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Chap. 53: Downtime Activities

Zelda was grateful for the chamber pot in the Great Ton Pu Inn the moment she woke up. After vomiting what was left, undigested, from her dinner, the princess dry-heaved for a good fifty or sixty minutes more before the sensation of intense nausea began to pass.

It was another hour before she could lever herself upright and use the pot for its intended purpose. Fortunately, by the time her bowels were relieved, Zelda felt a lot better, and mostly up for breakfast. After she had bathed herself, and left a quick note to Prima or whoever cleaned the room during the day that she would definitely be back that night and to try not to smell what was in the chamber pot when it was dumped, she dressed and headed down to the common room.

Of course, the moment the smell of breakfast hit her nose, another wave of nausea came with it, and Zelda had to fight back the urge to vomit once more. Decidedly green around the gills, she waved off the offer Prima's father made of a meal, told him she'd probably be back by dinner time and paid for her room the next night in advance, then hurried out of the building.

Fresh air, at least, seemed to help. Zelda spent a good two hours walking around the quiet farming village, stopped by to chat with Sophie about repairing her damaged armor, and get a new estimate on when her soldier's armor would be finished. The girl was happy to report that the noise in back was her brother, working on that very project. Though Sophie was shy, she was glad to see Zelda again, even if she looked a bit ill, and the two chatted for thirty or so minutes while the tailor darned the holes in Zelda's clothing, and even stitched new patches of leather over the damaged sections of her traveler's armor. The soldier's armor itself would be ready, Sophie promised, by the middle of the next week: five days away.

A quick stop at East Wind to stock up on arrows (she carefully avoided the food section of the general store in light of how she'd felt earlier, even if Zelda was starting to get hungry) later, and it was time for the most important errand of the day.
Thankfully, Nightmare seemed quite at ease in the town despite being wild not so very long ago, and was happy to carry her at a fair canter up the hillside toward Purah's Ancient Tech Lab.

"Princess!" the young-looking, but quite old, researcher cried as Zelda stepped through the door, "You're back!"

"I noticed," she replied, smiling down at Purah. A strange sense of familiarity washed over her for a moment, as the child-like face warred with the wisdom and experience present in Purah's eyes, and both together competed with the somehow staid exuberance of her greeting as she hopped off her stool and dashed over to throw her little arms around Zelda's legs.

"It's good to see you again! How was Impa? Is my little sister still a pain in the neck? Did she show you her prize? How did she take the news about the Sheikah Slate? What did you talk to her about? How did-"

"Hold on, hold on," Zelda laughed, waving away Purah's questions for a moment, "Give me a chance and I'll answer as best I can! She's well, considering her age-"

"I told her I'd let her use my de-aging Rune one time, once I had it perfected. I think I have, now, but she refuses. Silly."

"It's her choice, though," Zelda reminded her as she slipped her pack off he back. "I've tied a horse outside, given him a few carrots and apples. I hope it's not a problem."

"No, that should be fine," Purah agreed, "and if not, Symin can take care of it. He's actually pretty good with horses and other animals."

"That's good. Anyway, she's not a pain. Impa is a wise woman who knows what she's doing."

"And that's having as little fun as possible as she goes through life."

Zelda couldn't hold back the chuckle. While Purah may indeed have been the older sister, appearances aside, she definitely was the more... entertaining of the two. Even if she was a bit much, sometimes. "I don't know what prize you're talking about, though. Something about memories? She showed me the pictures of course, and explained what they meant. The ones in the Slate's archive."

"Oh, yes, those," Purah nodded, suddenly all seriousness, though the smile didn't quite fade from her round, youthful face. "No, I meant- eh, never mind. We can talk about that later. How's the Slate doing? How are you doing? You look a bit peaky."

"I'm feeling a bit under the weather, actually," Zelda admitted, "woke up and vomited before getting out of bed. The thought of food makes me want to do it again, but it's passing already. I'm sure by dinner I'll be fine."

Purah's eyes narrowed briefly, but she nodded, "Alright. Well, if you don't feel up to much tomorrow, come by here anyway if the symptoms persist. I may not look it now, but I am a trained medical professional, after all, among other things. I can take a look at you, maybe run a few tests. I should have the old equipment around here somewhere... anyway. The Slate?"

Zelda nodded, and handed it over. In moments, Purah's fingers were whizzing through the small progress she had made in completing the Hyrule Compendium for Symin, her expression altering slightly with each new image that went by. "Hm. Well, it's something. You'll just have to keep working on it. I suppose it would've been too much to expect it to be half-done in just a few days. I honestly didn't expect you for a week or more, still."

"Ah, yes, about that," Zelda told her, "I used the Travel Gate function to move to the Ta'Loh Naeg Shrine, just outside of Kakariko Village. I really only had to walk to the Dueling Peak Stable, where I picked up Nightmare, and then we followed the road back. I rode about half-way from there, as well."

"Travel Gate? Don't you know that takes a ton of power?" Purah grumbled, and snatched the Slate back from her hands. "See, it's down to ten percent!"

"T- Ten? The last I saw it was at two."

"Two?!" Purah suddenly shrieked, sounding horrified, "That could be catastrophic! Never, ever, ever let it get that low! If its memory core is wiped because of low power, there's no telling what could happen. It might even stop basic functions!"

"It, uh, did... for a while," Zelda admitted quietly, strangely cowed by Purah's energetic shouting, "I had to stop using Bombs, or well, any of the Runes. Even the Camera. But it seems like there's more, now."
"Yes, some," Purah told her. "Not enough to use it safely. Fine... fine, I'll charge it up overnight. You'll have to leave it here, and there might be more work for you when it's done. I'll give it all the power I can spare from the Furnace, though. It's important that it stay charged."

"Alright, I promise I'll try," Zelda told her. "I didn't think it would take that much power."

"It's only disintegrating you into your component atoms and reassembling them some miles- perhaps hundreds of miles- away. That's all, no energy requirement at all," Purah muttered darkly.

"Hey, don't blame me," Zelda scowled back, growing annoyed, "I realized the problem right away. But I don't know anything about atoms, or energy, or things like that, Purah. I know I used to be a scholar of sorts, but I don't remember any of that, so it's no use scolding me for things I don't know any more."

The child-bodied researcher froze mid-step for a moment, then nodded. She started walking again, a quiet, "Sorry," on her lips. Then she was all business, connecting the Sheikah Slate not just to her Guidance Stone, but to several other wires she pulled from various parts of her lab, as well. Once the Slate was attached and resting peacefully, with soft lines of blue light flowing down each wire into the Slate at regular intervals, Purah turned back around and huffed, "It's my fault. I'm the one that didn't calibrate the Slate properly when I put it into slumber. I'm the one that didn't make sure the Shrine of Resurrection kept as many of your memories intact as possible. So... I should remember that you don't. Remember, that is. I tried, though. It... we're researchers. We study the Ancient Sheikah's techno-magic. Robbie, Impa, and I. Symin too, I guess. But we don't really understand it."

"What do you mean?" Zelda asked, confused not just by the admission, but by the knowledge Purah had just given her about the Shrine of Resurrection, and the loss of her memories. So confused, in fact, that even the princess wasn't sure what part of Purah's conversation she was asking about.

Purah only shook her head and huffed, gesturing behind her at the Guidance Stone and Slate. "We can make it work, mostly. Do things. Push this button, that happens. Push that button, this other thing happens. We study. We learn. But we don't know how, hardly at all. Robbie's... I hate to say it, but he's better, further along, at that sort of research than I am. I know the Blue Flame Furnace outside powers all of this. I know the Eternal Blue Flame down in the valley can be used to turn ours back on if it goes out, and that it never seems to. I also know that some Sheikah devices, when they lose power, lose any information they have stored in them. I think the Slate might have a back-up. I don't know for sure, I can't find anything in the menus about it. So it's best not to chance it. Make sure it stays charged, please. That's the best link to your past we have."

The way she said it, that particular phrase, caught in Zelda's mind for a moment. A strange, almost hypnotic feeling of nostalgia washed over her, but just as suddenly as it had come, the feeling passed. "Alright, I'll do my best. But how did it gain... what, eight percent? Does it charge itself overnight?"

"Sort of," Purah nodded, hopping back up onto her stool and rifling through the hundreds of papers and notes scattered across her work station. "See, this right here? We theorize- Robbie and I- that past a certain point, when it's not on reserve power, the Slate generates its own. Slowly, but it does. For a while, we used it previous to the Calamity, just to test it. I had a mostly-working Slate myself, it's how I built this Guidance Stone- using instructions it had within it. But it's broken now, apparently irreparably. The Slates themselves are far more complex than the Stones, and much smaller. If it's on Reserve Power- twenty-five percent or less of a full charge- it won't recharge. But past twenty-five, even one percent more, it will gain about one percent per day if you don't use anything strenuous. No Runes, etc. Using a basic Rune takes almost nothing, you could take fifty pictures and it might take one percent. Same with the map features, tags, and so on. But the combat Runes? Bombs, Magnesis? Those take more. Stasis more than that, since it actually alters the flow of time for an object. That takes immense amounts of power. Even as efficiently as the Slate works, we tested a single use of Stasis at five percent of a normal charge. Magnesis' drain depends on how much you're lifting, but it's relatively small in comparison. You can move around as much as ten tons, hold it aloft for several minutes, all without noticeable strain on yourself- but it takes about one percent per minute. A hundred, five hundred pounds of steel? Might take a percent every few hours, moving on a semi-logarithmic scale. With me so far?"

Zelda nodded.

"Bombs are easier, both square and circle Remote Bombs take a flat quarter percent each- but your upgrades make them stronger, and they take more power. Half, that way. You can still toss out a good number without draining the battery, but it's best to be a little cautious. Don't rely on them exclusively, but it's alright to use them when needed. Right?"

Zelda nodded again, "So similarly to the enchanted arrows I have. It's best to save them when possible, not be wasteful, but if they just sit in my quiver they're wasted anyway, as completely as if I fired them at a tree."

"Exactly," Purah nodded, smiling up at her. "Not using it and using it badly are both wastes. But an effective use it good, right? Anyway, I don't know a lot about the Travel Gates, we only ever had a few that worked, and couldn't test it effectively. I'd say... thirty percent? Maybe a bit less, as little as twenty-two, but probably closer to twenty-five percent, per person, per use. Distance doesn't really seem to be a factor, you can cross the world, the street, or the universe with the same amount of power. But every time you use it, it takes twenty-five percent. Objects? Nothing. They don't cost power, and we don't know why, but it won't activate without the Slate's user going through. You could carry a house- if you could pick one up- and it would take no more energy than you. But if you take a house-cat, or another person, then it's another twenty-five or whatever percent."

Zelda nodded, but frowned too, "What about fish? I have several fish, a couple of crabs, and dozens of still-living insects in my satchel. They're held in stasis, I think. The enchantment on it allows me to bring things out of it just as I had put them in, at any rate."

Purah frowned thoughtfully, then held out her small hands, "May I?"

"Sure," Zelda agreed, and spent a moment unclasping its several belts and buckles. It felt strange handing something her father had crafted over to Purah but at least the researcher treated it carefully. She spent several minutes, perhaps half an hour, going over it. Tracing fingers, using her brass- and gold- fashioned goggles, or her glasses, or neither, moving over the seams between parts, the leather, the cloth, and even the buckles with minute precision and attention to detail. "It's... your father made this."
Zelda nodded, "How did you know?"

"I recognize his work. He was..." Purah sighed, and looked up at her a little wistfully, "It's almost unfortunate you have few memories of him, but also somewhat fortunate. He was a complicated man."

Zelda nodded. "He... helped me. When I woke on the Great Plateau, he was there. Disguised as an old man, a simple hermit, but he helped me. Gave me that, supplies... taught me how to hunt, to survive. Then when I had gotten the Runes and Spirit Orbs from the Shrines there, he gave me a way off the Plateau."

"The paraglider?"

"You know about that?"

Purah nodded too, looking back down at the satchel, "I helped him build it. You were... nine? About that. Rhoam was a Sheikah. At least, he was descended from our Tribe. Your mother was a Hylian. They were... very much in love. When she was killed, he changed. Threw himself into scholarly pursuits, much like you did when you were young. If you weren't praying, you were studying or getting in trouble. That might have been Impa's influence. She was a brat even back then."

"Impa would say the same of you," Zelda smiled.

"Probably," Purah agreed, grinning back, though her eyes were still a bit misty. "At any rate... it'll take a few hours, perhaps the remainder of the day, to charge. Your father's enchanting work is exceptional, he learned it from me and Impa, but it's far better than either of us could have done in our prime. Treasure that bag, Princess, it's extremely useful. As to how it works with the Slate? What is inside the satchel isn't in the universe as we know it. The hole, the door, goes to a space outside of space and time as we understand them. The Ancient Sheikah could do that, too. It's related to the Stasis spell, or how you can use the Travel Gates, but we aren't sure how it works overall. He must have found a way to duplicate the effect in the old libraries underneath Hyrule Castle, or something."

"What do you mean?" Zelda asked, both intrigued and confused.

Purah could only shrug, "I've read a few reports talking about caches left 'for the future', 'when they were needed', and so on. Things locked outside of space and time, tied to certain locations in our reality. Supposedly, someone with the right key- presumably a Sheikah Slate- could unlock those spaces, and bring whatever they store into our time and space, our world, with an application of energy. I've never seen it work, and have no idea how it would function, but it would be amazing if so. Imagine, the entire culture or techno-magical ability of the Ancient Sheikah, stored away for when it's needed? There could be things more dangerous than Guardians, but untouched by the Calamity's corruption. The problem is, we don't know how to access them. King Rhoam must have found out at least some of it, though, if he could duplicate the effect with our limited understanding. I think that's what's on the satchel, anyway."

"Astounding," Zelda whispered.

"Indeed. Anyway, why don't you relax. Head back to down, take some time off. Enjoy a nice bath, maybe drink some herbal teas. Something for your stomach, at any rate. Come back tomorrow morning, and your Slate should be good to go. But remember, you owe me one."

"Alright," Zelda replied, smiling, "I'll do that. I'll see you later, Purah. Bright and early!"
"Not too early. I'd like to keep my beauty sleep, this time," Purah grinned.

"Alright, alright... eight?"

"Sure. See you then, Princess."

Relaxation did not go how Zelda had anticipated.

It went, absolutely, only in an unexpected way.

Taking advantage of the privacy afforded by the Retsam Forest north of and below the Research Lab, with only Koyin's ranch anywhere close to it geographically, Zelda took a relaxing stroll in the quiet afternoon. Quiet, of course, being relative. A few deer and boar grazed through, and the wind stirred the leaves of the dense woods regularly, but the drone of insects was near constant. Buzzing bees, chirping crickets, gnats, and more surrounded the princess as she walked, glad she was starting to feel better at last as the day wore on.
She even kept down the apple and cheese she had snacked on around mid-afternoon.

When Zelda reached the shores of Lake Sumac, she glanced about carefully, then began to disrobe. She well remembered the last time she had been here, and done this same thing, but Zelda also knew there hadn't been a Blood Moon since she had fought the group of Bokoblins on Sumac's southwestern shore. Likely, there weren't any Bokoblins in the area at all. Still, it was worth being a bit cautious, so Zelda kept her clothing in her watertight satchel as she, near-nude, slipped into the cool, refreshing water and started to swim, the satchel pushed ahead.

With her back to the distant ranch, she spent an hour drying and sunbathing, now completely nude, moving occasionally to stay out of the shade of the massive oak on the small island that it grew from at the center of the lake.

She even fell asleep, and got a good, much needed nap in.

So Zelda was feeling quite good, quite refreshed, and energized from more than a few dreams of not just her Champion, Link, but good times spent on otherwise lonely nights with Impa, too. More recent ones with Prima or Sagessa were scant while she dozed, but Zelda still woke up particularly horny.

Which was, in some ways, unfortunate as she didn't even think to resort to her growing collection of objects-turned-toys.

Because she was not the only one skinny-dipping in Lake Sumac that day.

Koyin's body looked delightful, just a few dozen yards away from the little islet, face-up with a blissful smile as she soaked in both water and sun too.

Zelda smiled. The day was already good and relaxing, after the rough morning, but it had suddenly gotten so much better. "Oh, Koyin...!"