CHAPTER 14: PLEA OF THE GORONS
(unrevised)
_When day had broken, Link had already left the house and had started up
the path through the mountains. He made his way carefully back to the
outcrop that he had found two nights ago. The journey took longer than
he had hoped due to the new weight upon his back.
He had received a metal shield from Malo—who, oddly enough, had started up his own mart in Kakariko. Apparently, Malo had been positive that he would not be returning home any time soon. The shield bore the crest of the Hylian soldiers: the red eagle below a symbol that bore identical resemblance to the mark on his left hand. Seeing the yellow triangles adorning such a prestigious item made Link wonder. Where in Hyrule do I come from…?
Lying on the rock, Link surveyed the base of the mountain, where many Gorons were working and talking. The path that he had seen before was now out of the question. He would be spotted before he was able to descend even midway into their depths. Tossing his gaze from one crevice to the next, he found no way that would give him enough coverage so that he would not be discovered by the Gorons. He would have to wait for the blanket of darkness.
Scooting back, he searched for a spot where he could hide until night came, but it was in that moment that an oddly shaped stone caught his attention. It rested only a few meters down the path he had come, and he wondered how he could have looked over it, seeing as it had been painted by nature with a grey tone.
Link pulled himself away from the outcrop and walked back to face the stone. A whole had been carved out of its middle and symbols were inscribed on its surface below the puncture. Link recognized them as musical notes, six symbols arranged on a few lines.
… to overcome the threats that face you … search for the ancient statues.... Sing their written melodies.... awaken my spirit....
The words came back to Link like a blow to the chest. He proceeded to clear his throat. He looked around for any sign of the Gorons, and when he saw that he was still alone, he uncertainly hummed the tune written on the stone. When he became accustomed to the flow of the melody he pronounced their pitches with his voice. The song had a sort of healing sensation as he sang.
When the melody died on the air, he heard a clang and then and flash of white. Again he was surrounded by white, a beautiful castle in the distance.
“We meet again.” Link heard the ancient voice and turned to watch as the great golden wolf rose into the skeletal figure of his mentor. “You have a little more of the look of a hero than you did before,” said the shade of times-gone-by as it looked across at the youth. “Do you feel that you are ready to earn the next skill?”
“I do,” Link nodded.
“Very well,” breathed the shade. “The second skill is the shield attack. Let it be hewn into your mind!” The old hero took a step forward and raised its blade and shield. “No matter how well-tempered a blade is, if a foe is clad in armor and bears a shield, the sword will do it no harm.”
Link thought of the ogre he had slain yesterday, and he only just caught the frown forming on his face before the shade could see the hatred in his eyes.
“When facing such a foe,” the grotesque figure continued, “you must thrust your shield against the defenses of your enemy.” The shade demonstrated the rough movement with its own instrument.
The soldier then brought its shield back against its body. “You will attempt this technique upon me.”
Link prepared himself from battle, and raised his shield tight against him. This time, the shade did not wait for Link to perform the movement and began an assault, though Link was sure that the skill that the ancient hero demonstrated was only a fraction of what it was truly able to perform. Link moved around the armored skeleton, and when it turned to meet him, he bashed his shield into the shade’s and it was momentarily stunned and off balance. And, knowing that the warrior could not be killed, he angled his blade and struck hard around its shield.
“Excellent!” said the soldier, righting its body. “Open a hole in your enemy’s defenses and strike without hesitation! The shield attack may also be used to repel the projectile weapons of your enemies. Repel my magical attack!”
Link had barely enough time to react to the quick movement that followed, lifting his shield at the very moment the ball of energy screamed toward him. When he saw the solid, flaming mass about to hit, he slammed against it. The orb backtracked and clouted the shade’s shield and dispersed. “Perfect!” his instructor shouted.
The rattling warrior loosened its grip on its weapons and took a few steps toward its protégé. “There are five more techniques for you to learn, in time.” Its raspy voice echoed in Link’s ears, scratching them roughly. “The path to becoming the true hero is a long one, but once you have grasped all of these hidden skills, you shall be worthy of walking it. You must persist on the lonely path of the sword to obtain true courage and earn the strength to conquer the great evils of the world!”
The shade paused then, and Link saw hesitation welled within its red gaze, but the ancient one knew how to overpower such instances, and it backed away. It left Link with only one command. “Do not forget your discipline with the blade before we meet again!” it called back in a hard yet strangely kind octave as it walked away.
And before Link could think or move, his vision was again a white blur of nothingness and fell hard to the ground.
===============
Link stood, his sight returning. In front of him, he saw the ancient statue from which he had called his mentor, but to his left, looking up toward the outcrop, he saw a new bump in the rocks. He blinked several times and squinted away the rest of the blur that had invaded his eyes. The new feature, a boulder, then bounded down toward him. Link leapt out of the way, the rock nearly rolling over his foot.
He clung to the rock wall as he looked down the path, the boulder crashing to a halt against an overhang. Link panted a sigh of relief, even though he found it quite odd that the boulder had not broken apart or even been chipped.
His heart steadied, Link pulled himself away from the wall, but something twined about his arm. He turned to his left and was flabbergasted. There, right in front of his eyes, was a Goron, peeling itself away from the rock. Link jerked around and discovered that there, too, a Goron had begun to step out of the rock surface. Eyes wide in disbelief, Link felt another tug and his right arm was captured. However, Link did not begin to struggle against their iron grip until he watched the boulder below morph into a bipedal mass of hard stone.
The Goron meandered up to where Link was held prisoner. Link looked up into its flat, painted face. Its eyes were a fiery blue. For a moment the large circles only burned into Link’s eyes, but then, under its ridiculously small nose, the long line that served as its mouth chiseled into a smile which twisted its face into an even more hideous sight.
“You will never pass into our mountains!” its deep, garbled voice declared. “You cannot hope to match our brute force!”
“Well, I’ve come this far,” retorted Link.
The smile coiled into a frown. “And yet you stop to sing to the mountains? Wishing for luck?”
“Not one of my better ideas, I assure you,” said Link, still wriggling against his restraints.
“Enough talk,” the Goron to Link’s right said. “Let’s take him to Gor Coron. He will know what to do with him.”
After considering, the Goron in front of Link nodded to the others. Link was dragged along at their surprisingly fast pace. He felt as if his forearms were about to break at any moment from the hard pressure the Gorons used.
Link stopped struggling. They were taking him exactly where it had been impossible for him to go.
Above, the crater at the summit of Death Mountain began to boil, and spat out rock after rock of burning lava. The stones fell in a sporadic fashion. Link’s procession was stopped only momentarily when the largest of the rock tumbled down in front of them and pierced the earth of mountain base. The Gorons led the green clad warrior around it and up the mountain.
===============
The Gorons unceremoniously tossed Link into the circular room and backed away. A large mat sat center of the cavern-like chamber, and to each side were three large, golden-yellow Gorons that began cracking their stone knuckles and growling at the sight of the intruder. Link looked up to see them approaching.
“ENOUGH!”
The room rattled at the deep voice. The Gorons stood rooted. Behind them, Link could see two Gorons standing at an exit, torches to the side. The two white and yellow tattooed Gorons shifted apart to allow the one who had spoken to gain entrance into the chamber.
Link had thought that the members of their tribe all looked alike, their skin a deep bronze color with round heads and painted bodies, and their only item of clothing being loincloths. Yet when a shorter Goron stepped into the chamber, Link realized he had been wrong. The Goron’s head was shaped differently, and its belly and elbows were circled in bold pink lines. Yet, though the rock man stood shorter than the others—drawing up to a height that nearly matched Link’s—his voice demanded immediate obedience and respect.
“Is this young one such an opposing enemy that you must all gang up on him?” asked the Goron in a fast paced voice. “I think not, Little Brothers.” He glided as he stepped out the rest of the way, standing at the top of five stair steps. He looked down to Link and beckoned him forward.
Link brought himself to his full height, pushing away the itch to rub the hurt from his back. He stepped past the other Gorons, as they too gathered around.
“I am the Goron Elder, little human, Gor Coron,” he introduced.
Link offered his name in return.
“Well, Link, because of certain … circumstances, I must lead the tribe in place of Darbus, our patriarch,” he said, stressing his reluctance to say anything further on the issue just by the inflection of his tone. “Tell me, little human, do you come from the village below?”
“No,” answered Link. “I am from the Ordona Province. The children of my village were taken, and I left in search of them. I found them in Kakariko, where they are staying for now.”
The Goron’s face bubbled into a grin, his countenance more pleasing than the last Goron Link had seen attempting such a feat. “You have done well to come this far. You are strong … for a human. However” —his stare became as cold as a slap in the wind— “The mines beyond are sacred to my tribe. Outsiders are not allowed. Unless....”
Gor Coron stiffed his stare even more, and Link felt invaded by the relentless gaze. Knowing that in that moment, the Goron was judging him, Link mustered every once of courage that was within him so that he did not break eye contact and kept himself from even blinking.
After several long minutes, a smile once again danced across the Goron’s visage. “I could make an exception with you … but you would have to beat me in a contest of power. Are you willing, little human?”
Link smiled and raised a brow. “Quite.”
Gor Coron grinned and led Link to the center ring, and they each took up position facing one another at separate sides of the mat. The Goron flexed a leg high into the air as his brothers encircled them to watch the coming match. Dust flew when Gor Coron slammed his foot back down onto the mat, and Link followed suit, showing the viewers only a certain extent of his lower strength. He saw many of them chuckle at his weak attempt, and smiled inwardly.
Gor Coron hunched over, placing one fist on the mat, waiting to begin the contest. Link returned the Goron’s stone stare and dodged quickly to the side when the elder launched forward. Link slapped him round the middle and grabbed out for him, but the Goron reacted faster than he had anticipated. Before he realized it, he was being pushed back toward the edge. Link recovered from the shock of the bulky Goron’s speed and struggled out of its grip.
However, once Link had wrestled himself free, the Goron’s palm impacted with his chest. The brute force of the hit made Link careen backward, but before the Goron could again grab hold of him, Link jumped to the side and grappled the rock man around the waist. Enough of this dawdle. And he pushed as hard as he could.
The Gorons round the ring, the guards at the door, and Link himself were all astounded when Gor Coron smashed against the chamber floor. Link dusted off his hands merely to hide his bewilderment. He had not imagined that the rock people that Bo had beaten long ago had been this tough, and he was only so glad that he had been able to ground the Goron soon.
Now he only prayed that the Goron would be honorable enough not to demand a rematch.
“Young warrior,” the Goron spoke, and Link held his breath … hoping. “You have a strong will … and sharp eyes.” Gor Coron rose from the ground, and Link hopped down from the ring. “Fine traits.”
The Gorons dispersed from around the pair and lined up along the walls, out of the way as Gor Coron led Link back to the bottom of the stairs. Link watched the elder Goron’s eyes, looking for any tell-tale signs of what he was thinking.
Finally, the Goron broke free of his contemplation, in which he had many a time cast Link a wondering thought. At last, he asked, “How would you like to use your skills?”
“What are you talking about?”
Gor Coron frowned. “You have seen it, I would bet. When the mountain began to rage, all four of us elders—including Darbus—went inside to investigate its anger. We have a treasure that was entrusted to us by the spirits” —Link could almost feel Midna’s rise of lust for the spoken object— “and we must protect it.
“But the moment Darbus reached out and touched the treasure … everything went wrong. He collapsed … and before out very eyes transformed into an unspeakable monster!” The horrid event seemed to replay in the eyes of his rock-wrinkled face. “He began to rage through the mines, trailing ruin behind him, and the eruptions grew more and more frequent and more severe. We used all of our strength to seal him deep inside the mountain. It … grieved us … to do this to our patriarch, but we had no other course of action.”
Gor Coron shook loose of the memory into which he had momentarily collapsed and looked straight at Link. “I ask this favor of you, young warrior. Go to the aid of Darbus. Make no mistake,” he said. “The spirits have guided you here.”
If only you knew ....
“I, Gor Coron, on behalf of my entire clan, ask you for your aid!” the Goron’s voice boomed.
Courage chiseled its way across Link’s countenance as he replied, “I will do what I can.”
The Gorons all bellowed, some in relief and others contempt. But Link did not pay any mind to those that disliked lowering themselves to receive the assistance of a tiny human.
“You two!” the elder called to the guards. “Let the young warrior pass.”
Link nodded to Gor Coron as he left the large man’s side. He passed through the assembled Gorons and ignored the sporadic looks of disdain and ascended the stairs. The tunnel into the mines was long, narrow, and barely lit, making Link wonder how the bulky and squinty-eyed Gorons were able to pass through.
But before the Gorons behind him labeled his hesitance wrongly—as fear rather than curiosity—Link headed into the mines.
Below him, from his shadow, he could hear Midna’s snide remark of which only his ears were now able to pick up. “And our reward … will be your treasure....”
He had received a metal shield from Malo—who, oddly enough, had started up his own mart in Kakariko. Apparently, Malo had been positive that he would not be returning home any time soon. The shield bore the crest of the Hylian soldiers: the red eagle below a symbol that bore identical resemblance to the mark on his left hand. Seeing the yellow triangles adorning such a prestigious item made Link wonder. Where in Hyrule do I come from…?
Lying on the rock, Link surveyed the base of the mountain, where many Gorons were working and talking. The path that he had seen before was now out of the question. He would be spotted before he was able to descend even midway into their depths. Tossing his gaze from one crevice to the next, he found no way that would give him enough coverage so that he would not be discovered by the Gorons. He would have to wait for the blanket of darkness.
Scooting back, he searched for a spot where he could hide until night came, but it was in that moment that an oddly shaped stone caught his attention. It rested only a few meters down the path he had come, and he wondered how he could have looked over it, seeing as it had been painted by nature with a grey tone.
Link pulled himself away from the outcrop and walked back to face the stone. A whole had been carved out of its middle and symbols were inscribed on its surface below the puncture. Link recognized them as musical notes, six symbols arranged on a few lines.
… to overcome the threats that face you … search for the ancient statues.... Sing their written melodies.... awaken my spirit....
The words came back to Link like a blow to the chest. He proceeded to clear his throat. He looked around for any sign of the Gorons, and when he saw that he was still alone, he uncertainly hummed the tune written on the stone. When he became accustomed to the flow of the melody he pronounced their pitches with his voice. The song had a sort of healing sensation as he sang.
When the melody died on the air, he heard a clang and then and flash of white. Again he was surrounded by white, a beautiful castle in the distance.
“We meet again.” Link heard the ancient voice and turned to watch as the great golden wolf rose into the skeletal figure of his mentor. “You have a little more of the look of a hero than you did before,” said the shade of times-gone-by as it looked across at the youth. “Do you feel that you are ready to earn the next skill?”
“I do,” Link nodded.
“Very well,” breathed the shade. “The second skill is the shield attack. Let it be hewn into your mind!” The old hero took a step forward and raised its blade and shield. “No matter how well-tempered a blade is, if a foe is clad in armor and bears a shield, the sword will do it no harm.”
Link thought of the ogre he had slain yesterday, and he only just caught the frown forming on his face before the shade could see the hatred in his eyes.
“When facing such a foe,” the grotesque figure continued, “you must thrust your shield against the defenses of your enemy.” The shade demonstrated the rough movement with its own instrument.
The soldier then brought its shield back against its body. “You will attempt this technique upon me.”
Link prepared himself from battle, and raised his shield tight against him. This time, the shade did not wait for Link to perform the movement and began an assault, though Link was sure that the skill that the ancient hero demonstrated was only a fraction of what it was truly able to perform. Link moved around the armored skeleton, and when it turned to meet him, he bashed his shield into the shade’s and it was momentarily stunned and off balance. And, knowing that the warrior could not be killed, he angled his blade and struck hard around its shield.
“Excellent!” said the soldier, righting its body. “Open a hole in your enemy’s defenses and strike without hesitation! The shield attack may also be used to repel the projectile weapons of your enemies. Repel my magical attack!”
Link had barely enough time to react to the quick movement that followed, lifting his shield at the very moment the ball of energy screamed toward him. When he saw the solid, flaming mass about to hit, he slammed against it. The orb backtracked and clouted the shade’s shield and dispersed. “Perfect!” his instructor shouted.
The rattling warrior loosened its grip on its weapons and took a few steps toward its protégé. “There are five more techniques for you to learn, in time.” Its raspy voice echoed in Link’s ears, scratching them roughly. “The path to becoming the true hero is a long one, but once you have grasped all of these hidden skills, you shall be worthy of walking it. You must persist on the lonely path of the sword to obtain true courage and earn the strength to conquer the great evils of the world!”
The shade paused then, and Link saw hesitation welled within its red gaze, but the ancient one knew how to overpower such instances, and it backed away. It left Link with only one command. “Do not forget your discipline with the blade before we meet again!” it called back in a hard yet strangely kind octave as it walked away.
And before Link could think or move, his vision was again a white blur of nothingness and fell hard to the ground.
===============
Link stood, his sight returning. In front of him, he saw the ancient statue from which he had called his mentor, but to his left, looking up toward the outcrop, he saw a new bump in the rocks. He blinked several times and squinted away the rest of the blur that had invaded his eyes. The new feature, a boulder, then bounded down toward him. Link leapt out of the way, the rock nearly rolling over his foot.
He clung to the rock wall as he looked down the path, the boulder crashing to a halt against an overhang. Link panted a sigh of relief, even though he found it quite odd that the boulder had not broken apart or even been chipped.
His heart steadied, Link pulled himself away from the wall, but something twined about his arm. He turned to his left and was flabbergasted. There, right in front of his eyes, was a Goron, peeling itself away from the rock. Link jerked around and discovered that there, too, a Goron had begun to step out of the rock surface. Eyes wide in disbelief, Link felt another tug and his right arm was captured. However, Link did not begin to struggle against their iron grip until he watched the boulder below morph into a bipedal mass of hard stone.
The Goron meandered up to where Link was held prisoner. Link looked up into its flat, painted face. Its eyes were a fiery blue. For a moment the large circles only burned into Link’s eyes, but then, under its ridiculously small nose, the long line that served as its mouth chiseled into a smile which twisted its face into an even more hideous sight.
“You will never pass into our mountains!” its deep, garbled voice declared. “You cannot hope to match our brute force!”
“Well, I’ve come this far,” retorted Link.
The smile coiled into a frown. “And yet you stop to sing to the mountains? Wishing for luck?”
“Not one of my better ideas, I assure you,” said Link, still wriggling against his restraints.
“Enough talk,” the Goron to Link’s right said. “Let’s take him to Gor Coron. He will know what to do with him.”
After considering, the Goron in front of Link nodded to the others. Link was dragged along at their surprisingly fast pace. He felt as if his forearms were about to break at any moment from the hard pressure the Gorons used.
Link stopped struggling. They were taking him exactly where it had been impossible for him to go.
Above, the crater at the summit of Death Mountain began to boil, and spat out rock after rock of burning lava. The stones fell in a sporadic fashion. Link’s procession was stopped only momentarily when the largest of the rock tumbled down in front of them and pierced the earth of mountain base. The Gorons led the green clad warrior around it and up the mountain.
===============
The Gorons unceremoniously tossed Link into the circular room and backed away. A large mat sat center of the cavern-like chamber, and to each side were three large, golden-yellow Gorons that began cracking their stone knuckles and growling at the sight of the intruder. Link looked up to see them approaching.
“ENOUGH!”
The room rattled at the deep voice. The Gorons stood rooted. Behind them, Link could see two Gorons standing at an exit, torches to the side. The two white and yellow tattooed Gorons shifted apart to allow the one who had spoken to gain entrance into the chamber.
Link had thought that the members of their tribe all looked alike, their skin a deep bronze color with round heads and painted bodies, and their only item of clothing being loincloths. Yet when a shorter Goron stepped into the chamber, Link realized he had been wrong. The Goron’s head was shaped differently, and its belly and elbows were circled in bold pink lines. Yet, though the rock man stood shorter than the others—drawing up to a height that nearly matched Link’s—his voice demanded immediate obedience and respect.
“Is this young one such an opposing enemy that you must all gang up on him?” asked the Goron in a fast paced voice. “I think not, Little Brothers.” He glided as he stepped out the rest of the way, standing at the top of five stair steps. He looked down to Link and beckoned him forward.
Link brought himself to his full height, pushing away the itch to rub the hurt from his back. He stepped past the other Gorons, as they too gathered around.
“I am the Goron Elder, little human, Gor Coron,” he introduced.
Link offered his name in return.
“Well, Link, because of certain … circumstances, I must lead the tribe in place of Darbus, our patriarch,” he said, stressing his reluctance to say anything further on the issue just by the inflection of his tone. “Tell me, little human, do you come from the village below?”
“No,” answered Link. “I am from the Ordona Province. The children of my village were taken, and I left in search of them. I found them in Kakariko, where they are staying for now.”
The Goron’s face bubbled into a grin, his countenance more pleasing than the last Goron Link had seen attempting such a feat. “You have done well to come this far. You are strong … for a human. However” —his stare became as cold as a slap in the wind— “The mines beyond are sacred to my tribe. Outsiders are not allowed. Unless....”
Gor Coron stiffed his stare even more, and Link felt invaded by the relentless gaze. Knowing that in that moment, the Goron was judging him, Link mustered every once of courage that was within him so that he did not break eye contact and kept himself from even blinking.
After several long minutes, a smile once again danced across the Goron’s visage. “I could make an exception with you … but you would have to beat me in a contest of power. Are you willing, little human?”
Link smiled and raised a brow. “Quite.”
Gor Coron grinned and led Link to the center ring, and they each took up position facing one another at separate sides of the mat. The Goron flexed a leg high into the air as his brothers encircled them to watch the coming match. Dust flew when Gor Coron slammed his foot back down onto the mat, and Link followed suit, showing the viewers only a certain extent of his lower strength. He saw many of them chuckle at his weak attempt, and smiled inwardly.
Gor Coron hunched over, placing one fist on the mat, waiting to begin the contest. Link returned the Goron’s stone stare and dodged quickly to the side when the elder launched forward. Link slapped him round the middle and grabbed out for him, but the Goron reacted faster than he had anticipated. Before he realized it, he was being pushed back toward the edge. Link recovered from the shock of the bulky Goron’s speed and struggled out of its grip.
However, once Link had wrestled himself free, the Goron’s palm impacted with his chest. The brute force of the hit made Link careen backward, but before the Goron could again grab hold of him, Link jumped to the side and grappled the rock man around the waist. Enough of this dawdle. And he pushed as hard as he could.
The Gorons round the ring, the guards at the door, and Link himself were all astounded when Gor Coron smashed against the chamber floor. Link dusted off his hands merely to hide his bewilderment. He had not imagined that the rock people that Bo had beaten long ago had been this tough, and he was only so glad that he had been able to ground the Goron soon.
Now he only prayed that the Goron would be honorable enough not to demand a rematch.
“Young warrior,” the Goron spoke, and Link held his breath … hoping. “You have a strong will … and sharp eyes.” Gor Coron rose from the ground, and Link hopped down from the ring. “Fine traits.”
The Gorons dispersed from around the pair and lined up along the walls, out of the way as Gor Coron led Link back to the bottom of the stairs. Link watched the elder Goron’s eyes, looking for any tell-tale signs of what he was thinking.
Finally, the Goron broke free of his contemplation, in which he had many a time cast Link a wondering thought. At last, he asked, “How would you like to use your skills?”
“What are you talking about?”
Gor Coron frowned. “You have seen it, I would bet. When the mountain began to rage, all four of us elders—including Darbus—went inside to investigate its anger. We have a treasure that was entrusted to us by the spirits” —Link could almost feel Midna’s rise of lust for the spoken object— “and we must protect it.
“But the moment Darbus reached out and touched the treasure … everything went wrong. He collapsed … and before out very eyes transformed into an unspeakable monster!” The horrid event seemed to replay in the eyes of his rock-wrinkled face. “He began to rage through the mines, trailing ruin behind him, and the eruptions grew more and more frequent and more severe. We used all of our strength to seal him deep inside the mountain. It … grieved us … to do this to our patriarch, but we had no other course of action.”
Gor Coron shook loose of the memory into which he had momentarily collapsed and looked straight at Link. “I ask this favor of you, young warrior. Go to the aid of Darbus. Make no mistake,” he said. “The spirits have guided you here.”
If only you knew ....
“I, Gor Coron, on behalf of my entire clan, ask you for your aid!” the Goron’s voice boomed.
Courage chiseled its way across Link’s countenance as he replied, “I will do what I can.”
The Gorons all bellowed, some in relief and others contempt. But Link did not pay any mind to those that disliked lowering themselves to receive the assistance of a tiny human.
“You two!” the elder called to the guards. “Let the young warrior pass.”
Link nodded to Gor Coron as he left the large man’s side. He passed through the assembled Gorons and ignored the sporadic looks of disdain and ascended the stairs. The tunnel into the mines was long, narrow, and barely lit, making Link wonder how the bulky and squinty-eyed Gorons were able to pass through.
But before the Gorons behind him labeled his hesitance wrongly—as fear rather than curiosity—Link headed into the mines.
Below him, from his shadow, he could hear Midna’s snide remark of which only his ears were now able to pick up. “And our reward … will be your treasure....”
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REVIEWS FOR THIS CHAPTER:
~ZeldaFanatic92 Sep 14, 2007 The story is still the best one I have ever read!!! You have inspired me to start on one myself.
~nasanerd09 Apr 10, 2012 Another great chapter, and I agree that Link receiving the shield from Renado rather than Malo was a good move. The encounter with the shade was great as well, and I can't remember but do you ever reveal his true identity (he has been confirmed to be the Hero of Time)? I think you do but I'm too tired to remember and too lazy to look haha. And yay, Link is musically inclined! some people have an awfully hard time sightreading music. Oh, before I forget- I know you wrote it so that some of the skills, namely the last ones, were condensed into one training session, but I wanted to bring up something. In this chapter, it's the song of Healing Link has to sing, which you made quite obvious. I kinda miss that Link didn't get to sing all of the songs, especially the last one, which I think is called the Ballad of Twilight or something to that effect (its the only song original to the game). I think it would be nice for him to sing it, and maybe reflect on how it reminds him of the adventure. But, these are probably just unrequited musings on my part, I can't be writing the story for you. Just a thought I had.
Anyways, I also like that Link is a bit cocky here. Not enough to make him that arrogant jerk that most teenage boys seem to be, but enough for the fact that he is still a teenager to shine through for a moment. and the line "not one of my better ideas, I assure you" made me laugh.
~nasanerd09 Apr 10, 2012 Another great chapter, and I agree that Link receiving the shield from Renado rather than Malo was a good move. The encounter with the shade was great as well, and I can't remember but do you ever reveal his true identity (he has been confirmed to be the Hero of Time)? I think you do but I'm too tired to remember and too lazy to look haha. And yay, Link is musically inclined! some people have an awfully hard time sightreading music. Oh, before I forget- I know you wrote it so that some of the skills, namely the last ones, were condensed into one training session, but I wanted to bring up something. In this chapter, it's the song of Healing Link has to sing, which you made quite obvious. I kinda miss that Link didn't get to sing all of the songs, especially the last one, which I think is called the Ballad of Twilight or something to that effect (its the only song original to the game). I think it would be nice for him to sing it, and maybe reflect on how it reminds him of the adventure. But, these are probably just unrequited musings on my part, I can't be writing the story for you. Just a thought I had.
Anyways, I also like that Link is a bit cocky here. Not enough to make him that arrogant jerk that most teenage boys seem to be, but enough for the fact that he is still a teenager to shine through for a moment. and the line "not one of my better ideas, I assure you" made me laugh.