Link took a deep breath once he was out of Histori's office; the air had gotten stuffy in there after the three of them had occupied the relatively small room for so long. He hadn't fully realized it before stepping out and being greeted with the much clearer air of the hallway. Actually, the air was strangely clear, considering that they were deep inside of a stone. Was there an actual window somewhere? Or just magic? Whatever the reason, he was glad for the relatively fresh air.

"This way", Histori said, and started walking with a brisk pace. Link and Sidon followed obediently, and Link tried to keep a track of their whereabouts as they did; he wanted to be able to find their way out, should they need to do it on their own.

"So, kinstones!" Histori said after a moment of silence. "I take it someone gave you a piece or a few? Have you merged any yet?"

"Yes, we received some while purchasing foodstuff at the previous towns", Sidon answered. "I have managed to merge one. I saw a strange vision when I did, and Link is of the opinion that what I saw actually happened or will happen in the future. Is that true?"

Histori let out an excited squee, and gave Sidon a big grin. "How fascinating! I haven't managed to find matches for my kinstones yet, but that's probably because our city is so large that running into the right Minish is improbable at my socialization rates!"

Huh. Link had pegged Histori as the type to have a lot of friends and to spend all her free time out and about, what with her being so exuberant and talkative. Maybe she was too much for others and had trouble finding friends, then?

"Regardless of my own lack of success", Histori continued, "I know how the process is supposed to go. Yes, the vision is real and it happened right at the moment you saw it. Kinstones are imbued with Minish luck magic, and their purpose is to bring happiness to the people who merge them. The kinstone's magic binds with the person who owns the piece and gets a feel for the person's needs, wants, and the near future. Then, upon merging with another piece and combining the magic, it gives the fabric of the universe a small push to make something useful for its owner to happen, and gives them a vision of it. Say that you've lost your hat; merging a kinstone is likely to reveal the location of your hat. Or you need information on something; the kinstone may give someone who possesses the knowledge an urge to visit you, or shows you who and where they are so you can go there yourself. It's small stuff, and it can't be anything impossible like rewinding the time to fix a mistake you're embarrassed about. You don't get to choose either, unless you're a mage who knows what they're doing. Whatever combination is the most useful to you at the time and the easiest to make happen is what will happen."

That sounded super useful. Why on earth had the Minish ever stopped producing kinstones? And why not just give everyone a bag of matching pieces for free use? Link tapped Sidon's arm and asked his questions.

"Good questions", Histori said, and took a moment to concentrate on going down a set of stairs before answering. "The kinstones are loaded with magic to give them their purpose, but they also require additional magic from their users to power up the actual wish fulfilling process. If you were to own both pieces and merge them on your own, the process would be very taxing on you. That's why you need two people for one whole stone and why they're not given out en masse."

That made sense. Since Histori didn't bother bringing up making ones that didn't leech power from their users, Link assumed they would be hard, if not impossible to make. Not that he knew much about magic, but it seemed logical since powering the halves up apparently took enough energy to make it unwise to merge them alone.

"As for why the production was stopped", Histori continued. "It was because delivering them to big people became difficult. Luck magic has a tendency to work better the more it's spread around. If the circulation is small, the magic withers. I'm not a mage, though, so I don't ask me about the details of that. So, when the shrines shut down and long distance travel became impossible, we could no longer spread the kinstones all around Hyrule for big people to find and power up the luck magic. They stopped working correctly, and became pointless. Now that the shrines work again and Slateri will be producing more Sheikah Slates for the Minish to travel with – and big people start visiting on their own, too, I assume – the kinstones can be made again."

Wait, Slateri could make Sheikah Slates? Purah had worked for roughly a hundred years to figure out how to make them, yet Slateri could apparently start producing them whenever? Though, to be fair, Link didn't know how long Slateri may have been working on it on his end. Or possibly the knowledge was passed down in their family, maybe even in written form with clear instructions. There was no reason why the Minish should have lost that knowledge to time the same way the Sheikah had, just because the Sheikah had.

Link had the feeling Zelda and Purah would waste no time getting here as soon as he delivered this piece of news to them. They would probably burst from the sheer excitement.

"You have mentioned the shrines shutting down a couple of times now", Sidon said, and Link focused on the conversation again. "What is that about?"

Histori stopped in front of a massive, intricately decorated door. "Isn't that the question? About a thousand years ago the local shrines simply went dormant for no apparent reason. The Slateri family couldn't get them to work, and obviously couldn't communicate with the Sheikah for answers because the shrines wouldn't work. Now that they work again, we're hoping to get some answers from the Sheikah."

Good luck with that. Link doubted the Sheikah had any answers, seeing how lost they had been with the old Sheikah technology themselves. Or maybe they did have the answers to that question in their history books, and their lack of knowledge about the technology itself was a separate issue. Thankfully that sounded like a problem for Purah, and not him.

"Anyway, we're here!" Histori said with a cheer, and opened the door.

The room was... oddly smoky. Except not the kind of smoke that came from campfires. No, this smoke was green and red and orange and smelled kind of like the incense Zelda liked in her chambers, but not quite. The smoke swirled at their feet like some kind of strange non-corporeal snakes, and Link hoped the smell wouldn't stick. Other than that, the room was very colourful: the stone walls had been painted with strange patterns of different colours and sizes, but quite obviously with some kind of an intent that eluded Link. There were dried plants hanging from the ceiling, and now Link was questioning if it was the smoke that smelled or if it came from those plants instead.

Around the room were doors that had the same patterns on them as the walls, but they were only painted with a single colour and shape for each: one had blue swirls, another had red spikes, one had orange jigjags, and so on. In the middle of the room was a large table filled with knick-knacks, among which was a large bowl of kinstones. Link felt an odd compulsion to approach it, and upon doing so suddenly saw a tiny glowing spot within it.

"Hmm? And who might you be?"

Link startled out of his trance, and looked at a Minish who had practically materialized next to him out of the blue. The Minish was wearing a red cloth robe with orange square shapes embroidered on the sleeves and the hem, and a typical Minish style red pointy cap. Their eyebrows were imposing in size.

'Link', he answered automatically, only to be met with an impressive frown. Right, this one didn't understand him. Not that he would have expected anything different, had he put any forethought to it.

"Mageri! How convenient!" Histori cried, and jumped between the two. Literally jumped, all the way from the doorway where Sidon was still standing with a baffled expression.

"Oh. It's you", Mageri said, looking unimpressed. "And you brought guests. How wonderful."

Sarcasteri would have been another fitting name for this Minish, Link thought. Though maybe they just didn't much like Histori.

"Not just any guests!" Histori said, not deterred in the least. "They're the big people everyone is talking about! This one is Link; he's a Hylian. That one is Prince Sidon; he is Zora royalty. And they want to learn about Minish magic!"

Link had been inching closer to the bowl of kinstones during the introductions, but froze when Mageri turned to regard him again.

"Really? That explains why they look so strange", Mageri said, and Link tried his best not to take offense to that – he found the Minish strange looking, too, so fair was fair. "It doesn't, however, explain your apparent need to get your hands to the kinstone bowl. Do you mind?"

Link looked at the glow in the bowl again, and dug out his own kinstone piece. It was glowing, just like he had half-expected. He held it out to Mageri, who simply looked at it like there was nothing particularly interesting about it.

"You're hoping to merge kinstones? I'm sorry, lad, but since those ones are unbound it'll be very difficult to find the one yours is reacting to", Mageri said with a shake of his head.

'I know which one it is', Link signed, which prompted Sidon to start translating for him – he had come over and attempted to trade pleasantries with Mageri to no avail while Link had been distracted. 'It glows.'

Mageri was suddenly extremely interested, judging from the fact that he promptly walked over to the bowl and upended it, scattering the kinstones all over the table with a few even rolling to the floor.

"Point it to me", they said, and gestured at the pieces. Oh, right, Link shouldn't merge them on his own so he couldn't just grab it. He located the only glowing kinstone with ease, and Mageri picked it up. It glowed even brighter, and started pulsing.

"Just so you know", Mageri said, "you seeing the glow is extraordinary. Most people can't see it. You're either a rare case who is born with it, or a certain condition is met and you gain the ability. Let's merge these and I'll find out."

Mageri chanted a few words in a language Link wasn't familiar with, and their kinstone piece's glow changed its colour subtly to a slightly more orange tint. They held the piece out to Link, who met it with his own half without hesitation.

The halves merged together seamlessly, just like Sidon's had before. Their combined glow got harsher, and Link's piece's glow colour changed to match Mageri's. The merged kinstone lifted into the air on its own, glowed even brighter, and disappeared with a 'ping'.

Link's eyes glassed over.

ooooo

It was dark and misty, and there were dead looking trees with frightening face-like deformities all around. Link could hear a fox yip somewhere close-by, which was shortly followed by a sound of footsteps getting closer.

The fox came into view and slunk over to one of the trees. Link noticed now that there was a patch of mushrooms clustered at the tree's roots, and the fox seemed somewhat interested in them. However, as soon as the fox's snout accidentally poked at the side of the tree next to one of the mushrooms, there sounded a sudden 'crack' that sent it packing with a whimper.

Where the fox had touched was now a tiny hole on the tree's bark. There was only darkness within from Link's viewpoint, but it led him to believe that the hole was relatively deep.

Whatever might be hidden within?

ooooo

Link blinked rapidly, and then squinted his eyes at the sudden brightness that came with being back at the Magic Academy.

Huh. So that's what it had been like to Sidon. How curious. It was similar to his own memory trips back in the day, but not quite the same.

Thinking back on his vision, he could recognize the place he saw as the Lost Woods. Of course he had no idea where there the exact spot he had seen was located, but he was reasonably confident he'd run into it if they were to go there. After all, that was how these kind of things tended to go in his experience.

...Since his kinstone deemed that place important to him in the near future, did that mean they would definitely go there during this trip? Was this a sign that they wouldn't be able to catch up to Slateri even if they tried?

Well, shit.