The Legend of Zelda: Sky Lines

by Light Onthemayo

One hundred and fifty years after the disaster with the Spirit Tracks, Hyrule has risen to the skies. The people have made a living through the use of airships and the "Sky Lines", trails of intense wind used to aid these airships in their travels. On the eve of a fantastic adventure, a young man named Link has just been given command of his own airship...

77. The Sagacity Technoworks

Chapter 77: The Sagacity Technoworks

…

Continuing from their point of entry led them into another room similar to the entrance, although this one was without a ladder. The next room was much larger and had a more diversified structure. Standing at the top of a short platform on the other side of the doorway, Link, Layna, and Irleen found themselves staring over what appeared to be a large junction. The level below them was an L-shaped platform spanning the left side of the room's depth, leading to two doors on the left and far sides. Past that, at the end of a two-story ladder beneath the ladder directly at their feet, was another platform spanning the right side. The space directly beneath that platform was occupied by a large, still body of water. Unlike the previous rooms and the hallway, this large area was not as brightly lit, nor did the colors in the wall do much better than glow between bright orange and dark copper.

Link glanced backwards into the previous room to double-check that it was still brilliant and colorful. "Is it supposed to be like that?" he asked. "All… dark?"

"I can't be sure," Irleen replied, "but something does feel wrong. Look at the right side. Doesn't it seem darker than the left?"

Link offered a shrug as Layna silently started climbing down the ladder in front of them. "Kinda, I guess. Does it mean something?"

"I don't know. But this looks suspiciously like the early effects of necrosis."

Upon seeing Layna reach the bottom of the ladder, Link turned and began descending. "Neck-what?"

"Necrosis. In other words, death."

Link paused in the middle of the ladder to look for her. "Death? You mean… you mean the island is alive?"

"The technoworks is," Irleen said as she hovered into his view. "Sometimes, the best way to manipulate magic is to channel it through a living medium. Otherwise, it gets pretty tricky."

"But…" Link trailed off when he found himself lacking words, so he knocked on the wall in front of him to help make his point. The sound it made, though, was not like hitting a piece of metal as he had expected. If anything, it was silent, like he was rapping his knuckles against a large boulder. As soon as he drew the comparison, he said, "Isn't all of this just… rock? Or… maybe metal?"

"Yeah," she replied, "So?" being implied by her tone. "Rock can come alive if you know how." She slowly descended level with Link's head when he resumed climbing down. "Now, I say it's 'alive', but it's technically not 'aware'."

"What do you mean?"

"The technoworks has no way of perceiving things outside itself. Its whole existence is dedicated to its natural processes, which basically amount to eating and… uh… excreting."

"Ea—… Wha… What does it eat?"

"Whatever we want it to. In the case of the islands, they feed on water impurities; that's how they produce fresh water for whoever lives on the surface. It uses whatever it finds in the water and excretes the stuff it can't use as the underlying soil you would find if you dug deep enough into the island's top surface."

Link's foot slipped, and he nearly fell from the ladder. "Whoa," he grunted. But he quickly saw that he was close enough to the platform and simply dropped the rest of the way. "Augh. Whoops." Layna, already walking down the platform, stopped and turned, offering out a hand to him. He held up a hand and shook his head at her. "No, I'm okay." He found Irleen again and asked, "Are you saying that… that we've been living on top of the technoworks' poop for all these years?"

"Well… assuming Hylians removed the original topsoil," Irleen said. "Amazingly, the excrements the technoworks produce are just as viable as soil."

Link shook his head in mild humor as he followed Layna across the platform; suddenly, a number of phrases involving the word "dirt" had just taken on new meanings. "Okay," he said, trying to be serious. "So, when you say 'necrosis', you mean that something's killing the technoworks?"

"Yeah. Whoever wound up down here hasn't been treating it right. It's kind of a surprise; you'd think the Sorian with them would warn them against it. Necrosis isn't something you want happening to something as big as the technoworks; if it becomes complete, it will drop the entire island out of the sky."

Link glanced at the wall on the opposite side of the room as he made the turn in the platform. "As it is now, can anything be done about it?"

"Yeah, probably. If we can find some method of controlling the technoworks down to its component level, we can tell it to begin apoptosis."

Link shook his head. "How do you know these difficult words? I don't think they're even in my language."

"If you understand them on at least a level where you know the native word, then you must have bumped into them some time in the past."

"So what's that new one? Aper… apepsis?"

"Apoptosis. And, really, it's the harder one for me to explain on the whole; I don't know if I get it myself. All I can say is that triggering apoptosis will cause parts of the technoworks to split up in a way that the rest of the technoworks can absorb and restore. It'll save the technoworks from losing functionality."

"Could the Sorian around here do this?"

"Hopefully. If we find him."

Link noticed that Layna had stopped at the door and continued to stand there for a long time. Her head was moving around, so he knew she was looking the room over. He stopped behind her and asked, "Layna?" Her response was to hold up a fist, and although Link did not quite understand the meaning, he felt he should wait until she did something. Irleen pulled into a hover just over Link's shoulder, as if trying to peer past both of them.

Then Layna slinked in. Link stood wondering at the doorway when a number of metal clinks sounded from the room. He stepped up to the door and saw that Layna was using a pair of her throwing blades to make the sound, each sound occurring in a quick pair while she slowly moved forward. Link could see the reason for her caution. The room, being maybe about half the size of the entrance further back, had a number of square holes in the adjacent and opposite walls. The floor was covered with piles of dust and grey rags. Link was not sure what it was, but the atmosphere inside felt like the crypt under the Lost Woods.

Layna stopped at the far end and glanced around. Then she turned back and invited Link inside with a curt hand gesture. Link stepped inside and found that the wall the door was against was just a little duller than the rest of the walls, which showed as much life as the other part of the facility. The holes, by contrast, were dark on the inside. As Link drew closer to one hole at his height nearest to the door, he saw metal fixtures anchored to the wall, indicating that something had hung there at one point. "Irleen?" he asked.

"Don't be too alarmed, Link," she replied as she moved inside the hole so that her glow shone on the walls. "This is what the material looks like after necrosis, but this was done back when the technoworks were first put together."

"How come?"

"These are kinda like barracks or dorms. These cavities were purposely sent through necrosis so that they could sleep in a dark location inside the technoworks."

"And… these don't affect the rest of the technoworks?" he asked as he poked his head inside.

"This is exactly what they were made for. The Sorians who made these caused the technoworks to grow out like this before telling the technoworks to allow this part of itself to die. I know, it sounds a little bizarre, but it's how the technoworks were made to function."

"Amda Kyabtin," Layna called across the room. Link pulled his head out of the cavity and looked in her direction. She pointed at a row of cavities four rows above the floor. "'Inu dhifumak tinnayl."

"What's she saying?" Irleen asked.

"I-I don't know," Link said. "Come on, let's have a look."

However, while Link and Irleen crossed the room to get to her, Layna pulled herself onto the wall and started climbing by using the cavities. The climb looked difficult to Link, especially since Layna looked like she could barely reach the next row by stretching as far as she could. She actually moved up a couple rows higher than she had indicated before she stopped and appeared to sniff the air for a moment. Then she moved along the wall back toward the entrance. Five cavities away, she stopped and looked inside the one she was holding onto.

Then she moved to the next one and called down, "Fay Irliyn. Waba nayx yimidhujak yazaklwub nway."

"I think she was talking to you," Link said.

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Irleen replied as she left his side. She rose and hesitated outside the hole Layna indicated to her. Link thought she might have glanced at Layna before entering. Layna slowly worked her way back to the floor and was about to touch down when Irleen emerged. She hovered in front of the hole for a moment, and Link was about to call to her.

"ĦĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪĪ!" Link jumped in surprise at the scream Irleen suddenly released. He clapped his hands over his ears, bracing himself against the pain her high pitch was causing. Layna slipped off the last hole and fell to the floor on her hands and knees. After looking back up in alarm, she pushed her back against the wall and covered her ears as well. Irleen's scream (of frustration or horror, Link could not tell) echoed throughout the room for a moment.

When the scream subsided, Link and Layna exposed their ears to Irleen bawling and hiccupping as she slowly fell out of the air. Both of them stepped forward to catch her, but Layna yielded, allowing Link to catch Irleen before she fell to the floor. Link looked down at her in his cupped hands with confusion, but he saw that Layna was allowing a tear to fall through her emotionless façade. He hesitated to say anything, unsure why either of them were behaving this way.

Thankfully, Irleen spoke up. "She… she found a-Airman k-Kaheel," she said, her voice unsteady as if she was going to vomit.

Link glanced up and then at Layna before looking back down at her. "Is… is he…" Link started, unsure if he wanted to finish the question.

Irleen sniffed. "He's dead. The—hic! There's no… no blood, so… he-he might have… poisoned himself. Or maybe just let-let himself… starve to death."

Link felt his whole body shiver at the news. "He whhh…" he tried, but words failed him. He felt sick again, and he tried to swallow back the feeling so he could ask, "Is there… a reason why he would do that?"

"I don't know!" she shouted at him. He started, taken aback by her response. "Stop asking me things, Link! Shut up! Just… shut…" Her voice disappeared in a renewed fit of crying.

Link glanced at Layna, and Layna avoided the look as she decided to slowly walk away. It made him feel a little lonely, especially since Irleen did not want to talk anymore. But he could not stand watching her like this. She had no face for him to read, not that he could not tell she was seriously distraught by finding the closest Sorian they had come to in over a month dead. He realized that she must have felt even lonelier. It must have been a feeling, a frustration, she had been bearing ever since they fell to the surface. He empathized with her, drawing on his isolation from the sky to help him understand her. He carefully got on his knees with her still in his hands and asked, "Irleen. Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," she said as her sobbing subsided. "Yes, there is, Link." Her voice became hostile, hateful in a way Link had never heard her speak before, as she added, "I want you to make these… these bastards pay."

…

Link and Irleen spent a few more moments in silence as Layna watched the large junction outside. He wanted to wait until Irleen was willing to fly on her own before going on. She eventually broke her silence and explained to Link that, while she did not know the airman personally, she felt that all the Sorian killing that had been happening lately was causing her some grief. She confessed that she might have done it before if Link's screaming at the time had not put her on alert for bad news when he had found the gravestones of the Horizon's Eye's dead crew. The news of Link finding a severed wing had made her hope that they might rescue a fellow Sorian, and finding the identity tag had made her believe that the Sorian was still alive. Link apologized that she had had to see the body instead of him, but she told him that, even if Link had discovered the body, she still might have snapped.

Feeling a little relieved by their talk, she picked herself up onto her own wings. Link followed her to the doorway, and Layna immediately ducked outside to make sure their way was clear. He failed to tell Layna which way he was going, so she had to slide by him to make it to the doorway to their right before he stepped inside. She signaled him to stay put with a hand while she examined the small hallway beyond. She invited them along as she looked around the room beyond.

The room turned out to be very interesting. It had a lower ceiling of solid tiles which mimicked the floor in design. In each corner was a pipe of clear glass filled with flowing water. Here, the walls were not as pristine; the wall on the right looked to have been smashed with something heavy, the living material around it a deep red color as it pulsed with the rest of the room in the same orange blotches that they had seen all over the junction.

And, perhaps most interesting of all, a skeleton sat in the far left corner, parts of its bones hidden behind the large pipe.

"Irleen…" Link spoke up as he looked to her.

But Irleen shook her form side to side. "I'm all right," she assured him. "Whoever that was, they've probably been dead for a long time, though I can't really say why their remains are still here."

Link nodded. "What is this place?"

"My best guess was that this was some kind of control room."

Link indicated the red-glowing wall with his head. "Why is the technoworks doing that? Is that necrosis?"

"No, not yet. Those dark pieces on the floor, yeah, but the rest of that area is in the later stages. Right now, the technoworks here are trying their best to keep necrosis at bay until it receives the command to begin apoptosis and repair itself. Some active growth would also help fill in all this mess and replace whatever might have been on this wall."

"What would have been on this wall?" Link asked as he approached it.

Chnk chnk.

"Well, if this was a station, it would be a set of instructions on how to change the flow of water to the island's surface. Though I imagine they locked it when they left."

"Amda Kyabtin." Link glanced over his shoulder to find Layna holding a large bone in her hand, her other hand occupied by one of her throwing blades. He turned and walked to her as she demonstrated her discovery by tapping the bone with her blade.

Chnk chnk.

She offered the bone to him, and Link took it, discovering that it was actually quite different from what he expected. It was a little heavy, and its exterior was a glossy grey color instead of ugly white as he had seen on old bones before. The fact that it looked quite clean, save for a few cuts and scrapes, also made it curious.

"This bone is made of metal," he said aloud.

"Metal?" Irleen asked.

"Mital?" Layna mimicked.

"Oh, no," Irleen uttered. Her voice took on a tone that sent a shiver up Link's spine as she said, "Link, put the bone down and slowly… slowly leave the room."

Link passed a look of fright to Layna to help communicate their intentions, and her face immediately steeled itself. "Just out of curiosity," Link said as he carefully placed the bone on the floor in front of him, "what was I just holding?"

"Back away easy," she said. "It's something only Cunimincus could come up with. When he realized that he was losing followers to the fighting with the Sorians, he decided that the best way to get them back was to reanimate their skeletons. It's an old trick to making a Stalfos, but that cloud of crazy decided to take it a step further. To make sure he could not lose his reanimated followers, he had their bones dunked in molten iron and left to solidify on their own. This made a series of troops which we call 'Stalarmors'. And we just found one."

"Okay… how do we fight it?"

Chnk chnk chnk. Chnk chnk. Chnk chnk chnk. Link watched the bone roll along the floor toward the rest of the pile. The rest of the pile started rattling against the floor, their movement caused by nothing any of the other occupants could see.

"By running."

The bones suddenly piled themselves together and rearranged themselves with a series of clanking. What they put together looked like a scrawny skeleton twice Link's height. Its head looked vaguely human with a small horn decorating its forehead. It reached back behind the pipe and produced a metal shield which it fit to its left arm and a longsword with a disk-shaped guard which it wielded with its right hand. Link drew the Lokomo Sword and held it in front of him. The blade attracted the attention of the blue, pinpoint eyes that wandered the inside of its eye sockets. It raised its sword above its head, and Link prepared to jump to one side.

Chink! The Stalarmor's head jerked when a small, sliver disk bounced off its left cheekbone. This caused its downswing to veer to Link's left, and he jumped to the right to make sure he was out of its way. It reeled for a moment, and Link thought it was going to fall on top of him, so he backed away a few steps while he tried to find something to attack. The Stalarmor's head looked right at him, and then forward at Layna. Layna's face had turned into a death glare, and Link thought he saw some kind of small tool between her fingers. The Stalarmor stepped forward at her and attempted an upswing. Layna dodged out of the sword's path, slid along the ground to its right side, and immediately jumped on the creature. Link jumped forward and leveled a low strike at the back of the creature's left leg, straight through its knee. The Stalarmor faltered, but Link watched as the bones he had struck through quickly returned and put its knee back together.

Pang! In the moment Link had distracted it with the strike to the knee, Layna had pulled its head off and fallen to the floor with it. The skull had rolled free from her hands and landed near the corner of the room. Link expected the Stalarmor to fall over, but his expectation was met with a backhanded strike that left his head reeling from the impact against the creature's shield. He fell to the floor and waited for his head to stop ringing before he looked up. The Stalarmor's head was already in the air, and it landed back at the top of its spine.

But Link had seen something interesting before the head fell back into place: a small, blue orb at the top of its spine, perfectly protected by its head.

The Stalarmor went for a low sweep with its sword, but Layna rolled just out of range before the tip of the blade could find her. This left its back exposed to Link, so Link stood up, located his sword, and delivered a hard slice at the side of the Stalarmor's skull. Unfortunately, the Stalarmor's stature made the blow awkward, and the Lokomo blade simply skipped off the skull's round surface. The Stalarmor was not unaware, though. It spun on Link while swinging its sword at a level about even with the top of Link's head. Link ducked lower to ensure that the sword did not find his scalp, and he backed off before a second swing could dig into his shoulder.

Layna recovered and leapt onto the Stalarmor's back. She jammed a small blade hidden in her hand into the Stalarmor's right shoulder joint and twisted, causing its arm to pop out of its socket. Then she moved and put her foot against the arm as it tried to put itself back into its socket. The Stalarmor attempted to grab her with its left hand, but she ducked into a difficult spot on its back where the Stalarmor could not reach.

"Layna!" Link shouted. "Layna, take its head!" He shifted to his left so that he was lined up with the Stalarmor's front. Layna peered at him through its ribs, and Link patted his head with his free hand. "Take its head!"

Layna hooked a hand underneath the Stalarmor's jaw. Link jumped forward as soon as its longsword had swung in a different direction to try to get Layna's foot and grabbed onto the Stalarmor's ribcage. Layna rose so she could get her arm over the front of the Stalarmor's face, ripped its head off again, and fell off its back, this time making sure that she did not lose her grip on the skull. Link pulled, and, due to being disoriented by Layna bashing its head against the floor, the Stalarmor's torso leaned forward. He swung his sword as hard as he could into the blue orb recessed in the Stalarmor's topmost vertebra. The orb cracked, and the Stalarmor's bones froze in place as it made to jab Link from the side. Link backed up just as the metal skeleton clattered to the floor. Layna stood up and threw its jawbone aside.

Irleen flew back into the room and hovered over the skeleton as Layna moved to the back corner where her throwing blade had disappeared. "Or you could do that," Irleen said.

Link let out a long sigh as he looked at the body. "I guess that's how they fit in the crates," he told her. "A collapsible skeleton."

"The question is how many of them there are," Irleen replied.

"This one probably fit in the crate with the… the Sorian," Link said, his pause caused by the realization that he now had a nasty headache. He pressed his free hand against his forehead. "Oh, man, that hurt…"

"At least your head's still attached," Irleen joked. "How did you know that gem was its life source?"

Link shrugged as he sheathed his sword. "I just thought, with all this talk about living rock and necrosis and whatever, a shiny blue stone on a living skeleton might be something I should smash." Then he stepped forward and picked up the heater-shaped shield. Although it lacked any sort of adornment on its face, Link admired the fact that it had actually taken very little damage in its time. He turned it and fit his right arm through the straps. It felt heavier than the wooden shield that had been claimed under the Fire Realm, but it also felt like it could take many more hits. "What do you think?"

"You're going to steal another shield?" Irleen asked as Layna, now back to her curious self, tilted her head at him.

"Ooooh, yeah," Link said as he tugged a longer strap out of a clasp in the back of the shield. He continued to talk as he removed the shield and slung it over his head. "If we're gonna run into more of these guys, I'd like some protection."

…

They left the room and traveled back to the junction after Link had taken a moment to let his head clear up a little more. They descended to the second platform and looked inside the first door. It was small and probably the darkest room they had found, but without any sort of features, Irleen said that it might just be a storage room.

The second room turned out to be more interesting. At the end of a short corridor with a bend in it, they discovered what must have been the widest room yet. It was also probably the most devastated. To the left of the entrance was a large area of wall that looked to have taken a few blows from a sledgehammer, such were the large divots in the wall. Other, unharmed sections of the wall were glowing red along with this, making Link wonder if the rest of the room was just reacting to the damaged part. The rest of the long wall on the left side was covered by five, large, glass tubes. Only four of them were filled with flowing water; the closest one was dry. The right side of the room looked plain until Link noticed that there was a space in the wall when they walked closer. Around it—

"Wha—!"

—something Link was not seeing soon. Layna suddenly clapped a hand over Link's mouth and pulled him against the wall by a sleeve. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, she realized what she had done and quickly removed her hands. He watched Layna as she seemed to listen for a bit before sliding along the wall to peer around the corner. Her attempt to signal him forward went unanswered for a moment since Link did not recognize the finger-hook gesture she gave from the arm she had pressed between her hip and the wall. When she glanced back at him and gave him a less-subtle wave forward, he stepped up behind her (not realizing that brushing her thigh with his hand spontaneously caused her extreme discomfort) and leaned to one side to look around her.

Around the corner was a large space which glowed bright red on all three walls and was covered in a great number of black rocks. There was a pair of columns covered in a vast array of colors that jerked in a disturbing manner. Before these columns, which had probably caused Layna to halt their advance, were two Stalarmors seemingly interesting in jabbing their iron-clad finger bones into the columns. These Stalarmors looked to be well-equipped compared to the first Stalarmor. In addition to broadswords and larger shields, the Stalarmor on the right wore a cuirass and spiked pauldrons while the Stalarmor on the left wore an entire suit of chainmail. Both wore helmets with a great number of spikes, a few of them hanging off the helmet (assuming that the bare metal was not actually their skulls) at odd angles. With their backs to Link, Irleen, and Layna, it seemed like they had yet to notice their new company.

"Oh, great…" Irleen groaned as she hovered around the corner. "Ideas?"

"I don't see any doors out of here," Link whispered. "We could probably just leave them here for now."

"Eeeh, not gonna work out," Irleen whispered back. "You see those columns? Those are how the technoworks are controlled. It's pure luck they haven't smashed these apart yet. We should try getting rid of them before they decide to, though."

Link sighed in exhaustion and told himself, "I probably should've thought this through…"

"That's what I said before we left the ship. But you've got Layna. She's just… point and kill, right?"

Link and Layna shared a look. "I didn't think I'd have to actually do this," he groaned at himself. "Layna?" He put one hand on his sword and pointed with the other to the Stalarmor on the left. When he met her eyes again, her curious glance had become an emotionless mask. She gave a sharp nod and held up a hand with all five fingers raised. Link watched the first two drop before he realized that she was counting down to an attack, and he quickly pulled his shield off. She had just gotten to one when he had the shield on his arm, and the moment she dropped her last finger, she slipped past him and crossed the large, open floor at a full, silent run.

Link lost track of her as he pulled the Lokomo Sword and dashed for the Stalarmor wearing the cuirass. He had to hold back his speed so that his boots would not activate and cause him to smash into the Stalarmor's back, but he was still rushed because he wanted to take advantage of the surprise that would be lost the moment Layna began her attack on the other one.

As a result, the boots activated. Link quickly caught himself and slowed just in time to realize that, if he did not stop, he would run into the two rows of blades that decorated the Stalarmor's spine. He slid to a stop, making the Stalarmor pause in curiosity at the new noise. Feeling that he was about to lose the surprise, Link raised the sword and delivered a downward strike to the back of the Stalarmor's head.

Pank!

The Stalarmor stepped forward, its head lowered as if to duck another blow. Then, as Link backed up, the Stalarmor raised a hand and felt the back of its skull until it found the groove Link's blow had left. It stroked the groove with a fingertip, completely oblivious to the fact that Layna had just jumped onto its companion's back and started tearing into its chainmail with a small knife. The Stalarmor whipped around to look at Link, and although the creature had no fleshy brow with which to express its ire, Link could tell that he had greatly angered it by the high-pitched screech caused by the creature grinding its back teeth as it stared at him. Link backed up further when he saw that the creature not only wielded a broadsword on its hip, but it sported a massive war hammer which it carefully and deliberately retrieved from its resting place leaning on the column. The head looked like the head of a large claw hammer, and the handle was almost as tall as the Stalarmor holding it and just thicker than Link's arm. He watched as the Stalarmor raised the hammer above its head with both hands, and he jumped out of the way the moment he saw the Stalarmor swing.

BAM! Link felt the floor shake under his boots, and he was glad that he had not been standing there. The Stalarmor raised the hammer again, but this swing came at an angle that was probably meant to remove Link's head. He jumped backwards out of range, then he lunged forward and laid a horizontal strike which would have hit the Stalarmor's head if the spike on its pauldron had not been so high. The Stalarmor gave an irritated grunt (through what means, Link was too distracted to guess) and freed its right hand to land a cheap shot against Link's shield. Link stumbled forward, and he quickly spun around as soon as he regained his footing. Then he raised his shield when he saw the Stalarmor thrust the head of the hammer at him. Pain flashed through Link's arm, and he gritted his teeth together in an effort to keep from shouting aloud. He realized that he could not allow the Stalarmor to strike him again, especially since a direct strike of any greater force than that thrust would likely destroy the shield and shatter Link's arm. He had to find its weak point.

The Stalarmor raised the war hammer again, and Link saw by its tilt to the right that it might be preparing another diagonal swing. Link needed to dodge and find a way to distract the Stalarmor long enough to find its life source.

The Stalarmor struck, the swing intending to snap Link's collarbone or neck (or whatever body part just happened to be in the way; the Stalarmor did not care what). Link ducked and dodged to his right, moving underneath the swing with room to spare due to distance. Then, he took a step at the Stalarmor's exposed arm with his left arm raised. He brought the blade down on the Stalarmor's elbow just behind its shield. The Stalarmor's control of its left forearm faltered, and it stumbled when the weight of the hammer it had been bringing up for a horizontal swing at Link suddenly shifted completely to its right arm.

And Link caught a glimpse of a glowing source underneath its cuirass. The Stalarmor's life source was attached to the spine on the other side of its armor.

Link took advantage of the Stalarmor's stagger and used his sword to hook its raised left leg. The Stalarmor slammed into the floor next to the column, its hammer trapped beneath its body. Its arm had just reassembled, and it held up its shield as Link dropped his sword down on top of it, intending to knock its ribs out of place and get to its life source. It batted Link's sword away with the shield, causing Link to stumble again. It then got to its feet and drew its broadsword. Link recovered in time to raise his shield and intercept the broadsword aimed to disembowel Link. With the Stalarmor being right-handed, Link had to duck behind the shield and turn his shoulder into the strike to block, leaving his sword arm out of range for a counterstrike. The Stalarmor took advantage of this and twisted its torso. Link managed to take some power out of the next blow with his shield, but he still felt the impact of the Stalarmor's shield against his head. His vision swam, and he staggered away from the Stalarmor so he had a moment to get his bearings. He found them just as the Stalarmor aimed a downward strike at his head, and he jumped to the left. This gave Link a clear shot at its right arm, and he used his sword to break through its barely-existent elbow. The sudden lack of control caused the Stalarmor to fumble its broadsword. The Stalarmor leaned forward as if to catch the sword in addition to its arm.

This afforded Link the opportunity to thrust his sword into the Stalarmor's ribcage. Since the cuirass had no back plate (likely because anyone who tried to attack from behind was likely to run into its weaponized spine), Link was able to then swing his sword at the area of spine protected by the ribcage. Link's blade sliced through the Stalarmor's lack of connective meat, and its upper torso from where Link had struck nearly fell to pieces. Its shoulders and head as well as part of its spine flew over the top of its cuirass as the Stalarmor tried to stand straight back up to stop the attack. This motion left the blue orb of the Stalarmor's life source exposed. Link, upon seeing the orb, swung his arm in a circle and tried to put as much power into a blow aimed at something as high as his chest.

The strike was awkward because there were still ribs covering the orb as well as the jumble of detached bones floating in the way, but he managed to deliver enough of a strike to crack the orb's surface. The Stalarmor's flailing suddenly turned into a definite fall as its body flung in two different directions: the lower torso forward since it was still trying to catch its falling bones and the upper torso backwards as it had tried to reassemble. This resulted in a long line of scattered bones across the floor.

"Link!" Irleen shouted from overhead. "Layna's in trouble!"

Link spun to find that Layna, having stripped the second Stalarmor of a good bit of its chainmail, had been caught in the Stalarmor's grip and now dangled by her forearm as the Stalarmor drew its sword. Without considering what he was about to do, Link used his boots to accelerate to high speed and smashed his body, protected by his shield, into the Stalarmor's pelvis. The Stalarmor swayed in two directions and, trying to save itself, threw Layna aside. Layna jerked in the air and managed to save herself from a bad fall by catching herself on her hands and feet. The Stalarmor was just moments from having its upper body smash against the ground when its bones finally drew and reassembled themselves back around its pelvis.

Unfortunately for the Stalarmor, Link had caught sight of the life source embedded on the inside of its pelvis. Link spun around and struck the Stalarmor's pelvis with a horizontal swing. The orb broke in half, and the Stalarmor collapsed to the floor seconds later.

For a moment, Link and Layna stood still, watching both piles of iron bones for signs that the Stalarmors were going to put up another fight. Both were breathing hard, and Link's legs felt sore. Then Link relaxed and lowered his sword. His eyes fell to the spot where the first Stalarmor had tried to squish him, and he saw that that area of the floor had turned bright red. That must have been how the Stalarmors had been damaging the technoworks: brute force. The one wielding the hammer must have caused most of it; the floor looked cracked and fragmented like most of the red areas they had seen.

Link let out a sigh and turned to Layna, who had adopted a more relaxed stance. "Are you all right?" he asked her. She tilted her head in curiosity, so Link gestured at his arms and spoke a little louder. "Wounds? Wounds?"

"I don't think she understands loud Hylian either, Link," Irleen told him as she descended from the high ceiling.

Link shook his head. "I guess I should try learning Geltoan some time."

"As long as you don't learn it from Dholit…"

Link gestured at the columns, which had steadied their colors to show swirling patterns of warm copper with blue particles falling from the top like rain. "You said these control the technoworks, so how do we use them?"

Irleen hesitated before responding. "Uh… actually, the process isn't that simple. These accept commands. We still need a medium to give commands through, something that the Sorian magic user would have had with him."

Link sighed. "So, we still need to look around?"

"Yep."

Link gave her an uncomfortable look. "But… this is the last room."