Well that was a waste of time…
Link walked away from the temple, feeling somewhat annoyed at that old man. He hadn't exactly been expecting some great revelation about the world or about his past or anything. But he was hoping he would at least be leaving with a bit more clarity.
Instead, there was nothing there. Well... nothing except for some imposing but derelict machinery, a large and smiling statue of a woman, and a chest. There were also some red pots strewn about the building, which Link had compulsively tossed around for fun. From out of the chest he had picked up an odd wooden weapon with a string attached - a bow - but he otherwise gained very little at all in the way of answers from this brief excursion at the temple.
In fact, he left with even more questions.
The ancient, rusted machinery he saw was scattered everywhere. Overgrowth and dirt caked the surface of most of the units. They appeared to have sat there for many decades, in various states of disrepair. Most of them were incomplete. Meanwhile, the whole units he did see had given him a pretty good idea of what these large machines must have been like. Before time did its work on them, that is. He could imagine their flailing skeletal limbs propelling them about like some bizarre, wild mechanical alien creatures. He could visualize rotating one-eyed heads, humming and glowing. Scanning.
From the way they were posed, it even looked like these things had been attacking the temple. The temple itself was indeed impressive, even in its decayed state. It also appeared to have been of great importance - if the careful architecture and build quality were anything to judge it by.
But these things had been destroying it for some reason.
Why? What was their purpose?
Were these a part of this...apparent calamity of sorts, that had ruined the kingdom?
And why, pray tell, did the ornate markings they bore match both his slate and the shrine he had woken up in?
His mind swirled with possibilities, and Link knew he'd just be wasting time fiddling about there any longer. Even if the old man had implied that he'd find answers there. But he also wasn't about to return to the old man either... certainly not in his current state of irritation. That was only asking for trouble, he knew. He pulled his Sheikah Slate out again and began to make his way towards the glowing yellow dot on that map...grid…thing. Just as the voice had told him to do earlier.
I'm trusting a disembodied voice over a kind old man… Link thought to himself. I'm not crazy or anything, nope. Not at all.
Ah well. At least he wasn't running around naked and setting fire to everything.
Yet.
Link chuckled at the thought, and continued his walk towards his next destination. He passed a few ruins on the way, fighting a few more of the same strange red monsters from earlier. These he dispatched just as easily as the previous. They also dropped a few new weapons; shafts of wood with pointed tips.
Arrows, for my bow, he recognized.
One of the creatures had even dropped a special holster to carry them. He strapped this around his waist along with the rest of his equipment, then continued on his way. The ruins he passed through appeared to be the remnants of a once-bustling town. The cracked remains of a… fountain sat in the center of it all.
Link felt a bit of strange nostalgia as he wandered through the ruined marketplace, and he found he could actually visualize the excited crowds of people, milling about ignorantly and senselessly. A profound feeling of sorrow briefly crossed his heart. Had he known some of the people that lived in this once-thriving city? Were they all wiped out by those machines?
More questions.
He was positively sick of questions.
He quickly moved on, now jogging in the direction of the waypoint on his slate. He could only run in brief spurts at first, as his stamina couldn't seem to keep up with his will.
This frustrated him.
He supposed that his strength and vigor had deprecated significantly during his long sleep - assuming he was in good shape in the first place at all. He'd have to remedy that soon. Train himself. Torture himself.
Might as well start now.
He launched into an all-out sprint, ignoring the creaks in his joints and the burn in his lungs as they gasped for air. He was growing impatient - with the old man, with the world. But mostly with himself and his lack of memory. His lack of ability.
His limitations. Ugh.
Before long, he'd stumbled upon a large collection of rocks, sitting atop a small hill. He stopped to look around.
Link was puzzled. This is it? He pulled out the slate. He was clearly standing right on the yellow point marked on the map.
Guess I'm here...
He made his way to the top of the rocks, still out of breath. Peering inside, he saw an ornate pedestal - similar to the one he'd found inside the shrine he'd awoken in. There was a perfect rectangle in the shape of his slate in the center of it. Directly pointed at the pedestal was a large spire, aiming straight down from a spherical structure propped above. An eye symbol with a single tear adorned the surface of the structure. Link noticed that it matched the symbol on the front of his Sheikah Slate.
He had a feeling he'd be seeing this symbol quite often.
Still breathing heavily, he climbed down from the rocks and placed the slate into the pedestal. The slate spun around, the face of the pedestal rotated, and it locked into place with a flash of orange light.
'Sheikah tower activated' read the words on the slate. 'Please watch for falling rocks.'
Uh oh.
The large eye symbol above suddenly erupted in a glow of blue light.
And then a low rumble…
The ground began to shake violently, knocking Link flat on his rear.
Oh no.
BOOOOOM! The platform he was standing on suddenly erupted from the ground. The world was exploding around him. He could feel himself ascending, higher and higher, barely noticing the frantic chirping of birds and the shrieks of animals nearby. Large chunks of broken rock were flying all over the place, but mercifully missed striking him. He repeatedly tried to regain his footing, failed. Finally, he just closed his eyes in resignation and sighed heavily.
Just like with everything else he'd experienced so far, he was merely just going along for the ride at this point.
The platform's ascent continued on for a minute or so, but it felt like an eternity to Link.
Then finally, there was silence. The rumbling, shaking chaos had ceased, all was quiet. Peace had settled in again.
Link laid there, speechless. Blue light emanated around him like great plumes of rising steam, before disappearing as quickly as it came. Realizing that whatever insane process he'd initiated was complete, Link slowly picked himself up. He carefully glanced around, brushing small rocks, dust, and debris off his clothes and hair. He glanced at the screen of his slate. 'Great Plateau Tower,' it read.
And a tower it most certainly was. It loomed over the landscape around him, giving him an amazing look at the world's scenery. The view he'd seen upon exiting the cave earlier absolutely paled in comparison to this. Rolling hills, sprawling mountains, even an ocean far in the distance. The view was captivating, mesmerizing - so much so, that he hardly noticed the multitude of strange glowing blue symbols now descending from the spire above the pedestal housing his slate.
'Distilling local information…'
What?
PLOP. The symbols had converged into a single point on the spire's tip, dropping onto his slate like a large bead of water. A flash of the eye symbol appeared on the screen, and the blue and black grid lines he'd used as his "map" earlier now gave way to a variety of colors, brown, blue, tan...he could make out what appeared to be small lakes and forests. The unmistakable lines of old buildings and ruins…
Link smiled, grabbing the Sheikah Slate from the pedestal to get a closer look. Now this… this is what I call a map. Satisfied, Link placed the slate back on his hip and turned to leave.
"Remember…"
That mysterious female voice again, muffled.
"Try….try to remember…"
Remember? That's all I've been trying to do since I woke up...
But this gave Link pause. The voice was different now. It seemed to come from a specific direction, rather than just filling his ears with sound as it had before. He turned towards the source - the castle he'd seen earlier. It was much clearer from his vantage point up on the tower now. A huge light emanated from the castle's central tower - glowing the same yellow glow as the light he'd seen back in the shrine.
"You have been asleep for the past 100 years," the voice said.
Guess I was right about that… Link thought to himself, though the confirmation of this did little to ease his mind. The ground shook again, violently, and he braced himself for the tower to start moving again - except it wasn't the tower this time. It was coming from the castle.
"The beast…" the voice continued. "When the beast regains its true power, this world will face its end."
Only now did Link notice the enormous spires protruding from around the castle, glowing purple and red. Contained within them….a great swirling vortex of pure hatred and malice. The same one he'd seen over and over during his century-long slumber. And there, in its midst, appeared its source: a gigantic swine-like face with evil yellow eyes at its end...circling the castle. A great roar emanated from this massive, near-amorphous creature as plumes of purple ash and smoke erupted from behind it.
The beast.
Perhaps he was just being obvious...but Link was really quite certain that this was the source of all the problems in this world. Just seeing this… thing filled him with an inexplicable anger and rage.
"Now then...you must hurry, Link." the voice cried.
"...Before it's too late."
The yellow light, cutting through the malice, suddenly increased in size. It blinded him - like a small sun - before fading into darkness, the purple glowing plumes of malice disappearing along with it. The experience left Link shaking. Not in fear, no, but in sheer fury. He felt himself suppressing the urge to charge after this thing immediately. So he took a deep breath, calmed himself. Deep down, he knew that immediately charging after it would be rash anyway. His mind was still a blank slate after all. Flying in blind would be suicide.
And besides all that...he had yet another problem:
How, exactly, was he going to get off this ridiculous tower?
Link collapsed on the ground, exhausted, but triumphant. He'd finally found a way down from the Plateau Tower. Platforms jutted out in a spiral pattern along its sides, and he'd been able to alternate jumping and climbing down the many, many feet that separated him from the surface he desired to return to.
But between his sprinting excursion and this downward climbing workout, Link was already pretty exhausted for the day.
Curse this weak body... he thought to himself as he rested. Curse it all.
Link eventually caught his breath, coughed a bit, sat up. He wondered if that old man from earlier was still around. He was desperately in need of something to drink...and to eat…
"HOOOO!"
Right on schedule…
Link immediately recognized the gruff voice of the old man.
...but where was he? Link glanced around, confused.
"HO!" It came from above him.
...What.
The old man was gliding down towards Link, clutching a large winglike structure of cloth and wood above him. He soared down, landing gently - a bit too gently, considering his weight - right next to where Link sat.
"My my…" said the old man. "It would seem we have quite the enigma here."
Link laughed incredulously.
"You're telling me!" he said. "How in the world did you-"
"This tower and others just like it-" the old man interrupted, "-have erupted across the land, one after another." The old man groped at his beard inquisitively. "It is almost as though...a long-dormant power has awoken quite suddenly!" he gave Link a mischievous look as he said this.
Link sighed. He knew it was useless to press the old man for questions. He decided to just cut to the chase instead. "I...heard a voice at the top of the tower." he informed him.
The old man's eyebrows perked up. "Well now! A voice, you say?" he asked. "And did you happen to recognize this mysterious voice?"
Link fought the urge to lie to the man. He was still a bit peeved about the pointless little temple "adventure" he'd been sent on earlier. But he knew that it was in his nature to be honest. He just couldn't help it.
"I...think I did?" he said. "The voice was vaguely familiar. But only somewhat." he shrugged, pulled himself onto his feet, dusted himself off. His hands found their place on the front of his hips again. Old habits…
"Does that mean anything to you?" Link asked.
So much for not asking questions...
The old man turned away and, with his walking stick, pointed in the direction of the castle in the distance. "I assume you caught sight of that atrocity enshrouding the castle." he said.
Blatantly changing the subject. Excellent. Link sighed again - except loudly this time, so the old man could hear it. This went ignored.
"That...is Calamity Ganon." he said. A hint of contempt was evident in his voice as he said it. "One hundred years ago that vile entity brought the kingdom of Hyrule to ruin."
In that moment, Link knew that his life - both past, and future - were bound to this calamity. Something clearly had happened to him one hundred years ago to have brought him to where he was now…and this stranger most certainly knew what that something was. The old man continued: "It appeared suddenly and destroyed everything in its path. So many innocent lives were lost in its wake. For a century, the very symbol of our kingdom, Hyrule Castle, has managed to contain that evil. But just barely…" he crossed his arms, shook his head. "It festers there, building strength to once again unleash its blight upon the land. I...fear that moment is fast approaching." he turned to face Link again.
"I must ask you, courageous one… do you intend to make your way to the castle?"
Link nodded without hesitation.
"...I had a feeling you did. Mind you, there are steep cliffs all along this isolated plateau. With your current stamina levels...you'd surely fall to your death if you attempted to climb down."
Link couldn't argue with that. He'd barely made it off that stupid tower earlier. Couldn't even imagine trying to scale down the enormous plateau walls. Although a sick side of him really wanted to try.
"That said!" the old man continued, "if you had a paraglider like mine...well. It would be another story entirely."
Hand it over then! Link wanted to say. But he wisely stayed his tongue. He was blunt - but not that blunt.
The old man seemed to pick up on what Link wanted to say. "...Ah, I'm sure you're wondering if I will lend you this one," he said.
Link nodded. But he knew what was coming. It wouldn't be that easy. Couldn't be that easy. Not when he was dealing with this increasingly crafty old stranger.
"Oho!" the man chuckled. "Well, you must know that nothing truly comes free in this world…"
There it was. The bargain.
"Come, let me show you something." The old man lead Link to top of a large stone nearby. As they reached the top he pointed in the direction of a glowing coned structure in the distance. "You see that structure there?" he said. "The one with the strange orange light? It began to glow at the exact moment those two towers rose up from the ground."
For all Link knew, this guy had been gorging himself on cooked apples by his little fire when all this craziness went down. How had he seen all this?
...
...Of course he'd seen all this. This was no ordinary old man. He'd known that much all along. And it frustrated Link to be completely at the man's mercy, exasperated him to have all these feelings inside with no memories at all to bind them. To feel nostalgic for places and people he didn't know.
To have a broken heart with no apparent source to blame...
"If you ask me," said the man, "such a place as that shrine might house a nice treasure...wouldn't you agree?"
Link said nothing.
"Treasure for the paraglider...a fair exchange I believe. I shall wait for your successful retrieval." The old man took a seat right there on the rock.
Link stared for a bit, took a deep breath, and stepped off the rock towards the shrine.
He didn't grumble or pout or anything. He was dead-set on getting this done, on finally leaving this cursed plateau. Gathering up his power. And eventually obliterating whatever that thing was that had destroyed this land. His land. If that meant he had to be an errand boy for this stranger, then so be it. He'd play the game for now. He was sure the guy meant well anyway, even if his methods were a bit...condescending. Cryptic.
Irritating?
All of the above.
No matter. He had no choice but to trust him. But if the old man was leading him on yet another fool's errand, well... Link was going to have a bit more than a bone or two to pick with him-
GROOOWWLLLL. His stomach suddenly unleashed a horrifically inhuman roar, breaking his contemplative state. And only now did Link actually pout at his situation.
Because worst of all, he was still savagely hungry.
Next is Chapter 3: Off the Table
(Finally lol)
