Lugubrious
Izurich
Yankee
rush99999Hyrule Warriors
Word Count:2191
Level 5 - (43/50) + 3
Level 9 - (30/90) + 3
Link
Location: The Bottomless Sea
Link looked on warily as the tentacle sank back under the waves, driven back but not defeated. Mirage gave voice to his own concerns, advising everyone to get to the middle of the deck so as to avoid getting grabbed when, not if, that thing decided to make another move. It was a good idea, but as Link heard a satisfying THUNK from the gun in front of him he had another solution in mind. "I'll stay here. If I'm the only one at the side it'll probably come for me. If we know where its coming from...," He pulled back on the controls, the gun barrels rising slightly into the air. "We can give it everything we've got when it pops up."
Staving off the predatory fish wasn't as much of a priority anymore. Just looking at the clouds of blood and ash in the churning sea it was clear that nature was taking its course. Why try to chew through metal or throw yourself at the meat you smelled on top of it when your neighbor was just as red and juicy as anything you would find? At this point it seemed like shooting the fish was just going to attract fish all the faster. The feeding frenzy all around them was doing a good enough job attracting more danger as it was.
He was proven right again as a massive bone behemoth emerged from the waves, flying through the sky like a dragon as its segments spun. He ducked down in his seat as it whirled its way across the deck, throwing up wood and sparks as it went before coming around for another run. Mirage had dodged out of the middle of the deck and was already basting away again, and Link only hesitated long enough to take a quick picture before pulling out his bow. Both he and Mirage had immediately identified what they though of as obvious weak points. If something had a big eye you aimed for it, that was a tried and tested tactic that had felled many a beast in the wilds. He drew back and let fly at the eye of the first segment behind the head, hoping that this would stun the creature and make it flop onto the deck for a good walloping.
Linkle
Merge Rate: 30%
Location: The Frozen Highlands - Snowdin ~ Grillby's
The twos battle plans for the day were, it turned out, set just in time for them to eat. Linkle thanked Mr. Grillby again as she licked her lips over the scrumptious, freshly cooked egg. She took a deep whiff of the steam coming off of it. "Ohhhhh, that's a good egg." She judged. Linkle was hard to beat when it came to judging the quality of an egg dish. Eggs made up the majority of her diet. She reached down and picked up the entire slice of bread, blowing on it to cool it down a little before taking a big old bite out of the thing. She had been right. "Very, very good egg." She mumbled, mouth full. Whatever laid this was well taken care of.
She finished much faster than he did, and went right back to giving the dog the attention it craved while she enjoyed the warmth spreading through her and gave Albedo the time he needed. While he ate, though, he complimented her hat. She tipped it to him. "Thanks. It's from under the tree. It was kinda like destiny suggested it." When he added that it reminded him of his missing assistant that only added more fuel to that magical thinking. Synchronicities like that didn't just happen for no reason in Linkle's world. Just appearance wise, though? "She has rabbit ears too?" Linkle said, surprised. "I'm not surprised she enjoys the quiet when she can, loud noises are torture with these things."
"I'll bet she's smart too, isn't she?" Linkle said with a small smile. You had to be smart if you got this alchemy stuff enough to be an assistant. "It's probably that you don't have to explain everything to her. It sounds cozy."
Her interest in this mysterious girl was only rivaled by Albedo's interest in her own world. He set himself to finishing his meal, which gave Linkle the perfect opportunity to fill him in. "I'll admit, most of the things I know about Hyrule I learned from the old legends my Grandmother would tell me. My village is pretty small and I'd never been that far from it before my adventure started, so I guess I'll start from the oldest legend."
Linkle leaned back in her chair. When she spoke next, she did so with the sense of pride and grandiosity of someone much older than herself. She had heard these stories so many times, over and over again by the light of the fire. She knew them by heart, and she knew the way the old woman told them by heart as well. "Once upon a time, so long ago that time hadn't even got its boots on yet, there was no world. Just an endless, formless chaos that stretched as far as the eye could see. No one knows how long it churned and bubbled away like this, but that all came to an end when the the Three Golden Goddesses suddenly appeared in a burst of light. Din, Nayru, and Farore. The three sisters looked upon the mess that was the world, looked to one another, and decided that they couldn't be having with this."
"Din dove toward the chaos, and with a single mighty blow...!" Linkle clapped her hands together. "Just like that, the Chaos was given form. Earth and water. Air and Fire. Light and darkness. Every gem and ore. All of it mixed up, but solid. Then, with her great power, she pulled up the mountains, dug the oceans and the channels for the rivers, shaped the plains and hills, and shoved all the precious stones under the earth to be found."
"Next came Nayru. With her divine wisdom she brought order to the land Din had created. She created the horizon, to separate the land and the sky. She took most of the fire and threw it into the sky to make the sun and the stars to provide light to the world. She gathered luminous stone and made the moon so that the heavens would show the passage of time by its wax and wane, then she kicked time in the pants and set it running forever. Every natural law that exists, from weather to gravity, Nayru put in place."
"The last, Farore, came down and in her unconquerable courage she decided to create something that none of the goddesses could ever control. She breathed across the land, and everywhere her breath touched life came into being. All the plants, the beasts, and the people of the land are Farore's children. Then she breathed into the empty air and from her breath came other beings. Fairies, spirits, and other gods to watch over the land that she and her sisters had wrought."
"Their labors complete, the three of them departed for the Heavens but not before they left behind a gift. Three golden triangles, fragments of their infinite power. An relic that can grant anyone's deepest desire. The Triforce. Here, look." Breaking character, Linkle removed her Compass and flipped it around to show him. The three golden triangles, embraced by a bird. "That's the symbol of the royal family." She told him. "Originally the Triforce was entrusted to the protection of the Goddess Hylia, because only mortals can use it. The legends get fuzzy around here because this all happened a long time ago, but from what Grandma was able to understand dark monsters emerged from the earth that coveted the light of the Triforce and wanted it for themselves. The goddess Hylia fought against their king and managed to defeat him with the aide of a hero of the people, but was gravely wounded. To save her life, and so she would be able to use the triforce to fight against the darkness should it ever return, she gave up her divinity and was reborn as a mortal girl named Zelda but she kept some of her power. This sacred power is passed down through the Hyrule Royal Family from mother to daughter, and the Goddesses beloved hero incarnates again and again and again and again whenever some calamity comes to trouble Hyrule. Collectively, those storied are called the Legend of Zelda. So I guess our gods do have a more hands on approach than Mr. Barbatos."
She slipped her compass back over her neck, and flicked her regular ear for good measure. "Hyrule is mostly made up of Hylians, like me. My grandma said we have these big old ears to make it easier to hear the voices the gods, but no one I know has ever heard anything. A lot of the people in my village are humans too. There's not really that much of a difference, they just have round ears like you do. Hyrule is big, but the way grandma tells it there are mostly small villages like ours. We mostly farm where I'm from, vegetables and livestock. I raise Cucco's for their eggs. They're tough little white birds. I have tons of them." She said, looking particularly proud. "We send most of the stuff we raise to Castle Town via wagon as taxes and to sell at the market, and if you put what you want on a list the wagon will come back with, say, bombs, fancy dresses, honey, just stuff we don't make or grow ourselves. The wagons get an escort of knights to and from the castle in case they get attacked by monsters, and all the kids in the village gather around them when the wagons roll in. Every little boy in Hyrule wants to be a knight if he doesn't want to be the Hero."
The nostalgic smile on her face faded as she pivoted natural from the knights to what the knights were supposed to fight. "Monsters are a constant problem. Sometimes its better, sometimes it's much, much worse. No matter what they're always there. Especially at night. At night wolfoes come out. Mostly they kill livestock. Not mine, nothing messes with cuccos. They're really aggressive against predators, and if one lets out a cry for help every cucco for miles around shows up for the fight. Other people that just had goats or chickens? They could have their entire life wiped out. I spent a lot of nights sneaking out into the fields to hunt wolfoes, but they're not even the biggest problem. Long dead monsters will pull themselves right out of the ground at night, a Deku Baba is an evil plant that can grow like a weed in your garden, old Mikk from the general store died hating his daughters husband so much he came back as a Poe and haunted the village until they moved away."
"Not everything that isn't human is a monster though." She said, shaking off the malaise of the previous topic. "Goron's are these huge buff guys who I think are made of rock. Grandma told me that they can curl into a ball and roll around, and also they eat rocks. They live in this massive volcano called Death Mountain that's always spewing smoke and boulders out of the top. I met a few merchant Goron's after I left home. I don't think they know what girls are because they kept on calling me brother. The Zora are like the complete opposite. They're fish people, but not ugly fish people. They're slim and beautiful and they live in the crystal clear waters of Zora's Domain, but they can climb up onto land if they want. Grandma says they like to keep to themselves. I've met one and she had a really haughty attitude, but I think that's because she might have been an actual princess. None of them are subjects of Hyrule, they have their own leaders, but we've been friendly with both groups for centuries. I heard the Gorons even help out our army sometimes."
Linkle looked up, wrecking her brain for any other interesting topic. Her eyes lit up. "We have dungeons too. My grandma used to explore them. She was kind of like an archeologist before she had to come take care of me. They're usually ruins or ancient temples meant to protect something, full of monsters and puzzles and traps. They play a huge role in the legends, the hero usually has to go through a bunch of them. They're so old nobody even remembers what they used to be most of the time. My Grandma got my compass for me out of one, but that was as far as she got before she was forced to retreat. If you're not the Hero you're really not supposed to be poking around in one of those."
