Chapter 40: Gloom's Approach
Guest Reviews:
James Birdsong (guest): Thank you! I'm happy you're enjoying it!
Dracofighter (guest): Thank you! Yeah, the other three flanks are up to the monster control unit. But they weren't actively spawning more monsters, so it's a lot more feasible for them to handle than the flank facing the Hyrule Castle Chasm, where monsters just kept appearing. I can't make it too easy for them, haha! ( :
With some dicey maneuvering, Riju landed the wing at the bottom of the Chasm, around a thick pillar of twisted, cracked stone bursting from the ground like a tree root forcing its way through a mountainside. A gaping tunnel like the maw of a great dragon opened up in the side of the Chasm, winding further downwards. The rootlike structures Josha had mentioned lined the entrance to the tunnel, crimson pulses of Gloom slowly traveling deeper, like blood through veins.
Link drew the Master Sword. It shone brightly through the murk, joining its luster to the radiance of his secret stone and illuminating their path forward.
Goddesses willing, we can get to him quickly, before sundown, he thought, looking around uneasily and feeling a twinge of discouragement at the lack of any clear indication of the Demon King himself. We'll deal with whether we can actually beat him once we find him. For now… we just need to make good time.
But the instant they set foot into the tunnel, monsters were upon them – horriblins clambering across the roof of the cave above them, whooping excitedly and chucking rocks, and a silver-maned lynel galloping towards them with heavy hooves clattering fiercely over stone and Gloom. Tulin shot the horriblins down from the ceiling, where Yunobo charged over them as they lay stunned. As the lynel swung down towards him, Link quickened his mind, activating his powers over time – with the aid of his secret stone, he discovered that he was able to slow time considerably more effectively, while attacking at his own usual speed. As a result, when time resumed its usual flow, the lynel stared in horror at the gaping wound that had appeared in its chest. Sidon finished it off, using his greater height and the reach of his spear to stab the monster's heart.
Only a few feet into the tunnel, and we've wasted several minutes already!
Link urged them forward as the lynel's death cries rang out behind them. They came to a maze of electric like-likes lining the passage, spewing out deadly orbs of electricity that hummed and crackled dangerously. Riju used her powers to absorb the attacks into her swords. With the magical attacks diffused, the other sages surged forwards and destroyed the parasitic beasts. A swarm of electric keese flew down around them next, demolished when Yunobo blasted himself into their midst and sent them scattering and drifting lifelessly downwards, burned to a crisp. Then they encountered a white-maned lynel. Between the five of them, they killed it in a matter of minutes.
"This is – this is easy!" Tulin exclaimed, staring in awe at the lynel's downed corpse.
"Almost too easy," Sidon agreed warily, peering down the passage – already they could see the glowing sets of eyes as a pack of bokoblins charged towards them. He conjured a blast of water to douse the creatures, and Riju struck them with lightning, ending them all at once.
"The Demon King only needs to wait until sunset," she told them grimly. "If night falls and we haven't reached him, he'll destroy Lookout Landing – and sweep over the rest of Hyrule unopposed."
"So – so we really gotta hurry!" Yunobo said, quickening his pace. "We have to get to him before nighttime!"
"Hold on," Sidon said, reaching out his hand. "If we try to go too fast, either we'll tire ourselves out, or we'll make a mistake and get injured – in which case we would be unable to defeat him. Rushing blindly forward isn't the answer either."
"We'll keep going, as we have been," Link said, jogging lightly forward to catch up with Yunobo. "When we're not in combat, we can afford to go a bit faster. But when we find monsters, focus on the fight at hand. Ganondorf could be anywhere, just waiting for us to drop our guard."
The sooner we reach him, the better. How long had it been already?
They rounded a bend, where rows of ice-likes spurted from the walls and even hung down from the ceiling, already spewing blasts of frozen air towards them. Yunobo rocketed up the tunnel walls, blasting the monsters free and sending them hissing and recoiling in the face of his flames. Riju called down a lightning strike that hit four of them at once, and Link, Sidon, and Tulin finished off the rest. Then it was ice keese, screeching angrily, and Yunobo destroyed them with a single charge.
The tunnel dipped suddenly steeply downwards and twisted, almost like a spiral staircase, monster howls echoing ominously up from its depths. Gloom drifted lightly up from the ground, black tendrils ignited by deadly streaks of crimson. The ground was splotched black and red with patches of shadow and Gloom. Between fights Link felt the slightest strain from maintaining the light emanating from his secret stone; in addition to showing them the way forward, it also seemed to protect the sages from the negative effects of Gloom.
Probably not a good idea to use too much of this down here, Link thought, glancing at the stone as they trudged downwards. It's the only thing that can protect me from Ganondorf's magic attacks. I must have enough strength left to use it when we reach him.
…We've been descending for a while now. Where is he? What time is it?
Lizalfos charged up the tunnel towards them – some armed with bows, others with spears and boomerangs. Link used his powers to slow time enough to knock away the arrows that got too close while the others focused on taking the monsters down.
On and on it went – the tunnel steadily traveling further and further downwards, monsters around every turn, their screeches and growls and roars echoing across the stone, intermingling with the sages' battle cries and the ring of steel on steel or the sickening squelch of metal sundering flesh. Link half expected to find Ganondorf himself running at them around every bend, or perhaps standing at the end of a passage waiting for them with his cruel smirk. But as they fought their way further and further downwards, there was no sign of the Demon King himself. Yet Link counted every battle they fought as a victory on Ganondorf's part.
It's just as Riju said – he just needs to stall until nightfall, and Hyrule will fall!
Then, quite suddenly, dead silence fell, but for their footsteps. When Link realized that he couldn't hear anything but the other sages he stopped abruptly, holding up his fist to halt the others as well, an unsettled icy claw tracing up his spine even as his heart pounded faster, screaming at him not to stand still when so much depended on using every second wisely.
"What – what is it?" Yunobo asked.
Link shushed him, listening intently. Stay calm. Yes, we've got limited time – but we don't help anyone by rushing blindly into a trap.
He heard nothing.
Not a breath of air stirred through the tunnel. Not a single scrape of monster claws on stone, nor the beating of a keese's wings. Not even the telltale muffled ringing sound of a bokoblin's pickaxe on stone, as Link had come to expect from the Depths.
"I don't… hear anything," Tulin swallowed, holding his bow tightly.
"Exactly," Link murmured. "For whatever reason… he's stopped sending monsters at us." He held the Master Sword high, using his secret stone to brightly illuminate his surroundings. "Stay behind me. Be ready for anything."
Tentatively he walked forward, fighting the urge to quicken his pace. He walked around a slight bend, fully prepared to find the Demon King waiting. Instead, the tunnel wound onwards for some time. The light from his secret stone illuminated indeterminate jagged, hulking shapes, like rubble from a cave in. Drawing nearer, Link could see embers of Gloom beyond the rubble, in a dark, open space. He crawled over the rockpile and hopped lightly down the other side, finding himself standing on flat, ancient paving stones.
"It's a whole other tunnel!" Yunobo pointed out, pulling aside some of the rubble to make room for himself. Link nodded slowly, holding the Master Sword out to cast more light on their surroundings. Past the rockpile, the tunnel had spat them out right in the middle of an ancient passageway crossing from left to right before them. To the right, Link noticed more signs of a cave-in – massive chunks of stone from where the walls had seemingly crumbled inwards. The path continued on the left, straight as an arrow, clearly manmade.
The back of Link's neck prickled. Here it seemed that the sloping, rugged cave walls had, over some indeterminate amount of time, nearly overtaken some former structure. Partially obscured by the wear of time were thick, square bricks forming the original walls, not very different from the crisp, clean style of Hyrule Castle itself. As they delved deeper, still in unnerving silence but for the tread of their feet over stone, the ancient passage seemed to become more primitive, more cave-like.
Link led the way past stone pillars half-buried in the walls, some crumbled away almost entirely. By now he was familiar with the Zonai architectural style, after the Stormwind Ark, Lost Gorondia, the Lighnting Temple, and the ancient Zora Waterworks. This… this looks like something that would've been built in that era.
He didn't feel at all surprised to find Zonai construction down here. A part of him even seemed to expect it. He felt certain that, soon, the passage would drop downwards, forming a weathered set of stairs –
Link stopped, his stomach clenching tightly, when the light of his stone indeed illuminated a worn stairway.
"Link?" Sidon asked, his whisper shockingly loud in the thick, heavy silence that had fallen over them. "What is it?"
Link glanced back at the sages behind them, for a moment fighting the urge to say nothing, to leave unaddressed the growing list of observations and simply leave it at, It's nothing.
"I've been here before," he said instead, unable to keep an ominous note from his voice. The sages exchanged glances – Tulin and Yunobo confused, Sidon and Riju guarded and knowing.
Link swallowed, holding his blade high, and followed the stairway down, into a much larger chamber with odd geological formations along the cave walls, along with deposits of luminous stone that weren't yet glowing brightly. The formations reminded him at once of waterfalls.
"These tunnels are deeper than I thought – what could be down here? Other than some rather impressive geological speleothems."
"Speleothems? Can't the academic world come up with a word that makes more sense? I'd have said they're waterfall rocks."
"Not all academic language is like that – there is a formation called flowstone, which is similar. See, there's some over there. And that formation, up at the top along the side, it's called drapery, because it looks a bit like hanging curtains."
"And those ones hanging down from the top?"
"Stalactites. I see your point. What would you call it, then?"
"Ceiling spears. Easy."
Link saw the formations again, exactly as Zelda had pointed them out back then. It felt as if a lifetime had passed. "I know where we are," he whispered.
"Oh?" Sidon hummed, peering at the luminous stones. "Odd, to find these so deep down…"
"Where are we?" Riju asked thoughtfully, her sharp gaze revealing that she already at least suspected the answer. "Other than… very, very far below Hyrule Castle."
"This is close to where Zelda and I found him," Link confirmed. "Before the Upheaval."
A grim silence settled upon them, broken when Sidon turned his attention back to the luminous stone. "Yunobo, I don't suppose you could break some of this loose?" he said. "My people have done some stonework with this ore. It starts glowing when night falls – even when underground. Notice how this stone is not currently glowing. It's not as effective as a timekeeping device, but it's something, at least."
"I'm on it," Yunobo said, cracking his knuckles. He pounded a fist against the ore, and several chunks burst free. He took one, and the others followed suit. Link slipped a piece of stone into his pocket, his spine tingling at the sight of its dull, dark surface. Dark for now.
The tunnel narrowed as they continued downwards, almost too slender for Yunobo to fit and almost too short for Sidon. But then they squeezed beneath an archway, into a grand hall lined with statues of Zonai. The end of the hall opened up into a large chamber with murals lining the walls – murals that Link and Zelda had seen before, that depicted the Imprisoning War. Knowing what he did now, Link recognized the images of Rauru and Sonia forming the kingdom of Hyrule… and then of Ganondorf stealing a secret stone from Sonia, and transforming into the Demon King.
He exhaled deeply, his brows pinched together. They… they tried to warn us. But we didn't know enough to listen.
"It's the Imprisoning War," Riju said quietly. She frowned, glancing towards the far end of the mural. "Part of it's obscured…"
"I can take care of that," Yunobo said, his tone uncharacteristically somber. He tucked himself into a ball and rolled towards the obscured part of the mural, breaking the fallen stone apart and revealing what had been hidden from Link and Zelda on that first fateful venture.
The Demon King's advance. Rauru and the six sages, including Zelda, rising up to fight him. And then… Zelda finding the Master Sword, and turning into the Light Dragon. Link swallowed, walking closer to the thousands-of-years-old image of his beloved, his chest tight.
It was… it was all here, right from the beginning. If we had uncovered this part of the mural… if we had known, would things have played out differently?
He shook his head slowly. At this point, it hardly matters. "Let's continue," he said gravely. We've wasted enough time in this room already. "We found the Demon King just past here. Be ready."
Yunobo gulped audibly, and Riju patted his hulking arm reassuringly.
"We're all behind you, Link," Sidon said grimly. Tulin nodded eagerly, but stepped closer to the Zora King.
Link led them past the murals and into the tunnels once more, walking over stairs that had been smoothed down and crumbled over, through curved, pockmarked walls of stone sloped and round on all sides as if carved out by some great worm.
Then they came to the vast cavern where Link and Zelda had first encountered Ganondorf, and what remained of Rauru. It had changed significantly. The floor had collapsed entirely, revealing a deep pit leading even further downwards, pulsing with an ominous red glow. The base of Hyrule Castle hanging down, that inverted pyramid shape, was gone. Only the ledge the sages now stood upon remained from Link's first foray into the cavern.
Link looked at Riju. "Could you get a wing down that pit?" he asked, fumbling in his pouch for the Zonai devices Hudson had given him.
She nodded confidently, and he broke the capsules, releasing the Zonai wing, steering stick, and fans. He Fused them together, forming a functional vehicle, and once they had all stepped on, Riju activated the steering stick, leading them down into the red-glowing pit. She tilted the tip of the wing steeply forward, sending them into a fierce dive, dropping rapidly down through the darkness. Wind rushed past them from the speed of their descent, nearly blowing Tulin away, but Sidon kept a firm hold on the young Rito archer's shoulder, holding him in place.
The pit simply kept going, deeper far than the Chasm they had taken to get down here in the first place. Blood-red roots lined the edges, oozing steadily downwards. The pit opened up at last into a massive dark cavern whose walls were so distant that Link couldn't see them at all. He noticed with a jolt that the roots twisted together to form the shape of a hulking dark, Gloom-ridden tree. There was a wide platform jutting out from the trunk near a black, webbed covering over part of the bark, studded with spiraling thorns winding inwards like a demonic portal or gateway.
"I'm guessing that's our destination!" Riju called over the roar of the wind, and she eased up on the steering stick, leveling out their descent and guiding them over to the platform, landing lightly on the rough ground.
At once several orbs of crimson magic burst from the webbing over the trunk, and bokoblins appeared in each – red, blue, black, and silver, along with one massive boss bokoblin. They dropped to the ground and charged forwards, weapons raised, horns blaring in attack.
"I'm gonna make my ancestors proud today!" Yunobo growled, hefting his weapon high and adopting a defensive stance.
Sidon stepped forward, his eyes narrowed. "We shall protect Hyrule together," he vowed.
"We'll be unstoppable!" Tulin cheered, lifting off and nocking an arrow to his bowstring.
Riju drew both of her swords, electricity crackling over their surfaces. "It's an honor to fight by your side in this battle," she said, glancing at Link with a fierce smile.
The wave of bokoblins reached them. Lightning struck. Water sloshed up the bokoblins' large nostrils, sending them into heaving, wracking coughing fits that instantly disabled them. Fierce gusts of wind blasted them away, and a ring of fire engulfed the six sages. These bokoblins weren't fighting in formation, Link noticed as he thrust the Master Sword through one's heart and yanked it back out.
Ganondorf's desperate. He really is just trying to buy time at this point!
The sages kept close together, each of them guarding another's back, and between their longer-range magical attacks and mastery over their individual weapons, they were untouchable – not a single bokoblin could get close. Yunobo repeatedly blazed around the group in a circle, clearing the bodies away to give them more room to fight. When only the boss bokoblin was left, Sidon launched a wave of water at the monster and Riju called down lightning, zapping it to a crisp in an instant.
As a second volley of blood-red monster summons fired out from the tree, Sidon growled in frustration. "Enough, already!" he exclaimed. "He's being a coward!"
"He's stalling for time!" Riju cried, holding her swords ready as lizalfos materialized out of the magic and started towards them.
"We need to find a way into the tree," Link said, taking half a step forward. "Watch each other's backs, and move in closer!"
Lizalfos were faster than bokoblins, and individually more intelligent, with an instinctive pack mentality. Yet when faced with the full fury of the elements, they too met their end. Even the elemental varieties were no match for the sages as Link directed them – Yunobo to the ice-breath, Sidon to the fire-breath, and Riju to the electric, as Link and Tulin handled the rest.
More crimson orbs burst from the tree, moblins this time, with none of a lizalfos' intelligence or speed, but far greater brute strength.
"How're we doing on time?" Link called as the monsters lumbered towards them.
Sidon pulled his luminous stone from his sash and winced. "Not good!" he said. "It's not at full strength yet, but it's starting to glow – it's close to sundown!"
Link muttered a curse as the moblins neared. And we haven't even seen Ganondorf yet! Come out, you damn coward!
Yunobo easily blocked the moblins' blows and knocked them away, but the other sages had to rely on their reflexes and magic instead. Link quickly fell into a pattern of dodging a moblin's blow and then stabbing forward when they drew their weapons back. He realized with a slight tremor down his spine that his arms and legs were beginning to feel fatigued. Though he had no accurate concept of time in the lightless underworld, he knew it had been many long hours since they first descended into the Hyrule Castle Chasm. None of their battles thus far had been challenging in any sense, but they had still exacted a toll.
The sages managed to get much closer to the thorny webbing across the tree trunk over the course of fighting and dodging the moblins. But still more crimson orbs of magic burst forth from the tree, and this time it was gibdos that dropped to the ground before lolling to their feet and lurching towards the group. Link's brow tightened as he spotted moth gibdos among them, remembering how devastating their acid attack had been against Buliara and the other fallen Gerudo.
"What are those?" Yunobo yelped fearfully.
"Vermin," Riju snarled, snapping her arm forward and sending lightning striking in their midst. "Don't let the winged ones get close!"
And the sages continued their devastating assault on the Demon King's forces. Link noticed with satisfaction that Yunobo's fire was just as brutally effective against the gibdos as Riju's lightning – or perhaps it was simply true that a zombie's bones were more than brittle enough to be obliterated by a Goron's heavy blade. But they were still highly resistant to ordinary sources of damage – spear and arrows, particularly. Link found that the undead shied away from his light magic; he could keep them off himself, Tulin, and Sidon long enough for Yunobo and Riju to deal with them.
The last gibdo fell dead to the ground, and with a sickening wet splattering sound the web of thorns burst apart, revealing a tunnel leading beyond, into the tree.
"There!" Link shouted, rushing closer, only for four massive blasts of Gloom to streak out from the tunnel and twist through the air. His stomach dropped to his toes as the massive, jagged shape of Colgera emerged from one, and the hulking mass of Marbled Gohma dropped heavily to the ground from another. Then Queen Gibdo's rattling screech rent the air, and Muctorok slopped up from a freshly-formed puddle of Gloom.
"We are fated to fight these beasts," Sidon said, his voice grim. "So be it!"
"Link, time is running short," Riju said, meeting his gaze. "You must go on ahead. Goddesses willing, we'll catch up!"
Link pressed his lips firmly together, his heart aching in denial at the thought of leaving them behind to fight the scourges.
But… the time!
There was a deep rumbling sound, and he glanced back with a jolt to find massive boulders raining down around the tunnel's opening – the Demon King's last attempt to block himself off. Exhaling roughly through his teeth, he turned towards the tunnel, racing towards it.
"Don't worry about us, goro – we'll take care of this!" Yunobo said bravely, rushing towards Marbled Gohma and brandishing his Boulder Breaker. "You ready to see the power of a sage?"
"We already fought them once!" Tulin called confidently. "This'll be a breeze for sure!"
Link dodged a boulder crashing down feet from him and leapt into the tunnel, ducking into a roll and springing back to his feet just as a final cascade of rock blocked him off completely, leaving him in sudden stark silence, his own breaths the only disturbance in the air.
"Goddesses be with you, my friends," he murmured, reaching out a hand and resting it on the nearest boulder, his gut clenching tightly.
The four of them would all be together still, he tried to console himself. And they were immensely powerful sages – they had not been so powerful the first time they faced the scourges.
Link pulled out his own luminous stone, his brow furrowing at the sight of a feeble turquoise glow. Putting the stone away, he turned his back on the rockfall, setting out alone down the corridor.
I… may not see them again. They might very well die down here.
He drew the Master Sword, finding strength in its pure blue glow. I'll have to face the Demon King on my own after all.