The path that Zach was leading us on quickly turned into a town, and we walked in without many issues. Off to the right was another spring, the broken spirit hovering above the water. "Heroes changed by the twilight, come here," It said. We noticed, however, that a couple of black monsters patrolled the area near the spirit, so we took them out and yet another portal formed above the spring.
If Midna was able to teleport us to every portal that we made by killing these guys, eventually we'd never need to travel! The monsters just kept coming and making more portals. But I digress, and we walked towards the spring.
Yadda yadda, spirit of light, collect my light back, good stuff. It gave us another grapevine looking thing, and used its power to make us aware of where the bugs were. We walked further into town, unperturbed by the darkness.
We set about killing the bugs. About a third of the way through, we entered this one house, only to be shocked as most of the children from Ordon village were inside it, being protected by a large man with long brown hair.
We listened to them talk about monsters for a bit, and then about insects in the cellar. Beth started to cry, but the other kids assured her that their parents would come and save them soon.
We entered the cellar after opening it, and killed the monsters inside, before leaving through a graveyard exit. We broke into a couple of houses, killed a couple of bugs, all in all a good time, that is, until we accidently started to burn a house down.
"What happened!" Midna yelled. "As romantic as this is, I'm getting out of here, and the imp flew towards the exit, and Zach and I quickly followed her. As soon as we had left, the house exploded; it must have been stocked with the bombs that one of the spirits had been talking about.
"Well, I guess that's one way to hunt down the bugs." Midna said. "Sacrificing somebody's house so that we can restore light to the area? Well I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles."
I gave a loose grin. One of my old friends, Tim, had said that phrase all the time in my old world. It was sad to think about the fact that I will probably never talk to him again, but the reminder of his existence still made me happy.
We continued, now on the road up the mountainside. A signpost on the side said, "Welcome to Death Mountain."
I didn't particularly feel welcomed, at least not by the name of the place, but we continued on nonetheless. After we killed one of the bugs, we noticed a weird stone that was making noises as the wind blew through it.
"I gotta howl." Zach said. I looked at him questioningly, wondering how he came to that conclusion. "The stone is just, called me, telling me to match the noises that are coming through it. Trust me."
And he began to howl, messing up at first, probably because it was his first time ever howling at something, but eventually he got it right, and suddenly the two of us we one a cliff, overlooking grass, and mountains, and the ocean all at once. He howled the tune once more, and this time we saw the golden wolf from earlier howling right along, howling the melody like a song from an instrument.
"Let teachings of old pass to you…" It said. "Take swords in hand and find me." And with these words, it jumped into the fields below, and we were once more transported to the twilight where we had been.
"That was mad trippy." Zach said to me, and I nodded.
"Hey!" Midna said, holding out our map. "Something has happened!" And sure enough, on our map, near the Ordon spring what a small glowing mark.
"Maybe that golden wolf is there." I suggested. "We should check it out once we have our human forms once more."
Zach nodded, and we continued up Death Mountain. We encountered another group of black monsters, this time four of them instead of three. Luckily, they were all split up except for two of them, so Zach and I took out the outliers before taking the last two down, and they disappeared and formed yet another teal portal. We eventually found the last of the bugs in a hot springs of all places, and then returned to the spring.
Giving the broken spirit its light back yielded the same results as before. We turned back into humans, and the world resumed its daylight schedule, the sun shining high in the sky.
"Aw, I was just starting to have fun!" Shadow Midna fake pouted. "Now don't forget that Fused Shadow!" and it jumped into my shadow. The spring lit up with light, allowing us to see what looked like a giant bird for the spirit of light.
"My name is Eldin," It said. "I am one of the light spirits of Hyrule. I am the spirit that guards these lands. Oh Heroes chosen by the gods, the dark power that you seek lies in the sacred grounds of the proud mountain dwellers. But these grounds have already been defiled, draped in shadow and seeded with evil. You two must go to those sacred grounds and aid them."
The spirit disappeared, and as we turned around, the children were leaving the man's house. "Hey, it's those travelers!" The kids said, running up to us. "We knew someone would come to save us!" The tall man approached.
"So you two are here to assist us? We are well met, I am Renaldo, shaman of this town. And this," He gestured to his side, where two people stood, one in the smelting mask looking excited, and one another small child, this one about twelve years old. "This is my daughter, Luda."
Colin piped in. "The monsters took us and left us to die, but Mr. Renaldo found us."
"At first, I couldn't believe that they had come from so distant a place as Ordona Province." Renaldo said, giving a small laugh.
"Yeah, I… Well we don't remember much. All of a sudden everyone was captured, and then… until now, it's been a real nightmare." Colin said, the other children nodding in agreement."
Talo said, "Yeah, it was like a terrible dream and we couldn't wake up."
Renaldo began talking. "Nightmares are everywhere these days, it would seem. This village had certainly seen its share of recent hardships. The dark beasts attacked, but even worse was the sudden and inexplicable change in the mountain-dwelling Goron Tribe. They had long been our friends, but suddenly treated us as foes. Even now they refuse to permit us entry into their mines. It's hard to believe, that such a gentle and proud tribe could change so suddenly. Maybe something in the mines is the cause of this?" He trailed off, and Zach and I looked at each other, our eyes narrowing.
From what we knew, the Fused Shadows are never to be used by those of the Light, it's power would likely try and corrupt those that used it, as seen by the giant plant monster from the other temple. If one of the Gorons had gotten ahold of one of the Shadows, then certainly they would've had a shift in attitude, like with the monkey boss.
"Let's go Zach," I said. "It's time we showed those Gorons what the Chosen heroes are made of."
He grinned as we walked away from the entourage of children and Renaldo, ready to make our way back up the mountain, this time in human form when the Gorons could see us.
After getting our asses handed to us by a literal living piece of rock, we made our way back down the mountain, rubbing our backs. We encountered Renaldo by the sign saying welcome.
"Oh!" He said, rushing over to us. "It's good to see that you're in one piece, I saw you heading up the mountain. Are you trying to reach the Gorons of Death Mountain? It's far too dangerous! They recognize only strength! A normal human could never persuade them… But, well, I do know one person who was able to best them and earn their trust. His name is Bo, you may know him as the mayor of Ordon Village. If you hope to go up the mountain, please, go to him, and let him know that the children are safe.
Of course, bringing them back would be best, but we can't keep them safe from the monsters on the road without a horse and a cart. I'm sure though, if you let the Mayor know that I am keeping them safe here, in Kakariko, then he will be willing to teach you the secret to earning the Gorons' trust."
We nodded in acknowledgement, but we noticed that by this time the sun was getting closer to the horizon.
"We'll rest here for tonight, and set out in the morning." Zach said. "We don't want to be outside of the city borders when night falls."
Renaldo smiled. "Of course. I'm sure that we can get you settled into one of the rooms in the inn, at least for the night."
With the fall of twilight, and being able to explore a little more, we found that Kakariko village was definitely livelier than Ordon, and by that I mean there were more people. The inn was filled, the tables filled with happy looking people, probably cheering now that the monsters were out of town.
We booked two separate rooms for the night, considering how they only had one person rooms available at the time. After eating some of the food that Uli had prepared for us a couple of days ago, Zach and I parted ways, each of us going to sleep for the night.