Link's Awakening

Chapter Five: The Tail Cave

I was pretty nervous about stepping through that door into the underground… whatever that place was supposed to be. In Hyrule a place like that would probably have been used for smugglers or bandits to hide their loot, but there were no signs of recent activity that I could see upon inspection of the first room. Dirt and rock were the only things I could smell inside of the finely carved stone sanctuary, but there were no footprints other than mine in the thick layer of dust on the floor… so I couldn't help wondering where the music I heard had come from.

Like there had been in the entrance stairway, small holes had been punched in the ceiling at regular intervals, allowing sunlight to filter down into the different rooms and corridors of this place… of course, that also meant that it would be impossible to see once the sun went down, so the exploration of the sanctuary couldn't take too long. So far, though, as the young man moved from room to silent room, all he found were some boxes that had been ransacked a long time ago, as well as… now what the hell was this?

Inside of the third or fourth room that he checked while headed down the main corridor, there were some skeletal remains of a small creature that looked like it walked on all fours, with a large spikey shell on its back like an overly aggressive turtle of some kind. The remains were collapsed in the corner, while black scorch marks were burned into the walls and floor immediately around it, like the creature had been burned intensely by something. However, like with everything else in this place, both the remains and the scorch marks were covered in dust, so none of this was recent.

Although the remains were old, they were by no means unique, since Link began to discover more and more of them as he explored deeper into the underground sanctuary, and all of them were in the same condition, burned intensely where they were. At first the young man thought that all these creatures had been caught in some kind of fire that spread through the sanctuary and just torched everything, but if that were the case, why were the burn marks only around the creatures and nowhere else? No, it was more likely that something had marched its way through every room and targeted them specifically… but what?

Back in Hyrule, Link would have thought that a cave-dwelling Gleeok could have been responsible, but those three headed dragons were extremely rare, and from what he heard about them from his father, the flame blasts would have been a lot less precise. Now he was getting frustrated, since he knew that the music had come from this place, but so far there was literally nothing of any use down there. Taking a moment to listen just in case that music was still playing, the young man was greeted with nothing but silence, and that made him so angry that he kicked at a larger pile of remains… only to cry out in pain and surprise when something stabbed into his foot.

No, it wasn't stabbing him… when the bones of the dead creatures were scattered from the kick, one of them didn't fly apart; growling from the sudden disturbance and then biting down onto his boot with a set of teeth that were very sharp. Snarling and shaking like an angry wolf, the spiked, turtle thing bit down with all its strength while Link tried to kick it away. Since the young man was already off balance, his attempts to kick the creature, combined with his other foot being pulled backwards, caused him to fall on his back, but at least now it was easier to kick the creature.

Eventually freeing himself, the young man desperately scooted away while the surviving turtle creature scurried after him, growling and snarling as it chomped its teeth. Link grabbed a bone from one of the other creatures and tossed it at his pursuer, but the spiked turtle just caught it in its mouth, before tossing it away to keep up the chase. He kicked at the creature's face each time it gained on him, but nearly end up with his boot caught again, so the young man crawled behind a large statue, scooting his way around it in order to put enough distance between himself and the creature for him to get up.

The statue helped with that, too, giving Link something to grab onto in order to help him stand, and then he swung his shield at the creature, catching it in the side of the head with a loud whack just as it was coming around. Unlike the kicks it had taken, the spiked turtle seemed to actually feel the blow from the metal shield, causing it to stumble sideways for a couple steps while tilting its head upward like it was confused. So he kept up the attack, moving forward and striking it across the head with his shield again and again, while getting a small cut on his arm from its shell spikes.

Although the shield hits were driving the creature back, they didn't seem to be actually killing it, and the spiked turtle was still growling and snapping at him each chance it got, so… what happened when his arm got tired? Whack! Whack! Whack! Pulling back and hitting the creature with all his strength, Link would've given anything to have his sword right about now, but the only thing he could find that might be able to stab the spiked turtle was the long rib bone of another one. So after one more hit with the shield, the young man reached down to pick up the bone just as the creature started after him again.

There was no time to swing the shield, so Link thrust the pointed bone at the spiked turtle's face as hard as he could, causing it to go right down the creature's throat when it opened its mouth to bite him. Instead of tossing it aside this time like it had done before, the spiked turtle started coughing as if it were being choked by the bone, and then it eventually fell over sideways after several failed attempts to remove it. Now he just stood there, breathing heavily while keeping the shield raised in a defensive posture just in case the thing came back to life, but thankfully it didn't.

Man… no wonder something came through this place and torched all of them… those things were awful, but right now the young man was just grateful that there had only been one of them. Still, even though he had been victorious, his encounter with the spiked turtle thing had left him with a cut arm and a sore foot, making Link decide to leave the sanctuary, at least until he was a little better equipped to face whatever else might have been still lurking down there. Turning to head back toward the surface, he had only taken a couple steps when that same music reached his ears, once again coming from deeper inside this place, making him grit his teeth with anger.

"Damn it, who the hell is doing that?!" He called loudly, his voice echoing as he boldly marched deeper into the sanctuary. "You think this is funny?! Huh?! Well, you better show yourself right the hell now, or else I'm gonna take whatever instrument you're playing that on, and I'm gonna shove it right up your…

Angrily stomping his way around the corner, and descending another carved staircase as his anger at being led around grew to the point where he didn't care if there was another spiked turtle waiting for him, the young man passed through the archway into a much larger, open chamber, where something big was just sitting there in the center. At first it looked like just a mass of tan colored nothing, but then a large pair of compound eyes opened toward the top, and Link's anger faded when it's sectioned, almost snake-like body started to uncoil.

"What… outsider?!" It growled between the clicks and buzzing that accompanied its high pitch voice. "Outsider… yes, outsider… kill outsider!"

Suddenly the spiked turtle didn't seem so bad as this monster scurried around the room in a quick circle as if making a survey, its multiple legs rapidly tapping across the stone floor while its large mandibles snapped open and closed. Then it spun around one more time before coming right at him, and Link did the only logical thing he could think of… he ran for his life. With only the small shield to protect himself, and unwilling to try kicking this monster away since one of its mandibles was bigger than his foot, the young man ran out of the chamber and sprinted back up the stairs, hoping that its body would be too big to fit between the narrow walls.

Unfortunately, this was not the case, and the creature just had to slow down a little in order to squeeze itself through, but it did allow the young man to put some distance between them. Turning left and ducking through the first doorway that he came to, Link went around the doorframe and pressed himself up against the wall as flat as he could, hoping that the monster would simply continue down the corridor so that he could have enough time to come up with… some way to keep himself alive.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap, the monster's tiny legs got louder as it approached, but then the young man had to put his hand over his mouth to keep from letting out a loud sigh of relief that probably would have led it right to him. Okay, the monster went off in a different direction, meaning that Link had some time to figure things out… the only problem was that in going past him in that direction, the monster had blocked the path back to the surface, so a simple escape was no longer an option. Somehow he figured that shoving a rib bone into the thing's mouth wasn't going to cut it this time, and the young man couldn't just stay where he was, so he took a risk by quietly creeping back out into the corridor.

So far there was no sign of the monster, but its tracks could be seen in the dust, so Link took another path, moving silently through another empty room and into its connecting hallway. Back on the surface, the sun must have moved a bit, because the light coming in through the holes in the ceiling wasn't as bright as it was before, and that almost caused him to step right into a dark hole where the floor was missing just before the corridor stopped at a dead end. Well, it wasn't exactly a dead end, since there was a ladder going down into the darkness, but the young man didn't fancy heading down into a place with even less light than…

"Outsider!" The monster's voice screamed, clicking and buzzing as it approached. "Kill… kill outsider!"

Suddenly the darkness didn't seem so bad, so the young man got onto the ladder, and climbed down to the lower level as fast as he could, with the monster following close behind.