Not counting the enemy.
Part 13 of Adventure Log+ (sequel to Link's Thought Brambles - it will be better if you read in order! Warning for some strong language).
Tired.
Doesn’t matter. She needs to rest.
Erl does too, I guess, but she’s the critical one.
.
Again.
First house: four.
Second house: safe. Two people.
Third house: safe. Kids. Lots of kids. Don’t forget. Safe kids. 9 kids. 13 people.
Fourth house: one. One safe.
Fifth house: five.
Sixth house: three.
Seventh house: seven. Numbers. Match.
Master.
Eighth house: four. Again. Like we came back.
Master.
She needs to sleep.
If they’re not- not here when she wakes up, we go. Can’t keep waiting for them.
Master!
For all we know, Daile never made it. He could’ve died on the way, and then there’d be no one rushing here to meet us.
Please, master, listen.
I’m listening.
You were not responding.
To the word ‘master?’ What was I supposed to say?
A simple acknowledgement perhaps.
I’m not up for snark.
‘Snark’ is not my intention, master.
Fine. What IS your intention?
To suggest you wake the Princess to take a short rest yourself.
Not a chance.
You need rest too, master.
I’m used to hunting. Used to going without sleep for a long time. Used to being… watchful. She’s not.
She is every bit as resilient as you are.
Doesn’t mean I’ll foist burden on her.
YOU are foisting nothing. You never have.
No cryptic words now, please. I don’t have any room to think about it.
You have… I’ve never had a master behave as you have.
Sorry to disappoint you.
I did not indicate disappointment.
Surprise, then.
Yes. That.
Another 15 minutes or so. Then I wake her up. And I’ll feel terrible because it won’t be nearly enough sleep but we have to go. She needed a little. She needed to process.
We head west. Next farm over. Hope they aren’t all like the last ones we found…
25 dead. 16 safe. Safer. Alive at last look. Yeah. That last one’s true.
.
Stupid hard farmhouse logs. Hurts to lean on for long. Wiggle. Better.
.
Shoulder. Head. Ouch.
I need to lean. Just for a few minutes. Can’t afford to lay down. Just a little… little breather.
.
.
.
Glow’s still far off. Hasn’t moved.
Zelda’s safe. Nothing here. Not anymore.
.
.
.
.
.
NNN!- no…
Stand up straight, Link you dumbass. F#$%.
You are more tired than you claim.
No ‘master’ this time, huh?
You did not respond well to it before.
I figured it was like Zelda. Where you HAVE to call me some title because it’s not in your protocols or something.
Very nearly. Use of your honorific is certainly preferred.
By who?
Hylia.
.
You’ve spoken to her.
I have.
Recently?
…Yes.
Damn. What… does she say?
Many things, master.
I… “Oh GODdess.” Fi, I am getting so tired of having to beg for scraps of information from you. Please. PLEASE. Can we skip the part where I ask you s@#$ and you don’t answer until I find the one thing you’re willing to say? “Hh-hh-“ I’m-
Breathe, Link.
Master-
Wait. Just wait.
Breathing.
.
.
Better.
I… am… so grateful for what you told us. I’m sorry I’m so short with you. I’m not usually like that.
It is stress, master.
“Heh. Hehehehehhh- hhhh- yeah.” Yeah, I know. I don’t like finding people dead. Apparently I like it even less when the dead walk again and I have to put them down.
Master-
And you know what I really, really hate?
…
I hate all of her effort having been for nothing.
.
Master-
Nothing.
.
The slate. The shrines. The guardians. The Divine Beasts. All of it. A trap?
That is the most likely-
Yes. I know. You said so. An 89% probability the spell around the castle was cast by the fortune teller. Who also said the power to oppose the calamity was dormant underground.
The Sheikah’s now-ancient technology made the battle 10,000 years ago swift and decisive. It had never been so easy for… any of my masters or the spirit maidens. They had never had such an abundance of power aligned with them. And yet even then, the dark beast which emerged tore the land asunder and injured my master.
So you’re pretty much saying any trap sprung means I’m dead.
Not-
I won’t make it.
Do not jump to that conclusion, master, I implore you. Past iterations… have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
But none of them have ever failed. Right?
…
.
RIGHT?!
.
Fi-
I hesitate, master. There are inconsistencies.
How can there be inconsistencies? It seems pretty simple, you’re in your master’s hand either way, right? Either they win or they don’t.
On the surface, master, I would agree with your supposition. But reality does not bow to thoughts—not even mine. Not even Hylia’s. Reality insists upon there being ‘calamities’ which you have both won and lost.
What- what do you mean? How do you KNOW?
My memories, master. I possess three distinct sets of one particular event. And… multitudes of other, less critical ones.
You.. “Hhhhhah…” You remember the same thing three different ways, you mean?
Correct.
Well… how do you know it was real? I mean… memory isn’t perfect.
MY memory is perfect, master.
Okay, fine – but what about dreams? Do you dream?
I do not.
Skies.
.
In those memories, one version of my master prevailed. He destroyed the evil one, known as Ganondorf at the time, allowing the kingdom to heal. However, that was not the end.
…I’m listening. You have about… 7 minutes, though, before I wake Zelda.
That should suffice.
I hope you can accept the knowledge that it is possible to travel backward and forward through time with certain magical artifacts.
“What?!”
Please, master. They’re sleeping.
.
My master returned through time to seven years before the event. I existed in my pedestal through that time, without the happenings from before occurring at all – no evil. No Ganondorf. No removal from my pedestal. No great battle. Not until over a century later. And yet the first memory must be real in order for the second to have happened…
…Yeah, okay, I follow you there.
And yet, master… and yet… I recall languishing. Languishing in neglect and despair, for… my master was gone.
You mean because he put you back in your pedestal?
No, master. He was gone. He had returned through time to before he’d ever removed me from my pedestal, and yet…. I remained. In both places. Languishing in one world, my spirit broken with his absence, and waiting in the other for the next time my master would take hold of me, whole.
In the world where I languished, I did so for many centuries. I diminished. I became less than I was after my first Hylian master re-forged me in the fires of the Sacred Flames, and less even than I once had been before that, when the Goddess forged me for herself, for the great war against Demise. In that world, I never had a true master again. Once, a child’s hands took me, a power entering me from sages’ magic, a power neither my own nor my wielder’s—I was merely its conduit, and my wielder a set of hands to aim me. I could not speak to him. I could not speak to anyone. I was all but dead.
And yet… there was a third world emergent from the others, one amongst multitudes coalescing from many small points in history, many places in which my master unintentionally caused small paradoxes.
.
I appreciate you not interrupting master.
I’m riveted, please don’t stop.
Very well. In this third… conjunction of worlds, the evil one cast me from the hands of my master and erected a magical barrier. My master could not reach me. The Spirit Maiden attempted to penetrate the barrier and failed. My master fought and fought and fought but without me, he tired and could not deal a killing blow.
He lost.
.
This, as I said, was one of the three, a conjunction of many paradoxical events in time. It is the only one in which my master has succumbed to his ancient foe.
The Spirit Maiden-
The Princess-
She took me up.
She and the sages of that era slowly drove the evil one back into the dark realm from which his power sprung and sealed him there—undefeated, but contained.
She used me as the final lock on that seal, as another had before he breached the realm itself, but the dark power flowing from the evil one’s dark world shot through me, festered within me for unimaginable ages—for so long these events were obscured by the mists of time and became legend. The power damaged me, master, after so many long years. By the time my next master took hold of me, I was no longer capable of communication. I had barely any power left in me at all, and his circumstances were so dire he never flourished. He never was able to fully restore me. He did try.
.
.
… Are you… I mean, is that the whole story? Are you done?
It has been seven minutes.
WH- “Gph.” Eight is okay, seriously-
I could go on for days. Years. Suffice to say, master, in two of these sets of memories I was far less than a mere shadow of what I am now. In only one did I remain… whole. Yet here I am. I contain these memories. I know these worlds.
And so do you, master.
“Pff. No, I really don’t.”
You have… channeled… at least one quite distinct memory from that last world I mentioned. Something regarding a distinct pink lagomorph which was incapable of ‘hopping.’
“Huh?” What the frick is a lagomorph?
A rabbit, master.
…What?
Hippity hoppity.
WH- no, no. You don’t get to be cute.
You are smiling, master.
“Heh-hh.” Yeah. Good job.
I exist to aid you, master.
I don’t remember any pink bunnies.
You did while you were delirious—when the arrow still lay within you.
Ah.
But I was delirious.
The memory was quite distinct. I recognized it instantly. I was not with my master at the time, but I have access to the memories of my wielders. I know of it from that.
… Okay. So, I can remember things from your previous masters.
You can. You have.
She is so trying not to outright tell me I AM all of them, isn't she? All of her previous masters. They’re me.
...It is complicated, master.
That’s closer to a ‘yes’ than I’ve gotten out of you yet.
It has been ten minutes, master.
Right.
We can get back to this later.
.
I’m really, really sorry to have to do this, Zelda. “Hey. Hey-“
“Mm-m.”
“It’s me. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry but we can’t keep waiting. It’s almost dawn.”
“Mmmm. Hh. Link.”
“Yeah.”
“Dawn?”
“Yeah.”
“H- heaven- I didn’t intend to rest so long!”
“It’s okay, it… it must’ve been later than we thought. I definitely didn’t let you go much more than an hour. You needed it, though.”
Oh- slate. Yeah.
“Oh- my. You two have been talking.”
“Yeah.”
“Link, it’s not dawn yet.”
“But-“
“Look!”
4:47 am. “Wait, what?”
“Why did you think-“
“Well, look!” Damn sky’s red!
She’s giving me a funny OH! OH S#@$- “What the hell?!”
“Link. The Sun does not-“
“Rise in the West, yeah, yeah I know!” Holy crap, why am I so stupid?! “Is it fire?!”
“Smoke. I- I don’t see any.”
“I’m waking him up.” Up, Erl. Sorry, man-
“Rr-rh.”
“Get up, man. Sorry. Really, though, we have to MOVE.”
“Nn- need to sleep more.”
“Sorry, man, you just can’t. Look!”
“Oh- ohhh. Oh no, no. No-“
“Yeah. Rionee!”
“Link, wait-“
“What?”
“We’ve no plan!”
“We go there and we hack whatever’s doing that to pieces.”
“You- you can’t do that, Sir! Princess- it’s a fire, it’s fire, it’ll spread on the plain. We all need to move out right now, right now or we’ll be burned to death!”
“Erl, man, that’s NOT fire-“
“I can’t. I can’t chance it. No. I go back.”
.
F U C K.
“You cannot take Rionee away from here. I am quite sorry, and I shall see to it the crown compensates you for necessitating your involvement in our mission. But I cannot allow you to take Sir Link’s horse.”
Dammit. Dammit man, don’t you keep inching toward her.
“Ww- w-w-we’ll all be killed!”
“I don’t know what to tell you to make you stop moving toward Rionee, but you have to. If you don’t stop, I stop you.”
“You wouldn’t do that. Sir. Sir Link. You- saved me. You wouldn’t harm me, you wouldn’t.”
“Didn’t say I’d hurt you. But I’d stop you.”
He’s still eyeing her. Looking all around. Trying to figure a way out that gets him the horse.
Dammit, we can’t even trust him to ride her WITH us, now. He could try to bolt. I’d have to ride with him, or Zelda would.
Ah.
Ah.
Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it? “You and I’ll take Tass, Erl. Zelda takes Rionee.”
“I’m not riding into that with you, no Sir. Sorry, Sir. I can’t do that. I c- c- ant.”
“With all due respect, good sir, the only other option is for us to simply leave you here. Is that your preference?”
Aw- no, no way-
“Y- gmph- y- yes. Yes, please. I can’t go there. I can’t do that.”
Holy s#$@. “Man- come on. Seriously, for your own sake, what if there are more of those things coming this way?”
“Y- you didn’t- didn’t see what I saw!”
“We saw plenty, believe me, and you do NOT want to be alone out here trying to deal with it! You got lucky once!”
“N- no. NO. I won’t. I don’t want to see him again.”
“Good sir… your brother is gone.”
“NO, not HIM. No- no. Waiting. WATCHING. In.- in- the RED.”
“What?” I thought that was his brother waiting outside, turned into a ReDead. What the hell is he talking about?
“The- the- the- the- MAN.”
Specifics would be good.
.
Don’t be a dick, Link.
“Erl, there was someone else? Not your brother?”
“Of course- of course- not- not Mizral MizRAL Misral, my brotherHH hh- hhh- hhhhhheehhhh-“
We should’ve been more careful. I didn’t realize.
“Who was it, sir?”
“I don’t know. How would I know? Just a man. Someone. Thought- but n- no. Not Sheikah. Hair. Hair wrong-“
“Well, actually not all- Sheik… ah…” …have white hair and why is Zelda glaring at me like that?!?
“Please ignore my knight and his highly insensitive interruption.”
Oh. Ohhhh.
“Why did you believe him to be Sheikah?”
“The- he had- a thing.”
Waggling your finger at Zelda’s hip isn’t going to help much. It’s the only slate in existence.
“He had a piece of ancient technology?”
…Oh.
“Y- yes, Princess.”
Maybe I should’ve taken a nap after all.
“What kind?”
Indeed, master.
“D- dunno. Round.”
Snark…
“Round? How large? Was it lit, like the slate?”
“Lit up, yeah, not like that. It was gold and then it was that- that- horrible purple- the- the mud-glow.”
… Zelda’s thinking-face.
“P- princess- this big. Like this.”
“… Zelda?”
“It- sounds like an ancient core. Except for the color, of course. I could be wrong.”
What is an ancient core, Princess?
“Fi asks what an ancient core is.”
“It’s- the energy source. The one which powers a guardian. They vary in size and capacity, it seems.”
…I would like to examine the properties of such a core.
“In good time… very well, Fi, but at the moment…”
Her eyes look lost on mine for once, looking back and forth as if one of mine will have the answer she’s looking for. I’m sorry. Really sorry, I don’t have it. What does it matter if this person has an ancient core?
Those lost eyes on Erl, now.
“Good sir… please forgive me for continuing to pry, but what did this man do?”
“He- he just- watched, Princess. I swear. He smiled. And he watched.”
“Did he see you?”
Yes? … Really? “He didn’t try to hurt you?”
“He didn’t do anything but watch, I swear. That mud, it was all around him. And THINGS came out of it. One grabbed my brother, and it was like everything was just sucked right out of him, like. All the blood. Moved through the air. Hit that- thing you- the core.”
“Which… this man held?”
“Y- yes.”
I have next to no information on the operation of the Sheikah technology. My master did not wield me long in that age. However, this would seem to suggest the object held by this man was able to absorb spirit energy.
“Is that a thing?”
.
Master.
“… Sorry. Yeah, you said so, so it’s a thing.”
Thank you, master.
“… Like a poe?”
Astute, master.
“Wow. Okay.” I really wish I could sit down. I think if I sit I might not get back up for a while and that’s just not okay.
Rionee- here, girl…
“Y- you’re leaving?”
“Is… there anything else you can tell us, sir? Any idea why you were spared?”
“I- I ran. Hid in the house.”
It doesn’t sound right, does it?
Not right at all.
Why would this guy get away with just hiding in the house if whoever or whatever this was was looking right at him?
Okay, Link. Think about this. Check Rionee over- check her wound like you would anyway but keep an eye on Erl, too.
.
I mean there’s no reason not to trust him, right? He was with us this whole way and he never tried to hurt us or anything. Right?
Right?
And he wants to leave. Can’t say I blame him.
But why would this watching-man let him go?
.
Maybe so there’s a witness. Maybe someone wants us to know what’s happening? But why would they want to do that? What would they get out of it?
Fi?
I am uncertain master.
Am I being paranoid?
…No.
…No?
No.
S#$%.
F#$%. I can’t seem suspicious. I can’t.
Zelda’s checking the slate, it’ll seem-
“It’s still only 4:58 am. We- we ought to decide soon. What to do.”
She’s looking at me.
I think that’s the first time she’s ever given me a look I didn’t like.
What does she want to do?
.
Can I incapacitate him without really really hurting him considering he might actually just be a helpless farmer and totally innocent?
Master.
Yes?
If he is not aligned with you, if you strike him with my energy he will be affected.
Oh.
Oh.
Okay, s$%$. I need an excuse. An excuse to pull the sword.
You are quite quick master.
Yeah, but he’s… almost in arm’s length of Zelda and I need time to focus energy either way, right? I’m not unharmed so it takes me time. You don’t do it for me.
I regret to say that’s correct, master.
“Hhh. Ah, well. Either way, Link and I must be off and shortly. Tass-“
Yes. Yes, good. Good, keep moving and he’s looking at me like he’s terrified but now that I don’t believe him something doesn’t look right does it it doesn’t
Draw-
“S- Sir Link?”
Oh f@#$.
Looking over his shoulder. Zelda’s acting casual. Good… good.
“I- have I offended you?”
“What? No. What makes you say that?” …Shit, did I JUST SAY THAT?
Damn, Link. I guess you CAN lie if you need to.
“You- your sword-“
“What about it?” Focusfocusfocus don’t telegraph
“You’ve… drawn it, Sir!”
don’t telegraph just like the melee “I need to pray” when I was against the wall “for you.” Focus focus harder this time
“F- for me?”
Attention split “Yeah, man- you kidding?” talking acting casual “You’re staying here” serious but casual “so if anything shows up” focusfocus “you’ll need all the prayers you can get” focusfocus almost I feel it
“I- I- th- thank you. Thank you, Sir Link.”
Nodding focus nodding “You’re welcome.” Focusfocusfocus grip heSEES “AAAH!”
“AAAAAAH!”
“ZELDA!” IT BLEW HIM BACK!
IN THOSE TREES “S#$%, can you see him?!”
“I cannot!”
Holy S#$%, Link! This guy- he- “He was with us the whole time!”
“I know, Link!”
“The whole TIME!”
“I know!!”
“Hh-hh- hh-“ where the hell did he go? He could be unconscious. Or running. You’d think we’d’ve heard something, though.
I don’t- dammit, if we turn and ride away from here he could intercept Daile and the others!
INTERCEPT DAILE AND THE OTHERS.
“Zelda. Daile.”
“Yes. It occurred to me, too.”
“We can’t let him go.”
“No.”
Into the copse then. No, not copse, really- it’s the head of a heavily wooded area and dammit, if I’d circled westward I could’ve shot him in front of the house instead. But no, instead I’m a total total idiot and Zelda and I TALKED in front of this guy for hours!
…No. No, we didn’t.
Because he only heard a little of the conversation.
The slate.
Praise, praise, praise Hylia. The slate! We were talking to Fi so much. Half the time I didn’t even BOTHER to talk out loud, Zelda was reading. Praise you, Hylia. You’ve already lifted my dumb ass out of the sands of stupidity, haven’t you?
So… he heard Zelda. He did.
But not the rest of it.
Not the rest.
And there’s not a f$#$cking sign of him. “I don’t see anything.”
“Nor do I.”
And her sight’s way better.
But don’t say it out loud, Link. Don’t. He… might be listening.
Rap her shoulder.
Yeah. Back out. Come on – just in case-
No, he’s not back out here with the horses, but they’re freaking out, they trotted east a bit.
Good.
Zelda – rap rap – come on, mount. Rionee and Tass. Alone. The way we should be. No third rider. I’ll explain later, but we… we have to ride…
Not the way we were going to.
But toward our allies.
Daile.
Margil, Beraya, Chee, and the tech lab.
He let us take our slow half-circle. He was trying to pity-convince us to let him take a horse back south toward them.
He was going to kill them?
Why not kill us? He was with us so long.
Maybe he was going to misdirect them, too.
And if he was trying to misdirect them, then he WANTED us to go west, toward the red sky, while he got to separate from us.
…I think.
I’ll check with Zelda later.
Fi?
It’s reasonable master, but I do not understand this person’s motivations. I, too, do not understand why he would not take the opportunity to strike.
Unless his description of the man watching with the ancient core or something was just a flat-out lie. Maybe we really have no information about it at all except that this guy’s against us.
It’s possible, master, but I have noted in my long life that those of wicked dispositions frequently enjoy bragging. I find it likely he did, in fact, describe himself.
“Good girl, Rionee. Sorry. Sorry about that. Zel-?”
“I am well. Up and on.”
“Yes.” Good girl. South by southeast. “Hup, girl!”
“On, Tass!”
We ride like the wind this time again. My goddess, I’m sorry Rionee.
And I’m so sorry—whoever is to the west. I don’t know how to choose except to pick what seems to be worst for the bad guy. I just don’t know anything.
Keep looking, Link. Turn. She’s doing it too. Good. Let’s do that in a pattern, Zel. Yeah, she sees me. Keep watching.
I don’t know what I’m looking for. A man who can outrun a horse? I have no reason to expect he can do that. I don’t even have a reason to expect he’s magic.
Yes you do, master.
Do I?
This entire situation displayed signs of advanced magical prowess. Dark magics similar to that of the Sheikah in far ancient times—the magics in the ancient Shadow Temple. Dead Hands. ReDeads. Masterful illusions. It’s possible the face we saw on the man calling himself ‘Erl’ was in fact not his face.
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard the Yiga can disguise themselves, too.
The members of the Yiga clan at the festival successfully disguised their weapons’ appearance, but could not disguise the fact that the illusion existed. I detected it. I detected nothing in any of the locations on this plain. And… there is the presence of Malice, master. There is magic at work here—dark magic.
Dark magic.
Hiding his face. Maybe.
.
My count might have been wrong.
Not 25.
26 dead. 15 alive at last look.
Well… technically that last number’s still 16.
I’m just not counting the enemy.
----------------
Read Next: Not yourself.
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This chapter took a while because I was writing so much other stuff (for the most part - I was also a little discouraged by some of how chapters 11 - 13 were received).
