You can find more of this on by Subscribe/Star (dot adult slash KajaWilder), it's posted past Ch. 120 there. You can find the same on my new (via Discord per their ToS), under /WildErotica. The DISCORD is at h-t_t-p_s-:_/-/_discord-._g-g_/-N9yDASt6Cw (taking out hyphens and underscores, 'cause FFnet). If you prefer direct links, go to my Discord and follow the 'links in general' section to find the ones you want. All of my fics are well ahead of what I post here, often 10-30 chapters ahead.
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Enjoy!
Chap. 93: Kolomo
Hood, still dripping, placed over her head once more, Zelda sighed as she walked out of the shelter of the huge tree and back out into the misty rain. For twenty or so minutes, the only sound was the rain itself, with occasional, distant crashes of thunder that made every bit of Zelda's vision flash white-blue, white-green, and on one occasion, a distinct white-purple that made her skin crawl with a vague sense of danger she could not define.
The mist, it seemed, carried each flash of lightning quite powerfully.
Soon, though, the mist itself began to clear as the rain picked up and the afternoon sun continued its slow, cloud-dampened warming of the atmosphere. With only rain to hamper her vision, Zelda could make out the bluff she was drawing closer to more clearly. From here, it looked almost like a rectangle of rock, or a huge fortress that rose eighty, a hundred feet or more into the sky with steep, sheer walls, sat upon a ring of rolling, steep hills lined with disparate groves of mixed trees.
It was through those trees to the right, north-east of the mountain, that she first spotted orange.
A Korok's pinwheel? Sometimes they shine in the dark, and while it's day, it is a rather gloomy one…
The Sheikah Slate was lifted to her eyes a moment later, but the light was gone, hidden behind another tree. "Whoah, where did it… ah, there it is."
The glow was not a pinwheel. In fact, as Zelda moved her head back and forth, trying to peer through the rain, lingering mist, and a dozen or more trunks, she saw more orange. Brighter than any pinwheel she'd seen yet, and it pulsed slowly upward with an even brighter glow.
"That's a tower," she whispered, "The Central Hyrule Tower, it must be. Well. I know the direction I'm heading in after I find whatever it is I'm looking for at Kolomo. ...At least I haven't seen any Guardians, yet."
On her way once more, Zelda found her path dropping down to cross over the remains of an old, disused, mud-covered road that, for a moment, she debated turning to follow the path north around the mountain (she hoped). But that would mean going out of her way, road or no, so she sighed and continued traveling in the same direction, back up the other side of the depression cut through the hills for the roadway, her boots now slick with mud up to her ankles.
Soon, a full two hours before dusk she thought, Zelda reached the first of the true foothills of the squat mass of stone, which now loomed large, filling most of her vision through the dim light and rain, now chillier by far than the rest of the air around her, though mist had begun to creep back up in the lower areas.
And a shriek caught her sharp ears, from high overhead.
"A bird…? Oh… oh, no. No, no no," Zelda gasped, as she turned her face skyward, and rain pelted her chin and neck briefly.
It was not a bird that had shrieked, but a bat-like Keese.
Not a threat, not to her, or even most of Hyrule's citizens, she thought. Not on its own. They were about the size of her forearm wingtip-to-tip, and their bodies were about as large as her hand. But she knew from experience that their ringed, leech-like mouths could cause significant damage to skin and even cut through cloth easily enough. One giant eye left them unable to judge distance well, but their ears were sharp, like the bats they resembled.
And there wasn't one, but dozens, perhaps a hundred or more, swooping and swirling in a black mass out of the low-hanging clouds. Heading in a curving arc toward her.
They had to be, she'd seen no other prey aside from a heron that had flown away the moment it spotted her since she'd left the Stable.
Sword and shield fell into place, but Zelda knew it would do little good. They would harry, nip, harass, until she was a bloody wreck, unable to keep fighting on.
"Bomb arrows?" Zelda gasped as she ran for the scant cover of the rocky cliffs ahead. Maybe, at least, it would be harder for them to get to her there, with her back to the wall.
"No, to- to wet, wouldn't- hah- be able to light th- hah- them," Zelda panted, her legs moving as quickly as she could make them go.
The shrieks hurt, pounding and rasping in her head. The flapping of wings was maddening as they drew slowly closer, behind her now but closing the gap.
Movement out of the corner of her eye made Zelda turn: wings, black, a pair. They were nearly on her.
She leaned forward, all thought of talking to herself a regret now, she needed every bit of oxygen desperately just to run, run, faster, girl, faster!
Teeth nipped at the flapping lower hem of her hood, and she panicked. It was a mistake, for as she did, Zelda's mud-slicked boot slipped in the soaking grass, and her right leg went left, crossing in front of the other too fast for her to stop.
Zelda tripped over her own legs, and spun sideways through the air to land on her left side, facing the swarm. She bounced and rolled on the angled hillside, just cognizant that it had been lucky her head had been on the higher end of the slope, for their were rocks in the little ravine between the hill she ran along and the next.
Up, up! Run!
Zelda struggled to her feet, mostly unhurt, but dazed. Her ankle gave a bit of a twinge, but her right elbow, which had hit the ground first as she bounced with momentum, was bloody and bruised too.
Worse were the bites. Six, eight of them, pawing at her hair, her right ear, her left hand, every bit of exposed flesh. Tearing at her skin, her clothes.
Worse still was the shrieking, maddening flapping of wings, which threatened to disorient even more than her fall had.
But the very worst of all was that Keese.
No larger than the rest. Uniform in appearance from all of them, or at least, normal enough in size and shape. No additional scars, or damage, though each of them showed at least some age.
It was the eye.
Keese eyes, she already knew, were valuable in alchemy, and cat-like. They had one large vertical slit, though they could turn it to be horizontal, and in either direction.
This eye was similar: Slitted, monstrous.
But it held no iris, only a deep, fiery orange like lava or an inferno, and it radiated malice and hatred for her. Not some random passer-by that strayed too close to their hunting grounds, and thus would give the swarm a feast greater than a thousand insects.
Ganon.
That Keese stayed a bit back as she ran, her arms flailing the knight's sword she had somehow kept in her grip, the Sheikah shield a bit more battered but still functional. One Keese lost a wing there, another had one broken. Six total, before the rocks of the bluff suddenly gained focus, and were before her. Zelda spun as she pressed her back to them, gasping, the shield held over her head now, warding off swoops from above, at least that was the hope.
She had to hide, had to kill that one, the possessed one! But it, the Calamity, would only possess another, wouldn't it? How had it known that this was the flock that had spotted her?
Had it been this one that shrieked in the first place?
Was the Calamity, even now, sending minions to claim her?
She had to get rid of them, somehow!
Lightning crashed on the mountain above her, sending a scattering of pebbles that pinged off her shield, and the thunder that followed was deafening. For several seconds, the whole swarm seemed disoriented, dazed by the volume, and far worse than she was. But that Keese was unaffected, no doubt bolstered, or perhaps simply controlled, by the Calamity's might and magic.
The flaming eye bored into her. I see you…
She shook her head, shivering, as a palpable wave of anger, fury, lust, desire, and the overwhelming need to dominate, to control, blasted through her psyche. Memories of her as a pet, a plaything, delivered through the corrupted taint of Naydra swam in Zelda's vision, making her pussy burn with need, even while another bite on her neck sent rivulets of red downward.
They have to stop…
Lightning, or the thunder, was disorienting. I don't… a bomb? I can take one blast at close range, probably…
Lightning arrows. It's foolish… but…
She reached desperately for her quiver, and numb, bloody fingers scrabbled. Regular fletching, those are the red-feathers, blue- ah, the yellow!
One arrow came up, but her fingers slipped on the bow, which was still unstrung, and the two-tined, glowing fork of the Lightning Arrow spun from her grip. It landed point down on the rocks, and her feet tingled as the wave of electrical energy passed nearby, but discharged harmlessly, silently.
"Fuck," Zelda whimpered, and tried again. She was in pain, disoriented, her mind confused by the arousal, the lust, the pain, the noise, blinded by flapping wings, and-
Her hand dropped the bow, though it was free from the holster-strap now.
She reached for the arrows once more, and somehow grabbed the correct one in a moment, as she squatted. The edge of her shield pushed the bow away, sliding down into a crack between two boulders.
She reached, but the shield, small and light though it was, bounced off a rock. It was too big to fit into the gap… but it was the only real protection she had from the biting, clawing teeth.
In fury, Zelda smashed another Keese into the rocks with the same shield, and as one came close, the arrow in her other hand stabbed out like a dagger.
It tore into a soft, furred belly… and magic pulsed.
Whitepain-burning-shaking-numb-torture!
Zelda's whole body ached and shivered as she regained consciousness. The burst of magic had been far more intense, far more focused on her, than she had expected. Fool girl, she muttered, dazed, to herself as she forced her trembling, twisted body to sit upright, to pull itself painfully from the fetal position it had curled into as electrical energy coruscated through her muscles.
"Two arrows, magic ones, what a waste…" Zelda stared, her eyes struggling to focus, at the nearly-unharmed arrow she had dropped, and the other, half of which was still clenched in her right hand, and the other stuck in a crispy Keese corpse, which hadn't even vanished into dust and smoke.
None of them had, in fact, Zelda realize as she peered around.
Grudgingly, she pushed herself to her feet in the rain. The grass was a bit scorched nearby, but she and the Keese seemed to have taken the brunt of the magical blast. She hadn't been unconscious for long. Even now, she could see fifty or sixty Keese winging away, far off but still visible in the rain. She hadn't been bitten again, at least, Zelda thought as she examined herself for wounds.
She'd need to have her clothes repaired again, though.
And perhaps another healing tonic, if she couldn't find a Shrine. Keese were known to carry many diseases, after all, and even as she had the thought a phantom itch had begun in a few of the dozen or so bites.
Still, some of them were dead, and the eyes and wings were valuable alchemical components…
Zelda sighed. Pain was transitory, she told herself, as she drew her boot knife and set to the grim work, glad at least that her gloves were mostly alright and protected her from the worst of the ashen fur. It stank.
Fortunately, the blast had also revealed a few fallen stones at the base of the cliff, which, as she finished the dirty job, would give her a place to rest out of sight while she recovered. Hopefully, because the princess did not feel up to an over-land run. She needed to have a rest and be gone before the Calamity's minions arrived. Had to be. Had to…
Half-buried in rocks in a space that barely held her, mind fuzzy still with stray bits of electricity, Zelda slept, though the time was only just approaching sunset.
The first round bomb, rolled down the hill early on the next rainy morning, killed two Bokoblins in the camp instantly, and sent the last red and leader blue flying in opposite directions.
Still sore from the previous day, poultices on the more infected wounds, Zelda smiled darkly as she moved back into the grass on the hilltop, and adjusted her position.
They were too close to a crossroads, the camp had to be taken down.
Furthermore, there was another magic-locked chest, and she did still want to build up her weaponry a bit more.
The next bomb rolled into the camp a few minutes later, but before Zelda could detonated it, she saw an arm, a red one, hurl the sphere away. They're learning, damn it…
A snort from far too close for comfort had the adventurer rolling to her left on instinct, out from behind the cover of a large boulder sunk into the ground. A heavy bat, nearly as long as her whole body, splattered mud and grass where she'd just been. "Hah, Nubdub like fast and feisty," the blue Bokoblin snorted, "I take-"
"Oh, shut it," Zelda growled as she rolled to her feet, the familiar blade and shield already in place, the Slate back on her belt. "You Bokoblins are all the same. Just die."
"Nubdub not- gaaack!"
She'd cut his throat with one lightning-fast swing.
But Nubdub didn't die. Instead, he put one hand to the thin line, and grinned, "Not deep enou- urgh!"
As he taunted her for the near-miss, Zelda lunged, thrusting forward to drive the knight's sword up into his lungs from beneath the ribs. Red spittle hit her left cheek, but Zelda was already moving as the club came up to return the attack. She spun left, under the Bokoblin's weapon, and cut again, this time slashing deep into his right ribs. Her blade stuck there as Nubdub's body lurched, and her shield slammed into his exposed back, pushing him off.
Without hesitating, Zelda's sword spun in her hand and she dropped to one knee, and the blade sank deep into the back of the cerulean skull.
Quiet, rain, the thunder long gone…
Zelda picked up the horn, tooth, and rare stomach, dropping them into her satchel before she moved, crouched low, soaked by the rain, like the very shadow of death itself.
For these Bokoblins, Zelda thought, she may as well be.
The last Bokoblin was still alive, one foot twisted and bloody as it limped back into camp, dragging the limb behind it. A club, cruder even than most, was clutched in one hand as the other grabbed whatever support it could to help it stay upright. A rock, a tree, the small tower on which the locked chest sat.
It jumped as Zelda stepped into view from behind that same tree, "Got you," she said quietly, and it drew in a breath to shriek in either surprise or fear or fury, but the sound died before it truly began as her sword slid like a red-hot knife through butter, puncturing and then clogging its breathing passages.
As the blade came free, those same airways filled with bright crimson, and the Bokoblin was gone, dead and vanishing before it hit the ground.
"Now to clean the mess… too bad my sword's being worn away. I need to take better care… if I knew how."
There wasn't much in the camp worth even picking up. She was grateful, though in a small way, for the two Boko Clubs and the larger Boko Bat the blue leader had been carrying, but the bark-made shield was useless to her. The honeycomb was of more value by far, though Zelda wondered how the Bokoblins had left the hive undisturbed for long enough that it had grown to the size it had.
The sword inside the locked chest, however, was of decent worth, and nearly doubled what Zelda saw as the value in clearing the roadway of a bit more danger.
It wasn't quite to the quality of her knight's weapon, but still the well-made, practical weapon of a soldier. A full claymore for heavy infantry, yes, and Zelda still was not, doubted she would ever be, fully comfortable with them… but it was more than she'd had. And that, she was quite happy for.
The two Stalkoblins that accosted her, digging and clawing their way from under the soil three hours later were more annoying still, but the princess dispatched them easily enough. The fangs and horns were of minor value, true, but she'd at least rounded out her weapon supply again, even if most of the new ones were of low quality. She now carried three Bokoblin clubs, and, slightly disgusting, an arm of bone that twitched and clawed at the air with whatever foul magics still animated it.
Eventually, the rain passed, and Zelda found herself staring up at half of a starry sky, the other half, growing smaller by the moment, still black and lit by increasingly rare flashes of lightning.
The light of dawn revealed a path Zelda would never have spotted in the dark, too. A narrow, twisting trail only a few inches wide in some spaces, which led her high up the rocky cliffs to the smooth top of the mountain.
And a ring of stone, with three distinct gaps, which brought a feeling of intense nostalgia for a reason Zelda could not define.
She knew this place. How she knew that, the princess could not be certain. But she had moved up that trail with strange ease, and walked almost straight to this ring of rocks, as if she'd done it before.
As the third stray dropped into the final gap, she collected her new Korok seed…
And could not shake the feeling that she'd been here before. Put rocks here before. Not just three, though. Not alone…
Zelda shook her head, "Imagining things, silly girl…"
She was distracted from her lonely path yet again a mere fifteen or so minutes later, when her feet brought her to the nearer edge of the flat-topped mountain, and a sparkle of fairy lights caught her eye on the western side of the same wood she had peered through the previous afternoon. Another Korok, so close… at least these ones are easy enough to chase down.
The Paraglider, as it often had, proved useful in the extreme as the princess glided down on enchanted leather wings to the edge of the wood. Finding the newest seed took her mere minutes, and walking to the far, northern side about an hour. From there, the princess stayed within the shelter of the trees, still wary of Guardians, and took a moment from the relative high ground to examine the landscape she may well have to traverse soon.
Far to the west still, northwest themselves of the Great Plateau's mighty walls, the ruins of the ancient, grand coliseum jutted from a steep, high mountain. Beyond that, the faintest glimpse of a Shrine's orange glow peeked around the landscape, just visible. Turning slowly clockwise, to the right and more north, Zelda spotted the same tower she had seen before, much closer now, and almost straight northwest.
A mere dozen miles away, she debated for a moment heading for it, but decided that it would, in fact, be her next goal. Recovering her memories were important to her.
The castle was now almost directly north, and she shivered once more as Zelda realized she was closer to the foul place than she had been since waking: eighteen, twenty miles at the most, from the outer walls of what she now knew was Castle Town.
The rest of the landscape all the way back east and southeast were the same rolling hills and grassy plains she had just passed through. At least a half-day's straight journey remained, she estimated, though now she needed to travel southwest to reach Lake Kolomo.
Fortunately, the day was clear and bright, and the largest threat she saw for most of it was a single blue Chuchu that lurched out at her from where it had hidden in the grass. A single swipe of one of her clubs had splattered the elemental goop all over the place, spitting and hissing as its acid dissolved the grass it landed on, and the pair of small cores- no doubt it was about to split into two, she realized- fell into her satchel with barely a thought.
Near sundown, hours later, though, she finally reached the shores of the lake… and a large Bokoblin camp on the rocky beach.
Three of the beasts were there, though she saw bedrolls for a dozen or more. On patrol…? Oh, there's a fourth. Still… one watcher on the tower, and there's three blue ones. Hm… a threat, to be sure. But…
Zelda's face fell into a determined expression as she knocked a broad-tipped arrow, and set it in the slide of her Phrenic Bow.
Thip, and a moment later, the Bokoblin vanished without ever knowing it had been killed.
But that was merely the watcher, and three blue Bokoblins were a decent problem.
Zelda was far from helpless, though, and while she didn't fancy the chances of a simple mistake leaving her captured, raped, or killed- or worse- she did have resources. She was not flush with Bomb Arrows, precisely, with a mere nine… but that was not nothing.
The first one, launched with more care than even the last shot had been despite the short-running fuse, separated the three Bokoblins easily enough. One blue beast fell into the water, and screeched, burbling, flailing desperately, as it sank beneath the water. Zelda ignored the cries, as she ignored the remains that bobbed to the surface a minute or so later, while the other two rushed for their weapons, bloody but not too wounded.
Then, as the princess crept closer for a better shot, circling nearly a quarter-mile around the curvature of the lake on the grassy rise above the beach, eventually the two Bokoblins fell into arguing about what had happened, and where their missing companion had gone. One, Zelda heard with a grim smile of amusement, thought he had found some 'matron' and was hiding her from the others. The other thought more accurately: that they were under attack, and they needed to hide while they waited for the hunting patrols to return.
Zelda didn't plan to let them have that chance. Less so when the danger of a full dozen visible explosive barrels, arranged in a 'protective' ring around the camp, came into focus.
The bomb flew. An explosion rang out, and a dozen more secondary blasts besides, in rapid succession.
When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left.
Well, of the Bokoblins, at least.
Dozens of Rupees, arrows, a few smoked fish, and even chunks of gems joined the half-dozen or more Bokoblin parts that were strewn around the entire camp haphazardly. It took the princess, most of the time with a triumphant grin despite the expended Bomb Arrows, a good half-hour just to pick it all up, and she was reasonably sure at least twenty or more Rupees were still there, lodged or lost between the pebbled beach, or under the water itself, when she gave up.
The sun was just dropping below the horizon far to the west when Zelda topped the last rise, and found herself standing on flagstones fit so neatly that even after a century barely any gaps were even grass-filled. A parade yard, she thought, or a mustering or training ground, delineated with faint marks of aged, flaked paint. High, but crumbled walls formed about half of what must have once been a decent sized fortress, which stood atop the flattened, paved hill at the center of the upside-down, L-shaped lake. This is Kolomo Garrison, Zelda realized with a tired smile, and that must be Lake Kolomo. I'm there… or almost there. Now I just have to find that spot in the Slate's picture, and hope it jogs my memory, as Impa suggested it might.
Zelda moved closer, wary of traps, of lurking enemies in the ruined fortress, hoping she could find a secure place to camp for the night.
Torches, a pair of them, appeared just as the last bits of real light vanished, plunging Hyrule into darkness.
They moved closer slowly, bobbing and weaving, staying close.
Zelda watched warily out a half-shuttered window, her bow knocked, an arrow at the ready, hidden shortly within the mostly-intact room (it even had a bed, though the mattress was rat-infested, so she'd pulled it out into the hall, and stretched her bedroll over the frame-bars instead), but far back from the window.
Glad I didn't start a fire, the glow would be as visible as those two…
Fingers tightened on her bow and the arrow, though Zelda hadn't drawn it back, as the torches and those carrying them moved closer, then turned just before vanishing behind another part of the ruins below.
Zelda re-positioned, a dark thought on her mind, They moved left, toward the same broken-open wall I just came through half an hour ago. They're coming here.
Surely enough, within another tense, heart-pounding minutes, the sounds of feet grew closer. Grunting, male. Bokoblins?
She dreaded something worse, like a Moblin, in these close quarters.
The glow of torch light shone on the walls, growing slowly brighter. Zelda raised the bow, the arrow sighted now toward the glow, a thin silhouette with the angled bow, back-lit by the intrusive flames.
A slip, a curse she couldn't quite make out, and low grumbling.
Flickers in the flames… they were coming down the hall, close now.
A shadow formed on the wall, dim, humanoid. The first one, lit by the second, Zelda realized.
Then they were there, the larger shape first, framed in the doorway. "Don't move, or you die," Zelda announced.
The shape in front jumped, squealed almost like a pig, and Zelda nearly loosed the arrow right then. "Shit!" it swore.
Behind it, the other figure, the torch-bearing hand all she'd seen, dropped the flaming stick. "Fuck, an ambush, run, run!"
Familiar…?
"W- Wait," Zelda called, her tone vastly different, "Is- is that you? Mina? Mils?"