The Mystical Object of Fate
(The Most Generic Zelda Fic Ever!)
By Galaxy Girl
A/N: I sure do love pie. In fact, I've never met a pie that I didn't like. I've decided to base all of my future relationships on pie. If you don't like pie—SOME kind of pie, ANY kind of pie—I cannot trust you, and that is that.
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CHAPTER FOUR: Smog Talks to NPCs!
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"Smog, we really ought to be heading to Kakariko Village now," Puki the fairy advised wisely as they sat, for the twentieth minute in a row, staring unceasingly into the eyes of a big, scary gargoyle-esque monster sitting at the gates of Lake Hylia.
"In a minute," Link said, staring down the gargoyle as best he could without blinking.
"The Castle Town has been completely encased in crystal! Maybe someone in Kakariko Village knows what's going on!" Puki went on in a very obvious tone of voice.
"I've got to get past this gargoyle first."
"I don't know anybody who lives at Lake Hylia that can help us! Perhaps we should check in Kakariko Village?" Puki was becoming impatient.
"I'm going to get past this bloody gargoyle if it's the last thing I ever do," Link stated simply.
"I don't think you can get past it right now," Puki said nervously, backing up under Link's edgy shoulder-hat and giving off more of a yellow glow than a pink one for a moment. "I think it might be some kind of ridiculous obstacle set in place to give the game a more linear feel."
"What do you mean?" Link asked, eyes starting to burn as they tried very hard to outstare a gargoyle, of all things (who didn't understand why this dumb kid couldn't just scream in terror and run away like everyone else).
"Well, it would be silly if they left the entire land of Hyrule open and accessible to you at the beginning of the game like this," Puki reasoned. "I imagine you can only pass by this gargoyle when you find a certain object or weapon, and if logic serves me, I'm gonna guess that you're two temples away at the present time."
"But the Legend of Zelda is a series that has always prided itself on being non-linear and exploratory!" Link argued. "Why would they put obstacles like this to prevent people from completing the game in whatever order they wanted to?"
"Well, really, it's a staple of the series," Puki continued. "Even back on the original Legend of Zelda, though you could reach basically any temple from the start of the game, many of them were impossible to get through until you gathered weapons from the other dungeons first."
"That seems like it would be really frustrating to some people," Link said, unamused.
"Oh, it is. It kept a lot of illiterate morons like the author from ever coming anywhere close to finishing the game," Puki nodded sagely.
A mighty wind blew suddenly across the land of Hyrule, sending several random thunderclouds to rain their random lightning bolts down upon the Hero of Time and his smart-mouthed fairy.
"That was sudden," Link frowned.
"In any case, KAKARIKO VILLAGE. In BIG BOLD LETTERS. Let's GO THERE AND GET ON WITH THE PLOT, SMOG," Puki enunciated.
Within about twenty seconds (or so it would seem from the lack of travel descriptions in this story), Link and Puki were approaching the mighty gates of Kakariko Village. Homely village music played, people rushed around performing their NPC duties, and all seemed normal.
"Well, back to the ol' Hero Gig of Talking to Everyone I See," Link sighed heavily. "Gee, I sure hope none of them remember my name and yell it out."
"It shouldn't be a problem," Puki shrugged. "You're wearing your Extraneous Belts of Tetsuya Nomura, which allow you to take on the persona of Smog, the Final Fantasy Hero. As long as you remember to introduce yourself as such, you should be fine."
"Why are you repeating that information to me?" Link raised his eyebrows. "It was quite clearly explained in the last chapter."
"Oh. Sorry. Forgot," the fairy replied.
Kakariko Village was a charming, sleepy little town inhabited solely by a bunch of obsessive-compulsive freaks with only one or two defining character traits each. It was the second biggest city in Hyrule, and served as a very good place to go to learn gossip about the goings-on in the kingdom, as all the residents had nothing better to do but stand around and talk to themselves in vague clues and hints to how to make the game progress.
"First things first!" Link crossed his arms and nodded. "I ought to find Impa, the Sage of Shadow. She's the leader of Kakariko Village, and a fine foxy babe at that. She's also got close connections with the royal family, and will know what's become of Princess Zelda."
Scouring the village initially found no sign of Impa. Thus, Link decided to do the proper thing and interrogate every single person he met about her whereabouts.
The obvious first choice was a scrawny, goofy-looking man with a purple bouffant hairdo standing under the great tree in the entrance plaza of the village. "Harumph! Harumph!" he cleared his throat as Link approached. "Welcome my boy! Welcome to the village of Kakariko! My name is Shlock, and I'll be your welcome man today!"
Link and Puki glanced over this Shlock character, and promptly raised their eyebrows.
"Say there, Shlock," Link began curiously, "Isn't there usually a Hylian guardsman standing outside the gates of the village to welcome people in?"
"If you've noticed, the Hylian guardsman who is usually standing outside the gates of the village to welcome people in is currently missing from his post! I'm a believer in a good-old-fashioned small town welcome, so I've taken it upon myself to do his job for him until he returns!" Shlock recited stupidly, doing a crazy little twirl. "Harumph! Harumph!"
"Uh… huh," Link drifted off. "I see. Do you know where the guardsman has gone?"
"But I can't decide what kind of welcome I should give!" Shlock was obviously not listening. "I think 'Welcome!' is a bit too simple, but 'Salutations and greetings, majestic traveler!' is a little over the top… Oh, if only my father were here! My father used to be the head of the Kakariko Village Welcoming Committee. Oh, when he welcomed you, you felt like you were really home, even if you were only here on a visit!"
"Why are you telling me this?" Link backed away slowly from the strange man. "I just want to know about the guard at the gate! Why isn't he where he's supposed to be!"
"Oh PAPA!" Shlock dropped to his knees, sobbing. "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE! WHY! WHY! The new head of the Welcoming Committee is nothing like my Papa at all! He's gruff and cranky, and far too serious! Always doing paperwork! My Papa is probably rolling in his grave right now, knowing that the only people there to welcome guests to our fine village are a soldier missing-in-action and his incompetent son! Oh, woe is me! PAPA!"
"You're weird," Link said plainly, escaping from Shlock as fast as he possibly could.
Unfortunately, AI improvements through the years had provided the NPCs in The Legend of Zelda: The Mystical Object of Fate the ability to notice poor Link before he chose to talk to them, sort of like that obnoxious creepy guy in Wind Waker who would follow you around and assault you every time you showed up without lugging his hideous furry-loving daughter back to him. As Link hurried through the entrance plaza to escape the melodramatic oddity that was Shlock the Bouffant Guy, he ran head-on into a familiar character, who promptly forced him into conversation.
"Oh!" she gasped, leaping backwards and away from him. "Hey, wait! I know you! You're the little boy who rescued my Cuccos when they all ran away!"
Link blinked momentarily before recognizing the woman as Anju the Chicken Lady. In a rare moment of un-lazy programming, the game designers had given her a completely new character model. She now wore a long white labcoat over her peasant dress, purple gloves that went up to her elbows, and an elaborate set of safety goggles (with a hair net) fit over her head.
"Oh… uh… Hello," Link waved a bit nervously.
"Now what was your name again?" Anju pointed at him and crossed her arms. "Lunk? No. That's not right… It sounded like that though. Lee… Lee something. Lee… Lin… Lyndon! That was it, right?"
Beads of sweat appeared on Link's forehead as he shook his head. "Oh, er, I'm sorry ma'am, you must be mistaken! I'm not… that kid. My name is Smog. See?" He gestured proudly at his nametag.
"That's strange," Anju mumbled quietly, scratching her chin with a rubber-gloved hand. "What was that kid's name? You really, really look like him. His name was… Li… Liiiiii…"
"Hey, look! It's LINK!" a nondescript NPC said as he walked by. "So ni- AAAAAGH!"
The scream of terror came as Link collapsed to his knees, spewing blood from his mouth and nose with his eyes rolling back in his head. It was probably almost exactly the result of the nondescript NPC suddenly shedding his clothing and thrusting his pelvis through his new leather pants.
"SHE BANGS, SHE BANGS! OH BABY WHEN SHE MOVES, SHE MOVES! I GO CRAZY, WELL SHE LOOKS LIKE A FLOWER BUT SHE STINGS LIKE A BEE! LIKE EVERY GIRL IN… HIS-TO-RY!"
"Oh no! Link!" Puki burst out in concern. "Oh SHIT- AAAAA- HE'S A COLD-HEARTED SNAKE! LOOK INTO HIS EYES! OH… OH-OH! HE'S BEEN TELLIN' LIES! HE'S A LOVER BOY AT PLAY! HE DON'T PLAY BY RULES! OH… OH-OH! GIRL, DON'T PLAY THE FOOL, NOW!"
"Fascinating!" Anju whipped out a notebook from her pocket and began scribbling notes as Link twitched spastically, screaming in tongues.
Puki eventually got a hold of himself and ditched the Paula Abdul wig in time to drop to Link's side and ease him down out of his curse episode with the emergency IV that Saria had provided him before they left the forest. Saria had forgotten to mention that Puki was a recent college graduate who had studied to become a nurse, and was well-versed in the art of curse recovery. All the while, Anju stood by, taking notes and nodding as though she were on to some kind of major epiphany.
As Link absorbed the saline and sipped weak tea from a thermos, he eyed Anju darkly and sneered. "I suppose you found that amusing?"
"It was fascinating!" she replied enthusiastically.
"Sadist."
"No. Scientist," Anju enunciated. "You see, after I bred my special pocket Cuccos and the blue Cucco, I decided that I was really onto something in the study of Cuccos. I decided to put my knowledge to good use and revolutionize the world of chicken farming as we know it!"
"Oh really?" Link sounded not the least bit interested.
"Yes. In fact, I've begun genetically engineering new, improved breeds of Cuccos in my laboratory. I've come up with seven new breeds of what I like to call Ubercuccos. They're super-strong, super-healthy, and they possess cool mutant powers capable of destroying small buildings!"
"SWEEEEEEET!" Link and Puki both whistled, because there's nothing cooler than mutants. Except maybe pirates. Mutant pirates are just too cool to possibly exist.
"Except…" Anju drifted off.
"Uh oh," Link was sensing a pointless, grueling sidequest with a crappy reward.
"My Ubercuccos became too powerful, and they escaped from my pen. Now they're running amok all over Hyrule as homicidal madmen drool over their sweet mutant superpowers!" Anju threw her arm over her forehead as though she was about to faint. "I fear what would happen if my Ubercuccos fell into the wrong hands!"
"And you want me to find them and capture them for you before they get captured by Ganondorf and destroy the world, don't you?"
"However did you guess?" Anju looked impressed. "Please! If my Ubercuccos don't return home soon, I fear that their powers will overload and self-destruct the entire planet!"
"Seriously?" Puki gaped.
"No. I just really want you to find them for me," Anju shrugged.
"Darn. That would've been really cool," the fairy lamented.
"If you promise to find my Ubercuccos for me, I'll give you this awesome machine I invented!" Anju threw up her hands, Zelda-body language for "You're getting something now!"
DUH NUH NUH NUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!
Link got the UBERCUCCO ZAPPA!
This is a super-cool ray gun that's actually modified from one of those battery-powered bubble-blower guns. It shoots a beam of light that can capture Ubercuccos, restrain their powers, and teleport them back to Anju's pen. It still shoots bubbles too, in case you were wondering. Just turn down the power a little bit.
And listen to what Anju says about firing at anything else. She ain't kiddin' around, man. Just DON'T DO IT.
"So," Link tossed the Ubercucco Zappa around from hand to hand, "This gun is only useful for capturing Ubercuccos? I got a freakin' weapon just for one stupid sidequest?"
"No, no. It blows bubbles too," Anju pointed out. "But I should warn you—ONLY fire that ray gun at an Ubercucco. NOT a regular Cucco, NOT any people, and definitely NOT at monsters."
"Why not?" asked Link.
"The results could be… deadly," Anju hissed.
"Well jeez. Now I HAVE to try it!" he pointed the ray gun at the tree near the village entrance, where Shlock was still boohooing and sobbing for no really good reason. "Buckle up, sissymary…"
"NO MAN, I'M WARNING YOU!" Anju threw herself at Link and wrenched the gun from his hands. "DON'T FIRE THIS GUN AT ANYTHING BUT AN UBERCUCCO! If you do, you will release upon the world a hellish terror never before fathomed by any living person! Not even Ganondorf could fathom a terror this hellacious, okay!"
"Okay, okay!" Link waved his hands innocently and put the ray gun in the invisible space behind his shield/up his butt. "I promise I won't fire the gun at anything else!"
There was a short moment of silence. "What about the bubbles?"
"Oh, sure, shoot those at whatever," Anju shrugged. "But not the ray gun. I'm warning you."
"Okay. How will I know if I've found an Ubercucco instead of a regular one?" Link asked curiously.
"Oh, that's simple. Ubercuccos are colored in the scheme of ROY G. BIV."
"Oh, so one's red, one's orange-" Puki reasoned.
"What? Red? Orange? What are you talking about?" Anju rolled her eyes. "Remember that acronym! It stands for Rust, Off-White, Yellowstone Pine, Gray, Black, Ice Blue and…"
"And… Vivacious Pink?" Puki guessed.
"No. Violet. There really aren't any good colors that begin with V besides Violet," Anju shrugged.
"Yeah, sure. We'll find your stupid Ubercuccos," Link sighed. "But do we get a reward when we're done?"
"Oh, sure," Anju nodded.
"Will it be a good reward?"
"Probably not," she admitted.
"It never is," Link sighed.
"Bewaaaaaare…" Anju ran off, cackling to herself. "Bewaaaaaare the gun!"
Link and Puki continued their rounds about the village, speaking dutifully to every NPC and unwillingly volunteering themselves for about three more sidequests. Unfortunately, none of them could actually solve the problem at hand: Link needed to speak to Impa, and she was nowhere to be found.
At last, though, the fruitless interrogations led Link and Puki to a large house in the corner of the village, inside of which dwelled the aforementioned Head of the Kakariko Village Welcome Committee, a gruff bearded man named Orin. He had before appeared in another fan fiction by the author, entitled "Never My Destiny", in which he died terribly in a flash fire after confessing his deep love for Impa and making it clear to all that he was actually a clone of Auron from Final Fantasy X. Soon after his death, Ganondorf confronted Impa inside the Shadow Temple and tried to kill her, only to find he was too in love with her to go through with it. Then there was fluff. Lots and lots of awkward, awkward fluff.
The previous paragraph had very little to do with the story at hand, but it provided a clumsy segue into the next paragraph, one that depicted Impa imprisoned deep within the Shadow Temple.
As previously mentioned several times, Ganondorf was in the process of kidnapping Sages and imprisoning them in their respective temples to set up his giant Hyrule-wide Sage ray gun of evil. Impa had been the second Sage captured, as she was at Hyrule Castle when Ganondorf showed up all the way back in chapter two. It had also previously been mentioned that the imprisoned Sages were in an eternal sleep and therefore, quite unable to be tortured by being read snippets of lame G/I fluff.
However, because the author was a bleeding heart die-hard believer that Ganondorf and Impa was the One True Pairing for the Zelda series, she felt it necessary to insert an extraneous scene involving the two.
As Link and Puki continued their grueling task of interrogating the villagers, Impa was, in fact, several hundred feet away from them underground, in the farthest room of the Shadow Temple, chained up and glaring furiously at her captor, standing nearby and reading snippets of "Never My Destiny" to her.
""To tell you the truth," Ganondorf began, as he had a seat on a low ivy-covered wall in the central courtyard of the castle, "I didn't want to come in because I don't think anyone else really wants to see me."
"Ah," Impa nodded, having a seat on the well next to him. She leaned back and wiped strands of her silver hair out of her face. "That's being a little hard on yourself."
"But it's true," he pointed out in a low voice. He shuffled his feet in the dirt down below the wall, tracing a circle and then erasing it over and over again. "I was a little out of line today... And I guess I wanted to know if I insulted you at all.""
Ganondorf read excitedly, in a variety of different voices, occasionally glancing up at Impa over the rims of his reading glasses.
"This isn't FAIR, Ganondorf!" Impa snarled. "That part is from the THIRD chapter, which was written sometime back when the author was still in tenth grade! You can't use that to torture me when the writing style is outdated and inaccurate!"
"Torture? I'm trying to convince you that we belong together, Impa!" Ganondorf snorted. "I'm a single father and evil overlord trying to make his way in the world! I'm lost without a beautiful wife to prove a good motherly influence to Genna and help me relax after a long day of evil."
"I have no interest in being a mother to your creepy emo preteen daughter," Impa snapped. "Why don't you marry her mother and leave me out of it?"
"Impaaaa, you misunderstand! I have absolutely no feelings for Leela! I mean, not that she's ugly or anything… she's just got some emotional baggage that I'm not ready to devote my life to dealing with. You're the one I care about, baby!"
"Eat crap and die," Impa snapped. "Why is this part even IN the story!"
"I think it might be the author's attempt to add a dramatic character sub-story, or maybe a little romance too early for it to actually happen… After all, the Hero of Time won't be meeting up with Princess Zelda for several chapters now, and even then it'll be awkward for the author to write a romance scene between a strapping young hero and duck. BWAHAHAHA!" Ganondorf reasoned, flipping through the pages of the ancient chunk of fanfic. "Ooh, look, Impa! We have our first kiss here!"
"Gag me."
"It's too bad you think I'm disgusting," Ganondorf smiled, stepping towards the wall where Impa was chained. "With all the author's improvements in her writing style, our first kiss could be really hot this time around…"
"Blow it out your ass," Impa replied sharply.
Ganondorf smiled lecherously as he rested his hands on either side of Impa's chains, leaning in towards her. "That's too bad… we really could be something special, couldn't we…?"
"Oh my GOD," Impa broke character abruptly. "What in the HELL is this leading up to?"
Ganondorf paused and thought about that as well. "Wait a sec. Is it just me, or does it sound like this is leading into…"
Both of their eyes widened uncomfortably, and they blushed.
"LOOK, you little perverts!" Ganondorf shouted, facing the readers. "I know what you're thinking! You're scanning through this part, just hoping that it will be improperly labeled and actually be a LEMON! You were expecting this to turn into a LEMON, weren't you!"
"That's DISGUSTING!" Impa shrieked at the readers also. "GROSS! Come ON, as cute as the coupling is, could you ACTUALLY picture Ganondorf and me—YOU KNOW!"
"Din," Ganondorf winced with distaste. "That'd be like watching two wrestlers go at it."
"All that muscle… I doubt anybody who writes in this section could pull that off without wincing or crying a little bit in pain," Impa shuddered.
"I would like to see it, though," Ganondorf remarked off-handedly.
"When I get out of these chains I'm going to kill you," Impa said simply.
Amusing lemon jokes aside, the author was an adventurous sort of fanfic writer and actually tried cobbling out a lemon scene from that last bit, but chickened out at the last minute and edited it out. Those still interested can find the scene here:
http/ back to our regularly scheduled fanfic.
"Finally, the only NPC character in the entire village who's not a complete twit!" Link sighed with relief as they spoke to Orin, the guy from a couple paragraphs up. "We need to find Impa! Do you know where she's at?"
"No," Orin said briefly, busy signing paperwork.
"Oh. Uh… really? Are you sure?" Link twiddled his fingers.
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Oh. Okay, then. Thanks for your help or lack thereof," Link turned to leave.
"Sorry, I really don't have time to be helping you right now," Orin interrupted him just as he was about to leave the room. "I've been terribly busy since yesterday, when all the Hylian guards employed here in the village up and quit."
"Oh. They quit!" Link grinned, finally getting to the bottom of the mystery. "Why'd they quit?"
"Not sure. But all the guards have been acting weird lately. Two of them showed up here last night, screaming and babbling on something about Ganondorf and some kind of evil curse on the castle, but we refused to believe such a ridiculous stories and locked them up in the windmill loft to keep them quiet," Orin exposited up a storm.
"So those two guards know what's going on!" Link snapped his fingers with realization. "Aha! I'll have to go speak to them."
"Sorry, I really can't let you do that. The windmill loft has been sealed up for a while now because the guy who lives there is a psychopathic homicidal murderer," Orin went on, just barely talking to Link as he continued filling out his paperwork. "There's only one other way into the windmill loft, but that way is quite classified and I'm afraid that only I and Igor the gravekeeper know it."
"Oh, gee, that sucks," Link blinked. "So he won't tell me either?"
"Oh, he probably will. He should be in his cabin right now. He's quite nice. He is the nephew of our previous gravekeeper, Dampe, who died several years ago and who still haunts his grave in the graveyard. First stone on the left as you turn left on the first path in the graveyard. He had a Hookshot that he bragged about in his diary all the time. The Hookshot can grab onto distant objects and pull you towards them, or pull them towards you. It's a very useful item. There's an extension for the chain that you can find in the Water Temple in Lake Hylia. Only by Hookshotting the jewel at the entrance can you open the door to the Water Temple. You'll need a Zora Tunic and Iron Boots to tackle the Water Temple. Immediately upon entering, drop down to the bottom level and go in the eastern passageway to find Princess Ruto, who will lead you up to the first spot where you can change the water level."
Puki blinked at the onslaught of information. "Wow… um… thanks, buddy, but this is the Mystical Object of Fate, not Ocarina of Time."
"Ah. The Mystical Object of Fate," Orin nodded, continuing his paperwork. "The Mystical Object of Fate was a temple treasure that the ancient temple builders had no idea what to do with or what to call it. Its purpose is unknown, and its powers are even more unknown. It was broken into six pieces and scattered throughout the six temples of the land, and only by assembling the pieces can you restore the Mystical Object of Fate and discover its mysteries. The first piece of the Mystical Object of Fate can be found in the Forest Temple, and it's rumored to be the mighty and unbreakable Sp-"
By the time Orin looked up, Link and Puki were long, long gone.
"Nobody in this damn village listens to me," Orin snapped, getting back to his paperwork.
Nearly half an hour later (held up by all the other nutjobs and NPCs there were to find around Kakariko), Link and Puki finally managed to make their way to the graveyard. It was a solemn, creepy sort of place, filled with graves laid out in a sort of yard.
"Boy. Sure is weird how there's that purple smoke blowing out of the Shadow Temple and engulfing the whole back of the Graveyard, huh, Smog?" Puki asked.
"It certainly is. Let's see about finding that gravekeeper!" Link said triumphantly.
The search came to an abrupt close as our heroes took three steps forward and caught sight of a freakishly ugly man standing in front of a grave. He was a hunch-backed fellow with a bulging eye, dirty overalls and thinning hair. A shovel rested on his shoulder, and he appeared to be walking around in circles around the aforementioned grave.
"Ah, hello, sir!" Link said cheerfully, waving to the hunchback. "Do you know the secret way into the windmill loft?"
"And why would I know that?" the hunchback snapped quite viciously.
Link and Puki glanced at one another nervously before the tall one spoke again. "I… er… Orin told us to ask the gravekeeper…"
"And what makes you think I'm the gravekeeper, eh?" the hunchback snarled, whirling on them and brandishing his shovel. "Huh? Is it because I'm a hunchback, is that it! Is it because me face is too hideous for the living to see, and thus I must make me living serving the dead! IS THAT IT!"
"N-no, sir… I…" Link was taken aback by the man's touchy nature. "I'm sorry! I just assumed you were the gravekeeper because you are carrying a shovel."
"OH! Now just because a man wants to carry around a shovel means he MUST be a gravekeeper!" the hunchback yelled angrily, crossing his arms. "What kind of a world are we living in when a man can't just lug a shovel around with 'im so he feels protected from all the psychos out there, eh! Oh, he's ugly and he's got a shovel, he's GOT to be the gravekeeper!"
"Well, sir, you were also pacing around that grave there. We assumed you were keeping it," Puki attempted to calm the man's fury.
"Oh, just because I'm ugly and circling a grave while carrying a shovel, I MUST be the gravekeeper, eh? That's a blatant bloody stereotype!" the hunchback was in full-fledged rage now, spiking his shovel against the ground and clenching his huge fists. "What if I lost me contact lens! Ya ever consider that! Maybe this grave's that of me dear Aunt Phyllis and I was paying me respects to her when I lost me contact lens and now I've got to find it 'cuz me doctor costs an arm and a leg for 'em! Ya ever think about that, you close-minded bastards, eh!"
"Again, I apologize, sir!" Link bowed quickly and respectfully. "We didn't mean any insult!"
"Well, thank you. That's better," the hunchback grunted.
"Could you tell us where we could find the gravekeeper, then?" asked Puki shyly.
"I'm him," the hunchback nodded proudly. "Igor's the name."
Link was dumbstruck. "Why did you argue about it with us for twenty minutes, then?"
"Just pointin' out that you shouldn't jump to conclusions, lad," Igor shrugged. "Now then, what's this you're asking about the windmill loft?"
"Yes! We heard that the villagers imprisoned two crazy guards in there yesterday, and we need to get in to talk to them!" Puki explained.
"Can't do that, ladies and gentlemen, the windmill loft's locked now to keep that crazy fellow from coming out and hanging us all by our entrails," Igor told them regretfully. "Sorry to break it to ya."
"Well yes, but Orin said there was a secret way inside that only you and he knew about," Link pestered.
"Wait—did you call me a lady!" Puki burst out suddenly, glowing bright red.
"Oh yah, there's another way in. An' I know where it is too, but I can't tell you," Igor replied.
"Are you sure? See, I… uh… I happen to be a Hero of Time, and I need to get into the windmill loft so I can talk to the guards and find out what happened at the castle."
"You said LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!" Puki shrieked indignantly. "I am SO SICK of people calling me a woman!"
"Oy, laddie, sorry to say I can't let you in. Town policy. I'd be getting a swift kick in me pants from Orin and Lady Impa if'n they found out I was blabbing the secret around."
"Please, sir. It's really important. I think a megalomaniacal and evil Gerudo King may have taken over the castle and cursed Princess Zelda and myself, and the only way I can get to the bottom of things and advance the plot is if I speak to the guards from chapter two who are locked up in your windmill."
"You're really one to talk about stereotypes! Just because I'm a fairy and just because my default glow happens to be pink and just because I am a nurse by profession, YOU CAN'T JUST ASSUME THAT I'M A GIRL!" Puki was in rage mode. "It only serves to reinforce negative specieist stereotypes! How will our society ever move forward towards becoming a more gentle, accepting utopia if MORONS LIKE YOU CAN'T FATHOM THE FACT THAT IT'S VERY POSSIBLE THERE MIGHT BE A MALE FAIRY NURSE NAMED 'POOKIE' WHO IS PINK?"
Link reached out and snatched Puki from midair, tucking him into his shoulder-hat to keep him quiet for a moment. "You're the only one I can count on, sir! Orin was too busy to talk to me, and if you don't tell me the way into the secret passage, I'll never be able to save the world!"
"Oh I'm flattered, me boy, but I can't tell it to the likes of you," Igor shook his head. "No, no-sir. If I told you about the secret way into the windmill loft under this grave I'm pacing around, there's no telling how long it'd take before every person in town was rushing in there to poke the crazy windmill guy with sticks and throw rocks at him. Not to mention help escape those two crazy soldiers from yesterday. No sirree! Sorry, you two, but I don't want Mr. Orin banging down me door and yelling at me for—"
Igor looked down to see the grave yanked out of its place and suspiciously Final Fantasy-esque boot marks leading downwards.
"Nobody in this damn village listens to me!" he huffed, getting to work filling up the hole again.
Twenty minutes into an impossibly long secret passage filled to the brim with… nothing, surprisingly, Link was relieved to see a beam of light coming from behind a door about twenty feet ahead.
"Oh thank DIN!" Link sighed heavily. "What kind of morons would build that long of a secret tunnel just to sneak into the windmill loft?"
"Doesn't seem probable, does it?" Puki said idly, looking around. "Digging a tunnel underneath a graveyard. You'd think you'd have problems with—"
The moment the words escaped Puki's mouth, something heavy landed on the ground behind them with a THUMP and a clatter.
Frozen in place, Link swallowed hard. "Hey, Puki."
"Yeah, Smog?"
"What do you think that was?"
"Well, all physics in mind, I'm going to guess it was probably either a coffin, or a misplaced dead body falling out of the ground above us and landing in the tunnel."
"Because it's a stupid idea to build a tunnel underneath a graveyard, due to erosion and natural shifting of the earth eventually throwing the bodies out into the tunnel, right?"
"That would be my guess."
"Are you gonna look back to see it?"
"No. Definitely, definitely not."
"Okay. Me either. Let's just keep walking and pretend we didn't hear it."
As Link and Puki exited the tunnel via the doorway ahead, Igor screamed in agony and clutched at his ankle after an unfortunate step near one of the shallower pieces of earth. "AAAGH ME LEG, ME LEG! WHOSE BLOODY IDEA WAS IT TO DIG UNDER THE GRAVEYARD, ANYHOO!"
In fact, it had been Igor's idea. Igor tried not to think about this as he stumbled to his feet and limped away. Great. Now EVERYONE would assume the hideous bug-eyed hunchback with a shovel, and a limp was the gravekeeper.
Meanwhile, Ganondorf was gloating.
He'd learned a long time ago that gloating was an unhealthy habit for a megalomaniacal overlord to get into. You gloat about your impending success, and then some kid in tights shows up and locks you in an alternate dimension for a decade or so.
But he really couldn't help it this time. Things were going so WELL. Link was cursed, Zelda was gone, four Sages had already fallen into his trap, and now there were only two more Sages to capture before his master plan could be set into motion!
Ganondorf was having some slight trouble with the last two Sages, though. Big Brother Darunia of the Gorons and Princess Ruto of the Zoras were somewhat legendary for being a few of the dullest crayons in the box, yet they had miraculously figured out that something was dreadfully wrong when their four Sagely colleagues and Zelda all went missing at the same time. Ganondorf had as yet been unable to even get close to capturing them.
Big Brother Darunia, the Sage of Fire, had barricaded himself inside the subterranean Goron City with a few well-placed giant rocks held together by Krazy Glue and a little fire magic. Ganondorf had tried for hours to break past the seal but eventually failed, deciding to set a bloodthirsty monster outside the city on the mountain trail just in case the Goron ever decided to come out.
Princess Ruto, meanwhile, had disappeared completely. Ganondorf had shown up in Zora's Domain and done a thorough search of every Zora there, unable to find one that even remotely looked to be female. This was not easily done, however, since Ganondorf had to ask one of the Zoras how to tell the difference between a male and female Zora, and the answer grossed him out so bad he'd just given up. There were armies of monsters patrolling all over Hyrule in search of the missing Zora princess at this very moment.
But besides his Sage problems, things couldn't have been better for the Evil King. He'd finally gotten a chance to kick back and relax the night before, as Genna had gone back to Gerudo Valley for Marisa's birthday slumber party.
As the thought crossed his mind, the door to the great hall opened and Genna skipped inside, still wearing her pink and black frilly pajamas with her hair in pigtails. "Good morning, Daddy!"
"Genna, my dear! Good morning!" Ganondorf beamed. "How was Marisa's slumber party?"
"Oh, WOW, Daddy, you wouldn't believe it! So I get there, right, and Jessa tells me 'Oh yeah, by the way, we didn't invite Sylia so make sure she doesn't find out' and I'm like, 'Okay!' so then we get inside and Sylia's best friend Marya is there, and Marya goes like, 'Where's Sylia?' And I'm like, 'I don't know!' But then Cecily's such an idiot she goes, 'I don't know if Marisa invited her' and then Marya gets all mad and we tried to calm her down, because y'know, even Marya has to admit that Sylia's been like totally a brat lately since she started hanging out with Emilia, and Emilia and her friends used to pick on Jessa all the time and it's like really hard for Jessa to hang out with Sylia anymore, y'know? And poor Marisa, she just wants everyone to get along and we're all totally steamed for like an hour until Marisa's mom finally let us break out the cake and stuff and then everybody forgot about it and it was like really cool."
Ganondorf's eyes glazed over. "Oh. That's… neat."
"Okay, so then, we totally ate—and Jessa ate like SIX pieces of cake, seriously! She's so skinny! I can't believe she can eat that much! So anyway, we ate and then we gave Marisa her presents and I gave her a Ring of Ultimate Power that she can use to flatten boulders or rend earthquakes or clean her room or something like that, except I have one just like it so now we're all totally BFF, y'know? And Cecily got her the cutest little stuffed horse, and I totally want one now so next time we go shopping I'll tell you where she got it and will you totally buy one for me, Daddy?"
"Uh… sure?" Ganondorf thought he detected a question in there, so he answered it.
"YAY THANK YOU DADDY but anyway! Here's the great part! So Marisa's mom took us to the mall, right? Because we were gonna watch movies but then we'd all seen the movies they rented so Marisa asked her mom to take us to the mall and she did, so we were walking around and we see this cute little jewelry store and there's this one little charm on an earring, and it's SOOOOOO CUTE! Except none of us have pierced ears yet, so we were looking at it, and Marya tells me, 'I bet you won't!' And I'm all 'Nuh-uh!' and she's all 'Yuh –huh!' And so we totally argued for a while and she double doggie dared me to do it so I did and it really hurt but it looks SOOOOOOOOOOO CUTE ON ME!"
Ganondorf paused. "Wait… what?"
"Look, Daddy!" Genna lifted up her pajama shirt to reveal a piercing through her belly-button, the earring a small charm depicting a Triforce.
There was a short moment of silence before Ganondorf's eyes bulged out of his head. "HOLY MOTHER OF DIN, GENNA ELIZABETH DRAGMIRE YOU DID NOT PIERCE YOUR BELLYBUTTON!"
"Isn't it cute?" Genna giggled.
"NO, IT'S NOT CUTE! IT'S ABSOLUTELY ABHORRENT! YOU ARE TEN YEARS OLD, GENNA, AND THERE IS NO WAY I WILL HAVE ANY DAUGHTER OF MINE WEARING SUCH A SLEAZY PIECE OF JEWELRY AND SHOWING IT OFF TO ALL THE LITTLE DIRTBAG BOYS AT SCHOOL!" Ganondorf roared furiously, his face turning bright red.
"It's not SLEAZY!" Genna shrieked. "And the boys at school are not dirtbags!"
"THEY'RE DIRTBAGS IF THEY'RE LOOKING AT MY DAUGHTER'S BELLYBUTTON!" Ganondorf seethed, clenching his fists until veins bulged out of his forehead. "THIS IS A MOVE OF ABSOLUTE INSUBORDINATION AND DEFIANCE, GENNA ELIZABETH DRAGMIRE! YOU WILL REMOVE THAT PIERCING THIS INSTANT!"
"You don't UNDERSTAND!" Genna shrilled, stomping at the floor. "You're an old guy and you don't understand what it's like to be a kid these days! You are so uptight, Daddy! I thought you were cool!"
"Remove that piercing right now!" Ganondorf roared.
"NO! I WON'T!"
"Remove that piercing or I'll do it for you!"
"I HATE YOU DADDY, YOU'RE SO MEAN!" Genna ran off to her room sobbing melodramatically. Within a few minutes, the pounding beats of Evanescence could be heard, along with Genna singing at the top of her lungs.
Ganondorf flipped frantically through his parenting manuals, in the mean time, looking for some solution to this dreadful problem.
On the bright side, however, things were going well as far as his evil plan was concerned!
The door led to the windmill loft, emerging from a place on the wall high above the spinning gears of the windmill below. The door had not existed in Ocarina of Time, but the game designers were trying their darnedest to make it so it seemed like it COULD have.
The windmill was dark and musty, silent except for the sound of weary voices singing from down below.
"Negative forty-two bottles of nonalcoholic beverage on the wall… Negative forty-two bottles of nonalcoholic beverage!"
"If one o' them bottles should happen to fall…"
"Negative forty-three bottles of nonalcoholic beverage on the wall!"
"Say, Charley?"
"Yeah, Ted?"
"How is it possible to have negative bottles of non-alcoholic beverage falling off a wall?"
"Well, that's how the song goes, Ted."
"Well yeah, but up until the number zero, you've got bottles of non-alcoholic beverage falling off a wall and it makes perfect sense. But then you hit… what's the word. Starts with a q…"
"A quandary."
"Yeah, a quandary. A conundrum if you will. How can zero bottles of non-alcoholic beverage fall off a wall?"
"Well, that's easy. Nothing falls off the wall. So that'd be zero bottles of non-alcoholic beverage. And zero bottles of anything else, for that matter. Just a wall."
"Okay, well I getcha there, but you gotta admit that negative bottles falling off a wall is just silly."
"Maybe they're putting them back up on the wall in the negative part. Or maybe they're falling up."
"Well, maybe so, but what if you're singing the other version?"
"What?"
"There's two versions of the song. In one, you're taking the bottles off the wall yourself and passing them around. In the other, the bottles are just falling off on their own accord."
"Well, then you'd be taking bottles from your friends and putting them back up on the wall. Or the bottles snatch themselves from being passed around and jump up on the wall for safekeeping."
"Bottles can't jump!"
"Well, if bottles can't jump then how do they fall off the wall on their own accord?"
"Huh?"
"Bottles don't just happen to fall like that!"
"Oh, sure they do! What if there was… um… the wind blowin' on them from the back?"
"That'd have to be a mighty strong wind. Maybe somebody's pushing 'em off."
"Who is this mysterious bottle-keeper anyway? Takin' them down, passin' them around, happening to fall them… stacking them back up on the wall when you get to zero…"
"What's he doing putting bottles on a wall anyway?"
"Maybe he's bored."
"He's really boring, that's it. His friends won't hang out with him until he gives them beer—"
"Or nonalcoholic beverage."
"Yeah, or that. So he's gotta create the illusion of the bottles on the wall to give his life some kind of meaning."
"What number were we on?"
"Uh… I forgot. Let's just start at 99 again."
"I think this wall fellow's got a drinking problem."
Link made a heroic leap from the top of the windmill loft, held forward on the control stick in order to roll safely at the bottom, and cracked three vertebrae in his spine, dying instantly.
Or that's what would have happened if the physics of the real world transferred over to the game world. In game reality, Link landed gracefully at the bottom and struck a dramatic pose.
"Good day, gentle guards!" Link glanced at them with a sparkle in his eye. "Are you the two crazy guards from chapter two?"
"We are not crazy, for the last time!" the one with the bandaged nose snapped, wriggling in his chains. "It's not fair! We were attempting to do our guardly duty by running to warn the people here about Ganondorf's evil curse, but noooooo—the bloody skeptics throw us in here with that nutbag windmill guy!"
"We're gonna die. We're gonna die," the scrawnier one with the less-shiny badge had resigned himself to his fate several hours ago.
"You're not gonna die," Link assured them, waving his hands gently. "I'm going to let you out, if you tell me everything you know about what happened at the castle."
"What, right now?" the bandaged one raised his eyebrows.
"Uh… yes. Right now," Link replied.
"How do we know you're not just gonna listen to what we have to say, and then run for your life screaming and leave us here to be hung in our own entrails by that crazy fellow?" asked the younger guard suspiciously.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because the sight of the man sends even the bravest into a frenzy of trouser-pissing terror!" the bandaged one shrieked.
"I wouldn't do that! I'm the Hero of Time!" Link huffed.
Puki appeared from his shoulder hat and nodded in agreement. "Yeah, totally! This guy here? He's a legend!"
"Oh! I've heard of you!" the younger guard said excitedly. "You're the reason I became a guard at all! You're—"
"DON'T SAY IT!" Link and Puki shrieked in unison.
"Link?" the bandaged guard guessed. "Wh- AAAAAAAAAGGH! EVERY LITTLE THING I DO! NEVER SEEMS ENOUGH FOR YOU! YOU DON'T WANNA LOSE IT AGAIN! BUT I'M NOT LIKE HIM!"
Once Puki had assisted Link in calming the flames that had spontaneously combusted all over his body and threatened to devour him in a hellish inferno, and once the bandaged guard reappeared in his guard uniform instead of the hoodie, baggie pants, Skechers and a bleach-blond spiked hairdo, the conversation continued as usual.
"So what are your guys' names?" Puki asked curiously, hoping to alleviate the guards' fears of abandonment and entrail-strangulation.
"Charley Daggetto, formerly Officer Charley Daggetto of the Hyrule Castle Guard!" the younger guard saluted through his chains.
"And Ted Norberto, formerly Corporal Ted Norberto of the Hyrule Castle Guard," the woozy Ted followed shortly after.
"Formerly guards?" Puki queried.
"Oh yes. We all quit yesterday," Charley nodded. "Much too dangerous, the guarding business. What with the evil overlords crushing you like insects in the palms of their hands."
"That one yesterday punched me inna nose," Ted said distastefully.
"At least he was a little more polite than to just crush us like insects without giving us that friendly warning, eh, Ted?" Charley asked him.
"Oh, yes, quite polite. Unfortunately I still don't approve of his horrible curse that engulfed the entire castle town in energy-sucking crystal to power up his ray gun," Ted grumbled.
Link was taking notes on a Steno notepad. "Ooh. Ray gun. Okay…"
"And cursing the princess and throwing her out of the castle, that was just plain rude," Charley added.
"Almost as rude as when the villagers threw us in here with that crazy fellow!" Ted wriggled in his chains.
"Wait a minute."
Puki brought an abrupt halt to the conversation. "How in the hell did you guys know all that! I don't recall Ganondorf ever telling you two his evil plan."
"I think it's called plot device. There's really no way for you two to know the evil plan unless we tell you it, even though there's really no possible way we could have known it in the first place," Charley shrugged.
"Oh. I see," Puki did not see at all.
"Speaking of that crazy windmill fellow, I wonder where he could have gotten off to?" Ted said at exactly the minute a dark shadow fell over the four of them.
"Hey. Hang on. How can a shadow have glowing red eyes!" Link spun around to face the apparition, and was quite less confident a moment later. "… Oh. I see."
"GWAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAH!" laughed the crazy windmill fellow.
"What an inconvenient cliffhanger," Puki commented.
"Not to mention one that was obviously thrown in because the author is bored with writing the chapter and wants to publish it ASAP," Charley added.
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ON THE NEXT CHAPTER OF THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE MYSTICAL OBJECT OF FATE!
Link must fight for his life to avoid BEING HUNG BY HIS ENTRAILS!
Charley and Ted LOOK FOR A LESS DANGEROUS CAREER PATH!
Ganondorf finally BUYS GENNA THE PONY SHE ALWAYS WANTED!
And the author puts in a joke that SHE BETS LESS THAN HALF THE READERS WILL UNDERSTAND!
Sounds like you've read it before? YOU PROBABLY HAVE!