The party, sans five members, made their way to the Dueling Peaks Stable. On their way, they saw a very large Korok. "It's another one of those tree-person things!" Bernadetta squealed.

The party stopped and stared at the Korok. "Is that one of those Koroks you talked about?" Hilda asked Claude.

Claude nodded. "But the other one was tiny."

"Shalaka! You can all see me?" the Korok said. "It's been 100 years since anyone could see me! I'm Hestu, and I need your help!"

"What do you need us to do for you?" Link asked.

"Those monsters over there stole my beloved maracas," Hestu said sadly, pointing to a nearby monster camp. "I can't use my powers without them. So please! PLEASE get my maracas back from them!"

"Sure. We'll help," Annette said.

"I don't know, Annette. We're kind of in a hurry. What with the world-ending abomination," Sylvain said.

"But aren't we supposed to help people?" Annette asked.

"Annie's right," Mercedes said. "We should help Hestu."

"Besides, I don't like how close that camp is to the stable," Ingrid noted. "We should destroy it."

Sylvain shrugged. "Okay then. It looks like a small camp anyway.

The monsters were few in number, and the party slaughtered them quickly. Raphael noticed a large steak roasting over their fire. "Dinner," he said, taking it and putting it in the Korok pouch.

"Well, that's that," Caspar said nonchalantly, wiping the blood off of his axe.

Annette took a pair of red maracas out of a crate and brought them back to Hestu. "Are these yours?"

"Shala-kala! Those are my maracas!" Hestu exclaimed, taking them. He shook them, but no sound came out. "But wait! There's something wrong with my maracas! The Korok seeds are gone! How am I supposed to dance now?"

"I'm sorry," Annette said.

"If I had just one seed, I could sing, dance, and use my powers to help you," Hestu said. "I could enchant your quiver to hold as many arrows as you want, or maybe make a Korok weapon holder, so you could carry a lot of weapons and not have to worry about getting them out of your Korok pouch. But I can't without a Korok seed."

Annette thought for a moment. "Claude, you have a Korok seed, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," Claude said. He motioned for the Korok pouch, and upon getting it he removed the golden seed from it, then gave Hestu both the seed and his quiver.

Hestu did a funny dance, which ended in a burst of confetti. Annette clapped at the end.

Hestu gave the quiver back to Claude. "Now it will hold all the arrows you put in it."

"Wow. Too bad we don't have more of those seeds," Cyril noted.

"We can find more," Leonie said.

"Sorry, but I'm going to try to find my way back to Korok Forest," Hestu said. "But it was nice meeting you." With that, he started walking away.

"Hyrule is a strange place," Linhardt said, to no one's disagreement.

After a brief stop for a meal, the party continued east, and kept going for four days. Surprisingly few monsters tried to waylay them, but that could have been because of the many broken-down Guardians. Several battles had clearly taken place that had seen many Guardians destroyed.

The party tried not to think about how many people had been killed by the Guardians.

In any case, even the Stalfos stayed clear of the ruined Guardians.

Not far from their destination, the party saw two women, one carrying a sword and the other carrying a torch, being attacked by Bokoblins. They prepared for a fight, but after seeing the small army closing in on them, the Bokoblins ran for their lives.

"Wow," said the woman with the sword. She had shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes, and seemed to be favoring one of her legs. "See, Meghyn, I told you that we'd be fine so close to the village."

"Fine?" Meghyn had short black hair, and grey eyes. Her voice was shrill and near-panicked. "Nat, we almost died! I told you that there had been bokoblins sighted around here and that it wasn't safe to go out until they'd been cleared away."

"Which they now have been." The woman named Nat eased herself down to the ground, placing her sword on the ground, and running her fingers down her leg to her ankle. She winced. "Think I just sprained it. It's not bad."

"I can help," Mercedes offered. Taking a look at Nat's injured ankle, she used a Heal spell and the swelling quickly went down.

"Wow. That's a neat trick," Nat said. "My ankle feels good as new."

"You might still want to get some rest," Mercedes advised.

Meghyn sighed. "Thank you for saving us. My sister insisted that we come out early to look for mushrooms—"

"Truffles."

"Truffles," Meghyn said, shooting her sister an exasperated glare. "We'd heard that there were monsters in the area, but she didn't think they would come so close to the village."

"You won't be complaining when I'm cooking dinner tonight," Nat said.

"Are you from Hateno Village?" Link asked.

"Yes. I'm Meghyn and this is Nat. You are...?"

"Link. Why don't we accompany you back to the village? We'll make sure you aren't attacked again."

"That would be nice. Thank you," Meghyn said.

Together, they began the slow walk back to the village. The party quickly found that it was better to keep quiet, lest something they say spur the sisters into another argument. Regardless, they found out some about the small village, which relied heavily on dye exports and farming to sustain itself.

When asked, neither of the girls knew of any old women named Purah, however, which concerned Link. When he asked about ancient Sheikah technology, the sisters mentioned an old building on a hill overlooking Hateno Village. Neither of them knew much about what went on there or who lived there, other than the fact that the man that lived there tended to be very secretive about his work, and they thought he had a young daughter. It did not sound very promising to Link, but it was a place to start.