded nonetheless. "Ok..." I said.
"Good," came another familiar voice from behind me.
I turned to look at the other spider. So this was Jonas' friend... I hadn't caught his name yet.
"Come on, get up," said the mystery spider, cheerfully. "We'll take you to meet the others."
My eyes widened. Others? There were MORE spiders? I slowly and shakily got to my feet, not at all looking forward to this meeting.
Jonas came up to me until he was hanging at my side. I shivered at his presence but didn't say anything. Then, the two spiders led me down the hall and to the door I had been trying so desperately to get to earlier. Jonas' friend opened it and ushered me and Jonas inside.
The room we came into was big and circular. There was a huge window at its far end, surrounded by dusty curtains, and I could see that outside it was still dark with night. An assortment of easy chairs and sofas filled the room, along with a bookshelf in one corner and a desk in another.
But, what really caught my eye were the two new spiders that were hanging in the middle of the room.
They both turned to look at us when we came in. One of them had black hair and gray eyes and the other had blonde hair and green eyes. The blonde one was smaller than the other three spiders, so I wondered if she was female.
"We have a visitor," said Jonas, as the brown-haired spider closed the door.
"So I see," said the black-haired one. He sounded pompous, almost snobbish.
"Umm... I guess an introduction is in order," Jonas said to me with a nervous laugh. "My's name's Jonas."
He pointed with one of his legs at the brown-haired spider that had been with us the longest.
"That's Gustave," he said.
Gustave waved, or at least did the spider equivalent.
"And over there," Jonas continued, pointing to the black-haired spider, "is Leonard."
"Good evening," said Leonard.
"And that lady there," Jonas said, pointing to the last spider, "is his fiancee, Anne."
"It's nice to meet you," Anne said.
I blinked. "Uhh... hi," I said.
I realized that they were waiting for my name, so I added: "I'm Sara..."
They all seemed happy about this and started talking to one another. Being in the frazzled and confused state that I was in, I didn't really listen to what they were saying. Jonas seemed to sense that I was uncomfortable and faced me.
"You can sit down if you like, m'lady," he said, kindly.
I didn't really like the idea, but I found myself walking over to one of the chairs anyway and sinking into it. The four spiders crawled over and hung around me in a circle. This made me a bit uneasy, to say the least, especially since all they did was stare at me. It looked like no one was going to start talking any time soon, so I decided to break the spooky silence myself:
"Uh... Y-you said you needed help with something?"
I addressed Jonas, feeling slightly more comfortable (and by comfortable I mean not completely horrified) talking to him since I'd known him the longest.
"Yes, right," said Jonas. "Well, it's kind of a long story, really... For starters, I guess I should tell you that we haven't always been the beasts you see before you."
I blinked. My brain, which was already numb, simplywasn't computing.
"Huh?" I said.
"We didn't used to be monsters," said the spider named Gustave. "We used to be humans, just like you."
I stared at him. "How's that possible?"
"We were cursed," said Leonard. "A wicked lady turned us into what we are now."
"And this is how we'll remain unless the curse is broken," Anne finished.
I just blinked again. My brain still wasn't wrapping around all this.
"Here," said Jonas. "This will all be easier to understand if I just tell you everything from the beginning."
"Ok..." I said.
I leaned back in the chair and watched him. Jonas cleared his throat and began his story:
"Well, when I was fifteen, I used to be an apprentice to Gustave here, who worked as a blacksmith in Hyrule Castle Town. We both lived and worked near the castle and we were actually pretty wealthy compared to a lot of folks in town. Our little buisness was so popular, in fact, that Gustave's talents were wanted in places other than Castle Town. People from as far away as Termina and Holodrum wanted Gus to make their weapons and coat-hangers and whatnot. So, I sort of became a delivery boy as well as an apprentice. The deal was that Gus would make the desired merchandise and I would take it to Termina or wherever it was needed.
"The system worked out perfectly and Gus became a rich man. Which meant that I was the apprentice of a rich man and that made me far from poor myself. We were definitely living it large for awhile. But... well, that all changed one day when Gustave got an order from Death Mountain. Apparently, the Gorons were doing some kind of excavating project inside of Dodogono Cavern (I'm not sure of the details) and they needed shovels and pickaxes made for them right away. Gus took the job and soon the Gorons' supplies were ready to go. But that's when we ran into problems.
"To get to Death Mountain, I would have to pass through a Sheikah village at the mountain's base. Not much was known about the Sheikahs at the time, except that they were very secretive and didn't like to be disturbed by outsiders. Naturally, I didn't feel comfortable going through the village alone, and neither did Gustave, so we saddled up two horses and went together.
"The trip to the village was relatively short and shouldn't have taken us more than a few hours to travel... But fate had other plans for us, I guess.
"You see, right as we were about to cross Zora's River, a young couple came up to us and asked us for directions. They introduced themselves as Leonard Blate and Anne Wite and said that they were on their way to Kokiri Forest to be married. We congratulated them and offered to escort them to the forest. After all, Hyrule Field can be dangerous sometimes and we couldn't let the couple get hurt before their wedding, could we? So, we started towards the forest."
"Thanks for that, by the way," Anne interrupted.
Leonard shushed her. "Quiet! Let him finish the story!"
"Anyway," Jonas continued. "It turned out that Gustave and I weren't the best escorts in the world. We were attacked by a pack of Wolfos about halfway to the forest.
"Gus and I did our best to try and fend them off, but we were easily overwhelmed. The Wolfos killed our horses and our swords weren't strong enough to fight them with. We even resorted to using some of the Gorons' pickaxes as weapons, but those weren't much help either. It soon became obvious that our only chance of survival would be to run for it. So, the four of us turned tail and ran for our lives.
"The Wolfos were right behind us and we ran for a long time. It seemed like the Wolfos would never give up and we were really getting tired, so we made a rather desperate decision and jumped into Zora's River for safety. The Wolfos couldn't swim, so they finally let us be.
"We drifted down the river a bit, then climbed up onto a little island of land to rest. We were all exhausted. Gustave and I were mourning our lost merchandise and Leonard and Anne were griping about being late for their wedding. In short, we were all a little depressed.
"We took awhile to recover, then swam back to Hyrule field. All of the excitement had eaten away most of the day, so by the time we were back on land, it was nearing dusk. We weren't at all happy about this since there are always more monsters out at nighttime and the Wolfos had left us without any means of defense. So, the first thing on our minds was to get to safety.
"We decided that our best chance would be to take refuge in the nearest town... Which just so happened to be the Sheikah village. We probably should have been more cautious, but we were wet and tired and we weren't really thinking straight. We just walked right into the village without a second thought.
"It didn't take long for a Sheikah woman to spot us. She ran over to us and glared at us so fiercely, it stopped us in our tracks.
" ' What are you doing here?' she snapped. 'This village belongs to the Sheikahs! You Hylians have no place here!'
"We apologized and tried to explain, but she wouldn't hear it. She demanded that we leave the village at once. I was all for it, but Gustave just doesn't tolerate rude behavior. He confronted the Sheikah and told her... well, he said a few offensive things, which just made her angrier. She said that if we didn't leave, we would be severly punished.
"Leonard, who was also thoroughly annoyed by the lady, offered her five rupees to get her out of our hair. That also didn't go very well... The Sheikah could tell that Leonard was a pretty wealthy man and took his offering of pocket change as an insult.
" 'I've had it with you lot!' she cried. 'How DARE you dishonor the Sheikahs! I'll make you spend the rest of your days as the monsters you truly are!'
"And with that, she said some magic words and turned us into spiders."
I stared at Jonas in awe. "Did it hurt?" I asked.
"Yes, very much so," said Jonas. "But the real punishment was afterour transformation."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The story Jonas just told you happened almost one hundred years ago," said Gustave. "All this time we've been confined to this house."
"We can't go out in the open because people are afraid of us," Leonard explained. "They'd kill us if they knew about us."
"So you've been sitting in this room for a century?" I asked.
"Yep," said Anne. "It seems like the Sheikah's spell also increased our lifespan. We've only aged a few years since the day we were curse, even though decades have passed. The Sheikah probably meant for us to be this way forever."
I let all of this sink in. I felt a little more comfortable around the spiders now, knowing that they had once been human. I even felt sorry for them. It must have been hard living in hiding for so long, afraid to leave in case people wouldn't accept you. Plus, everyone Jonas and the others had known and loved were probably long dead by now. It really pulled at my heartstrings.
"And that's our story," Jonas concluded, sounding melancholy.
I nodded. There was a long silence.
"And... there's a way I can help you?" I said at last.
Jonas' eyes brightened. If he'd had a human mouth, he probably would have been smiling.
"Yes, there is a way to break the curse," he said. "You see, hidden throughout Hyrule are a certain type of spider called Skulltullas. When a person kills a Skulltulla, they get a magical token as a sort of reward for doing so. These tokens are the key to breaking the Sheikah's curse."
"We need one hundred tokens to save all of us," said Gustave. "Ninety seven tokens will free one of us, ninety eight will free another, and ninety nine will free a third. Obviously, we're aiming for one hundred."
"We first found out about the tokens about a decade after being cursed," Leonard added. "A man came wandering into our house and he had one with him. The token sort of glowed and disappeared when it made contact with us. We were interested, so we offered the man rupees if he'd go get us some more, which he did."
"And we've been collecting them ever since," said Anne. "We can't go out and get them ourselves, so whenever someone comes to our house, we give them money to go get as many tokens as they can for us."
"We pay them rather handsomely," Leonard continued. "About ninety rupees per token."
"Over the years, we've certainly used up a lot of Leonard's fortune," said Gustave. "Not to mention mine! But I guess it's for a good cause..."
I suddenly remembered what the hostler in Kakariko had told me. This explained how all of those people had gotten their money... But what about the people who had disappeared?
I gulped. "Um... What exactly do you do to people who don't agree to help you?" I asked.
"Nothing," said Jonas. "And we won't do anything to you if you don't want to help. We'll just let you go, no questions asked. Of course, you'd also have to swear that you would never tell anyone about us, but other than that, everything would go back to normal for you."
I relaxed a little. So at least that part about missing people was a rumor...
"So... Will you help us?" asked Anne.
I thought about it. I was still terrified of spiders and squishing magical ones didn't sound very fun. But I couldn't just leave Jonas and the others cursed, could I?
"How many Skulltulla-whatevers do I have to kill?" I asked.
"We're very close to our goal," said Jonas. "There are only four spiders left and we already know where they are."
Four. Four didn't seem too bad... I took a deep breath and said: "Ok. I'll help you."
The four spiders cheered. I think Anne even had tears in her eyes.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" they chanted.
I just sort of smiled uncomfortably. I was still thinking about what the heck I'd gotten myself into, when the spiders finally calmed down and Jonas inspected me.
"You look tired," he said. "Goddesses, you must be! It's nearly midnight!"
I looked out of the window and saw that the almost-full moon was high in the sky. It WAS almost midnight. I guess time flies when you're talking to cursed spiders.
"We should get you to bed..." Jonas said.
"NO!" I interupted. I still remembered the conversation he and Gustave had had about the beds in this place.
Jonas blinked, a little surprised at my outburst.
"She's right," said Gustave. "I told you, Jonas, the beds here are nasty."
"What about that one in the room near the parlor?" said Anne. "That one's clean."
"Nothing's clean in this rat-hole..." I heard Leonard mumble.
But I reallyWAS starting to feel tired, so I decided to take the risk and try Anne's bed.
"That bed sounds good," I said, trying to hold in a yawn.
"Okay then," said Jonas. "Follow me."
He scurried along the ceiling over to a door that I hadn't noticed before. I followed him obediently. We went through the door and down a hallway, then we rounded a corner and went down another hallway. Jonas walked on the ceiling the whole time, making that creepy scratching sound of his. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he led me into a small bedroom.
The room was dusty and gray, just like the rest of the hosue, and didn't have anything in it except for a bed in its center. I went to the bed and tested it with my hands. It seemed clean enough and the blankets actually felt kind of nice, so I decided it was worthy of my presence.
Jonas, was was hanging in the doorway, cleared his throat. I looked at him.
"I guess I'll leave you, now," he said. "Is this room alright for you?"
"It's fine," I said. "Thanks."
I climbed into the bed and moved around to find a comfortable position to lay in. Jonas was still in the doorway and watched me until I was curled up and ready for sleep.
"Good night," he said. "If you need anything, just call for one of us and we'll be able to find you."
"Ok," I said, closing my eyes.
The last thing he said before leaving was: "Thanks again. I promise you won't regret this."
And right before falling asleep, I remember hoping that he was right.
E1pnvn's Other Note: Sorry if that chapter was at all confusing. Anyway, it's time to thank my favorite people in the world: my reviewers! Wahoo!
Greki - YAAAAAAAY! You were my very first reviewer and you made me very, very happy. You seem like the reviewer for little people; whenever there's a new story or a story without many reviews you're always one of the first to comment. I salute you!
Huanir - Wow, I take that as a huge compliment. My confidence has had a nice little boost because of you. Thank you very much!
Hylian Moon- Yay, I was aiming for lighthearted. I think... Actually, I'm not sure, but I think it's a good thing! Thanks for the review!
neogirl7900- Hmm... Actually, I'm not sure where "bajeepers" came from. It might have been from Jimmy Nuetron or it might have been from something else. I'm always putting things I've read or seen on TV into my writing without realizing it (good thing "bajeepers" isn't copyrighted). Anyway, thanks for reviewing and I hope you continue that story of yours.
Vladimir the Hamster- I can't get over how awesome your pen-name is! Vladimir the Hamster, haha. Anyway, thanks for telling me how to spell "cucco". I guess I should check my spelling on the monsters and places and stuff more... Whoops! Thanks for the review. I loved your poem by the way! And I'm glad you hate Skulltullas because I think they're evil too.
I love all of you! Please review again. And those of you who haven't reviewed yet should comment too!