A Link to the Past
Chapter Twenty Five: A Crystalized Girl
Hopefully the other prisoners would be able to free the rest of the captive creatures and escape, or at least provide a good distraction for the guards while Link made his way down another set of stairs at the end of the left junction from the main dungeon. From what he had been told, this was the way into Daira's torture chamber, a place frequented by the warden of this place, and hopefully the young man would be able to sneak up on him because… well, because honestly he didn't know if he could defeat the alligator creature without his sword and shield. The glove and undershirt would certainly help, but Daira was a vicious torturer with what sounded like a decade of experience, so… yeah, sneaking up on him was the only option.
This stairway was longer than the other one, heading far deeper into the underworld beneath the Village of Outcasts, and soon the young man could no longer hear any sounds coming from the upper levels. In fact, for several steps there was only silence, broken by his own footsteps even though he was trying to move quietly, but then Link started to hear something else, this time from down below. It was a scream, no… more like a deep roar of pain that sounded a bit like that red monster from the cell next to his, but there was other sounds now starting to be heard with each step. One was something that was like something heavy being dragged, and the other was laughter… Daira's laughter.
He was saying something, but the words were too muffled by the stone walls for the young man to understand them, but that laugh was enough to know that he was going in the right direction. Back up in the village, that same laugh had been heard the whole time Link was getting flogged for the entertainment of the people who lived there, and now that same victim was moving down into the torture chamber to confront Daira once again. Once the stairwell came to an end the only light was coming from torches on the walls since they were too deep for unlight to come in like the upper levels, but it was enough to let him see the various torture devices lined up against the walls, each one looking like they had been well maintained and saw regular use… not a comforting thought.
"We stretch you, and strrrrrretch you!" The warden's voice laughed loudly. "You must've been ugly as sin back in Hyrule to end up looking like this here, and you know what ugly people get down here? The same thing as the pretty ones; they get strrrrrrrretched!"
Link came into view of the source of this noise just in time to see Daira turning a large wooden wheel that was as large as himself, and the red monster let out a kind of shrieking roar as it screamed for mercy. The poor creature was strapped down onto some kind of table, wrists and ankles tied down with ropes connected to that wheel so that every time the warden turned it the ropes would tighten. The red monster was screaming and crying, but none of its pleas seemed to move the alligator creature, at least not in the way intended. Daira must've really been a sadist, because each time the red monster screamed or begged he just cranked on the wheel a bit more, but his laughter did allow the young man to approach undetected.
Carefully moving from support pillar to support pillar just in case the warden ever looked away from his victim, Link was still trying to make a plan by the time he was only a couple meters from where the torture was taking place, but nothing was coming to mind. Well, he had to do something, so the young man went with the obvious move of waiting until the alligator creature had his back completely turned before taking a metal torch off the wall and slamming it into the back of his head. With a hard whump followed by a light thud, Daira had been completely caught off guard, collapsing to the floor while Link moved to try and free the red monster. It was easy enough to find the release that allowed the wheel to spin backwards, making the red monster cry out again as the tension on its wrists and ankles was released, but this sound also masked another one that was coming up from behind.
"And what do we have here?" Daira asked, grabbing the young man painfully by the rabbit ears and pulling him back. "An eager volunteer for the torture chamber? Well, I am nothing if not accommodating."
The alligator creature closed his clawed fist and slugged Link in the stomach, letting go of his ears in order to punch him in the face with the other fist so that the young man stumbled away before falling to his hands and knees. He could feel the hidden undershirt absorbing some of the force behind the blows, but not enough to keep them from hurting a lot, and Daira showed no intention of stopping as he stomped his way toward him. Feeling the power of the glove pulse through his body, Link waited until the warden was right on top of him before jumping to his feet and charging forward, wrapping his arms around Daira's legs while tackling the alligator creature to the floor, scrambling up on top of the warden and punching him in the elongated snout. He went for a second hit, but the warden caught his fist.
"So, you managed to get out of your cell, and then came down here?" Daira asked, squeezing Link's fist hard enough for pain while slowly overpowering him so they were both standing. "Why didn't you escape? Did you come here for revenge? To kill me? Or did you come to save the freak? Is that it? Do we have a case of true love on our hands? Well, love doesn't come without pain."
Suddenly pulling him forward, the warden brought up his knee so that it slammed into Link's stomach, knocking the wind out of him before bringing up his other fist for an uppercut that sent the young man reeling backwards to where he fell against another torture device that was… actually, he had no idea what this odd looking contraption was for… probably nothing good. Before he could even regain his balance, Daira was on him again, punching Link several more times before shoving him backwards so that… oh no, he was being forced down onto the strange looking torture device. He tried to push back, to fight Daira off, but the warden just kept hitting him before grabbing onto Link's wrist and forcing it down.
"You are going to love it down here with me." The warden laughed, locking the young man's wrist into a restraint before grabbing for the other one. "You, me, your ugly girlfriend over there, we are going to have the time of…
Whack! The alligator creature's words were stopped when something struck the back of his head, and it wasn't until Daira collapsed onto the torture device that Link was able to see the red monster continuing to bash him over and over again. While the two of them were fighting, the other prisoner must've managed to free itself from the torture rack, picking up the metal torch from where it fell on the floor and well… pretty soon there wasn't much left of the warden's head. The red monster continued to hit him though, screaming in rage and what sounded like crying as it kept striking the body the whole time until the young man managed to get his wrist out of that restraint… and then the red monster dropped the torch and hugged him tightly.
"I wanna go home!" The other prisoner sobbed, squeezing him so hard that it hurt. "I thought I could be a hero like Blind, but I can't, and I just wanna go home!"
Link tried to comfort this creature, sort of awkwardly patting it on the back and saying that everything was going to be all right… regardless of whether it really was or not. The good news was that Daira was dead, and now it would be easier to escape back to the surface, hopefully to find whatever it was in the forest that allowed all these people to end up in the Village of Outcasts in the first place, and hopefully it worked both ways. It was crazy how things kept piling up on him, because now in addition to having to save Hyrule from whatever Agahnim was trying to do, he now needed to find a way to escape this place and rescue Princess Zelda from… he had almost forgotten all about the crystal.
Moving away from the red monster, the young man went over to the dead warden and started going through his pockets until finding the crystal he had been playing with earlier. Now standing up and looking into the crystal to make sure that Zelda was all right, Link had to look closely and blink a few times in order to realize that the girl inside didn't look like the Princess at all. No, the hair and dress she was wearing were completely different, as was her face, and then the young man gasped when she opened her eyes and started to move a little bit. Now all the sounds and sights from the dungeon was fading away, leaving Link in darkness as the crystal in his hand started to hum, and then there was a voice, not like actual talking, but as if this girl was speaking directly into his mind somehow.
You are the one I saw in the castle dungeon as they took me away… you saved me? You must save the others… the wizard said there are seven of us. Seven of us needed to break the ancient seal separating this Dark World from Hyrule… and now that barrier will slowly fade away, allowing Ganondorf to pass through.
"I don't understand." Link replied, his own words echoing now like they were in a cave. "What is this place? How did we get here? What happened to Princess Zelda?"
Like myself and the others, the Princess was crystalized to break the seal, but that is all I know… perhaps the other girls will know more? I know that one was taken into the forest north of the village, but where the others are I am not certain. Find them… rescue them… it is said there is an entrance somewhere in the forest… more will appear as the seal fades… and help Maple get home… she has suffered enough in this place… good luck, my hero.
With that, the crystal stopped humming, and now the torture chamber was coming back into view. Still not understanding what was going on, not completely, the young man tucked the small crystal into his pocket, preparing to head north into the forest since there were no other leads on, well… anything. Was there really a way out to be found amongst the dark trees? Everyone he talked too from the Village of Outcasts said they were in the Lost Woods in Hyrule and then were suddenly in the Dark World, so maybe, and that was where the Master Sword was supposed to be hidden as well… leaving only one question.
"Who is Maple?" Link asked aloud. "I think that was the name the girl in the crystal said to help get home… but who is she?"
"I am." The red monster answered, sounding almost embarrassed to say. "I… I'm Maple… can you help me get back?"
Now that was the greatest question of them all… even if they got out of this place and into the forest, was it even possible to find a way to escape?