Sorry, I think this is late again. Though, I'm pretty sure that with the looser posting schedule I've somehow fallen into, (every three weeks or so) it's on time, but by my original posting schedule (every other week) it's late. Huh. Not much to say about this chapter, except that when I first played through I hated the chilfos (stupid ice spears!) and was completely freaked out by Blizzeta. Seriously, the animation for when she transforms is freaky. For those of you who've played that part of the game, you know what I mean.

HUGE THANKS to ultima-owner and alemery for reviewing!

Disclaimer: How many times must I say this? I don't own LoZ. Am I allowed to just post a mass disclaimer on my profile or something? I've seen some authors do that, but I don't know if the site admins with get mad at me or something if I do that and not put disclaimers in my stories. Hm. Anyway, enjoy!


The first word that came to mind as I examined the once-grand entrance hall was "dilapidated." It was clear that the house had once been large and fancy, judging by the moth-eaten carpet formerly thick and plush as well as the faded portrait of a stern-looking nobleman. The dusty chandeliers must have cost thousands of rupees, and the railings for the stairways that led to the upper floor were metal and smelted into somewhat old-fashioned intricate curls and twists- not designs you'd see in the house of a commoner. The stairs were even carpeted in what must have been rich velvet with gold trim before the elements and time wore them down to tatters of threadbare fabric.

All in all, it was as if it had been once grand, but over time had fallen from grace. It's original owners must have abandoned it long ago, leaving it free for the yeti couple to claim. Though I wondered whether the original owners had vacated it before or after Yeto and Yeta showed up…

Almost the moment we stepped foot inside the entry hall, the distinctive clicking sound of a poe was heard and an eerie blue lantern bobbed in the air directly in front of us. Dark swiftly transformed, growling at it angrily. He wasn't particularly fond of them, no doubt due to the way one of them had once nearly taken his head off when we were younger in the dark back alleys of Castle Town. It was really only through sheer luck that I was able to kill it with a well-placed bomb, considering that neither of us had actually been able to see it at the time.

As we continued on deeper into the mansion, once we stepped into the room just beyond the foyer we were met with the other inhabitant, Yeto's wife, Yeta. She was much more petite than her husband, and was wrapped in some sort of armless sweater so that her body looked round like an oval while her feet stuck out at the bottom and her head popped out of the top. She was sitting in a chair next to the fireplace, warming herself by the flames.

When she saw us, Yeta began to speak in somewhat broken Hylian. "...Who? Uh… Sorry... I have sickness, uh… Come closer, uh? Uh, wait... I tell you something. You cute little human. Husband told me you come. You want to look at mirror, uh? My husband found it, but it pretty thing, uh. But...since I get mirror, I get sick, and then bad monsters appear... So many bad things happen since mirror… So we lock bedroom on third floor where it hangs, uh? Wait... I tell you where key is… Fever makes head blurry, but… It probably here in the room marked by this symbol… But right now...can't even get up. Would you bring it to me, uh? Start with door right here… I would go, uh, but so sick… Sorry to be bother, uh…" With that she marked Link's map and turned back to the fire.

Now that I looked more closely I could see where her eyes were slightly glazed with fever, and she was shivering a little despite the thick coat. Poor lady. No wonder Yeto was trying to make her better. Though I don't see how a fish that stinky could make anything tasting remotely good…

Upon entering the room to our left, a strange mixture between reekfish and an unidentified something bombarded our senses, making us glad that we weren't in our animal forms when enhanced senses of smell. If it was this bad as a hylian, how bad would it be as a wolf? I did not want to find out.

The source of the smell was an enormous cauldron bubbling on a raised platform where Yeto was stirring it. It was a strange orangey color with chunks of yellow something (meat…? Vegetable…?) floating in it. There was also the entire reekfish carcass stuffed in whole, not even gutted or cleaned or beheaded. The tail stuck out over the cauldron's rim and the head was pointed at the ceiling, sightless eyes and open mouth striking a slightly creepy pose. It almost looked as if it was screaming before it was stuffed in, since its body was submerged under the liquid. I almost felt sorry for it.

"Uh! You! Wife...look bad, uh? Not healthy since mirror… So I make soup for her. Fish from Zora village are most nutritious! You tired, uh? You have some. It gives you energy! What flavor for soup, uh… Can't decide…" Yeto scrutinized the mixture for a moment before continuing to stir. Link, who had politely refused the offer, slowly backed away and walked a bit faster than usual towards the exit. I didn't blame him.

Just before we exited the kitchen/storage room, however, a loud rattling sound suddenly caught our attention. Its source was a clay pot stashed behind one of the old shelves. I had a sneaking suspicion on who'd gotten herself trapped in there again…

Link sighed and shook his head wearily. "Again? Great Goddesses, this is, what, the fifth time? How does she keep getting into all these pots?" he muttered as he picked it up and smashed it on the floor, freeing Oocca. Again. Wonderful, now we were going to have to cart the crazy cucco lady around.


"Wolfos! In here too? I woulda thought they'd be scared off by Yeto or something!" I barked as we were suddenly surrounded by the pale white-blue wolf monsters. I was quickly learning to hate them from our experiences on the slopes of Snowpeak, their ability to dive straight into snowdrifts making them incredibly annoying to fight.

"Argh! I'm sick of them already!" Vaati snarled as he swiped his claws across one's muzzle, leaving deep gouges. The creature yelped and disappeared into the ground, barely avoiding Vaati's followup blow.

"Then shut up and just kill them already! The faster we do that, the faster we move on!" Dark growled as he snapped a slower one's neck with a heavy blow from his paw. The thick snow forced us to fight in our animal forms, since as hylians all but Vaati sank waist-deep into the powder almost immediately. And it was very, very difficult to fight when you're essentially immobile from the waist down, believe me. Hence the transition from swords and blades to teeth and claws.

I must say, though, there was something strangely… satisfying in ripping your enemy apart with only natural weapons, no blades involved. Hm.


"Hey Dark, catch!" I shouted, swinging my sword like a club to send another one of the mini freezards skimming across the ice. It was fun to bat the little things around, even if they did give you a nasty ice burn when touched. It was similar to one of the games we sometimes played on the icy streets of Castle Town in the wintertime- we'd find some club-like sticks, a rock with a relatively flat bottom, and suitably icy patch of road to whack it around on. It was a great way to pass the time and get your mind off the cold during the winter.

"And- oh, darn, we killed it." Vaati pouted slightly as the poor creature finally suffered one too many hits and exploded into a patch of black dust, effectively killing our game. Our good mood was revived, however, with the arrival of another one, who cautiously poked its head around the corner. All of our heads suddenly whipped around in complete unison and feral grins stretched across our faces.

As one, we all rushed the mini freezard, intent on being the first to ricochet it off the walls and watch it fly across the room.

"CHAAAAARGE!"

I almost felt a brief flash of pity as the little freezard's eyes widened just before we descended on it and was suddenly sent shooting off in a completely random direction, bouncing off walls and zooming around the room. Almost, anyway.


I stared in confusion. Who put a pumpkin the chest where there was supposed to be a key? Yeta must've marked the map wrong or something, 'cause unless they had a very interesting pumpkin-shaped lock, we had the wrong chest.

"What's this? This isn't right! She got the wrong locations. Want to go back and try to get her to remember where the key is?" Midna asked, not waiting for a reply before she dove back down into Link's shadow. Apparently she didn't handle the cold very well.

Once we made our way back to the kitchen, we found Yeto still standing at the pot, stirring the soup. "What flavor… Uh... PUMPKIN! You have pumpkin, uh? Pumpkin, pumpkin, uh! Thanks, uh! You taste if you want! Uh... Needs...more punch, uh! Needs...something."

Yeto scrutinized us carefully, then muttered something about meat. I gulped and backed away, having forgotten that I was still in wolf form. I hoped they didn't eat wolf…

After we'd esca- ahem, exited -the kitchen, we went to go ask Yeta where the real key was.

"You find it, uh? ...What? Pumpkin? But why there? No good, uh... Where I leave it? Uh! Maybe in THAT room. Go to room marked by symbol… Check room I marked on map, uh. Sorry about delay... I want to help, uh…" Then she settled back into the chair and we turned and headed back out into the mansion, hopefully working our way towards the right place this time.

Shoulda known, with our luck…


"AHAHAHA! This thing is awesome!" Dark shouted as he worked the cannon, destroying walls of ice almost a foot thick. I winced. Something told me that my older brother plus a weapon of mass destruction would not be a good idea…

CRASH!

And there went the wall. Oops. Methink he needs to work on his aim a little.

At least he was having fun, though. Even if half the time he ended up taking chunks out of things that most definitely weren't what he'd been aiming for.

BOOM!

Aaand there was now a large chunk of stone missing from doorframe. Whoops.


"Go for the tail! The tail!"

"D*****, there's just not enough room in here! Why the h*** is there such a narrow corridor in this place anyway?!"

"Watch the chain, watch the chain! S***, it's coming back!"

"Nononono no explosions! There's not enough room, we'll get caught in the blast too!"

I snarled in frustration and extinguished the wick, stashing the bomb in a corner where it'd be out of the way. Once again I flew directly upwards, only to run straight into the wire mesh. Who put wire screens in houses on the ceiling like this anyway?! It was incredibly annoying! All four of us plus the darkhammer in one narrow alleyway just didn't work. And it was showing in how we fought. This battle was taking way longer than it should be.

Finally, though, after another twenty minutes we finally managed to organize ourselves and take it down, Link receiving another weapon at the end of the battle- this time the large ball and chain the darkhammer had used against us. Oh the fun we could have with this little treasure… mass destruction, anybody?

As we exited the room, I could have sworn I heard Link cackle gleefully. Heh, maybe we were rubbing off on him after all.


Vaati glared balefully at the object in the chest, tail-tip twitching from side to side in annoyance.

"Cheese," he growled. "Cheese. Why the heck do they have cheese in a chest anyway?"

"And not just any cheese," Link added as he picked up and examined it. "This is Ordon's famous goat cheese, a good quality block if not a bit stale. How'd a giant snow creature get ahold of this? I'm sure somebody would've noticed if he'd just walked in and stolen it. And how'd he get down that far south anyhow? And now that I think about it, wasn't that pumpkin from Ordon too? Just who exactly is this yeti to be able to get his hands on this stuff, especially considering that he's not exactly easy to miss?"

Dark just sighed and shook his head. "Honestly, I don't know and at this point I don't care. I am cold, tired, and hungry, so let's just go and find the real key this time. Heck, I'll even try that gross soup if nothing else is there," he said, muttering the last sentence under his breath but just loud enough for us to hear.

Great. Now he was making the rest of us hungry.

Midna, who had decided to reveal herself after letting us do all the work and once again come to dead end, was not pleased. "Aw, food AGAIN?! Yeah, I had a bad feeling about this. She didn't seem very sure of herself… Oh well… Let's head back and hope she had some other brilliant idea."

Yay. And the scavenger hunt continues. This next one better be it...


"What happened, uh? ...What?! Cheese… Uh... Did husband move it? Uh... Where in world did we put it… Sorry, I need thinking time, uh. Take cheese to husband, uh? You do that, I try to remember… Uh, sorry... Still no remember where bedroom key is. You take cheese to husband first. You do that, I try to remember…" Yeta turned away and stared into the fire, for all appearances thinking hard.

Her husband, on the other hand, was overjoyed at our latest find. "Uh… Needs… more punch, uh! Uh... WHAT?! GOOD SMELL! What you have, uh?! Mmm! Perfect ingredient, uh! Little more time on fire, it become gourmet soup, uh! Here! Taste, uh! Mmm! Smells good, uh! Wife feel better when she drink this."

Yeto shoved a massive ladle under our noses and gestured for us to taste some. By now after we'd trekked all over the enormous mansion in the freezing cold, fighting monsters nearly every step of the way, we were all pretty hungry. So we each stuck a finger in and tasted.

"Whoa! This is actually pretty good!"

"Yeah, no kidding! Who woulda thought?"

Yeto beamed and said, "You like? Take some, uh!"

Link eagerly obliged and grabbed an empty bottle, filling it to the brim with smelly-but-tasty soup. Then we exited the kitchen and went back to the sitting room where Yeta was still gazing at the fire, but as we entered she turned and spoke.

"I think I remember, uh! We put key in nearby room, so no forgetting, uh. How I forget? Embarrassing, uh. See! Here. Place marked by symbol, uh! It there. It must be, uh! You look for me! I promise it right this time! Please, you look for me…"

I groaned inwardly. Great. We'd been all over the mansion looking for this stupid key, and it turned out to be in the nearby room the entire time? Yeesh.

"Well, come on then. Let's just go find it already," Link sighed as he rolled his eyes and headed towards the spot marked on the map.


CRASH!

"Hm, something tells me Link is enjoying his new weapon," Dark muttered to me as another set of armor went flying in pieces. Behind it was a small wooden chest, which Link opened to find a red rupee.

WHAM!

"Yeah, I kinda get that feeling too. Hey, is that a poe?" My attention was caught by the distinctive clicking sound and the pale blue glowing lantern. Vaati was already stalking towards it eagerly, ears pricked and paws ghosting over the motheaten carpet. The purple panther then pounced and knocked it to the floor before tearing its soul out. I shuddered slightly. I'd never get used to that.

SMASH!

A wooden stand was reduced to splinters. I winced. "Hope we don't have to replace that. It looked fancy."


"Here, give me the ball. I can fly over the freezard's range so you don't have to wait until its distracted," I ordered Link. He nodded and handed over the large sphere, which I promptly dropped. "Dang, that's heavy!"

"I know. Why do you think I move so slow with it?" Link grimaced. "Here. Now you can carry it."

I grumbled, but picked it up and flew around the winding ramp-ish area anyway, albeit a foot or two lower than usual. Seriously, it must have been solid iron or something. Ugh.

Once we got to the top, I dropped it over by the cannon and heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay, never doing that again. Link, I'll gladly leave the rest of the cast-iron metal balls to you from now on."

Dark just snickered. "Wimp."


"Whoa!"

A spear of ice narrowly missed Link's head, skimming past his ear and trimming off a strand or two of dirty (literally) blond hair.

The chilfos, who was aiming from the second story landing to our left, formed another one and took aim again. I then created a small bomb and blew it to pieces.

"Congratulations, Shadow. You have created another scorch mark in their floor, and halfway up the wall," Vaati laughed.

"Shut up. Besides, it's not as if they come up here anyway. I'm pretty sure they only use a few of the rooms on the first floor, judging by the way most of the mansion is completely iced over," I grumbled as I rolled my eyes. Those spear-wielding icemen were getting on my nerves.

Link just chuckled and took a running jump to the next chandelier, timing his leap at the exact moment when the two swinging platforms were closest. "You guys are weird," he muttered under his breath.

"Hey! We heard that!"


I groaned. "Why the heck do they have so many random boxes with metal-reinforced edges just lying around here anyway? There's no practical use for them, especially since I think they're empty."

Vaati shrugged. "I dunno. Same reason they have them conveniently placed in the same room as several floor switches, I suppose."

"Sheesh. The previous owner of this place must've really loved block puzzles," Dark said. We all nodded in agreement. No kidding.


Midna grinned widely, showing off one pointed canine. "Phew… We've finally found the key. That sure took a while… but that mirror shard is as good as ours!"

"Thank goodness. We were hiking all over the place looking for this thing." Link eyed the heart-shaped key. "Well, at least now we can go back. Finally."


"Oh! You safe, uh! I drink husband's soup, feel much better, uh. So I come to find you. You found key, uh! Good! Good! Bedroom right above us. I take you there, uh."

Yeta got up from the chair and waddled slowly in the direction of what was presumably the bedroom. I groaned inwardly. At the rate she was going, it was going to take at least a half hour or so just to get to the tower. Wonderful.

Twenty Minutes Later…

"What say we just pick her up and carry her the rest of the way, eh?"


"Bedroom right there, you go ahead. No worry for me, uh? Thank you. You come inside… Please... This way, uh. Here...mirror. You look at it, uh… Uh... So pretty… Pretty... Uh... So pretty… Pretty... Pretty...mirror... Lovely… NOT TAKE MIRROR!"

Yeta's entire face suddenly spun around and morphed into a terrifying creature with massive sabertooth fangs and gleaming bloodred eyes.

"Oh my f****** goddesses!"

"Great Farore!"

"Holy s***!"

"C***!"

I almost had a heart attack as Yeta went through a complete transformation, her personality doing a complete one-eighty. The most shocking part was by far her face, and the way it suddenly spun around freaked me out almost as much as the stalfos from Arbiter's Grounds had when it suddenly reassembled itself. She suddenly covered herself in a prison of ice, and the entire room was transformed into a giant box with ice growing out a least a foot thick from the walls. The floor was slick and smooth, slippery and hard to get a grip on. Almost immediately our feet began to slide around on the smooth surface.

Yeta wasn't in control anymore. The Twilit Ice Mass Blizzeta was.

Well, s***.