John and Roxy stood atop the stone promontory and looked out towards the north, surrounded by green grass, kept lush by the wet winter season. Directly below them was the grotto where Jaspers sat moored, awaiting a sail. "Chosen's that way," said Roxy, pointing off into the distance. She said it almost as an afterthought.
"Is it a big island?" John asked idly, his attention divided. The stone monument right in front of him was nearly as tall as himself, and so ancient that the carven letters had almost been worn smooth. Not that he could have read them; they were ancient Hylian. He'd seen a gravestone once, in a book. Most islanders buried their dead at sea; if they didn't, there would soon be no room for the living. "Bigger than this one?"
Roxy giggled. "It's a continent John! It goes on for miles and miles and there's places you can't even see the ocean." John tried to imagine it and found that he couldn't. Roxy stepped forward and leaned toward the monument, squinting. "I think I can read it, if you want."
John nodded excitedly. "Would you, please?"
Roxy cleared her throat, affecting a pretentious and scholarly mien. Slowly, a bit haltingly, either due to unfamiliarity with the language or because of the worn-out nature of the script, she began. "…and I swear to you, that some among you will still breathe and tread upon the Earth when I return. For I am the Oracle of Oracles, and all the shining lands you see around you are my dominion. Mine are the flowing rivers and the rolling plains, the flowering woods and the high mountains. Mine are the thousand-thousand hills of Hyrule, and…" Roxy giggled. "I can't go on after that, the words are too faded."
John was suddenly conscious of the roar of the ocean in his sensitive ears, more so than he ever had been in his life. Rolling plains? Flowering woods? A thousand-thousand…hills? He stepped closer to the edge. There was nothing, nothing but the great churning expanse of water, as far as his eyes could see, and farther; it was eternal and endless and beautiful, and it had never seemed so empty to him. John's throat tightened just slightly as the barest beginning of a thought formed in his head, that there might be something irreparably wrong with the world he lived in. He tightened his hood around his head and looked down at his feet.
Roxy turned, big smile souring slightly. "Is something wrong?" she asked.
"No," John lied.
The new city jail was a maximum security facility with three foot thick walls of solid stone converted from an old lighthouse, half a mile away from the city on a tiny island. Gamzee Makara was being kept in the old jail. He was its only tenant, and the place was generally left unguarded. The low brick building was at the edge of town, near where this forgotten Oracle had given his final sermon. Dark smudges around the windows and a slight warping of the bricks spoke of a massive conflagration. People said the building was haunted. John was more chagrinned than anything to see the angelic-seeming Aranea's handiwork. "Shall we?" asked Roxy, offering her arm. John snorted and kicked down the door. It broke easily.
The ceiling was low, but the room was wide. It smelled strongly of smoke, and their footfalls were muffled by the thick, black ash. Odd mushrooms, some of which glowed an eerie blue, grew in the corners. The wind streaming past the barred windows made a high, keening sound, like a mournful wail. Something stomped around upstairs, releasing several trickling streams of ash with each step before standing still and letting out an ugly, burbling sound. The two kids looked at each other. John offered his arm.
The far wall had been composed of cells, but the iron bars had corroded and warped to uselessness in the blaze, and were used only as storage. Roxy searched through the heavy pots and crates, turning up a few rupees. "I think we could buy a sail now, actually," she said, smile huge, yet not reaching her eyes.
John gulped. "We did promise that guy—" the burbling sound came again. John released a sharp stream of breath from between his teeth. "That poor man is trapped in here," he said, after a long pause. "We've got to get him out."
Roxy sighed. "I can tell you're one of those hero types, aren't you?" she said, resting her cheek on her palm.
John shrugged. "I'm just trying to do the right thing.
"It's worse than I thought…" she muttered under her breath. Resignedly, she motioned to the corner and said, "I think there's something under that crate."
Between the Sheikah not-warrior and the blacksmith's apprentice, the heavy box was easily moved. Underneath was a metal trapdoor that had been stained an ugly red-brown by the fire but was otherwise untouched, to Roxy's consternation. The burbling sound was heard yet a third time and a heavy, wet tread could be felt but not heard, as if muffled by a thick layer of ash. The kids jumped down the hole as quickly as possible.
The dungeons below the jail were a labyrinthine maze of narrow brick and stone passages, barely big enough to walk through stooped. "Johnny, if I have to crawl, I'm leaving you to die," Roxy threatened.
"It's not so bad," he said, trying to sound brave. Upstairs, something squished.
The crude tunnels never got any narrower, but due to some illusion or trick of perspective, it became tighter and more and more cramped with every passing second. Roxy was not afraid of enclosed spaces, but John had never been in such cramped quarters, and he felt like he was walking through some monstrous throat, clenching and squeezing him down into an enormous stomach. He imagined that he was going to be crushed, or worse, get stuck, and then he would never get back out. He'd be trapped down here forever. No, he would starve. No, whatever that thing was that was following behind would find him, and….
A hand rested on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. John stiffened. He turned, trying not to scream. He saw Roxy, smiling reassuringly. Hesitantly, he smiled back. That's right, he wasn't alone. If he got stuck, Roxy could help him out, and vice versa—
Then something scurried across his foot and he did scream.
Roxy screamed too, though more in abhorrence and disgust than in fear, because she had actually seen what it was; a rat the size of a housecat, bright purple with accumulated filth and mushroom spores. In an instant, she had a knife in her hand, and an instant later, the rat was pinned to the wall through its chest. The rat's lower body hung limply while its upper body spasmed and twitched. It dropped a purple rupee coated in gunk. The kids decided not to touch it.
"If that's the worst there is down here," Roxy postured, "Then you've got nothing to worry about Johnny," she said, throwing her arm around his neck.
John chuckled a bit forcedly. He really did like Roxy, but she was a tad too chummy. He'd have to talk to her about personal space, but sure as fuck not right now. "I wasn't scared," he muttered. "I was terrified!"
Roxy laughed. Then, her ears twitched sharply to the left as faint tinkling was heard. The tunnel branched away towards that direction, and at the end of it was another rat. In its forepaws it held a bell on a string. Roxy readied another knife—
And fell through the floor just as the trapdoor gave way below her. John looked down into the abyss. "Shit," he muttered. Rats chittered. Something burbled just behind him.
"Did you get the sail?" asked the Princess of Pink Tentacats, wagging its tiller excitedly and sending up little sprays and clumps of foam.
It took Roxy a moment to realize that she was floating in the brine in front of their talking boat. Up above, there was a perfectly circular hole leading into thick, black darkness. The boat mewled to get her attention.
"Sorry your highness," she muttered. The foam fizzed and popped as it dissolved back into seawater.
The figurehead turned its…head, as if confused. "Why do you call me that?"
"It's written on your side," Roxy said, pointing. In striking Tyrian ink, big, happy letters in a blocky yet slightly curved hand spelled out the ship's name.
The figurehead looked at it for a full minute. "I'm Jaspers," it insisted. Roxy rolled her eyes.
"I should be getting back up there," she said. Whispering loudly, she added, "I think John's a little claustrophobic." She clambered aboard the ship and nimbly ascended the narrow stem until she stood atop Jaspers' head, her feet to either side of its conical hat. "Hey," she asked, the thought having just occurred. She turned her head down to look at it, arms crossed. "Are you even a boy or a girl?"
Jaspers thought about this for a full minute, shifting his head from side to side as it did so, shaking even Roxy's Sheikah built balance slightly. "I'm Jaspers," it insisted. Again, Roxy rolled her eyes. Then she looked up at the hole, and wondered how to get back in.
John made his way through the maze, hammer in hand. He was somewhat ashamed to have left Roxy behind, but figured she would probably be alright. He hoped.
The ground underneath was thick with sludge, but stepping carefully, he could tell where the true floor was made of stone or of wood. A wooden floor indicated another trap. Fuck rats, when did they become so bastard intelligent? After some twenty minutes of fumbling through mushroomy luminescence and straining his ears till they almost fell off listening for the telltale burble, he at long last reached the center of the labyrinth. There was a high, circular room of stacked stone, with a metal cage on a platform rising out of the muck. It was empty. "Goddamit!" he shouted, trying to throw his hood on the floor. Sadly, it was attached to his shirt.
And then something squished right behind him. His ears picked up a vigorous burbling, like someone hyperventilating through a mouthful of prison sludge. Slowly, John turned around. That was exactly what it was.
The horribly distended jawline revealed massive, tombstone teeth built for crushing bone, and the wedge-shaped mouth was locked in a permanent rictus grin beneath, black, hollow eye-sockets. The monster's flesh was pale as a maggot, where it wasn't fetid the fetid grey of rotting flesh. Its long neck attached to a trunk as thick as a bull's chest, with puny crippled arms like a child's, but bent at angles reminiscent of a plucked chicken's wings. Instead of legs, two pairs of impossibly long, lanky arms suspended it from the floor like a hideous spider, each huge, bony hand equipped with long fingers and ragged red nails. Sludge dribbled from its mouth. Burble, burble.
John took a swing at its face. Quick as lightning, one of the creature's corpse-like hands caught the hammerhead in its palm. Its wrist bent at a nasty angle with a hideous crack, but it held. Another hand lashed out at John, and he leapt back just in time, turning a certain disembowelment into a few painful scratches across his chest. He didn't want to think about where those red nails had been. He looked down at the floor and thought about it anyway.
The creature suddenly flopped to the ground with another unsettling squish and launched a flurry of blows at John with all four of its hands. John took swats at the flailing limbs with his hammer, but the monster was undisturbed by pain, and continued lunging with its limbs even as they snapped under John's hammer. He cursed himself for not being a better swordsman. If he had been, sensei would have given him a blade, and he could slice off these things and kill the beast at his leisure. Sadly, this was not the case.
Then came a series of wet *thunks*, followed by a slurred cry of "fuck you asshole!" and the monster turned its bulk around, releasing a hiss that sounded more irritated than anything. Stuck in its back were five identical throwing knives, each one just a hair off from its spine, one lodged right in between two vertebrae. Thick gobs of multicolored corpse-blood oozed from the wounds. John took a running leap and aimed for the final knife, pounding it like a stake deep into the creature's body, unleashing a spurt of ugly green.
The monster bent double as if he'd cut it in half, and started spasming and flailing, pained hisses coming from its too-big mouth. Roxy stood on the other side, a pair of bloody knives in her hands. Face contorted in rage and disgust, she hurled them into the monster's empty eye-sockets. The creature twitched once, whole body bucking as if bounced from a great height, and landed on its side. It lay still.
"Are you okay, John?" she asked, jumping over a twisted tangle of arms to his side. "It didn't hurt you?"
John almost said no, but he suddenly became very aware of the gashes in his chest. They were shallow, but they were beginning to burn and itch fiercely. Already, they were becoming very swollen. Roxy swore. "That is so infected John!" she leaned in while also turning her face, as if forcing herself to look at the wound. "He better pay us enough for a doctor—"
There was a wet ripping sound and the creature's chest tore open. John and Roxy screamed. A hand emerged and John threw his hammer, but it went wide. It was very fortunate that it did.
A very wild looking troll with the horns of a goat in clown makeup dragged himself out of the monster's chest cavity. He wore a purple outfit complete with a disturbingly elaborate leather codpiece, and his mass of shaggy black hair was spattered and stained with the monster's colorful fluids. He stood, or rather unfolded his lanky form, and looked around with a beatific smile, gave a short bow, then tore off one of the corpse's arms with the sound of splintering bone and screamed, swinging it wildly. "EVERY MOTHERFUCKER ON THIS ISLAND DIES NOW!"
John felt a pang, suddenly cold and numb, and nearly fell over. Everything seemed to slow down. A voice filled his head, soft and caring. You have very little time John. Move quickly. He became very aware of a canteen hanging from Roxy's belt. He felt a sense of confirmation, as if a voice in his head could nod in approval, and snatched it. The troll was muttering something vile under his breath as he swung the arm towards Roxy's neck, but he might have been moving through molasses. John knocked the rotten thing out of his hand and rammed the canteen into the troll's mouth, squeezing. Thick, foul-smelling yellow-green liquid gushed down the troll's throat.
Everything snapped back to normal. John staggered, and the troll fell backwards onto the ground with the squeaking of a rubber horn, looking extremely content. "What is this stuff?" John asked, gasping. He was beginning to get dizzy.
Roxy laughed embarrassedly. "It's, um, sopor."
John was suddenly too tired to ask what that meant, but Roxy read the confusion on his face. "I guess you could call it alcohol's evil step-mother. It will severely fuck up a human. Trolls are strong enough to drink it, but it's highly addictive. Mostly they just soak in it to help them sleep."
John couldn't help but laugh, even though it hurt his chest. He wanted toask why Roxy had it, but all that managed to come out was, "so…trolls literally go to sleep…pickled?" It took Roxy a second to get it, but when she did, she went into a fit of adrenaline fueled giggling, just as John fell over unconscious.
They are trying to break you John. Remain strong. All things break, except the wind. The starkblast shatters forests. The squall is a scourge upon the damned. The harmattan blasts and burns with dusts and cold. All things quail beneath the fury of—
"Wakey wakey motherfucker," said a dull, raspy voice, its tones and candences jumping erratically. John opened his eyes and saw the clown, unruly mop now tamed by a very odd, rounded conical hood. Naturally, there were flaps for his horns. Slowly, John reached for his hammer.
"No Johnny, Gamzee's a good guy," Roxy warned from her position in a chair. Her tone was extremely tired, and just a bit slurred. It occurred to John she might have a drinking problem. The three of them were in a clean, comfortable room that was a far cry from the dingy depths of the city dungeon. "He knew where all the loot was," Roxy continued, "we had enough for a room at this inn, and about fifty gallons of red potion to shove down your throat. After the guy paid me, we can buy a whole fleet's worth of sails!" She seemed to be trying to feign enthusiasm. John was touched.
"How long was I out this time?" he joked, sitting up.
"Just about seven hours," she said.
John nodded. "This was such a waste of time," he concluded. "We should get going now," he started to slip out of bed.
"Hold on motherfucker," Gamzee said, shoving John back onto the bed. "I ain't thanked y'all for getting me outta the monster's belly," he began to fumble with his belt.
"Oh Farore no why—" John shouted as he panicked, trying to crawl off the other side of the bed. Gamzee caught his foot with one hand. "Check out this little miracle, motherfucker," said the troll, voice low. He hurled up a handful of confetti. "Gamzee," He threw up another with his opposite hand, "Gamzee!" He leapt into the air and twirled with enough force that his image blurred at the edges and John felt the wind from his passing, "kooloo limpah!" He made a three-point landing and segued into a backflip, shouting "become a miracle!" There was a popping sound and the acrid stink of black powder, and suddenly Gamzee was wreathed in white smoke, holding something in his hands.
It was a small yet bulky pictobox, fitted with brass and red enamel, with a silvery flashbulb in the upper-right corner. The troll presented it to John as Roxy clapped. "This little motherfucker here is special," he leaned conspiratorially, "there's a little firefly trapped in it and she knows shit man. Secrets about the world and the people in it. You wanna know the name of your true love?" His voice went so quiet that John could barely hear. "You wanna know how she'll die? She knows, motherfucker. The little firefly knows."
He straightened himself and once again John got the idea of unfolding in his head; the troll was very tall and very long, his every movement was like some kind of big production. The man belonged in a circus. He flashed a grin, which might have been completely innocent or entirely unfriendly. All John knew was that he had the biggest fangs of any troll he'd ever seen; the incisors ought to count as tusks. Gamzee produced a bicycle horn in another burst of black powder (John scoffed at the cheap effects, thinking he could do much the same with just sleight-of-hand) and towards the exit, honking as he went, his curly-toed clown shoes flopping against the floor. He produced a flatcap, flipping it onto his head just so he could doff it at Roxy (show-off, John thought) and slipped right out the door.
"What do you think such a nice guy did to wind up in that prison?" Roxy asked, hiccupping. She was swaying from side to side.
"Probably freaked someone the fuck out," John said. "Or maybe they just decided his magic tricks were too bad to let him out into society." Roxy chuckled and fell back into her chair, asleep. John sighed, getting out of bed, lifting the girl up and setting her down in his place. He sat vigil in the chair until the grey winter noon.
It felt like an eternity since he had seen Jaspers, and he was surprised at the amount of happiness he felt at meeting the smiling, ultra-pink boat yet again. "Do you have a sail now?" Jaspers asked with childlike enthusiasm. John nodded. Within a few minutes, Jaspers was sea-worthy. After some careful tiller-work on Roxy's part combined with John straight up getting out to push a few times, they were out of the grotto and streaking across the water towards the east like a fish. "Where are we going?" John asked as he hauled himself back aboard. Jaspers was purring contentedly, enjoying the sensation of his body slicing through the water, and did not answer.
"Oy!" Roxy shouted. "John asked you a question!" Jaspers mewled, tentacles twitching. Roxy looked down, found a stray pebble, and threw it at Jaspers. The boat turned its head and hissed, bearing the mouthful of nails it had for teeth, tentacles flailing dangerously. "I'm sorry," Roxy squeaked. John chuckled under his breath, covering his mouth.
"It's okay," Jaspers said, smiling again. "We're going, um…." It—he, John arbitrarily decided Jaspers was a he—cocked his head and thought a moment. "Dragon Roost Island! The trolls have something we need."
The kids waited a second. Making a studious face, Roxy squinted and rubbed her chin. "Go on," she encouraged.
Jaspers seemed surprised. "Oh! The hero needs something for his quest."
Another pause. "And we're going to get it…?" John asked.
Jaspers shook his head. "We're not the hero! We're paving his way," his voice was becoming quieter, his glass eyes glazing over. "There's something the hero needs, but it's locked away. There are three pearls, tokens of the goddesses, which serve as the keys. They were entrusted to ancient bloodlines and scattered across the Great Sea, awaiting the day that they shall be put to use." Jaspers blinked, and his face returned to normal. "The hero's a very busy man, probably, so we should get some tedious things out of the way for him!"
"Well when you put it like that…" Roxy muttered.
John found he much preferred the sensation of riding a sailboat to that of riding a canoe, or a pirate ship. There was a real sense of acceleration, without too much of the groaning and rocking that had made him sick aboard the Grimdark. Jaspers' prow cut a swath across the water, sending up silvery-white spray to glint in the thin, grey sunlight. The fine droplets soon beaded John and Roxy's arms, coating them in miniscule silver pearls. They tried not to move too much, or the droplets would shatter into ordinary water and the magic would be lost.
Looming in the distance was the majestic bulk of Dragon Roost. The great mountain was like a pillar rising up from the ocean to support the sky, so sheer no one would be able to climb it. Without wings, that is. Its summit was wreathed in dark clouds of bright embers and black ash, swirling around the peak, flashing with occasional bursts of green and yellow.
The trolls had once ruled the world, in the early days of recorded history. They laid claim to the inheritance of old Hyrule, what little of it could be recovered, and their empire stretched from Chosen to the great ice flows of the south. Only the hermit kingdom Labrynna behind its great wall of water was exempt from conquest. The god of the trolls was powerful and omnipresent, and his burning eyes scorched green leagues of desolation across the world. But eventually, he grew weary of battle and plunder, and chose to remain idle on his mountaintop, contemplating deeper mysteries. The empire withered without his help, as trolls didn't breed fast enough to maintain it. They would have been destroyed by their many enemies, if he hadn't given one final blessing; the power of flight. The last vestige of the once great empire was its fantastic postal service.
A handful of bright-winged lowblood postal carriers skimmed across the water, hauling empty sacks. Some waved a greeting at kids in their obscenely pink boat. Jaspers meowed loudly in response, and one of them fumbled and nearly fell into the ocean before righting himself and flying full speed back to Windfall. The others, who were slightly farther off, laughed at him. The sun was starting to come out for the first time in a while, and it nearly blinded John, accustomed to the gloom. Out on the open sea, everything was bright. The sea about turned gold, and the flickering insect wings of the mailmen; red, tawney, gold and deep green, were like jewels.
Directly ahead of them, the water parted and a figure rose up and out, graceful as a dolphin, holding a golden trident. A troll, but unlike any John had ever seen. Her horns were long and curved gently away from each other, and she appeared to have fins. He didn't get a very good look, however, because at the height of her jump, she unfurled her wings, a nearly translucent purple and so delicate they shouldn't have been able to carry her, and flitted off to the island. The passel of carriers accelerated to keep up with the new troll and made formation around her, sounding on trumpets as they went.
Roxy shook John's shoulder. "Dude! I think we just saw the Empress!" She touched her face. "I think the Empress splashed me just now when she breached! OMDNF!"
John raised his eyebrow. "Have you been drinking?" She didn't answer. "When did you even have time?"
Eventually, they reached the island. The mountain was so massive that it had seemed a lot closer than it had actually been. It was now late afternoon, and the sun was setting across the ocean, but here at the foot of Dragon Roost, the light was dingy and brown. The clouds above looked sick and angry, unnatural. There were no docks here, as the trolls discouraged visitors for their own safety, but their love of rugged individualism meant it was not strictly forbidden. John and Roxy ran Jaspers ashore, and John stuffed the sail in his warchest to prevent theft. "It really is handy," he said. Finally noticing the inclement weather, he asked Jaspers about it.
The boat stuck his wooden tongue out, thinking. "The guardian of this island is angry." Just then a resounding boom of a roar filled the air, a thousand times louder and more fearsome than anything John had ever heard. Carrying on for more than a minute, it shook him to his bones, and up above, the clouds began to part revealing white light at the summit so bright and piercing that he was momentarily dazzled.
"Shit look out!" Roxy shouted, pushing him to the floor. The sound, almost like a physical object, barreled down the side of the mountain, cracking stone with its passing and warping the air. It slammed into the ground and splashed away in all directions, sending rocks flying and bending the palms so far it was a wonder they didn't break. Rising to his feet, John brushed himself off, helped Roxy up, and, shielding his eyes, muttered, "What the flying fuck?"
"Pyralsprite is very powerful," Jaspers said helpfully. "The trolls probably won't just let you have the pearl, and you might have to do something dangerous to prove yourself. With Pyralsprite angry, you'll need magic just to survive." Jaspers' eyes went wide and he began to cough, wooden lips pulling back over iron teeth, tentacles stiffening.
"Are you oka—?" John began, but was interrupted by a wad of phlegmy wood-pulp and barnacle shells smacking him in the face. It was Roxy's turn to laugh at him.
Slowly, John wiped off the glob of detritus and cleaned himself off with a handkerchief. As he was cleaning his glasses, Roxy noticed something in the pile of gunk. It was long and made of some bluish metal. "Look, there's a thing!"
John saw it. Eyebrow raised, he asked, "can you get it for me?"
Roxy blew a raspberry. "Hell no. No need for both of us to get filthy."
John sighed and picked it up gingerly, heading over to wash it in the seawater gently lapping against the beach. It was a rod the size of a small dagger, complete with crossguard, though rather than having an edge or a point, it was shaped with thick whorls and knots, and John got the impression that a longer piece of metal had been somehow twisted into this shape. It wasn't moving, but for some reason John felt the need to grip it tightly as if it would squirm out of his hand and fly away if he didn't.
"Is that a magic wand!?" Roxy asked enthusiastically, leering at it over John's shoulder.
"Even better," said Jaspers, "it's a Breath Waker!"
'From now on you're going to explain new things right after you bring them up, instead of waiting for a prompt," Roxy said warningly.
Jaspers made a low sound between a purr and a giggle. "People used to worship the gods with music. Each god has an instrument that is sacred to them and makes them the most happy to listen to. Sometimes everyone would get together and play, and one person would lead them. He would point with the Breath Waker and they would follow his instructions, and together they would work the strongest magicks! But a strong Breath Waker didn't need other people, the winds would sing along with its instructions. That Breath Waker," Jaspers said, pointing with a tentacle, "was forged by the smith-god from a little wind and given to the king of Hyrule way back in the beginning. It's special. It can play the wind, and so much more."
John lifted the instrument reverently. This was amazing. Up until now, he had thought, deep down, that wouldn't be able to stand up to Caliborn. That thing was the Emperor of all Evil, an ancient sorcerer that made war on the gods, and John was just some blacksmith's apprentice from the ass-end of nowhere. But now, he had an edge. He could play the wind. "Alright," he said, beaming. "How does it work?" John's blue eyes locked eagerly onto Jasper's orbs of pink glass. His guide blinked his wooden lids and mewled. "I don't know; I'm just a boat!"
Ah. John was doomed.
Author's note: I have returned! Comic-Con was glorious, but now I am back and my creative juices are flowing quite squishily.
That gravestone does fuck all in the real game. It'll be important here.
The climate of the Great Sea is Mediterranean this far north, so winters are cloudy but unusually green sense most of the precipitation is water rather than snow. It snows in Chosen, Labrynna, and Holodrum though.
Dead Hands do not appear in Wind Waker, the jail is something you're supposed to be able to do in like, a minute. The creature was frankensteined out of the bodies of the dead prisoners, both troll and human, by whom we may never know. We may also never know the identity (Kankri) of the man who hired them, or why (he's not useless in this world because he actually has a cause to champion). Oh look, John's hearing voices again.
I figured out around the time I was writing the first chapter that fusion should just be about taking X characters into Y setting just because they're similar. It's the little differences that make a story, the contrast between what main character X would do versus what character Y actually did. I've wanted to novelize Wind Waker since I first played the game, and even composed the first few pages of an epic poem back in sixth grade (I'm reasonably sure it was utter trash), but there's no point in telling the same story twice. I'm going to fuck with it. Fear not, you'll know when we've fallen off the rails. We've just sort of stuttered here and there so far.
John is a bit more insecure than in canon. This is because his only yardstick for success has been the Strider family. That'd be bad for anyone's self esteem, and we're lucky he's taking it so well.