As a reminder, you can find MORE of this on my SubStar (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted up past chapter 75 there... And if you guys haven't seen an update in at least a week, please let me know! I have a busy life, and I get distracted and forget things. This story (and PTaL) are supposed to be updated WEEKLY from now until they're both caught up with each other (like I was doing with FwB until this weekend).

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Chap. 51: The Cursed Statue

Zelda meandered through the forest for several hours, sharp eyes and quick hands hard at work as she went, gathering dozens more apples, tasty looking berries, and no small number of honey comb where she could get some without angering entire swarms of bees.

A few Chu, the blue slime monsters she had first seen on the Great Plateau, were the largest threat she saw. The princess had also been able to gather more hunks of ore and gemstones from the cliffs to the north including a small but highly lustrous diamond, but perhaps more importantly, she had found a trio of Koroks, who had graced her with their pungent seeds.

At least, now that she had a purpose for them, Zelda didn't mind carrying around what she was increasingly sure was their droppings.

Archery atop the wall, Magnesis, using a bit of her very limited Sheikah Slate power supply to move a door from atop a rock, and another simply well-concealed. The last had led her to a lone cabin, well-build but out of the way and a short distance of the thin, narrow road that snaked through the woods, where it would be just out of sight from a casual traveler.

Muttering from inside and the soft glow of a lantern being lit lead to Zelda bravery as she knocked on the door. "Hello?"

Something inside crashed, and she heard quiet cursing. "There's no one home! Go away!"

"I'm, er, s- sorry to disturb you," Zelda tried again, "I was just hoping for a bit of shelter for the night."

"I haven't got any beds, this isn't a waystation inn!" the man inside shouted gruffly, "now if you don't mind, I'm quite hard at work and would like to get back to it! If I don't figure out this riddle soon, I'll never earn the respect I deserve, and that simply will not do!"

Zelda's smile, though she could not see him and presumed he could not see her, faltered. The man sounded like not just an ass, but a highly arrogant one, too. Still, she really did prefer to sleep inside if possible, given the dangers out in the wild, so she tried one more time. "I'm told I'm fairly quick-witted. Perhaps I can help, sir? I can pay, as well. I don't need a bed, a spot on the floor will do."

Silence.

A full minute's worth, then she heard a latch and a chain rattling. The door creaked open, just a couple of inches, to reveal a tall, bespectacled man with receding gray hair dressed in a rumpled, slightly torn, but otherwise nice-looking vest coat, tunic, and trousers. He appraised her with annoyed-looking, gray-blue eyes, then glanced over Zelda's shoulders. "Well armed, decently dressed, single female, no other ambushers...? You can take care of yourself, don't bring along backup... alright, you can come in for the night, but please, leave me be. I'm working very hard on this puzzle, and I don't want to be disturbed."

Zelda followed quietly as he opened the door and ushered her inside. He latched it again quickly, then threw down a bar against it just in case. The cabin was a single room, well-made on the interior as the exterior, with rustic but sturdy bookshelves, a desk for study and a separate table for eating, a large fireplace which was currently cold given the warm night, a large dresser, and a single, unmade bed, the least put-together part of the cabin. "You can sleep in that corner," the older man muttered, waving at the one near the dresser and furthest from the desk, where he sat down without another word and resumed leafing through an old, worn text while muttering to himself.

Zelda shrugged. If he didn't want her help, or didn't think she was worth asking, she would not insist. The man sounded quite sure of himself, despite struggling with some sort of intellectual puzzle, so maybe he would be able to solve it.
As quietly as she could, the princess set out her bedroll and climbed into it, careful to keep one of her knives beneath her pillow, and another in in her hand, clutched tightly to her breast beneath the coverings as she closed her eyes and tried to force herself to sleep.

Mental discipline or not, that sleep was a long time coming, largely because the man kept talking to himself every few minutes. "Come on, Calip, you can do this. How are you going to be called Doctor Calip, or Professor Calip, if you can't even solve one of the world's mysteries? You're smarter than this. Come on, come on..."
That was just the start. Zelda overheard many more snippets of conversation as the night wore on, and the glimmer of moonlight crept slowly across the room. "When a dark light resides in the cursed statue's eyes, pierce its gaze to purge the seal from the Shrine."

A Shrine? Zelda found her interest piqued, and sleep washed from her eyes.

'I'm not wrong, I can't be. It has to be around here, the signs all point to it. Perhaps the graveyard to the north...? There are many statues there. But what does the dark light refer to, shining in the statue's eyes? Gah... come on, Calip, you can figure this out. There must be a clue somewhere in this collection."

So it went, for nearly two more hours, until Zelda, her own mind whirring and spinning, felt herself drift off.


She woke just after sunrise, to the cacophony of birds filling the many trees outside, and the quieter, deeper snuffle of a boar or wild pig rooting around the wall outside her head. A little closer, 'Doctor' Calip's snores were thankfully quieter. He was laying on his bed-covers, and somehow it was a little more made than it had been when she had first stepped into the cabin. The lantern on his desk still burned with a low light, but the cabin was well-lit because one curtain had been opened to let the morning sunlight stream inside from the east window.
The princess stretched as she sat up, then quietly went about packing her things. Calip still snored away, muttering in his sleep something about cursed statues, which reminded her of what he had been going on about the night before. She wasn't necessarily in need of a Shrine, at least not badly. She knew she would have to find it eventually, however, if Hylia or the earlier Zelda's words were true. She would need their strength added to her own.

Which meant she'd have to do what this scholar could not, and find the Shrine for him. She sighed, then, still trying to keep quiet, Zelda used his own supplies and a bit of her berries from foraging the previous afternoon to fix up a healthy serving of porridge for both of them. Calip's she left on his desk with a quick note and twenty Rupees as thanks for the safe space to rest. While she ate her own portion, Zelda leafed through the tome Calip had been reading.

The place described a graveyard surrounded on three sides by high cliffs with a river further off to the south separating it from more cliffs. Veins of silver and gemstones littered the northern faces of the valley, where ancient peoples had thought the shimmering light might have housed spirits, and thus the graveyard had been placed there.

It had stood for untold centuries, and was considered a historical location in her old kingdom, ancient even then.

Calip seemed quite capable of living here, on his own, judging by the state of the cabin and its food storage, but he did not seem willing to venture far. Was the only reason he hadn't yet solved the riddle because he was focusing purely on the academic approach, rather than actually going out to the graveyard both he and the book had described, and seeing for himself?
If so, he was a fool, she decided. Intellect alone was nice, but not enough.

Practical experience and learning was equally valuable to learning from a book. Zelda smiled, almost cruelly. Perhaps it would teach the arrogant man a lesson, if a newcomer who, as far as he knew, had only claimed reasonable intelligence had solved what he had struggled with for who knew how long in a single night?

Yes, that would be a valuable lesson, she decided, as she finished the last of her porridge and used the man's rain-bucket to rinse her dishes out and stowed them away.

The door would only be unlocked a short while, she thought, before he woke. And if not, well... she didn't really want to talk to him anyway. She had more work to do, a Shrine to find.


Zelda met another traveler within half an hour of leaving Calip's cabin. A Sheikah man with dusky brown skin, short for one of their Tribe, but still a good nine inches taller than Zelda herself, and a fair bit stockier. For some reason, he was traveling unarmed, and rather than wearing Sheikah traditional clothing, he had on green and white-dyed traveler's clothing, though without the leather armor bits attached to her own. His pack was heavy, too, which was what suggested to Zelda he might be a merchant of some sort. "Excuse me, sir?"

"Oh, hey, a traveler," the man said, smiling as he turned to face her. She spotted shadows under his eyes that suggested the man was probably sleep deprived, and he seemed grateful for the chance to stop moving as he turned to face her. "You must've heard of me, maybe been wondering if I'm the guy people have been talking about, right?"

"Er..."

He kept going, smiling as he did, "Tales are told all over eastern Hyrule about me, the dashing Treasure Hunter, Teli, with the roguish good looks? Well, that's me, alright."

"N- No, act-"

"From far to the north in Akkala, old Sheikah Researchers buy my Guardian parts. The man's half my business, truth be told. But they discuss me in such far-flung places as Hateno Village, and every place between! A treasure-hunter extraordinaire, scavenging and looking for valuables of the long-lost Ancient Sheikah civilization, going where few or none dare to tread! That's me! I'm just days- nay, hours- from my next big break! So, little lady, what can I, Teli, do for you?"

Her eye twitched. Am I just destined to deal with arrogant people around this area? He and Calip would get along famously.

"I could perhaps purchase a few things," she told him quietly, "but I'm not very flush on funds. What have you got?"

"Right now," Teli gushed, slipping his pack from his shoulders and setting it at his feet, where he knelt to draw out several objects, "I have these. Ancient Screws, made using mysterious Sheikah Steel, which keep their threads fine no matter how often they are turned.

"Here, I have a couple Ancient Springs, light enough to float on water, and they never lose their tension no matter how often they're compressed!

"Finally, I have just one of these, they're quite hard to find: A prized Ancient Gear! I know, I know, astounding, isn't it? Look at that craftsmanship! They just don't make them like this anymore. The size of a dinner plate, and stylized design, yet it's so hardy even hitting it with a hammer would only break the hammer! Even the teeth lock smoothly into place with other gears of the same size, to minimize friction- not that they ever really wear out!"

Of course, now that Zelda had made the mistake of talking to him about them, she was treated to even more. "Any or all of these fine items, relics of a bygone age, can be yours for the low, low price of... well, it depends on which one. Fifty to a hundred-thirty Rupees. You won't find a more fair price on Ancient Sheikah artifacts in all of Hyrule!"

Zelda looked down into his pack. He was holding one of each of the items, the two smaller in his left hand and the gear in his right, but she could see no other parts. Clothing, foodstuffs, a canteen, those she could see. "You have... one of each?"

"That's right, for now, I suppose," Teli admitted, turning a little darker, "Things have been tight. But I'm bound to have better luck tomorrow."

"I... see. Well, I don't think I'm interested, thank you."

"But miss! Where else can you find a screw like this? It's a priceless object, and I'm letting it go for a steal at fifty Rupees!"

Zelda tried to ignore him, and as Teli pressed the issue, she called over her shoulder as she walked away, "I said I'm not interested. I'm low on funds, remember?"
"Surely, you can afford this, however! The Ancient Spring is a profound investment! Why, you might be able to sell it for as much as two hundred Rupees in a settlement! Think of the profit you could make!"

Suddenly, despite it being an otherwise peaceful, almost idyllic morning, Zelda snapped.

She whirled around, her own satchel coming open, and she reached inside. "You find screws that valuable? Why don't you buy from me then? I've got twenty-five! Springs? You have one- I have sixteen. Eight gears! I don't need yours, Mr... Teli. If that's your name. Thank you, I'll be on my way. Better luck fleecing the next fool who wanders by."

"But... but..."

She ignored his continued protests, and, as Teli's calls eventually switched to shouted questions over the rising valley as the forest faded into the distance, how she had found such a treasure trove, and why didn't he have any luck with large stashes like that.

She could have told him it was from hunting and scavenging, just like he had done, over a period of time, but why bother?

She still had to focus on finding that Shrine.

Zelda carefully avoided traveling in eyesight of a massive camp of Bokoblins across the Squabble River to the south, nestled beneath the overhang of a massive pillar and ledge on the Cliffs of Quince. It was from that large mountain, according to her map, that the Hateno Tower rose, though it was still many miles further south and east.

She was not spotted, so far as she could tell, but Zelda's tension was still high until they had passed out of view behind her as well.

A Yiga assassin, not bothering with a disguise, attacked her just after lunch that day, but Zelda was able to fend off the attack easily enough. The woman, clearly feminine thanks to the skin-tight red outfit they wore, had fought with a more refined and tight style than the men who had attacked her previously, but this time it was Zelda's Goddess-enhanced strength that had won the day, as her traveler's claymore had cut through the cheap steel of the assassin's weapon easily, leaving her only with a backup. Once they were up close, it was easy for Zelda to physically overpower the other woman, and all she'd achieved was getting a punch in the gut that hadn't even hurt that much.

It might've made her already queasy stomach a little worse, but the strange nausea had largely passed by that time of day anyway, so it only drew it out a little longer.

She discarded the heavy weapon for the Yiga's assassin's blade with little care. Like the first one she'd had, and the second she now carried, the third blade was too thin to stand up to much prolonged combat, but it would serve well for her preferred style of ending a threat before they knew she was there.

It also didn't escape the princess' notice, with a wry grin, how similar her 'guile and cunning' approach was to the Yiga's own.

Except she seemed to be better at it.

Two Stalkoblins, and a goat, fell to her Yiga weapon as the sun fell and night came on, but that was also when Zelda stumbled across the graveyard in question, some miles north of the road.

It was creepy, how the many hundreds of statues all seemed to stare at her in the moonlight, but at once, without even trying, Zelda spotted the difference. One statue, out of hundreds, had shining, malevolent-purple eyes that seemed to follow her.

Zelda grinned. "Calip is a fool," she decided, and jogged forward. Within ten minutes, a single arrow, the 'pierce' line of his poem, had struck the statue and a Shrine began to rise. Zelda didn't head straight for it, though, for something else had caught her eye.

The statue had disappeared after the Shrine rose, shattered into a thousand pieces. Without its strange presence, the graveyard seemed to lose its menacing, haunting and foreboding quality at once. Instead, it suddenly felt like a place of refuge and peace, tranquility, and beauty.

That was made abundant by the flora that grew in a profusion around her and the old monuments.

Wild radishes as tall as her shoulders, Armoranth, some wild foxes, Stamella Shrooms, and more were all lit up by the abundant light of the moon and thousands of green-shining fireflies. The sun had nearly risen again when Zelda gathered up that abundance, and set her eyes to the many rich veins of ore that surrounded her.
A pair of shrines in pride of place held offering bowls too, one with a strangely fresh apple and one without. The Korok there awarded her his seed as usual, but Zelda suspected there was a bit more too it, as the vein of ore near to it yielded- in a single crack of her hammer- not just amber, or flint, but another diamond, equally pure but a bit larger than the last.

It took the princess an exhausting pair of days to climb the cliffs themselves and harvest what she could reach of the veins there, but she was not accosted by monsters or foul, vengeful spirits. Instead, what Zelda earned for her trouble was more amber by the handful, a third diamond from the rich, volcanic mountains, a sapphire, two opals, and enough iron left within the mountain to outfit an army, if she had a proper mining outfit to obtain it.

"I'll have to remember this place," she murmured, "if I ever actually get the chance to rebuild Hyrule. Of course I'll have to take care that the graveyard itself stays unmolested. Now, I do believe I have a Shrine to complete..."

The Kam Urog Shrine, it turned out, was a welcome change from the muscle strain the last two days had put on the princess' body, but it came with exercise all its own.
It was easily the longest Shrine she had been inside, a huge, massive chamber that stretched for what looked like a full mile, until the light blue haze inside masked the furthest wall in a blur. High overhead, and far below, it stretched seemingly endlessly.

She had exited the lift on one end of the central chamber, and far above the same end another lift rose, presumably the one behind the Sage Kam Urog.

Between them, what she at first took for a disc faced her, with a hole in the center and another arch near the bottom, both with a ledge.

The upper one had a Sheikah-locked chest on it, and she could see many gears turning through the gap, while the one below connected via a walkway to the platform Zelda stood upon. Inside it, she could see the floor moving, sliding from right to left. Spiked balls of varying sized from about as large as her torso to twice as tall as Zelda herself, rolled back and forth as the slope carried them higher, and gravity forced them back. Occasionally, a ledge or platform would spin around the central axis, sometimes moving the balls, sometimes not.

Zelda grinned. An intellectual puzzle was just her thing, even if it would require more climbing than her body wanted to do.

The balls themselves were easily taken care of, a simple application of Magnesis, she decided, would...

Oh. But she was low on power. "Unless..."

Zelda lifted the screen, and maneuvered it as she had been shown to look at the power supply.

"Six percent... and holding. What's that new symbol?"
It was a scale, the kind used for weighing objects she thought, but when Zelda tapped it a convenient explanation arose. "Low power mode activated. Rune use inside the Shrine will draw from the ambient energy rather than the Slate power supply."

"Well, that's convenient," she announced to no one in particular, "I can use Runes without draining the power? That... well, I suppose it's worth a check."
Sure enough, Zelda was able to maneuver all three of the spiked spheres out onto the ledge where they came to rest without moving, making the interior of what she now knew was a rotating drum shape far safer without using any additional power.

After that, it was almost trivial to use Stasis at just the right moment to gather up a well-maintained Soldier's spear, letting go of her now more-worn sickle to use it instead. Then she simply had to ride the platforms and gears back up, let another platform carry her past a field of brilliant, blue-white beams of energy, wait fo the stairs to come back around (from the same platform the chest had been on), and... "Damn," Zelda grumbled. "I forgot that other chest. Surely..."

Zelda dropped to her stomach, poking her head out the side from near the Sage's chamber, and signed. "Yep, there it is."

She hadn't checked the central axis on her way through, content with how easy the Shrine had ultimately been.

Grumbling, the sore princess pushed herself back to her feet and pulled out the paraglider. "At least I don't have to go all the way around the drum again... I hope."

The opal inside the chest was nice, though she wasn't sure if it was worth the effort she had to go through to claim it, but Zelda already knew how to pass through the Shrine. If anything, it was more the time she had wasted waiting for the drum to circle back around as she went through that upset her.

"Ah, that's better," she sighed some minutes later, as her once-aching body was suddenly refreshed, all pain and fatigued vanished in an instant thanks to the Sage's Spirit Orb and the blessing that followed.

"Now, off to Hateno once more. I hope Purah's happy..."