Chapter 9: A Surprise at Rito Village

It was during the middle of the night when Poump woke up and heard something rustling around his bed side. He noticed a strange small figure looking through his bag. "What the?" Poump said aloud, and the small figure quickly jumped at this. The moonlight revealed this strange person had an egg-shaped head.

"WHOA!" The small figure exclaimed with surprise. "I didn't know you were awake!"

Poump drew his sword. "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Oh please don't murder me! I'm just fascinated by the fact that you own a monster part!"

"Huh?" Poump put his sword down.

"I'm sorry for being so rude and not introducing myself. My name is Kilton, and I am the owner of the Fang and Bone! Have you ever heard of it?"

"Fang and Bone? I remember some crazy people talked to me about it, and you seem a lot like one of them."

"Oh-ho-ho, of course! I'm a very crazy Hylian mainly because of my obsession over monsters! I just love them!" Kilton looked down sadly. "However, it seems the monster population is extremely endangered, so I haven't gotten the chance to see many monsters in so long. Up until this night when I was flying around here and I found a whole camp of monsters just sitting outside of this village!"

Poump quickly interrupted with some questions. "Hold up, you can fly? Second up, what exactly is the Fang and Bone?"

"Oh yes! The Fang and Bone is my shop that I own! It's also a hot air balloon, so therefore I can fly to many places! I only ever do this at night time by the way."

"So it's a shop? What items do you sell and for how many rupees?"

"Rupees? Oh that's silly! I use mon as my currency! I sell very unique items like monster masks, ingredients, and special weapons like the Spring-Loaded Hammer!"

"Wait a second, you mean to tell me that you have a whole shop with items and stuff and you only use a special currency for that shop? That's called a monopoly!"

"What? What's a monopoly?" Kilton was confused.

"It's basically when you manage to make a business that's exclusive in it's supply and tra-"

"Okay okay okay okay, I get it. I was never one to listen to politics." Kilton didn't like being questioned this intensely. "I'm not very in tune with society at large, which is why I am such a freak to people." Kilton then banged his large forehead onto a wooden beam, making a loud noise. This woke up the others who were sleeping just fine before hand. The Sheikah noticed Kilton and drew his throwing stars.

"What the heck is that thing, Poump?" The Sheikah said, feeling paranoid.

"He's not a thing, he's a Hylian named Kilton." Poump said quickly. Kilton nodded in agreement.

The Sheikah put his throwing stars away. "Oh. Alright then." Then the Sheikah fell back to sleep without a moment's notice. The Zora was still awake however.

"So, Kilton, why are you here?" The Zora asked as she walked up to him. Kilton was very intimidated by how tall this Zora was. He normally doesn't have many people approach him when he's outside of his shop, and the large spear on the Zora's back didn't help much with making her look friendly.

"Ahh, I'm here because I know you're in possession of a monster part, specifically some Bokoblin Guts."

Poump reached through his bag and pulled out the Bokoblin Guts. "You mean this?"

"Yeess! Precisely! I haven't seen a monster part in my eyes for so long!" Kilton marveled at the sight of it. "For that, I will give you 300 mon to spend at my shop!"

The Zora quickly objected to this. "We can probably get more rupees with this monster part than whatever the heck 'mon' is."

"Wait a moment, but we can get some cool and unique items from his shop if we get some mon from him." Poump replied in support of Kilton.

"Hmm, alright then." The Zora allowed Poump to give the monster part to Kilton.

"Yes!" Kilton said with great enthusiasm as he held the Bokoblin Guts in his hands. He then handed some coins with skulls on them. "Here's 300 mon! If you want to find my shop, it's a hot air balloon with purple lights, and it appears only at night time!"

"Alright, got it." Poump said.

"See you later, friend!" And then Kilton ran swiftly out of Swallow's Roost.

Poump and the Zora decided to sleep for the rest of the night.

The sun started to rise and the cucco noticed. "COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO!" The cucco screamed with great heart. The whole party started waking up at the sound of their feathered companion.

"Good morning!" The Rito who owned Swallow's Roost said with great enthusiasm. "I hope you had a pleasant night!"

"That we did, fair bird." Poump said, "That we did."

The squad had plans for some shopping for the day. They walked through Rito Village to look at what the shops had to offer. There was a marketplace that was selling some food, but the prices were insane for their own sakes. Poump brought out his two apples and his banana from earlier and the party ate away at those while they browsed some more stores.

They eventually arrived at a weaponsmith. The Rito that was working the metal had all white feathers. The party walked into the weaponsmith's shop.

"Hello there travelers. What would you like me to work on?" The Rito said.

"I'd like a wooden spear." The Zora replied. "And a small shield for this cucco."

"Ah, I see. But why would you want a wooden spear? That doesn't work well in water, and you're a Zora."

"Excuse me, wooden spears are very useful for underwater hunting because of how light they are."

"But the wood would get soaked up and would be too heavy for you to use, as well as shrinking down and becoming moldy."

"There are other types of wood that are water resistant. You can use that water resistant wood to make a suitable spear for me."

The Rito had a look of shock. "There's such a thing as water resistant wood?"

"Of course." The Zora said a little bit annoyed.

"Oh damn, I never knew that." The Rito said as he looked down feeling so embarrassed.

"Well what about the small shield?" The Zora said.

"For the cucco? I can make that for you. That will be 50 rupees once it's done."

"Okay, thank you. When will it be finished?"

"In an hour. Come back in that time and I'll give it to you." The Rito said as he started work on the shield.

The party walked out of the weaponsmith's shop. "What a birdbrain, am I right?" The Zora said to the others. "Rito are usually very knowledgeable about different types of weapons and especially different types of wood. What I find even weirder is that Rito have wooden spears, and they usually like fishing with them, so I don't understand how that guy couldn't understand the concept of water resistant wood."

"He didn't seem right to me." The Sheikah added. "Something's off." As they conversed, a female Rito with light pink feathers butted into the conversation.

"Are you speaking about the weaponsmith?" The Rito asked.

"Yes." Poump replied.

"He's my husband, Teba. You say that he's acted strangely, and I understand where you're coming from. Even I have some suspicions about him because he hasn't been acting like himself in the past few weeks." The Rito paused for a bit. "My name is Saki by the way."

"Nice to meet you Saki." The Zora replied. "We'll keep an eye on him."

"Thank you. To make matters even worse, Teba's the appointed Champion of the Rito, which means he has a stake of responsibility to hold onto. I hope you guys figure this out."

"We will." The Sheikah replied. The party continued walking around the town and noticed Link standing on one of the landing pads talking to Selmie. Poump recognized this as the large landing pad with the familiar emblem.

Poump interrupted Link and Selmie's conversation. "Hey Link, do you know what this emblem on the landing pad means? I remember seeing it somewhere before."

"This emblem on the floor? Ah yes, this is the Rito Emblem. You remember seeing it somewhere before because it's design can be seen on paragliders, which Hylians can use to glide across large distances, simulating a Rito's ability to fly." Link paused for a moment. "This is also the famous landing pad of my old Rito friend Revali. Revali's Landing, that's what this pad is called." Link looked out into the horizon. "Man, I miss him and the others so much." Link stood there silently looking out to the mountains.

Selmie turned around to Poump. "You touched a really sensitive subject with him. I don't blame you, you're a curious person it seems, but try not to ask him too many questions."

"Oh, alright." Poump said, although he didn't feel bad at all about asking the question. The party walked around the village a little bit more until they all of a sudden heard a loud.

"HEEEEYYYY!" A skinny man wearing short shorts and wearing a backpack full of letters ran right up to the party. "Queen Zelda told me to deliver this to the lot of you!" The man reached into his backpack and handed them a letter, with a wallet attached. "Alright, off to more deliveries." And then the mailman ran away.

The Sheikah opened up the letter and read it.

"Thank you for accomplishing such a difficult task for me. You still have two more monster colonies to deal with. I will reward you greatly for dealing with all of them. Here's 10,000 rupees for your efforts. Signed, QUEEN ZELDA."

The party looked into the wallet and found 10,000 rupees in it.

"Well it looks like we're winning big today!" The Zora said.

"Yup. Let's keep this up." Poump added.

The party went back to Teba at the weaponsmith shop. "Hey there, Teba. Are you finished with that shield?" The Zora asked.

"Why yes. Give me 50 rupees." The Zora handed Teba 50 rupees. "Here you go." Teba handed the small shield to the Zora. "And you know what else I'll finish?"

"What was that?" The Zora said feeling a bit flustered.

"You!" And then Teba's feathers turned red. The Sheikah noticed that the Rito was now wearing a uniform that had the mark of the Yiga on it. The Rito jumped out of the shop and flew around. He pulled out a bow. The Rito knocked an arrow and almost hit the Zora.

The Sheikah brought out his own bow. "Get to cover!" He screamed. A bunch of Rito noticed the commotion happening and flew away panicked. The enemy Rito shot a double batch of arrows into the shop.

Poump looked outside at the flying Rito, who was now flying below the shop. "I'm gonna do this!" He said as he freefalled out of the shop and landed onto the Rito.

"AAHH!" The Rito said with surprise as they both plummeted down closer and closer to the water below the village. "You'll kill yourself!"

"That's what I'm planning!" Poump said, although he misheard what the Rito said. He thought the Rito said 'You'll kill the both of us.'

"Fine by me, then!" And then the Rito broke free from Poump's grip and flew back up. Poump was still in a free fall. He saw his life flash before his eyes at the dizzying scenery surrounding him. Just as he was about to hit the water, a Rito came and grabbed him from out of the air.

"Hold on, you big dumb dumb!" The Rito said to Poump.

Meanwhile with the party, they were still pinned down by the hostile Rito's onslaught of arrows. The hostile Rito eventually reached for a different type of arrow. The Sheikah knocked another arrow and looked out from behind cover only to find out that a bomb arrow was headed their way. The explosion went off and nearly killed the Zora, the Sheikah, and the cucco. Clinging onto his own life, the Sheikah pulled out another arrow and managed to make it hit the Rito. The Rito landed back into the weaponsmith shop, touching his wound.

"I'll finish you off properly right now." The Rito pulled out a spear and prepared to stab the Sheikah dead, but an electric arrow went right into the Rito. "AAAHHH!" The Rito was electrocuted and dropped his weapon. The electrocution stopped and the Rito looked around and then quickly teleported away. The party members looked up and saw that Link was holding a bow. He walked right up to them and made them down some health potions.

"That was insane! How could something like that happen?!" Link said as he investigated the area. Poump was dropped off by the Rito that saved him. "People who work for the Yiga Clan are usually people who were indoctrinated into believing that the Yiga's purpose is right. The bulk of the Yiga forces are former Sheikah clan members and Hylians, so the fact that a Rito can be a Yiga clansman is so strange."

The Sheikah was done with healing. "What do you think caused the Rito to become a Yiga assassin?"

"That's a very good question." Link replied. "I'll do some investigating. You guys can do whatever you want. Oh, and by the way, since you're here, buy some paragliders. They're really useful. The store is at a higher level."

"Alright, thank you Link." The Sheikah said.

"No problem." Link continued his investigation.

The party walked past a crowd of Rito that were looking at the site of the explosion. They continued walking until they made it to a store at a higher level of the village. "Hello there!" The Rito said. "Something wild just happened down there and I heard that a Hylian fell off of the village."

"That's me." Poump said.

"Oh dang." The Rito said. "Well it looks like you deserve a paraglider. That'll be 100 rupees each."

"Deal." The Sheikah said as he handed the Rito 400 rupees.

"Why would you need 4 paragliders?" The Rito asked.

"Because of the cucco in our party." The Zora said as she picked up the cucco.

"Oh, uh, you do know that cucco's can glide on their own, right?" The Rito replied.

"Oh, I didn't know that." The Zora replied.

"I'm humoring her." The Sheikah replied. "Besides, this cucco is wearing chainmail armor, so it won't be able to glide on it's own."

"Well you could just keep the armor on someone else and let the cucco glide on it's own." The Rito replied. "Oh well, 400 rupees is 400 rupees. Have fun." The party collected their paragliders. The Rito said under his breath, "What a bunch of nutcases."

The party made it to Revali's Landing. The Zora equipped the paraglider onto the cucco. They all collectively ran off of the landing pad and glided down. The wind blew past them with a gentle breeze. Some Rito even decided to fly beside them. One of them was Kass! Kass saluted the adventurers and flew off with the rest of the Rito.

They landed next to a stable just outside of Rito Village. The glide was very exhilarating for the whole team. Poump noticed a stable worker cutting away at a tree with a Woodcutter's Axe. The tree cutter noticed their landing. "That was amazing!"

"Thanks fatass." Poump said rather rudely.

The tree cutter was actually very muscular. "Hey, that's not very nice. I worked for these guns!"

"Don't mind him." The Sheikah said. "What's your name?"

"Ponthos!" The man replied. "My name is Ponthos, and I've been working here at this stable as a wood cutter for the past 6 years!"

"Here Ponthos, have this." The Sheikah handed Ponthos 200 rupees.

\ "Ah, thank you so much stranger!"

"I know hard work when I see it." The Sheikah replied.

"Great! I will put these rupees to good use." Ponthos said as he pocketed the rupees.

The party walked towards the stable. "You need to learn to be less rude to people, Poump." The Zora said to him.

"I don't like other people that I haven't met before. What if that guy was a Yiga?" Poump said.

"If he was a Yiga, he probably would've killed you in a second." The Sheikah said. The party looked back at Ponthos, who continued chopping wood. Eventually a Hylian Retriever ran right up to him and he started petting the dog with great enthusiasm.

"He wouldn't hurt a fly." The Zora said.

"Whatever. I'm not trusting anyone we see anymore." Poump replied.

"Well we're getting our horses and we'll be off." The Sheikah replied. He pulled out the Ocarina and whistled Malon's Melody, which summoned their previous horses. The Sheikah put his own horse into the stable and traded it for his new horse, same with Poump.

The party rode off through the Tabantha Frontier. They decided that they would visit Hyrule Castle Town, so they set their sights on going there. The horses galloped through the serene territory. There were fields of wheat grass all around, and the party wasn't too offended to stop and make their horses eat some of the grass along the way.