Chapter 129: Legacy of the Batshit Contraption

…

~~We met Luggard in Library Town again. I think we oughta do something about Layna's habit of ambushing people; I'm beginning to worry that we might not stop her in time one of these days. Anyway, he's agreed to take us around the surface again. I told him we didn't have much to pay with, but he told us not to worry about it. Evidently, after we left the surface, he got a hefty pay raise due to the modifications Sello made to the Seventeen. He said he would fix it in the morning so that he was free to take us around, so we're staying the night at his house ag—

~~Ignore this splotch; Luggard's brother did it.

…

Link felt strange and nostalgic at the same time as he rode in the Seventeen's cab once again. Strange, because it had been two months since he had last sat on that bench. The cab had undergone a few more modifications which had not been the result of Link's master of drunken engineering. The most obvious was a set of windows and a roof over the cab and the tender. This served to increase the noise in the cab, but it kept the smoke and the wind outside as well as the snow falling around the locomotive. Luggard sat on an upholstered bench built into the right side of the cabin with many of his controls directly in front of him. The entire instrument panel was nothing like what he could remember seeing, all of its gauges placed closer to Luggard as well as having a larger firebox with a revolving door operated by a lever.

The nostalgia set it mostly from the sensations of riding a train again. The clack-clack of the wheels over the tracks, the chugging of the engine, the smell of burning coal in the air… there were a couple of times since they had started out from Library Town when Link had wondered if he might have just fallen asleep and would wake back up two months ago, when he would have been traveling around with Luggard, Cale, and Irleen in search of a way back home. But then, he realized that, whether then or now, he would still be waiting to find home once more.

Irleen had been silently circling overhead since the train first entered the Snow Realm. Link was sure she was antsy, and he could sympathize. He was hopeful, however. With one technoworks block sitting on the bench next to him and the blues harp and the technoworks fragment in his pocket, what she uncovered from her second reading from the blues harp would be a reality once they had a block from the Horizon's Eye. She was certainly more active than Cale, who had fallen asleep at the far end of the bench with a blue moustache drawn on his face courtesy of a bored Valley.

Link had not been paying attention to the scenery outside, mostly because the noon sun rendered everything outside the window a blinding white. So he was a little surprised when Luggard gave the brakes a sharp pull. He shouted out as he slipped off the bench, dropping his boots in a wide stance to just barely save himself from hitting the floor. Cale was not as lucky. At the ensuing jolt, he dislodged from the back corner. Still asleep, he flipped forward and—Tunk!—hit the floor of the cab head-first. Valley, on the short bench opposite from Cale, had spread herself out like Link to save herself from a nasty fall.

Luggard glanced back at his passengers with an embarrassed grin on his face. "Whoops," he said aloud before sticking his head out the open window beside him. While still looking out the window, he used his left hand to steadily apply the brakes.

Cale rolled over and groaned, hands covering his face. "I'm dead," he said to himself. "Please let me be dead…"

Link stood up and stepped over to Luggard's seat while Irleen moved to hover over Link's left shoulder. "Everything all right, Luggard?" Link asked.

"No' sure," Luggard replied once his head was back in the cab. "'Ang on. We's gonna hafta stop 'ere."

"Where are we?" Irleen asked.

Luggard gave a nervous grimace. "No' where we wanna be…"

Link could feel the train slowing to a stop and stepped onto the bench he had just been sitting on to look outside. His eyes found a line of trees in the middle of a large sheet of white. Only a few shadows suggested where the ground was. Then, just before the Seventeen stopped, Link saw a grey-furred Yook swinging a lantern that gave off a red glow and smoke.

"Hey, Link," Valley said. Link turned to see her pointing out the window she had her face pressed against. So Link crossed the cab and stepped onto the bench with her. Irleen moved over to join them. Link saw a group of five Yook walking along the tracks next to the stopped train, two of them toting pickaxes.

Link asked, "What is this? What are they doing?"

Valley rolled the side of her face against the window in an attempt to look forward. "I noes knows," she replied. "It cans be an avalanche."

"An… avalanche?" Link repeated, unsure if he had heard the word correctly.

"You made that up," Irleen accused her, although her tone was not very strong.

"Nope," Luggard said as he slid off his bench. "She's righ'; it's an avalanche." He stepped over to the door and opened it. Link, Valley, and Irleen moved to rally around Luggard as he hung out the door. "Yep. The track's blocked. We ain' goin' through 'ere."

"Can I look?" Link asked. Irleen shot through the door as Luggard switched places with Link. When Link had himself positioned to where he would not fall out, he looked up at a large pile of rock and ice lying on the tracks. Link's eyes traced the top edge of the pile up and to the right until he realized that it blended in with a cliff a great distance from the train. "What a mess…"

"No kidding," Irleen agreed.

"Captain?" Link glanced down at the Yook nearest to the train to see that one of them had stopped to look up at him.

Even though Link was not able to tell Yook faces apart, he could only think of one that referred to him as 'captain'. "Kohg?" he asked. The Yook gave him a yellow, toothy grin. Link smiled back as he said, "Hey, nice to see you again!"

"Nice see Captain," Kohg replied.

"What's going on?" Link asked, pointing to the mess on the tracks.

"Avalanche," Kohg told them.

"That's really a word?" Irleen asked.

Kohg nodded at her. "Yook clean track. Take many days. Avalanche fall many times."

"'Many' days?" Irleen asked. "How many many days?"

Kohg looked down at his hands and appeared to count for a moment. "Many days," he answered. "More days than Kohg count." The sound Irleen made in response fell somewhere between misery and exhaustion.

"How far are we from the airship?" Link asked. Kohg tilted his head in confusion. "The large ship. Where we first met?"

"Far," Kohg replied.

"Link," Luggard spoke up, tapping Link's arm. "We's 'bou' 'alf an 'our away."

"Oh."

"Captain need something?" Kogh asked.

"Yeah," Link replied as he dug into his pocket with his free hand. He pulled out Valley's earring and held it out for Kohg to see. "Have you seen anything like this before?"

Kohg had to step closer to see the piece of technoworks. Then he nodded. "Kohg see."

"From the ship, right?" Link asked, retracting his hand.

Kohg shook his head. "No. Leader bring after mountain god sleep."

"After…" Link muttered as he tried to piece together Kohg's broken Hylian. "You mean from the volcano? The one we went in?"

"Yes. Leader keep. But if Captain need, leader give. You want see leader?"

"You mean Soog, right?" Link asked. Kohg nodded. "How far?"

"Yook village not far," Kohg replied as he indicated the mountains to the northeast, the opposite direction of the avalanche. Link followed Kohg's arm to see a thin trail of smoke rising between peaks further away. "Captain take train. Walk not safe. Wolfos bad."

"You wanna hop aboard?" Link asked, indicating the passenger car behind the locomotive. "We'll take you along."

Kohg shook his head. "Kohg must work. Leader command. Nice see Captain. Good luck."

Link smiled and nodded at him. "Thanks, Kohg. Good luck getting this… avalanche… thing cleared up." Link then glanced up. "Let's go, Irleen."

"Right," she replied before zipping into the cab.

"Hey, Luggard," Link said as Luggard clambered into his seat. He waited to shut the door before he continued. "Know how to get to the Yook village from here?"

"No, bu' I can ge' ya close," Luggard said as he started manipulating levers. "Jus' reverse 'ere, an' the track b'hind us'll ge' us there."

"Sounds good," Link replied with a nod. After locking the door, he turned to see that Cale was still lying on the floor. "You alive, Cale?"

"Unfohtunately," Cale groaned while Valley poked his arm with a toe.

"Just thought I'd ask."

…

Luggard had to reverse back to the last junction before the avalanche and use the switch to turn the Seventeen around to travel east. The whole trip took almost half an hour. Then, contrary to what they thought, Luggard pulled into a train platform which had been constructed from rough, unshaped rock. As Link, Valley, Cale, and Irleen jumped out, Link began to wonder if they would have to walk towards the smoke. He figured it could not be much farther than over the next hill. But then Valley pointed out a pair of holes in the snow near the bottom of the platform. A Yook emerged from one of the holes once they had stepped off the platform and explained to them (in the best way that he could; his repertoire of Hylian words was even more limited than Kohg's) that he would take them to the village. No one really objected; Valley and Cale were so cold that their teeth were too busy chattering for them to say anything while Link and Irleen were focused on the prospect of finding another intact piece of technoworks.

Upon reaching the village, Link was surprised to see such a difference. The village had been relocated to a pit surrounded by low hills. The center of the pit had been dug out so that there was just a fine sheet of snow on the ground. In the surrounding hills were holes similar to the ones near the platform. Judging from the fact that the Yook seemed interested in keeping close to these holes, Link took these to be their homes. It made sense once he remembered that they had been living in houses made of snow on their mountaintop. Unlike the mountain village, though, this one did not have the spire. It looked to be in progress, though; rock and ice had been piled around what could loosely be called the base. What male Yook were not busy tending to their families were moving the rock and ice around to form walls.

One with grey fur, who must have been the largest there, turned to the visitors as they approached the construction. With a nod, he dismissed their escort. Then he said in a kind voice, "Welcome back, Link."

"Thank you, Soog," Link replied with a smile. He indicated their surroundings. "I'm a little surprised to see you down here."

"Yook lived on ground before," Soog explained. "Now live on ground again. Good thing. Mountains are dangerous."

"Yeah, no kidding," Irleen replied.

"Valley told Yook about Link returning to sky," Soog said with a frown. "But Link is back. Why?"

"Oh, no, we made it up there," Link quickly told him. "It's just that… well, now we're visiting the surface again. And… we have a favor to ask you."

"Favor?" Soog asked as Link dug into his pocket.

"Yeah," Link said. "We met Kohg on the way here." He picked out the earring and held it up for Soog to see. "He said you found something like this."

Soog had to bend over to see what Link was holding. After staring at it, he stood back to his full height. "When Yook discovered snow returned, Yook looked around mountains to find home on ground again. Yook looked at mountain god's home. Yes. Soog find that. Come."

Soog led them into one of the holes. A sense of relative warmth spread across the Hylians immediately. If it was Soog's home, it looked to be quite large and deep into the hill. Valley and Cale collapsed into the chairs in front of a slab of rock protruding from the wall, what Link believed to be Soog's analogue for a table. Link remained standing nearby in about the middle of the room, not particularly in the mood to sit. He did, however, appreciate the warmth, especially since the thick snow they had trudged through had left his trouser legs soaked. Soog had gone to the back of the sparcely-decorated dwelling to retrieve something from a chest.

When he returned, both Link and Irleen were amazed to see him holding a fully-intact and glowing technoworks block. "Wow…" Link breathed.

"What Link need for?" Soog asked.

"We're gonna use them to find my people," Irleen spoke up. "I, uh… I don't know if you'll get it back…"

Soog shook his head. "Yook not know use for this. Link and Irleen can take. Not bother Yook."

"Oh," Link uttered when he realized that Soog was trying to offer it to him. He took it into his hands and said, "Thanks, Soog."

"Can this one be used to provide life to the othah block?" Cale asked after using his breath to warm his hands.

"It should," Irleen replied. Then she added in an uncertain tone, "But…"

"What is it?" Link asked.

"I don't know," Irleen said. "There's something weird about the way this thing is flowing."

Link held the block closer to his face and watched the orange glow swirl about its surface. "It looks about the same to me."

"Then why it jerks back and forth like dat?" Valley asked, her head wobbling as if trying to follow the movement she described.

"Is it?" Link asked.

"I don't see anything," Cale said.

"No, she's right," Irleen said as she circled Link. "Some of the finer lines of life are kinda… quirky. Like they can't make up their minds."

"You said you found this at the base of the volcano?" Link asked Soog.

"Yes," Soog answered. "Found inside machine. Machine not work, but Yook take from machine."

"A machine?" Cale asked.

"Maybe Drumstik?" Valley suggested with a shrug. "We did see part of it come outta da volcano."

Irleen took a moment before pointing out, "Meaning that this was in Sello's possession."

"Yeah, probably," Link said.

Irleen then let out an annoyed growl as she came to a hover near Link's left shoulder. "Link. Smell it."

Link blinked at her before asking, "Huh?"

"Trust me. Just smell it."

Link's movement was hesitant, but he placed his nose near the block and took a sniff. He quickly held it out at arm's length and let out a disgusted sound. "Oh, wow," he said. "It smells like a barrel full of bad grog."

"Great," Irleen moaned. "Great. Leave it to Sello to figure out how to get living rock drunk!"