Chapter 4: The Great Plateau
Linkle continued to follow the strange towards the plateau. But no matter how hard she pushed her horse, the wolf always seemed to outpace her.
That shouldn't be possible, though. Wolves were fast, but not faster than a horse. Especially Linkle's steed.
But this wolf always stayed ahead of her, appearing in various different shades out of the sunlight. But he was always close enough for Linkle to see him, as he guided her closer to the plateau.
Until they reached said plateau. Here, the wolf began to search around the base of the walls. The walls of the plateau were surrounded by tall brick walls built into them. They used to be quite fancy, from the looks of it, built like a defensive fortress. But they had begun to degrade and fall apart after so many years, and were in complete disrepair. Many sections had even collapsed.
And this is what was causing the wolf so much frustration. He was looking for a way up the plateau, but couldn't find one. He did find an old entrance into the fortress walls, but unfortunately, it had collapsed, now filled with dirt, stone, and broken bricks.
The wolf looked at Linkle expectantly, motioning towards the wall.
"You want me to go up there?" Linkle asked. The wolf nodded, and Linkle looked up at the wall. She could try to climb it, but she wasn't sure she could keep a safe grip on the loose bricks. And if she fell when really high up, it could be fatal.
"...Maybe if I had a rope," Linkle mused. "I could attach it to one of my bolts, and use my crossbows to launch it up there. ...Assuming it'll hold... Yeah, that probably won't work."
Linkle began to ponder how she could get up the plateau's walls. And why she needed to go up there in the first place. All she knew was that she had to follow this wolf, and he wanted her to go up there. But for what?
Linkle ended up sitting down on a rock, stumped, while the wolf lay beside her.
"Just... who are you?" Linkle then asked the wolf. The important question, after all, if Linkle felt connected to this wolf somehow, she would want to know.
Of course, the wolf would not answer. After all, it was a wolf, and couldn't talk. He did yawn though.
After a while, Linkle heard the pounding of hoof steps in the distance. It was not her horse, he was still by Linkle's side. Linkle looked over to find a rider approaching her. As they got closer, Linkle realized it was Lana.
"Lana? Hey, Lana! Over here!" Linkle shouted out.
"Linkle!" the rider shouted back, as she rode up to her friend, and stopped, getting off her horse.
"Lana, what are you doing here?" Linkle asked in disbelief.
"What are you doing!?" Lana countered. "I dropped by the Dueling Peaks Stable, to get some feed for my horse, and when I asked if you passed by, they said you rode past, heading through the Peaks! It's a good thing I asked, because if you're going to Akkala like you said, then you're GOING THE WRONG WAY!"
"Oh, well..."
"To get to Akkala, you have to go up through Kakariko Village, which you go to all the time! But instead, you deviate from that path, and manage to get yourself to the Great Plateau! Honestly, it's a wonder you get to Kakariko at all if you're THIS bad at directions!"
"This place is called the Great Plateau...?" Linkle replied. "How do you know?"
"Well, I've heard about this place from Purah and my mom, and I recognized it from the description. Plus, the signs on the way gave me the name of the place. Wait, that's not the point! What in Hyrule were you think-"
Then they heard a sound. Lana and Linkle turned to find what it was.
"...What was that?" Linkle asked.
"No... It couldn't be... Anything but that..." Lana sounded.
Then, walking out of the nearby woods, a large entity stepped out. A large mechanical being with six tentacle-like legs with claws on the end, attached to a large, dark body shaped with a swiveling head, like an upside-down urn, and a single, small, glowing blue eye. It was covered in foilage, and many rusted weapons stuck out of its shell, as if they were symbols of those who fought this monster, but failed to fell it.
"Hylia, save us..." Lana exclaimed as she saw the machine, immediately realizing what it was.
"Wait, isn't that one of the dead metal monsters from the Ash Swamp?" Linkle asked, extremely concerned. "But this one's alive..."
"It's a Guardian!" Lana exclaimed, as a red targeting laser started shining from its eye, aiming at the girls. "Run!"
Linkle knew she didn't have time to ask why, as she and Lana spun around a ran, as the Guardian's red beam switched off, and then fired a bright blue beam behind them, blasting apart the ground.
Lana then pulled out a rectangular slate object, and began to mumble as he started messing with it.
"What the heck is THAT!?" Linkle asked.
"It's my Sheikah Slate," Lana replied quickly. "I think I can use it-"
Suddenly, there was another blue beam, hitting off to the side of the girls, causing them to stumble as they tried to evade the blast.
"Was there a targeting laser? I swear there wasn't..." Lana noted, turning back to see the Guardian...
Only to see that it was moving quickly toward them.
"...And it's quick!" Lana shouted, jumping out of the way as the machine swung one of its claws at her.
The Guardian was about to slash at Lana again, when a couple of crossbow bolts struck the side of its head, ...harmlessly bouncing off.
The machine turned to find Linkle shooting at it.
"...I'd thought that do more..." Linkle sounded.
The Guardian then jumped at Linkle, as she dived to the side.
Lana had gone back to tinkering with her slate, when Linkle got away and ran up.
"What are you doing!? Run!" Linkle shouted.
"There's little chance we can get away like this!" Lana countered. "If can just- There!"
She pointed her slate forward, and it released a glow, as a block of energy formed by the wall of the Great Plateau.
"Is... is that block of... lightning?" Linke questioned, surprised by what Lana did.
"If it works as intended, we should be able to stand on it safely," Lana explained.
"'If'?"
"Just get on- Woah!" Lana shrieked, as the Guardian had quickly moved to her side, and slammed its arm between the girls and the block.
This caused Lana to stumble onto her butt, while Linkle quickly turned, hoping to find something that could help.
And this is when she locked onto its eye, the one it was firing lasers from. She remembered a tip she had gotten from Dantz, when she was practicing her crossbow aim...
...When facing monsters with large eyes, always aim for that.
Well, this eye wasn't very big, but it did look exposed, compared to the machine's heavy armor.
So, Linkle took a deep breath, and took aim...
...And fired a bolt right into the Guardian's eye!
This caused the machine's spinning head to snap to the side, and stagger back, stunning it for the moment.
"Nice shot!" Lana exclaimed, as she got back up as quickly as possible. "Now got on the block!"
"I still don't think that's safe," Linkle countered, but then Lana climbed onto her block, and wasn't electrocuted. So Linkle shrugged, and joined her friend.
"See, it's fine. Now, let me try-" Lana started, as she began to fiddle with her slate again.
"Duck!" Linkle shouted, as the Guardian fired another beam, narrowly missing the girls, as they both ducked, letting the beam shoot above them.
Lana then quickly tapped something on her slate, and the block then suddenly upwards, sliding up the walls of the Plateau. Linkle didn't have the chance to ready herself, and fell on her butt, almost falling off the elector block.
"No way!?" Linkle shouted, as the block ascended. But when she looked back down...
The Guardian had begun to climb after them, using its claws to dig into the old stone. And to Linkle's horror, it was maintaining a strong grip, and quickly chasing after them!
"That's bad. That's bad!" As the block was reaching the top of the old wall, Linkle thought quickly, pulled out both of her crossbows, and loaded them with different bolts. Then she dropped her arms over the side of the block, and aimed down.
But Linkle wasn't aiming for the eye again. It was climbing, so if she could knock it off the wall...
Finding her target, she readied her bomb-bolt loaded crossbows, and fired at the wall, where the Guardian's feet were.
And her actions had the intended effect, as the stone around the Guardian blew apart. The machine may have had six autonomous legs, but suddenly losing the grip of some of them, along with the shockwaves of the explosions cracking and loosening the already old and weathered stone, the Guardian didn't have a chance to hold onto the wall, and fell back to the ground.
The machine fell onto its head, and then fell over onto its side. As quickly as it could, it used its legs to flip back over, steady itself on the ground, and looked up at its victims.
...Only to find that they had disappeared. They likely had reached the top and climbed over the wall, out of its sight. They couldn't have gotten far, but by the time it got up there, they could be hard to find, escape its range...
"Where are we going!" Linkle cried out.
"Away from the walls and someplace to hide!" Lana quickly replied. She scanned the terrain, and pointed up to a tree near a big, ruined temple. "Up there!"
They rushed up to the tree, and slipped behind it, away from the wall's edge in the distance.
"That... that was intense," Linkle exclaimed, breathing heavily.
"Yeah," Lana replied, catching her breath. "That Guardian was not normal."
"You've seen them alive before?"
"No, but Purah told me about them. Guardians can only fire their blue beams after targetting you with the red beam. But that one stopped using the red beam after that first shot. And it was intelligent, too."
"Right, so not normal. By the way, how'd you use that slate thingy to make a block of lightning?"
"It's a Sheikah Slate," Lana explained. "This one is custom, I made it with Purah. These Slates have many abilities, but I created those 'lightning blocks' by combining Cryonis and Magnesis."
Linkle raised an eyebrow. "What does any of that mean?"
"Oh, um..."
"Whatever. Maybe we should find ourselves someplace away from that Guardian, and make our way back down. Think your Slate thingy can take us back down?"
"Yeah, I..." Lana stated as she pulled out her Slate. But it was sparking.
"Um..."
Lana fiddled with it a bit, and groaned in frustration. "It's overheated. I can fix it, but I'll need to find some parts, and it'll take some time."
"What! Where are you going to find parts! We're trapped on top of a plateau!"
"I noticed as we were running, but there were broken Guardians nearby. As long as they've ceased functioning, I can scavenge parts from them," Lana explained. "But you know, we wouldn't be in this situation if you knew where you were going."
"What!? I wasn't the one who made the block that trapped us up here!" Linkle responded.
"Hey, there was no way we could've escaped that Guardian on foot, and any place to safely get away was too far away. My plan was the only way to get away from that thing quickly. What's important is that you said you were going after Hudson, who was going to Akkala. But the chances of him passing the Great Plateau are low. I mean, it's far out of the way."
"I... was going after Hudson... But then there was this wolf," Linkle explained.
"A wolf?"
"I-it was on the path towards the Dueling Peaks... I felt... drawn to him. He seemed to want me to follow him. It was also the same wolf I saw when we were saving the sheep. Actually, he seemed to want me to come up here."
"You know that sounds insane. Besides, there was no wolf when I arrived," Lana replied.
"What? But he was sitting right next to me."
"Well, I didn't see any wolf."
"Maybe he ran off when the Guardian attacked?" Linkle offered. "He had this way of disappearing and reappearing."
"Linkle, do you really think I'd believe-" Lana started, before a bark was heard.
A wolf's bark.
The girls turned to find a dark-furred wolf, standing up the path, staring at the girls.
"That's him! That's the wolf!" Linkle replied.
"That can't... It has to be a coincidence," Lana countered.
But Linkle knew it was the same wolf. And again, she felt the need to follow him.
The wolf began to make his way up a nearby hill, heading up a cliffside path.
"Come on!" Linkle shouted, as she ran after the wolf.
"Wait, Linkle!" Lana cried, getting up and trying to chase after her friend.
The wolf didn't move very fast, and soon, he stopped in front of a collapsed cavern entrance. A few of the broken Guardians Lana noted before were lying around, gazing at the crumbled rocks.
"...What happened here?" Lana asked, as the girls approached the wolf and the rubble. "Why would they collapse a cave...? Were they trapping survivors?"
Linkle didn't answer. Something about this place...
Then she got an odd feeling... she had to draw her sword. She did so, and looked deeply into the shiny steel blade, still glowing the same blue-green color.
Linkle swore she saw some kind of image in the blade starting to appear, before the whole world went white...
Linkle found herself floating in the air, a dark sky with embers rising up, the glow fires below. Linkle realized she couldn't feel her body, or anything physical. She was like a ghost...
So she took in the scene before her. She realized that she was looking down at the area between the Dueling Peaks and the worn-down Hateno Fort. An area known as the Ash Swamp, Linkle would see this place from a distance on her rides to Kakariko Village. She even saw the place close up when she was trying to tame her horse when she was younger.
But the "dead metal monsters" she'd seen on the plains before, which Linkle now knew to be Guardians, were alive and roaming, glowing with red lights and bright blue singular eyes. Some of the Guardians actually appeared to be cut down, their lights fading in and out. The whole plains where they were roaming were blazing with flames.
Then Linkle noticed something else. A pair of Hylians, a woman in a white dress, and a man in a blue tunic. Both of them were dirty, their clothes torn. The man was holding a sword, with a blue handle. It looked like it was once a fancy blade, except it was now ruined, its blade burned and chipped. And the man was kneeling on the ground, as if he was hurt, using his sword to help prop himself up.
But what was really strange was that the man looked a lot like Linkle. Stranger still, the sword also felt familiar to Linkle. It was not the strange sword the wolf tossed to her, she was certain of that, but it felt important, looking at the blade.
The woman put her hands on the man, telling him, "Link, save yourself! Go! I'll be fine! Don't worry about me! Run!"
Link? So not only did this man look like Linkle, but he had a similar name?
Well, Link didn't listen to the woman, as he simply got up, nearly stumbling back down, but standing strong.
A wandering Guardian found the two Hylians, and began to approach them, climbing over some of its dead brethren. It towered above the pair, and aimed its gaze down at them, before preparing its laser, just like the Guardian that Linkle and Lana just fought.
"NO!" the woman shouted, as she ran in front of Link and held up her hand. Linkle wasn't sure what this could do to stop the machine... until the woman's hand glowed with golden light.
This light grew, blinding Linkle as it blasted across the entire plains. As Linkle's sight recovered, she could see a strange dark fog leaving every single standing Guardian, until said Guardians fell, their light shutting off, as they fell silent.
Stunned, the woman said, "was... Was that...? The power..." Until something collapsed behind her. She turned to find Link on the ground, weak from his wounds.
"No... no...!" the woman shouted, rushing to his side. "Link! Get up!" she said, helping him sit up. Link coughed in pain. "You're going to be just fine..." the woman said, before he slumped over.
The woman held him as she cried, until something strange happened. Link's ruined sword, it began to glow a blue color, briefly shining on and off, making a sound each time it did.
The woman took notice. "The sword... Are you saying... there's still a chance...?"
Before Linkle could make sense of what she was seeing, someone shouted, "princess!"
A pair of agile warriors in blue rushed over to the pair, one of them asking, "princess! Are you all right!?"
"Yes, but... Link... We must hurry! If we are to save Link, we must get him to the Shrine of Resurrection!"
The warriors looked at each other, solemnly.
"What? What are you doing!? Link-"
"Princess, we have some bad news..."
And then everything faded.
Linkle took a sharp breath as she came back to reality. What was that? It was like her dreams, but so much more vivid... Was that a vision? Who was that woman, that... princess?
...And who was Link?
Linkle turned her gaze towards the wolf. For some reason, she felt as if he was connected to all of this, despite not knowing anything about him. Then she turned to the cavern...
Looking at it now, she got this sense of dread, a sense of failure... She didn't know why, but somehow, deep down, she knew that the collapse of this cavern meant terrible things.
"Linkle," Lana spoke up. Linkle jumped, she actually forgot her friend was there. "Hey, it's just me! Are you okay... You've been standing there for several minutes. I was getting worried!"
"Oh, I..." Linkle wasn't sure how to explain what she just saw.
But she wouldn't have to, for the moment.
"Ho!" a voice called out. The girls turned to find an old man approaching them. "Well, this isn't a sight you see every day you see a pair of travelers in these parts, especially with a wolf companion."
"Uh, hi. The... wolf isn't exactly our companion," Lana replied to the old man.
"He isn't. He seems so friendly, I figured you two must've tamed him," the old man said. "But perhaps he's just that, friendly."
"Fair point..." Lana admitted, though she did take notice of the old man taking a closer look at the odd wolf.
"So, who are you?" Linkle asked, a bit weirded out.
"Me? I'll spare you my life story," the old man replied. "I'm just an old fool who has lived here, alone, for quite some time now."
"So you live up here?" Lana inquired.
"Indeed. If I may, what are your names?"
"Oh, I'm Lana."
"And I'm Linkle," the blonde replied, starting to feel more relaxed. "So, why do you live up here?"
"A fair question. Do you know where we are, young lady?" the old man asked.
"The Great Plateau. Sorry, that's all I know. Lana seems to know more."
"And what do you know, miss Lana?" the old man asked Linkle's friend.
"Well, according to legend, this is the birthplace of the kingdom of Hyrule," Lana answered.
"Indeed. Few remember the history of this place, so you must be quite knowledgeable. Well, it is that very reason I came up here." The old man turned to look over the cliffside, and pointed to the old temple. "That temple there... Long ago, it was the site of many sacred ceremonies. Ever since the decline of the kingdom 100 years ago, it has sat abandoned, in a state of decay." He turned back to the girls. "Yet another forgotten entity. A mere ghost of its former self."
"So, did you come up here to pay your respects?" Lana asked.
"Maybe he wants to be forgotten himself?" Linkle offered.
Lana gave Linkle a look of "seriously", but the old man just laughed it off. "The answer is not far from that. Now, why did you two come up here?"
"Honestly, we were trying to get away from a Guardian," Lana answered.
"Really? Most of the Guardians up here are inactivate, and those that still are active are immobile, far too damaged and decayed to leave their resting spots."
"Actually, we literally ascended the walls, escaping a live Guardian down below," Lana explained.
"Is that so? Well, that is quite impressive, I must say. It is nigh impossible to descend the cliffs of this isolated plateau, much less climb up them."
"Actually, we used this," and Lana showed the old man her Slate. "Though, I don't know if you'll understand how-"
"Is that a Sheikah Slate, my dear?" the old man interjected.
"You know what this is?"
"Indeed I do. Still, it looks a bit different from the one I've seen before."
"Well, this one is one that I made myself, and it's custom. I have the original, but it no longer works," Lana said, pulling out a second Slate. "Actually, my custom one also broke too, so... we can't use it to get back down."
"Well, that is certainly a conundrum. There is no way down normally. If you were to try to jump off, well... no death could be more certain. Or more foolish."
"So, what can we do?" Linkle asked.
"Well, perhaps we should start by restoring functionality to your Sheikah Slate," the old man offered.
"Well, like I told Linkle earlier, I'll need to find parts to fix my Slate," Lana explained.
"With a mind as brilliant as yours, and all of the decaying Guardians about, I'm sure you'll find no issue completing this task. But it is not that Slate I am speaking of."
Lana looked at the other Slate. She recalled that Purah wanted her to give Linkle the original Sheikah Slate, but she had to restore it first, for it to be of any use. "My mentor says that I can restore it by taking it to a dormant Sheikah Tower, but... I don't know where to find one," she admitted.
"With that, I can assist you." Once again, the old turned towards the cliffside, looking out over the Plateau. "Past the temple, near the edge of the Plateau, you'll find a rock mound with a structure embedded inside of it. You can see a bit of the structure poking out of the top."
"Okay," Lana replied, nodding in understanding.
"If you approach the rock mound, you'll find it has an opening into the buried structure. That is what you are looking for. Be careful, there are monsters nearby. They aren't strong, but keep your eyes out from them, nonetheless."
"Thank you. Linkle, let's go."
"Wait, are we really going to listen to him?" Linkle objected. "Why will fixing the other Slate help us?"
"It's a start. Besides, Purah actually asked me to do this. She wants you to have the Slate, for some reason," Lana explained.
"Wait, what? Why me?"
"I didn't have time to ask. Now let's go." And Lana grabbed Linkle's hand, and pulled her back down the hill.
This left the old man alone... with the wolf, who had been sitting silently, listening to the conversation between the old man and the girls.
The old man turned to the wolf. "I believe I know who you are."
The wolf nodded in response.
"And you, no doubt, know who I am as well, do you not?"
Another nod.
"Now, I don't think you knew I was up here, so why did you come?"
The wolf didn't respond.
"I see you can't speak like this." The old man then pointed to the temple. "Despite its decay, the temple is a center of strong spiritual influence. We can speak there," he told the wolf, before disappearing in faint, bluish-green flames. Likewise, the wolf disappeared into the shadows.
Author's Note: Man... I really wanted to get this chapter out before Tears of the Kingdom (TotK) came out. But that didn't happen. Actually, if you are reading this chapter even just a few days after I post this, please comment about it. I'd be kind of interested in knowing why you're reading this fanfic based on Breath of the Wild, instead of playing the sequel to the game.
As for me, I've been unable to get a job, so I can't buy the game myself. But my birthday is at the end of this month, so I knew I could ask for TotK as a birthday gift. (In fact, my dad was asking me for links to the games I asked for on Amazon just earlier today, so the chances of my getting TotK seem pretty good.)
So, the only reason I am not playing TotK myself is that I won't have it for probably two weeks after its release, as my birthday is on the 27th of May. (Five days down, ten more to go.)
Anyways, let's talk about the chapter itself. Yeah, just wanted to put Linkle and Lana on the Great Plateau in this chapter. Felt that this would still be an appropriate place to really start the journey, seeing as you-know-who is here.
But what's important is the sword. This is how I will be handling the lost memories in this story. Now, I don't intend to show all of them, as that would leave this story quite chaotic in its direction, but most of the important memories will be shone.
And of course, I was showing the final memory, but much more clearly than in Linkle's dreams, but I'm still leaving that ending out. I'm sure you all know what happens, based on the story's synopsis, but storywise, I want to keep it on the down low for now.
And to end this off, I won't be showing the results of the ending with the old man and the wolf for quite a while. And I would be lying if you would see the effects of this over the course of the story, as it would be too subtle to notice (after all, our wolf friend can't talk normally). But you'll see what happens eventually.
And that's it. That's all I wanted to talk about in this chapter. There will be more to bring up later in the Great Plateau Arc, which is the best way I can describe this part of the story. It'll be a bit before I get the next chapter up, between moving in a month, and what I mentioned at the start of this Note, that, and I am focusing on completing all of my current projects before my birthday, again for the reason above. Granted, it is only one more project I need to complete, but it'll take a bit of time.
Regardless, I hope to see you guys later!