Thanks as always for the reviews, everyone! It's always really lovely to hear you're still enjoying it.
As for Groose, well, Link alludes to the loftwing incident having already happened, but the time he nearly kills him (and himself) by overloading his parachute has not been erased or moved… ;-)
Chapter 40: Dust and Rock
Link fell from the sky, the wind whistling past his ears. The landscape below him was a pale expanse of yellow and brown, the gap he fell through shining a ray of bright sunlight at a slight angle and turning a patch of it lighter still. Sighting a roughly round dark patch against the dusty paleness, which he assumed from Fi's description of the region had to be sand, he angled his fall towards it, slipping through the air until he judged himself near enough and low enough to release the sailcloth – washed, thankfully, along with his clothes – and slow his fall.
He hit the hard surface with a jolt, dropping to hands and knees as the sailcloth floated down around him, inevitably landing on his head once again. Link tugged it from himself with motions that were becoming increasingly practised, folding it neatly away once more before he gave his surroundings more than a cursory glance. Then, he stared.
The clouds above were so thin that in places the sky was almost bluish, and the sun shone down only slightly dulled, shadows given soft and faded edges rather than driven away altogether. Rolling sand dunes stretched to the horizon, broken here and there by rock and by a series of what looked for all the world like strangely-crowned giant heads, oddly misshapen, tilted at various angles and weathered as heavily as anything on Skyloft. The air was dry and warm, tasting of nothing, smelling of little more.
Fi sprang from the sword to hover before him.
"A report, Master Link. We have arrived in the Lanayru region. This arid region was transformed into a desert over the course of several hundred years. My projections show that Zelda must have travelled through this area."
Link nodded, slowly. "She'll have gone to this Gate of Time, right?"
Fi inclined her head.
"And that's where I have to go too… for the trials I'm supposed to face."
Again, Fi gave a single nod.
"Then I guess…" He sighed, the faint sound lost in the ceaseless gusting of wind over sand and rock. "Can you show me the way to the Gate of Time? And tell me if you find any trace of her aura?"
"I shall do so. Be aware that we may not be able to follow a direct route through the desert. I will attempt to direct you along the optimal path according to the hazards and obstacles that we discover."
"Thanks, Fi." Link looked around, seeing sand stretching out in all directions. Even as he did, he felt the faint insistent sense of directionality at the back of his mind, guiding him to turn slightly, to walk to the edge of the remarkably flat platform he stood on and look down. His footfalls sounded almost strange, as if he were walking on something hollow, maybe even metallic though it didn't quite look it, and he was still turning that over in his head as he peered over the edge.
Some quirk of the wind had scoured the worst of the sands away from the rocky outcrop below – far below, a long scramble down a nearly-vertical…
"Fi, we're not on top of one of those statues, are we?"
"Your observation is correct, Master. Your landing was remarkably accurate."
Link smiled a little. "It just looked like a convenient circle of something that was probably rock." He knelt, rapping his knuckles experimentally on the dark surface beneath his feet. It didn't quite feel like metal, but it was warm as metal in the sun, and it rang mutedly under his hand as though it were thick, but ultimately hollow. "I guess I was half right."
Gripping the edge with one hand, he leant out, trusting his weight to his left arm as he looked down the side of the statue. Something that might have been bulbous eyes protruded from it, offering ledges wide enough to balance on, and the lower half looked to be covered in carvings below a recess that ran around it as far as he could see, which he assumed had to be the base of the head. It wasn't going to be the easiest climb he'd ever made, but he didn't think it would be impossible, either. Fi returned to the sword as he turned around to begin the climb, lowering himself from the edge until his feet caught another.
Although he'd been right that it wouldn't be entirely easy, Link was on the ground before long, jumping the last few feet and landing on rock and sand at the statue's base. Traces of an ornately decorated floor with a distinct path through it were visible through the thin sand, and two little bird statues with their wings spread flanked the giant figure, still looking almost incongruous down here despite how many times he'd come across them elsewhere on the surface. Something that didn't quite look like rock stuck up from the shallow sands nearby, and Link ventured towards it with a slight frown. What did it remind him of…?
Whatever it was, it had a face, of sorts: a face like a child's drawing, save carved into some darker patch upon pale stone, with mismatched eyes, a triangle for a nose, and another little triangle for a mouth that gave it a look of someone mildly but unpleasantly surprised. Above the face was a kind of carven crown, and below it the head seemed to merge seamlessly with what Link had to assume was its body, flat sections on either side suggesting it might once have had arms, now long lost. Tilted at a strange angle, it looked something like a broken statue and something like an oversized toy.
Somewhat to his surprise, Fi emerged again to hover near it, placing herself at the third point of a perfect triangle and looking down at it.
"My analyses indicate that this object has been broken for many years. I am unable to provide a useful estimate of the duration. I am also unable to analyse the content of its databanks at this time due to the level of degradation."
"What is it?"
"This is a robot, Master Link. This individual appears to be one of the LD-301 series of artificial life-forms. As one of a number of robots mass-produced in an era when human contact was expected to be impossible, it would not have been assigned a name you would be capable of remembering or pronouncing on creation. This physical design is primarily associated with mining and maintenance duties."
Link blinked, Fi's explanation providing so many half-formed questions he didn't even know how to begin – until the half-familiar word connected with the faint, nagging sense of recognition that had drawn him to it, and his eyes widened.
"A robot – like the one at the back of Gondo's smithy?! It looks almost like it!"
Fi paused for just an instant, and Link guessed she was sorting through her phenomenal memory to recall their trip to the marketplace earlier in the day. They'd only glanced into the smithy, Gondo asking how Link's heat protection had held up, and the statue-like shape beside a pile of scraps in the back had just been another old, familiar bit of furniture to him, one he would only really notice if one day it vanished.
"Yes. The inactive robot there is 90% likely to be of a similar model, although I did not conduct a detailed analysis at the time."
"Gondo always says he's going to get that thing working again one day… I never knew how many of the stories to believe. Are they really… well, people?"
Her head tilted fractionally. "They are capable of a full range of human-like thought and emotion, with a full capacity for independent action, Master, and in that sense may be termed people. However, uniquely among thinking entities, they do not possess spirit."
Link frowned, trying to wrap his head around the concept. Everything alive had a spirit, even if it was just the faintest and slightest wisp of one, or so he'd always been taught, always believed. Even some things that weren't alive had spirits.
"How… how is that possible?"
"You do not currently possess the technical knowledge required to understand the explanation, Master Link."
Although her musical voice was as emotionless as always, it sounded to Link suspiciously like an understatement.
"How long would it take to explain it to me?"
"In order to impart the requisite information, I estimate that it would take a minimum of five years of full-time study on your part, Master. This estimate has already been shortened by my current assessment of your capability and willingness to learn, on the assumption that the information were to become necessary to you."
Link whistled softly. Five years… not to complete an apprenticeship, or learn all the skills required of a Knight of Skyloft, but just to understand the answer to one simple-sounding question?
"I guess that's okay then." He shifted his weight, looking back at the motionless object, suddenly seeing it as something more like a husk, a hollow and empty corpse. "We don't really have time to bury it, do we."
Fi shook her head. "Even if you were to do so, the probability that the winds would sweep away the sand you had moved is almost 100%."
"Yeah…"
Fi returned to the sword as, gathering his resolve, Link turned away, back towards the subtle sense of direction she was providing him with. The dead robot had probably been there for hundreds of years – long enough that even Fi didn't know how long it had been. There was nothing he could do for it now.
A cleft in the side of a rock formation near the statue proved to be his goal, wider than he'd first realised and sloping down in oddly stepped intervals. In places, a darker strip somewhat like a continuation of the path he'd seen before showed through the shallow sand. With a raised bar in the centre, it was mildly difficult to walk on without paying attention, although Link supposed it would at least offer solid ground. Like the statue, it sounded almost metallic, yet didn't appear to have suffered any corrosion, and barely more erosion. Had it really been as long as Fi had said?
At the bottom of the slope, an entrance loomed before him, clearly constructed from similar materials. Tall, blocky, and sturdy, it still had some decoration around the edges of individual panels, and in the centres of a few. Beyond, it gave way into what seemed to be a rock-hewn passage, sand strewn across the stone floor where it must have blown in from the entrance. Link looked into the darkness, and paused to extract and light his lantern, throwing the passage before him into sharp relief.
Master Link, I am able to confirm that this is the entrance to a mine. Standard construction procedures in this region dictate that a mine such as this one will have multiple exits. I calculate that your progress will be at least 50% more efficient below ground than above it due to the desert terrain.
Link nodded. It made sense, and if Fi said it would be easier going down here, he believed her.
"Thanks, Fi."
Holding his lantern in his off hand, he stepped forwards, into the caves.
Another heads up, good readers: I'm going to be busy for the next couple of weekends again, so while I will try to stay ahead of myself and keep the chapters coming, don't worry if I miss one or the other – if I do, I'll be back by next month!
Patch Notes
- Ladder only Link would need removed from place he has never been; Link now climbs instead.
- Fi's descriptions of robots adjusted for internal consistency and for consistency with the backstory.