Chapter Twenty-two: The Third Fragment
"Midna!" Link cried, watching in dismay as she was gulped down by the wide mouth of the massive frog. Ralis made a wordless sound, equally upset. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light in the room, Link could see the frog staring at them blankly with its large gold eyes. It seemed to be considering the Zora and the Hylian, but then slowly moved along the ceiling to turn its back to them, disinterested. They were far too large prey, unlike Midna had been. The frog's back was covered in half-evolved tadpoles that either clung on with their stubby legs or adhered with with whatever slime covered their mother's body.
"Can she teleport out of there?" Ralis asked, his normally calm voice raised in alarm. "She teleported us to Lake Hylia, right?"
"I...I don't know!" He panicked, unsure of what to do. Could she teleport out? The inside of the frog had to be completely dark, and she could likely move through those shadows to escape even if she couldn't teleport. Come on, Midna. You can get out of this.
Agonizing seconds passed, the frog no longer moving other than its fat sides slowly heaving as it breathed. There was no sign of a struggle inside of it, as if the imp it had just swallowed wasn't fighting back. The idea of her trapped in a small space while unable to fight back horrified Link, and he felt his heart jump with fear. "I can't wait any more." He reached behind him into his quiver and pulled out one of the explosive arrows, taking the bow off his shoulder with his other hand.
"Do you really intend to kill it with her inside?!" Ralis sounded even more alarmed, but Link didn't answer him. The young man pulled the leather safety out of the arrow, nocked it, and then fired it into the wide back of the giant frog.
There was a flash as the arrow hit its target and a loud bang, and chunks of blood and flesh sprayed down from the ceiling. Most of what fell was the half-destroyed forms of the babies, the wriggling mass of them absorbing most of the damage from the explosion. The large frog dropped from where it clung to the rocky ceiling and landed in the center of the room with a splash. There was a spot of scorched skin on its vibrant green back, but otherwise it seemed unscathed.
"I do not believe that shooting exploding arrows with Midna inside is such a good idea." Ralis said as he watched the frog slowly turn to face them. "You might hurt her."
"I might not. It's dark in there, so she could be made of shadows right now." He was too worried about her to not risk it, figuring that she was in the middle of the beast and well away from any explosions. Still, he pulled out a regular arrow and fired it straight into the middle of the frog's head. It embedded itself there with a solid thunk. The amphibian opened its mouth to let out a chirruping growl, and then leaped into Link head-first before he could react. He went flying to hit the back wall with a grunt, inwardly angry with himself for not dodging in time.
"Link!" Ralis' voice came from the right. At least the prince had managed to dodge the attack, although now it looked like the frog was gathering itself up for another leap. It was massive, nearly as large as the giant water beetle he had faced in the Twilight, and with that amount of mass it would crush him between its heavy weight and the wall.
The purple Zora launched himself into the air, his race able to jump far higher than humans could. He landed on the frog's back and gripped at the two feathery feelers that extended from behind its eyes, hauling back on them to distract the animal. That gave Link a chance to get to his feet run out from where he was to a more open area. The enchanted scales had protected him from that hit, but nothing would protect him from getting squished between the angry frog and the wall. Even Renado's healing couldn't save him from that.
Ralis drew one of his bladed tonfa while still clinging to one of the multi-colored feelers, and reversed the blade in his hand to stab the frog in its flat head. He did not have the strength to stab through bone, but he did have the ability to make the frog angrier. It made another sound that was half-growl, half croak and lashed its tongue around its head, trying to reach the Zora.
Seeing that long tongue inspired Link with another idea he knew was not the brightest, but he could still make work. He carefully set down his bow on an empty pedestal, and as an afterthought put his shield there as well. He turned back to the prince and saw that he had hung the clawshot from his weapon's belt. "Ralis!" he called to the Zora, who was continuing to stab at the frog's head. "Do you know how to use the clawshot?"
"I think so!" Ralis replied, although he didn't sound too confident. Perhaps he was unsure of Link, who had set aside his bow and shield and was now capping the quiver at the small of his back.
"Good enough!" He pulled the mask of the Zora Armor over his mouth, still eyeing the pink tongue, which kept lashing out at Ralis in-between furious growls. "When I grab onto that thing's tongue, I want you to to use the clawshot to grab onto one of my ankles. Get ready to yank me back. You'll know when." He bent to scoop up water from the floor and splashed it on the mask, and prepared himself to do something unreasonable.
Ralis' green eyes widened as he understood exactly what Link was trying to do. "Are you insane?!" When the Hylian didn't answer him, the prince sheathed his weapon and drew the clawshot from his belt. He did not look happy, but he was going to trust Link's judgment.
It took three tries for Link to grab into the writhing tongue as it flopped around while trying to reach the Zora on its back. He gripped it with his hands, and felt something tight clamp around his right ankle as he was pulled in to the frog's mouth. It had withdrawn its tongue on instinct since something was currently attached to it, and despite its hesitancy to eat him before, Link was able to fit into the wide mouth easily enough.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness due to the magical pendant he wore, and after drawing his sword he wormed his way down the frog's throat in search of Midna. Its flesh pressed on him from all sides alarmingly, but he had to continue on. The air from the mask he wore wasn't as good as it was underwater, but since he had moistened it a moment before he still had breathable air inside the amphibian. Judging from the size of the frog, it wasn't all that far to the stomach, but the tightness of the flesh pressing on him made it slow going. The frog jumped and lurched as he worked his way through its insides, making it difficult for him to tell which way was up, and he suddenly understood why Midna couldn't fight her way through this pink hell.
Despite the difficulty it didn't take him long to get to where she was, a mass of shadowy orbs that kept dispersing and reforming into the dark form of the imp. Her red-on-yellow eye fixed on him fearfully, the fear changing to dismay when she realized he was in the stomach with her. She probably thought he had gotten eaten too.
"Midna!" His voice was muffled in the close pink flesh of the frog's stomach. He reached for her and she stopped dispersing into shadows, becoming solid so he could grab onto her arm. He pulled her close and held her to his chest, and began stabbing wildly at the walls of flesh around him. There was no way of telling where vital parts like the heart or brain were, or even a way of telling which way was up. There was a deep rumbling sound that rose into a whine, the noise surrounding the two of them as the amphibian cried out in pain.
The stomach contracted and pushed him back into the esophagus, the animal making an attempt to regurgitate whatever was attacking it from the inside. He kept stabbing, not sure what he was doing, only knowing that sooner or later he'd hit something. The frog shuddered, the whining now sounding weaker, and it no longer moved around. Suddenly it was still, Link on his back with the pink flesh horrifyingly pressing against his face and body from above. He felt the fluttering feeling of panic in his chest as he thought of being crushed inside the dead body of a frog, but then there was a sharp tug on his right leg. It was painful, stressing the joints in his hip and knee, but the chain of the clawshot dragged him and Midna out.
Then he was free, tumbling from the dead animal's mouth. He rolled to lay on his back, breathing heavily both from the effort of fighting the frog from the inside and from the panic that was now waning. His idea had worked. It was incredibly stupid, yet it had still worked. Link let out a sigh of relief, glad that everything had worked out in the end. He felt the clawshot loosen from his ankle and heard the chain retract with a rattling snap, but he didn't look. It was enough to lay here for now and catch his breath.
"I thought it had eaten you too." Midna's high-pitched voice was quavering with fright as she lay on the shimmering scales of his Zora Armor. He hadn't realized that he was still holding onto her, but she didn't seem to mind. "I wasn't able to get myself out, and then you were there too…" She took a deep breath and let it out to steady herself. "But it's fine now. You had another goofy idea that worked in the end, and we're both safe."
He had expected her to complain about him still holding her protectively with his right arm, but that wasn't the case. Her face had been terrified when he had gotten to her, and that look turned into one of utter dismay and horror when she made eye contact with him. She was frightened for herself, but far more for him. It was exactly how he felt when he had the idea to crawl into the frog's gullet after her.
He could have talked about how different she was when she felt vulnerable, or how she seemed like she needed to be comforted after the fact, or how he was just as frightened as her, but he didn't. She had moved past it, and by now he knew Midna; she wanted to move on. Link gave her back a small pat before dropping his right arm to his side. "Yeah. And I owed you one."
"One?" She gave a small laugh and sat up on his abdomen. "You owe me a lot more than that, buddy."
He gave a laugh, and the act of doing so made her bob up and down with his stomach from the movement of his diaphragm. That made the two of them degenerate into giggles, which made Midna move more, which resulted in a cycle of laughter.
"You certainly are irrational, Link." Ralis came to stand next to the two giggly morons and the Zora looked down at him. "At first when I saw you stand on the saddle when fighting Bulbins, I thought perhaps it was circumstance. That maybe you had done something so reckless due to the situation…" He shook his head and smiled down at the hero, who was trying unsuccessfully to stop giggling while covering his masked mouth with a hand. "Listen to you. You fight like a devil yet you laugh like a child. No matter what you do, it is with a certain intensity. No wonder you are reckless."
Link finally stopped laughing when Midna floated off of him. He had been giddy just now, probably because he was so tired. He hadn't realized how physically tired his body was from both swimming and fighting until he was laying on the ground laughing like an idiot. The fact that he had vomited up his lunch hadn't done much for his energy levels either. "I know, it was pretty stupid. It all worked out in the end anyway."
Ralis shook his head again. "No, it certainly was not stupid. It was brilliant, in its own way. You were confident enough to put your own self in danger in order to save her. Confident, yet still reckless. I asked if you were insane, but I believe your temporary insanity is acceptable, considering the circumstances."
"Thanks...I think?" He removed the mask from his face and stood, wishing he could lay around and rest some more but understanding that there was no time for that. Going through the temple so far and checking dozens of rooms had taken well over an hour, if not longer. Link cleaned the gore off his sword and sheathed it, and then went to retrieve his bow and shield. "Were you in danger of being stabbed?" he asked, putting the silver and blue shield up on his baldric.
"No. I jumped off as soon as you went into the frog's mouth. I just barely managed to catch your ankle with the clawshot before it swallowed you." The Zora gave a short laugh. "I had considered going in to get her myself, but dismissed the idea as too dangerous."
"You were right, because I'm the one supposed to be doing dangerous things." He took a deep breath and let it out. "Right. We have the clawshot and know that it works, so now what? Do we go get rid of those Lizalfos?"
"We must activate the water mechanisms that the Lizalfos turned off. While I do not doubt we can use the clawshot to get to the other levels, the guardians will need the water level to be higher if they plan on jumping into it. They will be unable to swim back up otherwise." The purple-scaled Zora stepped around the body of the frog and left the room, leaving Link and Midna to follow.
"The mechanism is not too far." Ralis said to them once they had joined him back in the hall. He pointed straight down the hallway. "That large room at the end is where it is. Come." The Zora's webbed feet slapped wetly on the tiled floor as he led them back past the Y-intersection and to where the channel in the floor ultimately led.
It was a large cylindrical room that had a winding staircase that went up along the curved wall, with a walled ramp that ran alongside it. It wasn't a long staircase; it only appeared to go up the equivalent of two floors. The top of the room ended in stalactites much like the others, and the bottom ended in a recessed shallow pool connected to the exiting channel, the pool currently dry. There was something large and yellow laying on the bottom of the pool that was attached to a heavy chain, the chain disappearing into a hole in the floor. Up near the top was a thick chain on a large winch, but what it was connected to was hidden by a suspended platform that was held up by four diagonal supports. Like other rooms nearby, the ceiling dripped from its close proximity to the lake bed.
"It's huge…" Midna marveled as she floated into the room next to Link. "Why all the stairs and the chute for the water? Can't you make the lake water drop down from above somewhere?"
"It is far less noisy to do it this way." Ralis told her. He pointed with a clawed hand at the platform far above. "The water does indeed come from an intake at the lake bottom, and the system operates on gravity. Complex machines may break down with time, but this simple system has lasted for centuries. It will last long after we are dead and gone." He stepped up to a crank set into the wall that looked like it operated the metal gate, and reached out to grab it. He grunted, struggling to turn it, and then averted his eyes from the other two. "Um. I may require help…"
He could have laughed at Ralis, but he refrained from doing so. He shooed the young Zora out of the way with a flap of his hand and then gripped the handle of the circular crank. To Ralis' credit, it did feel like it was stuck good. Whomever had locked it in place before had considerable strength, most likely a larger Zora like Jorvan. It was stuck, but not enough that Link was unable to move it.
"Things like this are why I wish my body would grow up already…" Ralis muttered as he watched the metal sluice gate rise up.
"Don't feel bad, Ralis." Midna kindly patted the prince's shoulder. "Link's kind of a brute for a little guy."
"See what I have to put up with?" Link grumbled, and walked past the Zora to start climbing the stairs that he knew would lead to the mechanism. The ups and downs from earlier were starting to fray the edges of his emotions, and he was starting to get touchy. This would be another day where he wound up in tears, he just knew it.
The platform at the top had two winches, as it turned out. The bigger one had a much larger circular crank, and the lesser one had a smaller chain and crank to match. Link approached the larger of the two and looked at it critically. "Is this supposed to be operated by two people?"
"I have heard that Captain Jorvan can do it by himself, but then again he is a larger, stronger Zora due to his age." Ralis put his hands on his hips just above the belt that held his weapons, his green eyes following the chain up into the ceiling. "I had heard my father could as well."
"You'll probably be able to do it one day, too." Link took a deep breath and wrapped his gloved hands around the handle. The Zora Armor hadn't come with any kind of gauntlets or arm protection, so he still wore his leather gloves, cloth bracers and single vambrace. Normally he would be worried about soaking them in water, but after seeing how easily he could clean and restore the gear that the gods had given him, he wasn't going to stress about it. "We'll see if I can do it."
The previous one was simply stuck; this one was heavy and hard to start moving, and he pushed against it grunting with the effort. Jorvan was tall and muscular, whereas Link was much smaller with the lesser strength of a human. Too bad the Zora Armor didn't grant him the strength of an adult Zora. He stubbornly continued to push, not wanting to be beat by a stupid crank of all things. He wasn't going to ask Midna for help, and was going to turn this thing no matter what.
Then something peculiar happened, and this time he was able to notice it since he was busy looking at his own two hands. Courage flickered like a candle flame through the leather of his glove, and then the crank began to move, suddenly far easier to rotate. The fragment of the Triforce glowed for a few seconds, and then winked out when the momentum of the heavy crank and winch kept themselves moving.
"Did you just see that-" Midna began, pointing at his hands, but a rushing noise from above drowned her out. A deluge of water fell from a hole in the natural limestone ceiling and splashed into the channel that connected to the chute heading down, spraying the area and the three people with countless droplets. The large room echoed with the sound of rushing water, and even though Midna tried to shout over it, Link shrugged and held his palms up helplessly. He couldn't hear a thing.
Ralis wordlessly pointed to the stairs and the three of them descended to the floor below. It was still loud in the room, but the farther they got from the platform, the easier it was to hear. No one spoke until they had passed the open sluice gate.
"It happened again!" Midna said excitedly now that they could hear one another. "Your sacred power activated! You had to have seen it this time, right?"
"I did." He frowned and rubbed at the back of his left hand as he followed Ralis out of the large room. That was twice it happened in the same day, and this last time he had actually seen it himself. The other times he had been too busy fighting to notice. That gave him a thought, and he almost stopped walking.
"What is it?" the shadowy creature asked, noticing a change of expression on his face.
"I get it. I think. We already know it protected me in the Twilight and stopped me both from being turned into a Shadow Beast and from becoming a spirit." He figured he could say these things in front of Ralis, who likely would not tell anyone else. The young prince was wise. "Ordona told me that it protects me, but it gives me the ability to protect myself and others. When do we normally see it light up?"
"When you fight? But this time you weren't fighting." She was actively following along with his train of thought, while Ralis continued to walk ahead without turning his head. The prince was most likely listening, but politely pretending not to. "So what's different?"
"Nothing. It was something I knew I needed to do." Link continued. "I was going to be pulled apart by those Shadow Beasts in Zora's Domain, and then Courage lit up when I needed to get away, and gave me the strength to fight them. You said that it lit up when I had to defend the wagon. I was fighting with rage, but I don't think that's why I was so strong. I threw a Bulbin way farther than any human should be able to, especially for a guy of my size."
"You needed to do those things, so Courage helped you do them? Is that why you…" Midna trailed off and flickered her eyes to the violet-scales of Ralis' back, and then to Link's eyes. "You had problems speaking and suddenly after Courage lit up, you didn't. Did you feel like you needed to talk?"
"I was frustrated, yeah. I needed to tell you how to free the Zoras. And just now, I was feeling a bit frustrated about how hard it was to push that crank." He sighed and rubbed at his eyes wearily. "Except I've needed to do things, and have been frustrated about other things and my piece of the Triforce hasn't done anything."
"It could be circumstantial." she suggested. "Maybe the important things are why it starts to work."
"Yeah, maybe. Maybe I'm getting better at it." He stared at the back of the young Zora, who was likely bored from the conversation. "Sorry about this discussion."
Ralis glanced over his shoulder at them. "You have an important magic within you, and you are trying to figure out how and why you use it. I know that much, and as an outsider to the situation there is little more that I need to understand." He looked forward again and gave a light shrug. "As the Hero of Hyrule you have no need to explain things, even to the next King of the Zoras."
I don't need to know, so you don't need to tell me. That's what Ralis was saying, in so many words. This was someone else that accepted him without questioning it. The Zora had learned how Link used his rage to fight, learned that he carried the Triforce of Courage, and learned that he was using it to make himself stronger somehow. It didn't seem to matter to Ralis. Link found himself smiling at the violet back and upturned head tail of the young Zora. He had found a friend in another unlikely place.
The trip back to the central room was much faster now that they weren't peeking into most of the rooms on the way. Passage through the water wheel required Midna's help again, only this time she had to stop it from spinning. It would likely be easy for Zoras to fit between the slats of the wheel as they swam through the channel, but Link did not want to risk getting crushed.
There were angry squawks and growls coming from the large hole in the middle of the central room, and when the three of them approached the edge they could see that there were more Lizalfos on the bottom floor than they initially thought. They had seen only three before, but now there were nine swimming around the center of the large opening and standing knee-deep in water on the floor. The bottom level looked as if it was about a quarter of the way full, although it was hard to tell from the top floor. The channel was rapidly dropping water below in a white cascade, creating a bubbling froth where it hit the pool below. The monsters avoided the falling water; unlike Zoras it seemed that Lizalfos could not swim up waterfalls.
"That filled up faster than I thought, but still not very fast." Link remarked, looking down at the annoyed Lizalfos that cut swiftly through the surface of the water. "How long does it take for one floor of this place to fill up?"
"With only one water source active, two hours. With two, an hour. It is not a fast process, even though the hallways below us are not quite as long as the ones on the main floor. If they have left doorways open, it will of course take longer." Ralis looked down at the Lizalfos as well. "I did not think we would return in time to fight the ones on the bottom floor, however the water has flushed them out of hiding and brought them here. Only now there will be far too many to fight at once."
"Sure, if we wait around another eight hours for the water to reach the top. I have a solution to our problem, although I need to ask your permission first." He reached into the dodongo skin bag on the belt of the Zora Armor, and continued to watch the angry monsters shout at one another. "Ralis, may I use water bombs in your sacred temple?"
The prince's mouth dropped open, not expecting the question. Then he gave a short laugh. "If you are quite careful, yes you may. If you happen to destroy anything important, I shall have to give you a strict talking to."
Link grinned back at him and produced a single bomb. There were six swimming lizard monsters, all milling around the middle instead of along the edges. That was fortuitous, since he would be able to get them all at once. Any more than the single explosion would alert the others. There would still be three more standing nearby, but that's what arrows were for. "Midna, can you get my bow and arrows ready?"
"Don't waste Barnes' fancy arrows on this place. We don't know how well they work in water, if at all." she said, making the hero's bow and leather quiver appear in the air in front of her.
"I said I was using a water bomb, not exploding arrows. Please, Midna. I'm a bit of a dummy, but I'm not that dumb." He almost said "dumbass", but he was trying to not swear in front of the next king of the Zoras after his fit at the lake's surface. He looked at the bomb in his hand and wondered if it was as potent as the other variety. Only one way to find out.
He estimated it would take about three seconds to hit the water, so he pulled the pin and counted. Holding a live bomb in his hand was a bit nerve-wracking, but he counted to four and then tossed the bomb with an underhanded throw. There were a few confused sounds from the Lizalfos on the upper floors as they saw something small and round drop, but none of them shouted a warning. Link absently held out his hand to Midna for his bow as he watched the bomb fall, and paused to give a satisfied smile when it exploded.
It wasn't quite like a regular explosion, the sound still loud but in a different, distorted way. The bomb hadn't sunk too far below the surface before blowing up, so much of the energy of the explosion went the way of least resistance: up. A plume of water shot up, taking mangled Lizalfos bodies with it. The edges of the walkway and its delicately carved pillars seemed unharmed, which was part of the plan. He really didn't want to destroy parts of the Zora's holy place.
He took his bow from where it hovered in front of Midna, but left the quiver where it was. There was no time to strap it around his waist, so he opted to take an single arrow and set it in his bow. Shouts of alarm and groans of the dying rose up from below, and before the monsters had a chance to react, he fired his arrow into the eye of an armored Lizalfos that was standing knee-deep in water. It dropped, and its two companions shouted and then said something in their snarling language. Arrows were fired in response, many of the Lizalfos having bows. One arrow in particular crackled with electricity as it flew, missing the three of them as they ducked and leaving the scent of ozone in its wake.
"Do they seriously have those?!" Ralis cried, alarmed by the magical arrow. "Link, I must withdraw for my own safety. My people are very susceptible to electricity."
Link nodded and watched as the young Zora moved farther away, and quickly popped his head up and ducked down again to bait another volley of four arrows, one of them electric. He had seen where the archers were, and had already planned to move to a different position to give himself a better shot and the element of surprise. "Ralis, are Lizalfos also weak to those arrows?"
"No, but they are wearing a lot of metal armor, and electricity is drawn to metal like moths to a flame." The prince was crouched a few feet away, well out of range of the arrows.
"Good enough for me." Link moved along in a crouch and he went for the sparking arrow that had hit the ceiling and dropped to the floor not too far away. The magic was still active, which meant that it worked similar to the fire arrows. He tentatively reached for it, carefully picking it up near the fletching.
It continued to crackle and pop in his hand, creating a sharp smell that he had no idea electricity had. He made his way to the left side of the room and set the arrow on his bow. Firing a live arrow was going to be a problem; if he drew the string of the bow back, the arrow's enchanted head would get close enough to his hand. Metal conducted electricity, but so did living things.
"I'm an idiot for doing this…" he muttered to himself.
Link crept to the the edge of the giant hole, took a deep breath and stood. He drew the arrow as he did so, and gave a painful grunt as the enchanted arrow arced into his body, making his chest tighten with pain. The charge was enough to make his muscles lock up, and it was all he could do to focus. Midna gave a soft cry of concern next to him, but he ignored both her and the pain and took his shot, managing to release his fingers from the string. He went for an exposed neck on an archer in the middle of the group, and the arrow embedded itself in it. The arrow itself would have killed, but the lightning jumped to the other nearby Lizalfos. One monster dropped to fall on its back, and three others staggered and screamed as their muscles seized from the electricity.
"Why wasn't it that bad for you?" Midna asked him as he quickly reached over for a regular arrow.
"It was." he said flatly, quickly firing at the Lizalfos on the end that was starting to recover, the arrow sinking into its chest. He quickly took care of the remaining two in a similar manner, finding weak spots that their armor did not protect.
He quickly recovered the second yellow-tipped arrow and stood at the end again with it set on his bow. The three Lizalfos on the bottom level realized what he was about to do, and shouted in alarm as he drew back his string. This time the shock felt worse, and he he grit his teeth together while drawing a breath in an agonized hiss. His heart felt as if somebody punched it, and his leg and back muscles cramped up. He still managed to fire at the submerged leg of the center lizard creature. Lightning crackled and flashed when the arrow connected and ran through the water at the Lizalfos' legs, magnifying the effect of the magic far more than the armor had. The monsters clutched at their chests, and one fell forward into the central pool with its muscles frozen in place. Bubbles came from around its submerged head as it drowned, and then it was still.
Link collapsed onto his backside, putting a hand to his chest as he gave an uncomfortable cough. "Ow. That was stupid, even for me. I'm not going to fire a live one of those things ever again. Did you know electricity can make your heart beat all weird? The things I'm learning today."
"I guess that's a sign you should never get hit by lightning." Midna said with a faint smile, and then she merged with the shadows of his body. "Mm, seems all right." she said from near his chest. She had gone there to listen to his heartbeat. "It's still beating fast because you're hurt."
"Thanks, Midna. I had no idea whether my heart was working or not." he sad dryly, slowly getting to his feet now that it felt like his muscles weren't going to cramp up anymore. "Ralis, can I have the clawshot?"
The Zora prince cautiously approached, eyeing the levels below as he did so. When he realized that there were no Lizalfos there, he relaxed a bit and handed the clawshot to Link. "Do you understand how it works?"
"Aim at something, squeeze the trigger?" He hadn't actually seen Ralis use it, but it seemed pretty obvious.
"Aim, squeeze the trigger once to open the claw, then squeeze it again to fire. The chain will retract when you let go, although there is a lock to keep the chain extended if necessary. You must prepare yourself once the chain retracts. It will reel you in quickly, and you'll crash into things if you are not careful." He stood at the edge of the hole in the floor and looked at the dead Lizalfos below. "There were some on the floor below us. Were you going to fight them?"
"I probably should, but first I was going to where those archers are so I could nab those enchanted arrows. We can't let them lay around for other Lizalfos to pick up." He patted his chest, over his heart. "I'd rather not get hurt by those again."
Ralis nodded and stepped back to give him space. "I will wait here. If you are down on the third level, please keep an eye out for any other stolen magical weapons."
"Will do. Shout if anything happens and I'll send Midna back to you." He shouldered his bow and took aim with the clawshot, deciding that the best place to shoot was the curved sconces that held the crystal light sources. He squeezed the trigger and missed, and had to try again until he hooked onto it. When he let go, the force of the retracting chain was so strong he thought it would yank his arm out of its socket.
He barely managed to extend his right arm in time to cushion his contact with the wall, and then was dumped onto the floor when he squeezed the trigger to let go. It wasn't exactly graceful, but he got to where he wanted to go. He probably could figure out how to not slam into things and land on his feet with practice.
The dead Lizalfos did not seem to have anything enchanted, other than a black leather quiver of blue-feathered arrows that stood out from the other plain quivers. After pulling out an arrow to inspect it, he could see a pair of unfamiliar runes engraved on the bladed tip. "Not too different than the fire arrows." He hung the loop of the quiver on his right shoulder for the time being, and took his bow in hand with his left. "Midna, will you please scout things for me? It'll be a lot faster if you go down these halls, and you won't get spotted."
The shadowy creature appeared next to him and looked down the hallway, determining which shadows were the best for her to hide in. "Sure. I'll be back in a bit." She gave him a saucy salute and blurred into a blob of shadows, shooting up into the darkness of the arched ceiling over the hallway.
He waited patiently, bow in hand, eyes and ears attentive for any slight sound or sight. No Lizalfos came, although Ralis peeked over the edge curiously. The Zora opened his mouth as if he was going to call down, but then reconsidered it and shrunk back from the opening. Yelling to be heard over the falling water would only reveal Link's position.
Midna returned from the left hallway, the opposite way from which she left. "There are four more this way, and one of them is wearing a gold bracelet. It has an aura of magic about it, so it does...something. I couldn't tell you what." she reported. "The other way only has two, and one of them has a frost-enchanted sword. Both groups were looking through stuff in rooms when I saw them. Which did you want to take care of first?"
"The group of four. That bracelet could do nothing useful for combat, while we know what a frost sword can do." He considered his new pack of electric arrows. There was no doubt he could stun the Lizalfos with them, but attacking them with his metal sword while they were paralyzed with electricity was foolish. "Get some arrows out for me, normal ones. I'm going to ask you for one when I need it."
The imp waved a hand and the hero's quiver materialized and hovered in front of her. She grabbed the strap with her hair to carry it. "It's funny...we started out with me ordering you around. Now you're the one usually telling me what needs to be done."
Link started to walk around the opening to head to the left hallway, and gave a small chuckle. "I'm not sure what made you let me make my own decisions: me shouting at you, or me proving that I'm better in a fight."
"A little of both." She floated along, keeping pace with his left side. He didn't say anything in reply. It was time to be quiet so they could sneak up on the Lizalfos.
When they came to the right room, Midna hovered in front of his face and signaled him to stop. She pointed to the room on the left, which had its door open. This hallway had stone doors that closed off each room, with heavy handles to lift them from the recess of the floor each one was nestled in. It was likely to make a waterproof seal, but it also let him know which rooms the Lizalfos had investigated. He absently wondered if any of the rooms below were flooded because their doors were opened.
He drew an electric arrow and set it, and opted to aim through the doorway a few feet back from it. It was easy to see the group of Lizalfos, which were talking in their language about whatever was in the chest they clustered around. There was no reason to give them an opportunity to use whatever was in that chest.
He fired at the exposed calf of one of the middle Lizalfos, and found that the arrow was far more potent right after being activated. The electricity arced in white-hot bolts between the monsters and their steel armor, the light burning into his retinas. He held out a hand to Midna, who got the hint and dutifully put an arrow into it. There was no way to put the arrow in the two that were standing with their thick-scaled backs to him, but the two others had their exposed sides facing towards the door, gaps in their armor visible. He sent one arrow through the rib cage of s Lizalfos, and a second into the neck of the other monster.
The effects of the electric arrow wore off and the two remaining Lizalfos turned to face him, snarling angrily in their native tongue. The one with the arrow in its leg reached into the chest and drew out a brilliantly-polished silvery shield, and when it did so he noticed the gold-and-ruby bracelet it wore. The other ran to one of the shelves at the back of the room where a long metal lockbox lay open and pulled out a two-handed battle hammer made of black steel.
"Both those things they picked up are enchanted." Midna informed him. "I have no idea what the shield does, but the hammer feels like it has some variety of earth magic."
Link pulled a blue-feathered arrow from the quiver on his shoulder and aimed it at the shiny metal shield. If it was dumb enough to hold up a piece of metal, then he was going to take advantage of that. He fired at the shield, expecting the magic to shoot through the metal and down the Lizalfos' arm.
What happened instead was the exact opposite. The Lizalfos hid behind the shield, and when the crackling arrow smashed itself into splinters against the polished metal, the electricity bounced off the mirrored surface of the silver and red shield. The magic came back in his direction, narrowly missing him as he ducked. Link blinked in surprise as the Lizalfos laughed at him.
"I guess we know what the shield does." Midna said. "Don't use any more magic arrows."
Right, enough arrows then. He went to shoulder his bow, but the shield-bearing Lizalfos rushed towards him before he could even begin to pull it over his head. It swung its left arm and batted him with the mirror-surfaced shield as it would an annoying fly. He was caught flat-footed and the impact sent him flying far more than he expected, and he wound up sailing across the hall and into the back wall of the opposite room. His breath was forced out of his lungs from the impact, and he fell to the floor between two chests.
He had lost his bow and the electric arrows at some point during his flight. That was his first thought as he groaned and stood up. The second thought was: Lizalfos can't be as strong as a Goron. At least the enchanted Zora Armor had protected his body and he didn't injure his ribs again, but he still hurt all over. He drew his sword and limped back out into the hallway, gritting his teeth.
Midna was still there in the hall, retrieving his bow and arrows. There wasn't much she could do to prevent him from being hurt since it happened so fast, but she was at least able to scoop up his weapon before the Lizalfos could grab it.
"I'm going to guess that gold bracelet isn't a fashion statement." he said, setting his shield as the second Lizalfos came out into the hall. "It has the Goron emblem on it."
"Just like the one Luda gave you?" She floated up to dodge a backhanded shield swing from the Lizalfos they were discussing. "So what, instead of being able to stand heat like a Goron, this guy is as strong as one?"
"Seems that way. Put away the bow and arrows so you can dodge better. I'm certainly not shooting that shield again." He faced off against the second Lizalfos, who was hefting the heavy warhammer it had found. "I've got this one. What does earth magic do, anyway?"
"Uh…" She was a bit distracted, flying up to avoid the Lizalfos while making the bow disappear into small squares. "It can be defensive magic-" she began, but then she had to dodge a high jump from the Lizalfos. Either the lizard folk could actually jump like that, or the bracelet gave its leg muscles the strength to do so.
Link found out what the hammer did without her completing her sentence. The Lizalfos swung the heavy weapon at him, and he hopped to the side to avoid it easily. He was unable to dodge the shockwave that the hammer produced, however. It hit him like a kick to the legs, and he fell flat on his face.
"So that's what earth magic does!" the Lizalfos laughed above him as he lay prone on the floor. "I wonder what it'll do to your back?" It had an obnoxious, hissing laugh.
He was fortunate that the creature had stopped to mock him, because it gave him an opportunity to roll over with his sword in hand. His Zora armor wouldn't protect him from a hammer to the chest, but he wasn't concerned about that. He was concerned about the scaly jackass that chortled about knocking him over, and he was angry enough that he was going to take his sword and cut something while he was down here. While he was laying there, he had a clear view up the studded leather skirt that the Lizalfos was wearing. It was then Link discovered two things:
One, Lizalfos do not wear undergarments.
Two, Lizalfos have cloaca.
That second detail wasn't necessarily important, but at least it was something vulnerable for him to stab at. He jabbed his sword up between the Lizalfos' legs. It screamed bloody murder and dropped the hammer it was holding, the enchanted weapon clanging off Link's shield.
He heard a loud slam and a clattering sound nearby, but he couldn't tell what exactly the other Lizalfos and Midna were doing. Link kicked his legs into the air and used the momentum to propel him into a standing position. The Lizalfos was making agonized sounds with its eyes half-closed, clawed hands grasping between its legs. It was nothing to bring his sword around in a backhanded stroke to slit its throat and put it out of its misery.
"What the heck did you do to it? These things didn't scream like that when you blew them up." Midna was hovering over the second Lizalfos, which was laying dead on the ground with its head turned at an impossible angle.
"I stabbed it between its legs and into it's uh...multi-purpose hole." It was somewhat cruel on his part, but he had found an opportunity and needed to take advantage of it. Besides, he was angry about being knocked over yet again. If he got knocked into one more wall, he was going to start swearing about it whether Ralis could hear him or not.
"You mean cloaca?" Despite not currently having any genitals herself, she winced sympathetically. Nobody would want to be stabbed there, regardless of species.
"Whatever." He wiped his blade on the leather skirt of the unfortunate Lizalfos and sheathed it.
"We might be able to take some of these things and ask Ralis if you could use them. A shield that reflects magic could come in handy." She tugged the small gold bracelet off the dead creature's wrist. "Or maybe being as strong as a Goron."
Link put up his shield and frowned at her. "No. I have enough stuff as it is. We put them back."
She grumbled, her shadowy face transformed into a pout, but she picked up the shield and floated back into the room where they had found the Lizalfos. He knelt down to pick up the enchanted warhammer, and had a feeling of deja vu as he held it in his hands. Even though he had the strange feeling as he held it, he had no desire to lug the heavy thing around. He followed Midna into the room to put it back in its chest.
The rest of their Lizalfos fights were similar. After his encounters with the frost sword and a wand that shot flames, he cursed himself for putting away the reflective shield. Luckily the relics that the rest of the Lizalfos had found were useless or near-useless in a fight, and the two of them were able to clear the rest of the floors. They went around closing open doorways as they went to make sure the flooding process went faster.
The second level from the bottom was partway full with water when he had managed to haul himself up to the top with the clawshot, hooking it on yet another curved sconce. By now he had gotten the hang of it, and used it with far more skill. Ralis was reclining against one of the nearby walls, humming to himself and examining the curved black claws on the tips of his violet fingers. The Zora Prince stood up when they approached. "You two were gone for quite some time, but I could hear the sounds of fighting...as well as some rather horrifying Lizalfos screams."
"Link stabbed one in the cloaca." Midna informed him mildly.
Ralis grimaced and eyed the Hylian disapprovingly. "Really?"
"Look, I don't normally fight dirty. I was beneath it and I had to stab something or take a hammer to the chest." He crossed his arms, a bit offended by Ralis' reaction. It was time to change the subject. "We shut all the doors down there, so we should be good to open the other water mechanism."
"Ah, excellent. That will expedite the process." The purple-scaled Zora motioned for them to follow and began walking. "This way."
The right hallway was the same, including another stationary waterwheel that Midna had to adjust to let them through. Past it were more rooms that had more treasure within, and even a few that appeared to be Zora barracks. These had pools of water in the center of the room with a neat row of chests along the back wall, the former likely for communal sleeping. There were no more frogs, and the ceilings and floors of this side were dry.
Link tried not to think of his terribly empty stomach as he walked. His lunch had not stayed with him for long, and hours later he was ravenous. The most he could do was drink a bit of water after asking Midna for his waterskin, but that did nothing for hunger. The fact that it was going to take a total of four hours for the water to rise to the top level made his hunger all the worse. It was going to be a long time before he could eat anything, and he was doing his best not to be openly grumpy about it.
The room with the water release mirrored the one on the opposite side, only this time the large egg-shaped thing on the chain laying in the collection pool was pink, not yellow. Link stepped up to the sluice control and turned the crank to raise it, thankful that the sound covered up the grumbling of his empty gut.
"What's that thing in the collection pool?" he asked once they had began climbing the stairs to the main mechanism.
"A float. The chain you see beneath it is connected to a water cutoff. Once the pool fills to a certain level, the intake above closes." After Ralis explained it, the whole thing made a lot of sense. "Will you use your piece of the Triforce to move this crank?"
"I'll try, but it wasn't intentional last time. I haven't been able to activate it on purpose yet." He looked at the back of his hand. "It's the power of Farore herself, but it's more or less useless since it isn't very reliable." And he wasn't sure what the power of Farore actually did, either.
"I wouldn't say that." Midna said as the group stepped onto the platform and next to the heavy crank and winch. "It only working sometimes is a lot better than it not working at all."
Link raised an eyebrow at her, even though he knew she couldn't see it due to the helmet of his armor. He didn't agree. "Oh, yeah? Only breathing sometimes is not a lot better than not breathing at all. You're dead either way."
She crossed her shadowy arms and gave a plaintive sigh. "Link...that's a biological process, and far different than magic. I know you're frustrated with Courage and your inability to control it, and there certainly were times where it would have helped, but approaching a new and unfamiliar form of magic is done best a little at a time. You've only been using the Triforce for two weeks. Be patient." The imp waved a hand at the large crank. "And turn this thing."
Be patient. Easy for her to say, she actually had patience to begin with. Link had found his own patience lacking in most situations, where it quickly turned to anger. He wasn't going to argue about it, since there was no point. What he was going to do is turn this crank.
Or so he thought.
He pushed on the heavy handle and grunted with effort until he was red in the face. His feet slid on the floor as he tried to push with his weight, and even that didn't work. He stopped and panted. "Am I doing this right? The crank turns to the left?"
"Righty tighty, lefty loosey." Midna recited the saying. "You're doing it correctly, but you're not strong enough without Courage."
He shot her an annoyed look. "Yeah no sh—kidding." He caught himself before he cursed in front of Zora royalty again. What was it that made it light up before? He had wanted to do it without help, that's it. Didn't he want to turn this damn crank right now? The whole thing was maddening. He flexed his fingers, gripped the handle and began to push again. Once again it was in vain, and his feet slid on the floor.
"Just give up. Move and I'll do it." The little shadowy imp moved closer, extending her dark prehensile hair towards the crank.
"I don't...want you to do it." Link grated through clenched teeth, giving it another push. He was determined to do it, even with his own ordinary strength. "I'm the one doing it!"
Courage lit up, and his arms were suddenly strong enough to move the crank. The chain began to move and a torrent of water fell onto the ramp, rushing down to the pool below. Link stepped back and looked at his hand to see the three triangles of light fade. Huh, it happened again. He glanced over at Midna, but she sighed and shook her head. There was no way they could talk about this now that the water was falling.
Once they had moved past the sluice gate and into the hall, Midna moved close to him and leaned on his shoulder with one arm as she kept pace while floating. "You know, maybe you being stubborn is what makes it go."
"But I'm stubborn about all kinds of things." It was not one of his strong suits either, he knew it.
"That may be, but you were not only stubborn." The violet Zora had been silent through the exchange before. "You were determined. You said 'I'm the one doing it'."
"Huh." Link thoughtfully put a hand to his chin, considering it. "That might be it. It isn't the fact that I want to do something, it's how determined I am to get it done. It isn't simple want or need, it's the desire to accomplish something. I have to want it badly enough." He lowered his hand and looked at the back of it. "…I think? It's different than the other thing I can do."
"What other thing? Have you been using magic and I never noticed?" She frowned, her one red eye darting around. "I must be losing my touch. Don't tell anyone."
"It started when Faron asked us to lift the Twilight there. It told me I had to concentrate to see the dark insects, and so I did. I focused and I could see them, and the spirits of the living things in the woods." He gave a little sigh. "Except there have been times where it just...happens. Like with Courage. When that Goron was cursed by the piece of the Fused Shadow, I was able to see him and the monster he had become without even trying. It simply happened." He wasn't going to mention Darbus by name in front of Ralis. "The same goes for that guardian spirit that visits my dreams. Sometimes I see him as a ghost that looks like a Stalfos, and other times he looks like a Hylian knight."
Midna crossed her legs and propped up her chin with a fist, resting her elbow on her knee. The pose was humorous considering she was still bobbing in the air between Link and Ralis. "Normally with magic you have to focus on the thing you want to do in order to cast it. Sometimes people will need an incantation, but people like me who are better at magic can do it without that. I admit that sometimes I wave my hand when I'm casting spells, but that's an old habit of mine that my father had been trying to break for years. It's bad form."
He wanted to learn more about Midna's father, who he now knew was also a sorcerer, but this was not the time to ask. "When you're using the Fused Shadows to move your hair, you aren't gesturing or saying anything. You just do it, like I do with my magic."
"It's an external relic, and fundamentally the same as that fire wand that almost cooked you earlier." She straightened and shook her head. "You're casting magic without doing anything other than focusing or directing your will. That could potentially be dangerous if you wind up having another kind of magic without knowing it. Imagine if you had fire magic, for example."
"I don't like that idea." He doubted he had fire magic, although it would have been ironic if he did, after what happened in Zora's Domain.
"Neither do I, so it's a good thing that the only innate magic you're using is shadow magic. I think that since we have some time to kill while the water fills up, we should go over a few things." She smirked at the prince. "Sorry, Ralis. This is probably going to be really boring for you."
Ralis sighed ruefully, but didn't say anything as Midna began Link's magical education.
In the end the talk of magic only took up an hour of their time. Midna went over the basics on casting the various kinds of magic, mentioning the schools and sub-schools, and how common they were. She educated him on the differences between active and reactive magic. Both Courage and his shadow spell had their active and reactive moments, which made little sense according to magic theory. She then covered advanced magic and only using willpower to cast it, which was something that more powerful sorcerers like herself did. That meant that either Link was strong magically, or simply being the Hero of Hyrule gave him that ability. He certainly didn't seem like he had any other magic, but she asked him to recall anything in his childhood that seemed magical or unusual. Other than Courage appearing on his hand, there was nothing. Then she assaulted him with questions.
Did his mother have shadow magic? Yes. Did she cast it with willpower alone? No, she formed symbols with her hands like most Sheikah. Did his father have magic? He had no idea. What about his Sheikah grandmother? Shadow magic similar to his mother's. Was he absolutely, positively sure that he hadn't cast some kind of spell before two weeks ago? No. No he hadn't. He had never cast magic until he was an adult.
Midna told him that was impossible, since magical ability always came about right before or during puberty.
At one point Ralis had wandered off for a while and returned with a book. There was likely a library somewhere in the temple, and finding some reading material was probably more interesting than listening to Midna ask dozens of questions to which Link did not give satisfactory answers. The young prince also brought a few parcels wrapped in dry kelp leaves, which proved to be dried and salted pieces of salmon. Zora soldier rations weren't an ideal dinner, but Link was so hungry he didn't care. He ate and continued to answer questions, but the conversation didn't seem to get much of anywhere.
"Did you have any cousins?" Midna asked in a tired monotone, laying on her back while staring at the ceiling.
"No. Both my parents were only children, like me." he answered in a similar tone. He had removed his helmet for the time being and was laying on his side, pillowing his head on a folded arm, watching the flow of water as it dropped into the center pool of the temple. Midna had stored away most of his gear, and now only wore his sword, bombs and the clawshot.
"How extensive is the Sheikah part of your family?" She was starting to sound defeated.
"I have no idea, only that grandma was from the Eclipse Clan." Now that he had eaten, he was feeling a bit sleepy. Or perhaps the boring conversation was putting him to sleep.
"Eclipse Clan…" she trailed off, then her face wrinkled up in frustration and she rudely blew a raspberry at nothing in particular. "I give up! I don't understand you. Nothing about you makes any sense!" Midna sat up. "From a scholarly view, you're interesting because you're so unusual. From the viewpoint of a sorceress who knows how magic works?" She stuck out her shadowy tongue and blew another raspberry. "Screw your stupid light world gods for giving you this kind of magic that doesn't follow conventional rules."
"Great. I'm glad we came to the conclusion that we know next to nothing." He spoke around a yawn, half-covering his mouth with a hand. "If we're done, I want to sleep for a bit. Nothing else to do here while we wait."
"Fine. Whatever. I guess I'll go watch the water fill up." She seemed to take his strange magical ability personally, and now was in a foul mood. It was a good thing he planned on taking a nap so he didn't have to hear her bitch about things.
Some time later Ralis shook him awake. Link sat up and rubbed at his face with his hands, doing his best to will sleep away. He felt stiff. "How long was I out?"
"It is hard to say, but probably most of the night. It is still before dawn because the guardians have not yet entered the Temple." Ralis waved a hand at Midna, who sat nearby reading the same book Ralis had before. "She insisted that you and I rest. You, more specifically."
"He would never admit it, but he wore himself out swimming here." She said, not looking up from her book. "Then he used his Triforce, and then he was fighting too. I let himself push himself too far once, and I have no intention of letting him do that again."
"You could have mentioned that you were tired." the Zora Prince chided. "I would not have minded letting you rest."
"I wasn't going to rest when there were Lizalfos in this place." He stretched and felt something in his back pop. Sleeping on the floor in armor was not ideal, but there were no beds for humans in this place. "Does this mean that we can swim to the bottom now?" He reached down to pick up his helmet.
Ralis watched as he put it on. "Yes, the water is deep enough that we will be able to leave after jumping in." That was the real reason they had sat around and waited; it wasn't jumping into the water from high up that was the problem, it was getting out of it later. "It likely finished filling hours ago. I went to sleep a few hours in the barracks while Midna remained with you here."
"I kept checking on you too, Ralis." The little imp set aside the book and shot over to Link in a blur to merge with his shadows. "In any case, we should take care of the Fused Shadows fragment in case it is almost dawn. I don't want Jorvan or his men to come anywhere near it."
Link took another few minutes to walk around, wake up, and stretch his limbs before pulling on his mask and diving into the central pool with Ralis. The crystal light sources continued to softly glow beneath the water, illuminating the way as they made their way straight down. They swam past the four filled floors, and it was about that distance again to the sandy bottom. They swam past more of the green and black eels that had their eyes on stalks and protrusions around their mouths, and a few gently-moving jellyfish that had painful stings, according to Ralis.
As the bottom of the pool grew closer, Link could see that there were giant clams laying here and there, amid long strands of freshwater kelp that waved faintly. Carved pillars of pale stone jutted out of the light brown sand, set at regular intervals around the circular room. The center of the sand-covered bottom dipped down somewhat, and was full of things that were large and translucent that waved just like the water plants. They were long and as thick as Link's leg, and lay at the center of the sandy pit like an ant lion. It was easy to see that they were nothing like the nearby plants, and were far more like tentacles.
"That would be our monster." Ralis said as they moved to the outside of the room to avoid coming to close as they neared the bottom.
"Be sure to stay away from it." Link told him once they tread water just above the sand, his words rising in bubbles. "I know that you're good at fighting Lizalfos, but this thing is something else. I don't want you getting hurt."
The prince did not look pleased with being told to stay back. "Surely I can aid you somehow? Judging from the size of those tentacles, the monster is rather large. It will be difficult for one man to fight, even one as strong as you."
"You're right." He nodded, watching as the tentacles lazily moved in their direction even though the creature couldn't reach them. "The other two were difficult, but I meant what I said. You need to stay back. You weren't born to fight this thing; I was. This is why I exist, remember?"
The Zora gave a watery sigh, his gills flaring. "Yes, of course. I will retreat if things become too dangerous. You have my word."
There was a movement from the center of the room, and the two of them turned to look. A large orange eye mottled with gold rose up on the end of a translucent stalk, the blood vessels and nerves visible beneath the see-through flesh. The eye moved around, sweeping the room until it saw the Hylian and the Zora swimming a safe distance away.
"Ah, yes. An eye. How original." While Ralis gave him an odd look, Midna giggled in his ears. She got the joke. Unlike the previous Fused Shadows eye, he couldn't shoot this one with an arrow. Archery did not work well underwater, which was a shame because it would have been a fairly easy target. Link reached for the clawshot that he had hooked on the belt of his armor, and considered how close he would need to get in order to use it.
"What are you thinking?" the Zora Prince asked.
"I'm going to use the clawshot to hook onto that eye. The eyes were the weak spots for the last two monsters, hence my wisecrack." He lifted the clawshot in his hand and sighted down his arm at the immobile eye, which stared at them blankly. "Provided this works fine underwater, I'll drag the eye over here and you can stab it, or cut it off...whatever you feel is best. Hopefully that will be the end of it, but we'll see. There's no telling what's beneath the sand."
"Perhaps it is one of those jellyfish." Ralis suggested, drawing his blades.
Link shrugged, hoping that it wasn't a Zora, but did not voice his concern. He shot out the clawshot, which was a bit sluggish due to the water resistance, but it still operated well enough. It didn't quite reach, so he moved closer to shoot again. The second shot grabbed on below the eye, squeezing the eye stalk as if it was as soft as one of the tentacles. He reeled it in, and there was a low rumble below the sand that he felt more than heard. Ralis did not hesitate and he cut through the see-through flesh with a swimming slash of his right blade, and the eye parted with its owner. The rumbling sound transformed into an injured shriek, and the monster retracted the wounded stalk, leaving a trail of blood in the water that looked like red smoke.
The shriek sounded loudly in the water around them as the sand below began to churn, and the two of them did their best to cover their ears against the painful noise. Something slowly rose out of the dun-colored sand at the bottom, creating clouds of the stuff in the water around it. A serpentine body covered in armored scales moved through the water, beginning to pick up speed as it freed the sharp-finned end of its long body.
Link decided to swim up and away from the blinding sand suspended in the water and Ralis followed, both of them using the swift undulating Zora swim to move. The Fused Shadows creature rounded on them and revealed a large maw full of jagged shark-like teeth, the mouth fringed by the tentacles almost like a catfish. It was one of the green and black eels twisted into something gray and red, and it began to follow the two of them as they swam upwards.
It was difficult for him to get a good look at it with the way he was swimming, so he was unable to use what he now knew was shadow magic to determine where the Fused Shadows fragment was on the giant eel. With his luck, it would be in the mouth. "Midna? Can you see another eyeball on that thing?"
"There's a second eye on the back of its head, just behind where the first one was connected." she said, supplying him with the information that he needed. "As a matter of fact, it's right in the middle of some of those armored scales, so you could probably haul us there with the clawshot."
"If that is what you intend to do, I will attempt to make it follow me." Since the Zora responded, he could hear Midna speak as well. "I can easily out-swim it, so I am in little danger. It will likely be angry, however."
"Like it isn't mad already." He had told the prince to avoid the monster, but he knew that he needed help, just as he had in the other Fused Shadows fights. May as well trust Ralis' judgment. "Do it."
The purple-scaled Zora's method of making it angry enough to follow him was to swim beneath its belly and stab in between its armored segments with one of his blades. The monstrous eel shivered in pain and let out a short shriek before slowing and circling back along its own length to find this new threat. While it did so Link stopped swimming and focused, and could see the last piece of stone relic beneath the orange eye embedded in its back, as well as the much smaller shape of an ordinary eel. That was what he figured he'd see, but nothing unusual stuck out to him. He had hoped there was some other weakness other than the remaining eye.
Ralis gave the eel's belly another poke as he began to lead it around the outer edge of the room, the Zora able to move far more swiftly than Link had expected. Zoras relied on agility to fight just as he did, but he hadn't known the extent of it until watching the young prince easily irritate the eel while staying out of range of its large mouth. Watching a skilled Zora fighter was mesmerizing.
He extended his arm and sighted down it, keeping his aim on the eyeball as the massive eel made its way around the room, snapping its jaws at the Zora it had no hopes of catching. Just a bit closer…
"When Rutela said she wanted you to keep her son safe, I doubt this is what she had in mind." As funny as her comment was, it was not needed at this time, especially when he was about to squeeze the trigger of the clawshot. So far she hadn't managed to distract him too much while he was fighting, but this time she had said something genuinely funny and he couldn't help but laugh. Just that bit of movement disrupted his aim enough that he shot a bit too early, and hooked onto one of the tentacles that trailed behind the monster's head as it swam.
A flaw in the clawshot's design suddenly became clear to Link: he had better be sure of what he was aiming at, because there was no way to loosen the claw from whatever it had grabbed without releasing the trigger and hauling himself in. The eel continued on past him and he found himself being pulled behind it like a kite.
"Sorry. I'll stay quiet." Midna muttered, sounding guilty.
He grunted sourly but didn't say anything in reply, trying to figure out how he would pull himself in without connecting with the tentacle. It might be possible to grab on to the armored ridge right beneath the tentacles with his right hand, and then onto the next segment of scale before the tentacles got to him. It was a long shot, but it was far better than being towed behind the damn thing. He released the trigger on the clawshot, and readied his right hand to make a grab for the thick armored scale.
The clawshot faithfully pulled him to where the claw had held on, which was partway up the tentacle. Even though his fingers brushed the ridge of armored scales he was unable to grab on, and he continued on into the tentacle. The eel had noticed him at that point and decided to stop chasing Ralis. It slowed and moved its tentacles towards its passenger, ensnaring him in them.
The eel's tentacles wrapped around his body much like an octopus' would. His left arm and hand that held the clawshot were pinned to his side, and while his right arm was free, he couldn't easily draw his sword with his right hand. He still tried, but had to push the coils down from near his neck and found another issue with the tentacles: they hurt. He didn't know if it was like a jellyfish sting or if it was something else, but it was painful where the thick tentacles came in contact with his bare arms and fingers.
"Is it hurting you?" Midna asked, slightly alarmed.
"It's like touching a jellyfish." he grunted, struggling against the eel's grip but failing to either loosen himself or grab onto his sword. "It hurts but I'll live-"
"—but you'll live. Yes, I know." she said the last part of the sentence along with him, having heard it enough times by now. "I'd help you but if I come out into the water, I'll need to breathe."
"It's...fine." He continued to struggle. Was it his imagination, or was the eel moving him closer to its mouth?
"I'm sorry about that, Link. I don't like to see you get hurt." Her tone sounded guilty, but her guilt was not helpful at the moment. The eel was moving him towards its jagged-toothed mouth, no doubt about it now. What could he do? He could shoot the clawshot down into its armored head, which might grab onto something. Might. If it did, would he be stronger than this Fused Shadows monstrosity and be able to hold on?
Ralis solved his problem for him. The Zora moved so quickly that Link was barely aware of what was happening until after it happened. There were a few quick flashes of silvery blades, shrieks of pain from the eel, and then he was free with pieces of tentacle floating around him. He kicked his legs and moved up a bit to clear the eel's spiny fins, but he didn't need to. It veered downwards and slammed into one of the carved pillars, snapping the stone near its base. The pillar fell onto its head before rolling loudly to the sand below it in a brown cloud, and the eel lay stunned.
His arms and right hand still stung from touching the tentacles, but Link didn't hesitate to act. He drew his sword and propelled himself down with his legs, sword arm held in front of him. His aim with his sword was far better than his aim with the clawshot, and the blade ran through the center of the eye, rupturing it.
The great eel's reaction was immediate. It thrashed its long body back and forth, letting out a warbling shriek. The head knocked into Link, and likely would have sent him flying if he was on dry land, but instead only moved him slightly and left him still close to the writhing eel. He began to swim away and then found himself moving swiftly with Ralis' assistance, the young Zora grabbing onto his right wrist and hauling him along until they were a safe distance away.
"Thanks." Link panted, his breaths coming out in bursts of bubbles from his mask as he sheathed his sword.
"I know that you told me to stay away, but-" the prince began, but then he darted forward and hooked one arm around Link's waist, swimming quickly and pulling him to safety once again. The eel's jaws snapped where they had been only a second before, the creature blindly biting at the empty water.
Ralis brought him to the back side of one of the pillars, glancing up furtively at the eel that thrashed above before letting Link go and putting a clawed finger to his lips. Of course the eel had heard them talking. Hopefully it wouldn't hear the bubbles coming from the mask of the Zora Armor every time Link exhaled. He did his best to slow his breath, considering his options. Destroying both of the monster's eyes had done nothing other than blind it, and were not weak spots. Then again, the eye that was on Darbus' head was different than the ones on the eel and the giant plant. Wait, the giant plant…
The wheels in Link's head turned as he came up with a new idea. He reached into the pouch of water bombs on his belt and pulled out two, wondering if he could hold three in his hand. No, he probably could only pull two pins at once. Hopefully it would be enough.
Ralis eyed the explosives in the Hylian's hand and then looked at him quizzically. He knew what the bombs were, but it was obvious that the armored scales of the giant eel wouldn't take too much damage from two bombs. Not only that but using water bombs while in water was far more dangerous than using normal ones on dry land.
He would have to talk to the prince to explain what he planned to do, so he began by holding out the clawshot that he had been holding in his right hand ever since he drew his sword. "I need you to grab onto me with this again." he said softly, hoping that the eel wouldn't hear him over its own frustrated growls and shrieks. "It's time for me to be reckless again."
"You're going to feed those bombs to the eel, aren't you?" Ralis asked just as quietly, sounding as if he didn't believe it.
"You're very astute. I'll get it's attention, drop bombs into its mouth and then you yank me back. I know you can do it, you just pulled me along twice without much effort." He glanced up and noted that the eel was making its way down to them, having heard their conversation.
"I suppose I will have to save you, yet again." the Zora smiled wryly, and took the clawshot. "I will hook it onto you and follow."
The two of them moved to another pillar silently, avoiding the eel when it came to bite at the water near their previous location. Link moved a distance away and held out his hands, and the Zora shot the clawshot at him. Catching it wasn't too hard, but prying the claw open was somewhat difficult. He and Ralis managed to open it far enough to hook it on the back of his belt, and then the two of them began to swim towards the eel, the length of the clawshot's chain separating them.
"Please be careful." Midna said in his ears, barely above a whisper. She normally would have been helping him a fight like this, but not this time. This time she could do nothing to help if anything went wrong. He gave a soft smile and patted the top of his helmet where he assumed she was, and then fixed his eyes on the eel.
"Hey!" He tried to think of something funny to say, but for once didn't have a joke. "Come over here!" It wasn't amusing in the least, but it did get the eel's attention. It opened its mouth and undulated through the water at him faster than he thought it would. "Oh." was all he said as he turned and began to swim, kicking his legs instead of using the Zora technique.
Its jaws snapped only a few feet behind him, and he knew it could hear the bubbles from his mask now that it was this close. There was no chance to throw the bombs into that toothy maw, so his plan changed slightly. He angled himself up, hoping that the eel would follow.
It continued to stay on his heels, which was a bit too close to comfort. He would have to ask Ralis to tug him away before too long, whether he had the bombs in the monster's mouth or not. It was now or never. He stuck two fingers in the metal circles on the end of the water bombs' pins and yanked both of them out at once. There was no counting this time. He looked down and dropped them above the open maw that was getting even closer. There was no question of whether the eel was going to swallow the bombs; the real question was: would he be swallowed as well?
There was a sharp tug on his waist and he let out a startled "oof" as the air was forced out of his lungs, leaving a trail of bubbles as he was towed to safety by Ralis. He was perhaps twenty feet away from the eel when there was a concussion in the water. The force of it sent him into a somersault, and it was a second before he could right himself and look at the monster. The sound of the explosion had been muffled, but the effects of the two bombs inside the giant eel's throat were disastrous. It tried to make another shrieking sound, but warbled weakly as blood leaked from its mouth and the gills between its armored plates.
The wounded eel swam around blindly, rolling like a crocodile while trying to escape whatever had hurt it, its fish brain not understanding what had happened. Its movements slowed and its momentum carried it across the length of the circular chamber, the tentacled head tilting down at an angle. It hit the sand and bounced, and continued on to not only slam into the wall, but into some empty space beyond it. The heavy weight of the enormous eel cracked the carved stone wall and it collapsed around the monster.
Water began to rush towards the hole made in the wall, creating a strong current. Ralis struggled against it, still pulling Link behind him. The young Zora's swimming strength was not strong enough, and they were going to be pulled into the hole that lead to who knows where. Link started to swim as well, knowing it was in vain, but he wasn't going to give up.
The prince's quick thinking saved them. As they were being sucked towards the gaping hole in the wall, he managed to move himself to the side just as they neared a pillar. The chain of the clawshot draped itself around the carved stone pillar, hooking them there with them dangling on either side of it. Link kicked his legs hard to move himself towards Ralis, and he managed to grab onto the chain just above the clawshot's winch.
He and the Zora held on for dear life as the suction gradually grew stronger, and it increased the lower the water went. It was not a fast process either; the water had taken hours to fill up the top half of the circular chamber, and it likely had taken just as long to fill the bottom half. While the water didn't take that long to drain, it did take nearly an hour before their heads popped up above the surface of it. By then Link's hands felt as if they were cramping up, and he had no doubt Ralis' were too.
Midna appeared in the air as soon as she was able to leave Link's shadow, and she wrapped her prehensile hair around the two of them. Ralis and Link were pushed up against one another while surrounded by shadow, the room around them partly visible through her transparent hair. She lifted them up and out of the turbulent water, floating up until she hovered above the square top of the pillar, where she gently deposited them.
Ralis immediately let go of the clawshot trigger, which caused the loose chain to flail around alarmingly as it reeled in, and then the clawshot itself thumped into Link's back painfully. When the Hylian angrily glared over his shoulder at the young Zora, Ralis shrank back slightly and let the clawshot dangle from the Link's belt, mouthing the word "sorry" since the rushing water made it too loud for them to talk. Link sighed and nodded his head, his anger evaporating. They were both tired, and after how many times Ralis had saved him, he couldn't be angry with the young Zora for foolishly reeling in the clawshot just now. He shifted it around to hang more at his hip instead of at the small of his back.
Midna hovered not too far away, her face unreadable. He knew that she had wanted to help during the fight against the eel, but had no way of doing so. Her little wisecrack had also caused him to become tangled in the tentacles of the monster, something she had felt guilty about. Link tugged down the damp mask of his armor and gave her a smile, hoping that she would understand he was happy with her for simply carrying them up here. Her red eye fixed on him for a moment, but she did not smile back. He found his own smile fading when she moved to sit down on the edge of the pillar with her back to them, facing the water that rushed out the hole.
He decided to leave her be, and looked up at the long chamber that stretched some seven stories above them to consider their predicament. There was no way they could swim up now, and the clawshot did not have hundreds of feet of chain. He saw some flashes of color that he didn't remember being up near the top floors, and then he saw more distinct movement. There were four Zora moving along the edges of the top and bottom floors, the white-scaled one clearly visible as he climbed down a ladder that went all the way down to the bottom floor. The blue Zora on the top floor cupped his hands to his mouth to shout something, and a helmeted head and crimson shoulders leaned over one of the railings situated around the bottom floor. Captain Jorvan waved at them with one long arm.
Link stood and waved both his arms at the Zoras and gave a little laugh, grateful that they were there. He had told them not to come in until dawn, and so it was likely that the three of them were in the temple until daybreak. They had trusted him and followed his instructions, even though they had their doubts. The Zoras were on his side just as much as the Gorons, and he grinned up at them with his hands on his hips, watching as they worked to figure out a way down.
It took about another twenty minutes for the rest of the water to drain past the body of the dying eel, which had been laying there wounded while its gills feebly worked. The hole in the wall led to a limestone cavern, which was part of the large cave complex that the prince had mentioned, and explained where all that water could have possibly went. Ralis watched the progress of the temple guardians as they connected a series of chain ladders to make their way down to the bottom, but Link watched Midna instead. The imp was silent, eyes on the gray and red eel as it weakly flopped its tail, close to death. She had sat there watching the eel and the water the entire time, idly kicking her legs but not moving otherwise.
He knew why she was behaving so strangely. The last piece of the Fused Shadows was hers just as soon as the eel died, and then she would be ready to face Zant. He didn't know her relationship with Zant or where they came from, but she took her duty to defeat the King of Shadows very seriously. Even so, she probably was intimidated by what she had to do. He certainly was.
The eel's tail stilled, its gills giving a few more struggling gasps as it reached its end. Finally, the monstrosity turned as black as night and dissolved into black squares, the shapes shooting towards a central focal point to form into the last piece of the dangerous relic. Midna blurred, rocketing forward in a mass of black orbs that coalesced into her imp form next to the Fused Shadows. Her dark hair wrapped around it before it fell into the water and she held it at length to stare at it.
The water was shallow enough that it wasn't going to sweep them into the cavern beyond the wall, so Link jumped down from the pillar, thumping into the sodden sand on all fours. Ralis did the same and landed next to him in a standing pool of water with a splash. The two of them walked around the pillar in order to see the small shadowy creature and the relic fragment.
Midna was immobile. She hovered in the air, prehensile hair grasping the carved stone fragment in front of her. Frowning in concern, Link made his way across the wet sand towards her, and what he saw made him slow to a stop about a dozen feet away. The long hair let go and the last piece of the Fused Shadows vanished, and something began to change in Midna. The imp's transparent body of shadows grew opaque, a form of pure inky black, and motes of shadow rose from her skin like sparks from a flame. She looked down at her hands and they began to tremble.
"Midna? Are you all right?" he ventured, unsure of what the completed Fused Shadows was doing to her. He took a few tentative steps closer, but did not reach out to touch her.
Midna stared at her hands, her small chest rising and falling quickly as she breathed heavily. The small floating bits of shadow continued to rise off of her, and he could see that not only her hands were shaking, but so was her entire body. The little imp clenched her hands into fists, and ever so briefly runes of amber flashed on her arms.
She let out a small gasp and turned her head to make eye contact with him. He couldn't see her features; the darkness that had taken over her body had blurred them to the point where he couldn't tell what her facial expression was. Her one red-on-yellow eye stood out though, the one last thing that was able to express how she was feeling.
It was full of fear. Midna was afraid.
Author's note: This chapter drags, so it is going to get a rewrite at some part. While Link figuring out how to use Courage is important, the water sections are dull.
