Night came and went, and once more in the morning I was practicing my magic with Midna.
You've got to think of a way to organize your thoughts and memories, Russell. How exactly are you going to make this work? What kinds of things will be easy for you to sort through?
I thought about it. It seemed a little cliché, but honestly, a library seemed just right for me. And so I set about pulling together my memories, as well as bits and pieces of my life, and turning those thoughts into books. I manifested a bookshelf in my mind, and put these book memories on the bookshelf.
Hmm. Not bad at all. Midna thought to me, her orange magic following through my mind as I worked it into shape. You definitely have some polishing to do here and there, but otherwise it looks good. Let's go see how your magic is doing.
We made our way to the wall in my mind, pleased to see that the once small tendril of magic that I had pulled out was now quite large, due to the efforts made by me to slowly pull it through the crack in the wall. The hole was slowly becoming bigger, which as Midna told me, was a result of the magic being more comfortable with my mind.
This is looking good. Soon you'll just be able to knock down the whole wall and let the magic fill you. But not yet. That being said, I think that this is enough magic to be able to start learning how to use magic. The first step now is very simple. I need you to know your magic. Once you understand it, you can find it with ease. Learn to be able to locate your magic without thinking about your mind as a map. You need to be able to sense it within you. I'm going to need you to open your eyes.
I opened my eyes, blinking at the sunlight that filtered through my window. Midna still sat in the air near my head, her eyes closed.
Now that you are not in the Meditative stance, the first step of being able to use your magic is trying to locate it within you while not meditating. Don't be discouraged if you don't find it on your first try.
And so I tried. For about a half an hour, I tried to envision where my magic could possibly be, but to my slight dismay, I couldn't find it for the life of me.
That's alright, Russell. It takes a highly gifted magician only a few minutes to learn to find his or her magic, and while you might like to think that you're incredibly gifted, you're not quite a master sorcerer. It'll take quite a few days for you to learn to find your magic.
She pulled herself from my mind, and sighed. You've come a decent way since we started, but we're not making fast enough progress. Soon we'll be fighting stronger enemies, and what do you have to show of it? It's not like my powers are going to be of any help in a fight, given the weakened state I'm in…"
Her voice drifted off, and I almost didn't here that last part. So she had weakened magic? Even with the ability to teleport three people and a bridge and not have a drop of sweat? What kind of magical potential did she have in her unweakened state?
"Anyways," She said, "Practice is done for today, let's get climbing up Death Mountain again."
I nodded, and we headed out, finding Zach standing outside, talking to Talo.
"Come on, sir, you have to hear me out! Malo's been inside that abandoned shop all day, muttering to himself about how he's setting up or something! You've got to bring him out!"
Zach shrugged. "I'll see what's going on." He told the young boy, and made his way into the shop. A few minutes later, he was whistling to himself, and not only that, but he had a brand new shield on his back, this one looking like metal instead of just wood. He noticed me, and joined me as we approached the mountain.
"Malo's set up a general goods shop here in town. He only had one metal shield, and he said that wood shields are liable to burn up in the volcano on Death Mountain." I nodded. What an entrepreneur, that kid. He must only be like six or seven, and he's setting up a shop in the middle of a half destroyed town. He's sure to get some business from the locals.
"I wonder where he found the money or goods to set up his store…" I wondered aloud, and Zach just shrugged at me.
We made our way up, and this time when the Gorons rolled at us, Zach took the lead and put on the Iron Boots, and wrestled the rolling Gorons one by one passed us. We steadily made our way towards the peak, and once we got to the main area, we were fairly wary of the falling rocks that kept hitting the ground around us here and there.
Finally, a huge rock fell from the sky and lodged itself in the ground right in front of us. It must've been about seven floors tall if it were a building, and it was smoldering, heat radiated out from it.
"Whoa." Midna said, coming out of my shadow. "This looks dangerous. Is this the traditional Death Mountain welcome? Eee hee!" She went back into my shadow; and Zach and I kept watching out for more rocks falling from the sky, but they appeared to have slowed considerably with the coming of the huge stone.
All of the Gorons that we came across tried to give us trouble, and we had to use the Iron Boots to knock them all down one by one as we made our way up the mountain. Eventually we found ourselves at a cave, which we entered. Upon entering it, we were greeted by the sight of six Gorons in a line, and they all rolled into a ball, ready to bowl the two of us over.
Suddenly, a call of "Enough!" came from the entranceway on the other side of the room, and out walked a smaller Goron, this one with a thick beard and hair growing out of the sides of its head. "Are these young ones such imposing enemies that you must all gang up on them? I think not, Little Brothers."
The Gorons who had been moving to pummel us stopped their rolling, and they stood up straight, allowing Zach and I to approach the smaller Goron.
"I am a Goron elder, little humans. I am called Gor Coron. Because of certain… circumstances, I must lead the Goron tribe in place of Darbus, our tribal patriarch. Tell me, little humans, do you come from the village below? You have done well to come this far. You two are strong, for humans. However… The mines beyond here are sacred to my tribe. Outsiders are not allowed. Unless…" His eyes looked serious for a moment. And when I looked at Zach, I saw a strange glimmer in his eyes. I looked back at Gor Coron, and he was staring intently at Zach before he gave a smile.
"I could make an exception, but you would have to beat me in a contest of power. Are you willing to try this, little humans?"
Zach nodded, and Gor Coron laughed. "I will only test one of you, come and tell me which one I will test, and when you are ready. Zach nodded, and he quickly put on the Iron Boots. He approached the Goron elder and the set up the ring in the middle. It took a couple of tries, but on the third time in the ring, Zach got the upper hand after learning Gor Coron's strategy of wrestling.
"You have a strong spirit, and sharp eyes." Gor Coron said from the ground, rubbing his back as he picked himself up. "You have seen it then, the mountain erupting without pause. When the mountain began to rage, all four of us elders and Darbus went into the mines. We have a treasure that was entrusted to us by the spirits, and we must protect it. Do you understand? But the moment that Darbus reached out and grabbed the treasure, everything went wrong. He collapsed, and before our very eyes transformed into an unspeakable monster! He began to rage throughout the mines, trailing ruin behind him, and the eruptions grew more frequent and more severe. We used all of our strength to seal him deep inside the mountain. I ask this favor of you, Go aid Darbus, please!"
Zach and I nodded. We had no doubt that this treasure given them by the spirits to protect was a fused shadow, and creatures of the light should never touch them, as evidenced by the monster plant in the first temple.
"Alright, you two!" Gor Coron yelled. The two Gorons guarding the back entrance jumped slightly. "Let these heroes through, they will help us." The Gorons in question moved aside, and said, "Of course, Gor Coron."
We entered the mines, and we instantly understood why Zach's wooden shield would've been destroyed here. Lava poured from the ground, showing us a huge pit with rock spires poking out from the pools or molten rock below.
We jumped our way across, quickly figuring out how to maneuver around, using the Iron Boots to turn off lava flow here and there to bypass areas that they covered. Once we got to the next area, we killed a couple of monsters and grabbed a key from a chest that we found the lock to covering another door further in. We made our way through the next room, killing a new type of monsters, a group of lizards that had their tails exposed as opposed to the rest of them, their skin was like solid rock everywhere else.
We finally entered the next room, and found that it was half submerged in water. Zach used the Iron Boots first, going under the metal bars that covered the top, and flipping a switch that magnetized the blue rock above, making Zach go flying to it because the Iron Boots were attracted to it. once he was in a safe position, Midna brought the Iron Boots back over to my side, and I followed him to the other side.
We entered the next room, and were surprised to see one of the Goron elders there. He gave us a key shard and a map of the mines. He told us that the other two elders still in the mines had the other two key shards, and that together they would unlock the door that Darbus was locked inside.
On the top level of the room, we remet up with a strange creature that looks like a mix between a human and a chicken. We had met it before, I the Tree temple, and we were surprised to see it here. Its name was Ooccoo, and it said it had the power to bring us out of the dungeon at a moment's notice.
We progressed through the dungeon, trading off the Iron Boots, since most of the ways to progress seemed to need them, which didn't really make sense, unless the Gorons were magnetic. We soon found one of the other elders, who gave us the second key fragment, and he told us to take the treasure near him in the next room.
We advanced, and after dealing with a severely misinformed Goron, we finally got the treasure, which was a bow, coming with a quiver filled with arrows. We made our way forwards, and everything was a lot simpler now with the bow. There were laser beam statues that we hadn't been able to kill before, but we shot the gemstone that seemed like an eye, and they just broke down.
A couple of broken statues, and fighting our way passed hordes of small monsters later, and we had found the third Goron elder, who gave us the final key fragment. We made our way back to one of the rooms from earlier, and with the aid of our bow, we found a hidden passage, and finally found the room where they had sealed Darbus inside. We opened the door, and entered the room. It was dark, but we were able to see a completely black silhouette with a stone mask chained to the walls. A huge eyeball on the mask opened, and I pointed at the eyes that opened, and Zach nodded. Darbus, in his demon like form, caught fire and broke the chains before coming at us.
Zach was the one with the bow and arrow, so he shot arrows with fair precision at the eye on the helmet. He stamped around for a minute or so, his hands covering the eye, before he finally recovered, no damage seemingly done to him. How were were supposed to defeat him if we weren't supposed to just shoot the eye?
I studied him before realizing what I had to do. "Midna, give me the Iron Boots, Zach, shoot his eye again, and get ready for him to fall!"
Midna gave me the boots, and after Zach shot the eye, I put on the boots and grabbed one of the chains that wrapped around his feet. My weight held true, and I tripped Darbus over his own chain, making him fall to the ground. The eye was in clear sights right next to Zach, so he lashed at it with his blade, cutting deep into it.
Repeating the process a couple of times was easy once we knew what to do, and when Zach struck the final blow, the mask exploded into thousands of pieces of darkness. Darbus slowly shrank down to his normal size, and the pieces of darkness refused back together into another Fused Shadow. Midna reached up with her strange orange hair hand, and I realized that she was using her magic to control her hair in such a way. Her hair hand grabbed the Fused Shadow.
"Eee hee hee! Well done!" Midna said. "Now we have two Fused Shadows. Hmm… You know, you two have been very helpful so far, so as a reward, I'll tell you and interesting story. Zant. That's the name of the King of Darkness who cast this pall of shadows over your world. He's very strong. You two would be nothing to him in your current states. But Zant will never be my king! I have nothing but scorn for his supposed strength. Not that Zelda is much better… It still appalls me that this world of light is controlled by that princess. A carefree youth, a life of luxury. How does that teach duty?
But I guess that I shouldn't begrudge her the circumstances of her life. She didn't choose it, after all. And I would never wish harm on her… No, as long as I can get my hands on the Fused Shadows, I'll be just fine." She opened a portal on the ground near us. "Well, just one more left… Shall we? Eee hee hee!"
Darbus stood up. He had kind of like a crew cut hairstyle, and he was rubbing his head. "Urgh, what am I doing here? Unngh… My head, it aches… Oh I can't remember anything…" Seeing that we weren't going to get anything else out of him, we joined Midna at the portal and she teleported us out of there.
She teleported us to the Spring in Kakariko Village, where the Spirit spoke to us.
"Heroic Russell and Zachary… North of here, across the plain and past the great stone bridge, in the lands guarded by the spirit Lanayru… You shall find the one whom you seek…"
The spirit stopped talking to us, and we turned around to see the children. Colin approached us before collapsing, probably due to the exhausting kidnapping of the day before.
"Russell," He said. "Ilia, you've got to save Ilia! Those monsters left me with the other kids, but they must have taken her somewhere else! Whenever I thought I couldn't go on, I would think of you and Zach, and Ilia and hold on, Russell." He stood up. "See, I'm fine now. Now go save Ilia!"
Renaldo approached. "Leave the children in my hands. I will watch over them, I swear it. Go and aid those who need you two. In Hyrule, countless tales are told of the ancient hero, and your deeds bring them all to mind. May the grace of the great goddesses who shaped Hyrule bear you two on your way."
Zach and I looked at each other and smiled. "We'll do everything we can to find your friend. We promised your parents and the Mayor that we would find all of the children from Ordon, and that includes Ilia." Zach said to Colin.
"And we're about to be on our way, but it's probably close to sundown, so we should stay here for the night."
Renaldo smiled. "Of course," He said. "And then you can tell us about how you helped the Gorons, one has already come down and apologized for their tribes actions."
We smiled. "Well, it's a long story, involving a lot of sumo wrestling…"