Chapter 14: The Akkala Region
The rain poured constantly as the party rode towards the Akkala Region. They followed the roads and the road signs and they eventually made it to a fork in the road. One of the roads had a large bridge that lead to a fortress, and the other road went downhill towards a field with trees and a few houses dotted about. The party followed the road downhill and rode passed the houses across the large field. Poump took out his Slate to look at the map of the area. "There's a town called Tarrey Town just south from here." Poump said. "If we want answers, we might want to go there."
"I agree, let's go over there." The Sheikah said. The party rode the horses south. They eventually saw a small town in a circular area with the only way of travel to it by a land bridge. They crossed the land bridge and got off of their horses in Tarrey Town. Most of the inhabitants of the village were indoors, except for one Goron child who was jumping in a water puddle, and a rather muscular Hylian with a big belly and a Gerudo who were underneath an overhang to their house. The party walked up to them.
"Excuse me, would you have happened to hear about a Skull Kid around here?" Poump asked the Hylian and the Gerudo.
"A Skull Kid? I don't even know what that is!" The Hylian responded.
"Wait a moment, are you the Monster Squad?" The Gerudo asked.
"Why yes, how did you know?" Poump was confused as to how this Gerudo knew about them.
"The Queen told us about a group of people assisting her with her mission. It consisted of a Hylian, a Sheikah Warrior, and a Zora. Looks like there are two Hylians here, so that must mean you guys found another friend to tag along with you. You even have a Sheikah Slate on your waist, and only rich folks or people that work under Zelda have one of those. All the evidence points to all of you being the Monster Squad that she talked about. We're even good friends with Link, who is a part of this squad. You've met Link, right?"
"Yeah, we have." Poump replied.
"Nice. Without that man, our lives wouldn't be the same." The Gerudo said and then she and the Hylian kissed each other in the lips without any regard for the party watching them. They stopped kissing. "Say, Link told us to prepare the area around this town for keeping hold of a bunch of monsters. He says it has to do with Zelda's plan. We'll be ready to do anything for Link, even if it means keeping a hold on a bunch of foul monsters near our town."
"Actually, that reminds me, would you happen to know where monsters would live?" Poump asked.
"If you asked us this 9 years ago we would answer correctly. Right now, it's a blind guess." The Hylian said. "We have never seen a single monster in a long time, so you're going to need to ask someone else about the monsters. For as far as we're concerned, we will just be holding them for a while."
"Alright then, thanks anyway. Know of any place where we could ask for some more information about Akkala?"
"Directly North of here if you follow the road, you will find the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab. That would be a good place to get more information at."
"Alright, thank you. What are your names?" Poump asked.
"My name is Hudson." The Hylian said.
"And I am Rhodson." The Gerudo stated.
"And my name is Poump. Take care." Poump waved goodbye to them. They waved back. Poump looked at the Goron child jumping into the puddles. A vein appeared on his head.
"You're becoming a respectable public speaker, Poump." The Sheikah said.
"I guess I am." Poump responded. The party rode their horses up North across the large fields of the Akkala Region. The rain continued. They eventually passed by a stable on the road. They quickly stopped by to buy some supplies and then they continued riding forward. They reached a building that looked quite interesting. It had a large telescope pointed out to the ocean beyond the cliffs. There was a Guardian patrolling the area, but it had a blue eye, so it was fine. The party put their horses in an area under a roof and walked up to the door and passed some blue flames.
"I hope Robbie recognizes me." The Sheikah knocked on the door. Someone answered.
"Hello who is it-" the person behind the door paused. "Warrior! It's you! Come in!" The door opened. A short guy wearing a weird set of goggles observed the party. "Wow, it's been so long since I last saw you Warrior! And I see you have some friends along."
"Yes, this is my friend Poump, a Zora, and Tipa. Would you happen to have any knowledge about what's happening with Tipa? A purple eye flew into a cucco and turned it into this Hylian with horns on their head."
"Intriguing!" Robbie scuttled towards a large bookshelf area. "Jerrin! Can you find a book with knowledge about Malice! I think we've found a discovery!" A female Sheikah slid down a ladder.
"Discovery? About Malice?!" Jerrin replied.
"Yes! Can you believe it?!" Robbie and Jerrin grabbed each others hands and jumped for joy, although Robbie was slightly being carried because Jerrin was much taller than him. Jerrin looked through all of the 100s of books on the shelf. Robbie pulled a bed out of the wall. "Let's have Tipa rest on this." Tipa was guided onto the bed. Robbie pulled out a small device that scanned Tipa's body. "So it appears the Malice went entirely inside her bloodstream. Observe her hair. Notice how some of it is red and the rest of it is white?"
"Yes."
"This is because her blood, which is tainted with Malice, is accumulating into her hair, causing the red pigmentation. Jerrin, you're writing this down, right?"
"Right!" Jerrin was writing in a notebook.
"What is extremely interesting about this, is that whenever the Malice used to bond with another being, it would always latch onto them on the outside, so the fact that it's inside of the bloodstream is entirely new in our findings!" The device beeped. "What's this?" Robbie observed it some more. "A cucco?! This girl was a cucco beforehand?!"
"Yeah, apparently whatever this malice is was inside of a person that we killed, and it immediately chose to possess the cucco that was traveling with us." The Sheikah elaborated.
"Is there anyway we can turn her back into a cucco?" The Zora asked.
"Not that I would know of. This is way too new of a finding. I will contact Purah, another scientist like myself who lives in Hateno Village. She runs her own Tech Lab around there. We will collaborate on this research and see if we can find a way to harmlessly remove the malice from Tipa. That is if it is possible at all."
Tipa silently shook her head. She didn't like the idea of becoming a cucco again. She now had the ability to hold things with thumbs and she had just become accustomed to walking.
"One more thing. The Malice will erupt every 3 days and will transform Tipa into a ferocious Lynel. There is no telling how much sense Tipa could have as a Lynel, so be careful. Perhaps her progress could be linked with how her hair looks." Robbie put the device away. "So, do you have any more questions?"
"Yes actually, I would like to know if you happened to see a Skull Kid around the Akkala Region." Poump asked.
"A Skull Kid?" Robbie said. "I have no idea what a Skull Kid is, but there is a place just off to the West of here called Skull Lake. That would be the best place to find whoever this Skull Kid is. I advise you don't go yet. How many days has it been since Tipa gained the Malice?"
"Just one day." The Zora said.
"Here, if you sleep here in the Tech Lab, that will get another day out of the way. Then tomorrow, if you happen to find whatever Skull Kid you're looking for, Tipa will awaken in her Lynel form and can probably fight them for you! Hopefully by tomorrow this rain will stop."
"Sounds like a plan." Poump said.
The party spent the night in the Tech Lab. The sleeping area was very cramped, but comfortable enough for each of the party members to sleep at. Poump was awake looking at the fairy in the bottle. "When will you get me out of this bottle you big buffoon?" The fairy screamed.
"When we can trust you to not fly away. If you fairies can cure death, it would be really nice to have you around in case one of us dies." Poump replied. "Say, what's your name?"
"My name is Tatl." The fairy said. "I've been separated from the Great Fairy that overlooked me. That weirdo Kilton snatched me up and put me up for sale."
"Sounds awful." Poump replied with a sarcastic tone.
"Tell me about it. It is so embarrassing being stuffed in a glass bottle and being unable to move around for so long."
"Let's make a deal. If I release you out of this bottle, you promise that you won't leave us until one of us dies and you revive us?"
Tatl made a face that didn't look very convincing. "Yes I will stay by you until one of you die."
"That wasn't a very convincing face, Tatl." Poump replied. "I'll free you from this bottle tomorrow."
"No! No no no no no!" Tatl kicked around the bottle and tired herself out. She fell asleep and so did Poump.
The next day the party looked out the window from the tech lab. It was still raining. "Try to call Zelda, Poump. Update her on what's happened so far." The Zora asked.
"Alright, I'll try." Poump prepared to call Zelda. Instead of Zelda, someone else ended up picking up. It appeared to be an upside down Zora.
"Oh my, who are you people and why are you upside down?" The Zora on the other side said.
"Prince Sidon?!" The Zora replied.
"Oh my goodness, if it isn't Uten!" Sidon said. "How have you been? I haven't seen you in weeks!"
"I've been doing well, Sidon." Uten replied. "I'm working with Queen Zelda. By the way, you wouldn't happen to know what happened with Zelda, right?"
Sidon looked down. "She's been passed out for a day. She just screamed so loudly that it almost deafened everyone in Zora's Domain." The camera awkwardly moved to show Zelda sleeping on a bed in Zora's Domain. They noticed that Link was sitting beside her.
"Zelda was in Zora's Domain? She said she would go to Lurelin Village." Uten said.
"She told you that? She went here, to Zora's Domain. She said there was a siege at Hyrule Castle so she decided to come here." Sidon replied.
"That's kind of shady." The Zora said under her breath. The idea that Zelda lied to them about where she would be going made Uten feel uneasy. "Is there any way you can wake her up?"
"We tried everything. She's just been sleeping away for the past day." Sidon replied.
"Alright then. Thank you for updating us, Sidon." Uten said.
"Nice to see you're alright. Now how do I turn this thing off?" Sidon looked at the Slate very confused. Uten turned the Slate off.
"Since that's over with, let's head over to Skull Lake." Poump said. "I don't want to waste any time trying to find Hilda."
"And the monster colony." The Sheikah added. "By the way, Zora, your name was Uten the whole time?"
"Yes." Uten replied. "I didn't like people saying that name a lot. Since you guys have heard it, I guess it's fine you refer to me as Uten from now on."
"I think it's a great name." The Sheikah said. "Don't feel ashamed."
Uten felt a lot better. "Thank you Sheikah Warrior."
The party went downstairs to the door of the tech lab. Robbie was down there messing with something mechanical. "Oh hey there! I didn't get the chance to introduce you to Cherry! It's a robot I made that is capable of dispensing ancient technology. There's even a model of Cherry that is in Hyrule Castle. It recycles ancient parts from Guardians and turns them into weapons or armor. If you ever have ancient parts, you can give them to a Cherry unit in order to gain some guardian wares!"
"Very nice knowledge. We don't have ancient parts, but we will bring some here if we ever find any." The Sheikah said.
"Good to know. See you later adventurers!" Robbie said and he started looking in a book.
The party walked outside. It was still raining a lot. They heard something in the distance. "HEEEEYYYY!" A skinny Hylian man wearing red short shorts and a large backpack was running towards the group. "I have two letters. One is addressed to a Sheikah Warrior, and the other one is to Poump." The mailman handed them their letters. "I have other letters I need to deliver, so I have served my duty. Hup!" The mailman turned around and ran away into the distance. Poump looked at his letter. It was addressed from Roldi.
"Dear Poump. I want to thank you for assisting us with defeating Aghanim. It came with great losses, but what we did was important for the future of Hyrule. Who knows how bad Hyrule could've been under his jurisdiction for a full month. As the General of the Castle, I will announce you as a soldier for Hyrule once you come back to the Castle. However, I won't allow you into the Castle Walls until Hilda is found. Signed, Roldi."
The Sheikah opened up his letter. It was addressed from Paya in Kakariko Village.
"Dear Zhago. Impa has fallen really ill. You should come by Kakariko Village sometime soon. We don't know how much time she has left. We've also noticed that some of our crops have started withering. Please come by as soon as you can. From, Paya." The Sheikah didn't like that Paya directly referred to him by his name. This meant it was a serious matter, and it involved Impa as well.
"I need to go to Kakariko Village." The Sheikah said.
"No, you can't. We need you to help us with finding Hilda and the monster colony." Uten said.
The Sheikah looked very worried. "I guess I can stay with you for now. We should carry ourselves over to Skull Lake."
The party rode their horses across the Akkala fields and eventually found themselves at a large hole in the ground. There was a rock spire that was elevated above the hole. It even appeared that there was a blue Shrine on top of it. The party looked down the hole. The rain fell down into what looked like an unknown abyss. It had been raining so much that a small waterfall had formed in an area off to their right. "Hey Poump, would that fairy happen to help us with scouting out the bottom of this hole?" Uten said.
"I'll see." Poump said. He brought the bottle up, with Tatl inside. "Hey, Tatl."
"What is it?" Tatl said.
"We might need you to help us right now."
"Did someone die?" Tatl responded.
"No, not yet." Poump replied with a light chuckle.
"Oh man, that sucks."
"No no no, we need you to scout out the area down there." Poump said to Tatl. He pointed her to the endless abyss.
"You want me to fly down there?" Tatl said.
"Yes. We want you to see if there is anything of importance at the bottom of the hole, so that way we don't trap ourselves while we're down there."
"Okay. So you'll free me then?" Tatl said.
"Yes."
"Can I stay out of this bottle for the rest of my time with you?"
"Sure, just don't go flying off."
"Alright then. Open it up." Tatl said.
Poump opened up the bottle and Tatl flew out. She looked down the abyss. "Now go down there."
Tatl didn't like the idea of going there and getting caught, but it was all she could do for them. "Now go." Poump said to Tatl.
"I hope I don't regret this." Tatl flew down the abyss. The yellow light that emanated around her went down and got fainter and fainter until it completely disappeared. The party stood around for a while in the rain.
"Are you sure that the fairy wouldn't have betrayed us?" The Zora said to Poump.
"I hope not. Uten, you're a Zora. What if you dived down there and found Tatl?"
"What if there are sharp rocks at the bottom?" Uten replied.
"The place is called Skull Lake. And it's been raining for a long time. I bet you there's a good amount of water down there."
"You're right. I'll even be able to swim up that small waterfall once I'm down there." Uten prepared to dive. "Here goes." Uten ran off of the edge of the hole and dived straight down into the abyss. She moved so fast through the air that the rain drops moved at the same speed as her falling. After around 30 seconds of falling, she splashed into a body of water. She swam to a small island in the lake that she landed in and looked around. She saw Tatl's faint yellow glow off to the side and followed it. There was a large pile of rocks and Tatl was looking at it. "Alright Tatl, time for us to go." Uten said to Tatl.
"Wait up a moment, there's something behind these rocks." Tatl said as she kept looking at the rocks.
"We need to go back up."
"But!"
"We need to go now." Uten grabbed Tatl and made it to the waterfall and swam right up it. She made it to the top of the waterfall and reunited with the others.
"No sign of anything down there?" Poump said.
"Yup, no sign of anything of worth. Just a pile of rocks down there." Uten replied.
"Wait a moment." Poump felt a vibration from his Sheikah Slate. He picked it up, and Link was calling them.
"Hey Squad. How are you doing? I saw that you were calling Sidon earlier." Link said.
"Yeah. We did." Poump replied.
"You guys might want to know where the monster colony is, right?"
"Yes, we've been trying to find that out. Along with the location of Hilda." Poump quickly regretted saying that. He was so nonchalant about Hilda in front of everyone else that he forgot about keeping her a secret to Link.
"I'm sorry, did you say Hilda?" Link said. "Who's Hilda?"
"Uhm…" Poump was extremely stressed. If it weren't raining, his sweat would be visible. "She is Zelda's daughter." The Sheikah didn't like Poump being so uneasy under pressure like this.
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" Link hung up. In a few short seconds, a blue light appeared on the Shrine on the rock spire. It formed into a person and that person glided down towards the party. It was Link. "You mean to tell me that Zelda had a daughter the whole time and I didn't know?"
"Y-y-y-yeah." Poump was a bit shaken. "She is your daughter as well."
"Oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness oh my goodness." Link repeated to himself. "I'm a father to a Princess. This means that I am a… King. I can't believe she never told me." Link didn't know what to do with himself, so he regained his composure. "What are you guys doing here at Skull Lake?"
"We're trying to find the Skull Kid. We suspect he's around here. He even has Hilda hostage." Poump replied.
"So not only do I have a daughter, but she's also been kidnapped." Link said. He paced around wildly, dangerously close to the slippery edge. "So this Skull Kid says it has Hilda somewhere here in the Akkala Region?"
"Yes." Poump replied.
"There are only two places that I know of here in the Akkala Region that would involve something important like the Skull Kid. Either here at Skull Lake, or at the Akkala Citadel which looks over the Akkala Region. Here's the plan. You guys can stay together and explore one of the areas, while I will explore the other area. Which place do you want to go to?"
"I'd like to go to the citadel." Poump said.
"Me too." Uten said.
"Likewise." The Sheikah said.
"Meat." Tipa muttered.
"So it is settled then." Link said. "I will explore Skull Lake while the lot of you will deal with exploring the Akkala Citadel."
"Alright then. We'll head our way over there." Poump said. The party got onto their horses. Link jumped down into the hole. The party rode their way towards the Akkala Citadel. There was a Sheikah Tower that was also at the Citadel's location, which made it easy to find. The party went uphill and arrived at the fork on the road which lead to the Citadel. They rode up towards it. There were plenty of Hylian soldiers patrolling around the area. They were stopped by a soldier standing in the road. The soldier observed them and noticed that one of them had a Sheikah Slate.
"You may pass." The soldier said and the party rode closer to the Citadel. They parked their horses at an area with cover. The Sheikah noticed that Poump had an item in his bag.
"Is that an Eye of Truth?" The Sheikah said to Poump.
"Yes, it is." Poump replied. "Hilda gave it to me."
"That will be really useful for us if we ever run into anyone disguised as a Yiga. Look around these patrols of guards and see if one of them is a Yiga." The Sheikah instructed Poump to look around the area with them. Poump looked through the Eye of Truth and looked at the patrol of guards. None of them looked different, however there was a single Yiga footsoldier standing next to a door. Poump took the Eye of Truth out of his vision and noticed that the Yiga looked like a regular guard. Poump looked through it again and saw the Yiga walking into the door.
"I found one. Let's follow him." Poump said. The party followed him and they went inside of the door into the room. It was an area with bookshelves on the walls and a table with battle plans written on it. The guard noticed them inside.
"Who are you lot?" The guard said.
"We're here to kill you, Yiga." The Sheikah said.
"Oh blimey, my cover is gone." The guard gave up on the disguise and revealed himself to be a Yiga. Uten, who had been soaking in lots of water from the rain, thrusted her spear at the Yiga, plunging it right through their leg. "AHH!"
"Enough! What are you doing here and do you know anything about Hilda?" Uten said to the Yiga.
"Hilda? I have no clue who you're talking about- AAHHHH!" Uten twisted her spear inside of the Yiga's leg.
"Don't play dumb!" Uten said.
"I actually have no clue who you're talking about!" The Yiga said. "However, Sheikah Warrior." The Yiga looked at the Sheikah in the room. "A curse has fallen onto Kakariko Village. You best be going there right now!"
"I plan on it soon." The Sheikah said and he stabbed the Yiga through the stomach, killing him. "Let's look around the room for any clues."
Poump used the Eye of Truth to look around the room. He noticed a wall disappear, and behind it was a blue circular platform that looked like it was made out of Sheikah tech. "Hey guys, behind the wall." The party followed Poump behind the wall and walked through it. They made it to the platform.
"This is a lift." The Sheikah said. "We can use this to go underground. Wherever that may take us, let's hope it doesn't kill us." The party got onto the lift which managed to fit all 4 of them, and they descended into darkness.