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popculturebuffet · 1 year ago

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Sam and Max Beyond Time and Space Retrospective: Moai Better Blues (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy freelance police and welcome back to my look at the sam and max telltale games! We're onto season 2 episode 2. After a little christmas in august we're having a science fiction double feature for halloween as this review ended up behind due to a new member of the family.

This is Maddie. She's 5, she's precious, she's very loud , and she's very attached to me.

But even new fluffy good girls with spangly collars can't stop the march of sam and max.

Following up from our heroes adventures in the north pole, this ep finds our heroes dealing with an adventure that's weird even by sam and max standards. And I want to let that sink in because we spent last season stopping a child star hynosis crime ring, starring in a one episode sitcom with a british chicken don knotts, inflitrating a mafia chuck e cheese, running for president against a horny lincoln memorial, murdering the internet and finally facing down with a sentient plankton colony via psychic powers and magic tricks on the moon. And that's not even getting into that guy who would never put his hands down. What was his deal?

So what lies in the greatest mountain of sam and max madness? Stoned Moai, triangular portals, sea monkeys, ghost godlfish, baby jimmy hoffa and horny statue love triangles. So join me under the cut for the madness.

We open with our heroes returning from the North Pole a month after the previous game, with it now snowing, providing a nice atmosphere to things. Before they can get back to the usual banter some fresh nonsense comes in: A triangle chasing their beloved friend Sybil.

It has a neat design too, red, pulsating with lines... it's an excellent triangle all things considered. B+

At any rate we need to stop it, so we go to the wisest sage for weird shit there is: Bosco. It's a nice way to keep him still useful while not having him be one of your item guys. Bosco is getting ready to bunker down from T.H.E.M.

But tells our hero their new foe is a bermuda triangle, an eldtirch shape that sucks people up to another place, and can only be stopped with most of the shapes. Most.. never come into play and are just for a good joke, like blue polyheadrons making them really want to roll them dice and maybe start a live play with a dungeon master with long hair and the voice of god.

The important one is red hexagons stop them.. and the game was REALLY unhelpful with this one. I did have my hints flavor blasted up to the maximum max could do without bursting a kidney.. but he just kept saying the shape and outright told me to go back to the office.. where it entirely wasn't. WE do have a new trophy though, boxing betty. So.. that's nice?

The solution lies in Stinky's diner, where i'd gone earlier since the Cops can't do buisness over the sound of screaming. Amateurs. Stinky can though even with the racket outisde and gives us a granite sandwitch that i'm pretty sure just.. sat in my inventory all chapter. Seriously you don't relaly use it for anything even when you think it'd be obvious like replacing a stone max's ear, and it's more just to set up getting a basalt sandwich from her later. It's on the kid's menu only though.

She is useful in that she has a stop sign for you and with some spray paint from your headquaters, you can make it deep red. Before we go though another beloved supporting character makes a cameo: Flint Paper. I just love how despite being grizzly and willing to beat up random strangers for money, as are we, Flint just.. cheerfully greets our heroes with a hey fellas every time. He's just so happy to see our heroes and they have a deep genuine admiration for him. Like with Sybil in the first episodes, it's nice to see someone our heroes actually like and unlike Sybil, it's nice to see there's at least one person they haven't traumtized. Yet. He's watching Bosco for Bosco's Mom who'se understandably worried about her son because you know, his whole deal.

For now though we go to stop the triangle in the name of love... only for hilariously this all to be mostly pointless as once Sybil stops, Abe shows up , gets sucked in and she goes after him. It's off to Easter Island!

Turns out Sybil and Lincoln are fine and are just enjoying the nice weather. Once again.. this is a dead end puzzle wise as the two are just there to move their subplot along. Unlike the sandwich though, it's at least entertaning.. and mildly creepy as Abe perves on one of the moai present.

Why the bermuda triangle lead to easter island.. is not something we'll be getting into here. What matters is the moai see sam and max as their savior. Well the middle one, a kindly lady moai abe's creeping ion, is. The left one has half his face buried and is contstantly upset, projecting storm clouds when pissed off that are naturally useful, and the right one is

And is largely useless, mostly just sniping at you.

Each has a power of the elements: Rain for the buried one, wind for the nice one and earth for the pedantic douchebag. The fire one was sadly was scattered to the winds long ago, but he did leave behind a son at least to carry on his legacy

At any rate before we can use the powers of nature itself for fun and profit, we have some problems: As it turns out the nearbye volcano is about to erupt and murder them all due to some understandable but tragic errors

Problem is someone's guarding his lair... and if you haven't played the game yourself, I warn you: You are not remotely ready. I sure wasn't. So whose in our heroes way? Why it's Jimmy HOffa in the body of a baby!

Yeah... look I love Sam and Max for being so gloriously weird. Weird as hell is one of my faviorite kinds of humor as long as their's direction behind the chaos. But It's still easily the biggest what the fuck moment the franchise has thrown me so far and that's with this happening last chapter

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Granted I got spoiled there is some sort of payoff to the Mariachis via a thumbnail, and there is some actual logic behind this.. but even for this franchise "Jimmy Hoffa whose in the body of an infant because he drank too much from the fountain of youth pointing a gun at yoU" is a bit much. And more to the point they NEVER explain why he's working for the episodes big bad.

I.. can't help but love it though BECAUSE it's such a uniquely stupid swing: they had this idea, found a way to have it logically make sense and then put it in the game in full, all while giving us a ton of great jokes as Sam cannot ressit teasing him on the fact he's a baby.

We'll deal with this teamster later, for now we meet the other rugrats on this island: Amelia Earheart, DB Cooper, and The LIndburgh Baby... .

Their mostly here to set up a surfboarding mini game which frustrated me. It's not the game itself, it's a fun enough little distraction if fairly hard to get the analogue controls down on my switch version. It felt like the kind of browser game i'd play as a kid.

My annoyance.. is that the game dosne't tell you that you get nothing for it until you've triggered the right story event. So I went through the whole thing for nothing. Thankfully I also enabled mini game skipping.... I still will TRY not to use it often as these are part of the game and thus need to be evaluated as much as the point and click parts, but in this case i'd already done the actual task so when it asked me to again. As for why again, the trick to getting rid of our little friend involves serving him a drink, using a tiki glass you can pick up at the bar those dumb babies are at. But he'll only take union waitstaff, so you have to play the game to get cerfitied by him. IT makes about as much sense as it sounds. Ah back to normal for this franchise.

To actually do anything though we need some fountain of youth water unfortunately there's something in it

So to take care of them we have to complete a few other tasks

First is the COPS. As i'm guessing is standard for every chapter,we have another driving VR Game from them, this time a fun rythum based one with the beats going as you drive on them. THey thought it'd change the world.. those poor dumb bastards. It's clearly a jab at guitar hero, but it's a decent challenge while still being a lot of fun.

With that we get a car horn and that's the key to our next puzzle: We need to help Glenn Miller, a wwII era band leader whose also now a baby, stage his comback by giving him that new sound he's been looking for. Since the horn plays i've been workin on the railroad, it's just the ticket. He just needs a whistle sound, which you easily get by dumping some gasoline disguised as a drink into a nearbye fire, setting off a tea kettle. He gives you a conch with the single recorded on it. Apparently The Bermuda Triangles also visited skypeia.

Using the dial, we can finally solve our pirahana puzzle.. in theory. In practice it's utterly frustrating if you can't figure out the trick, not helped by Max CONSITENTLY telling me to use the thunder storm moai.

Breaking it down: using the glen miller dial conch, you play it for the nice moai, which gets her whistling. Now when you tick off her half buried friend next to you, which naturally max does with ease and maybe too much glee.. in fact i'm starting a " Going to Hell For This" counter, for each time we ruin someone's life, torture them or what have you to progress, or just for funzies, as we did it a LOT last season and so far have done it a lot. Now I"ll make acceptions for say outright villians or people who deserve it. And even then it'/s about proportions. For example, pelting the soda poppers with urine and bleach? Acceptable, their the soda poppers. Need I say more. But even if Jimmy Two Teeth sucks a LOTTT, nearly driving him to unalive himself is a bit much, not helped by Max's reaction essentially being

He certainly thought it hard enough. So we'll count that one, still keeping leonard hostage after almost a year, sending santa to hell (even if he was possesed), and not bothering to actually help save christmas. So going into this episode we have

Things We're Going To To Hell For: 4 And we can add from this episode taunting that poor moai.

Things We're Going to Hell Fort: 5

So I assumed both from the hint ONLY mentoing the moai , who creates a little storm cloud when uspet and the wind we were supposed to blow it at jimmy hoffa. Instead... it does nothing. It just dissipates if blown too far and never gets near him. Instead we use the portals, which are frustrating as the game makes it clear the two near the entrance are connected.. but dosen't make it clear EVERY portal is connected this way.

The solution is to open one by the fountain of youth, then open another next to the underground moai, have the good moai blow the cloud and boom, a LOT of dead pirhanas and a free fountain of youth. Also

Things We're Going To Hell For: 6

And with that we can use the glass to scoop some up, give it to hoffa... and blink him out of existance. THings We're Going To Hell For: Still 6 (He Deserved It Yo) It's REALLY sad when killing someone by making them age themselves out of existance isn't the worst thing we've done today. Or even this month.

This event also moves along Sybil's subplot for the season and who boy. Strap yourselves in because I haven't seen a character nosedive this fast in many moons. So the whole episode, Abe and Sybil have been picnicking, only doing that on Abe's suggestion.. and only so he can oggle the middle good moai. Yeah after several episodes of at worst being out of touch and mildly annoying.. abe's somehow lept straight to the bottom and is perving on someone right in front of his girlfriend and THEN asks her to have plastic surgery to look more like the moai.

Sybil runs off in tears.. and SOMEHOW, SOMEHOW, this gets worse... as Abe THEN tries to hit on the moai. To her credit she shoots him down fast and we get a great response out of him, a casual "that's fair". So he's still funny he's just WAY more of an asshat. I mean granted we just committed two murders in a row, so i'd SAY we can't judge.. but those murders were to save a LOT of lives from death and were of a bunch of fish and a murderous infant man.

Anyways with this we enter our final puzzle set, continuing from the formula laid out last time. Sadly.. they also fall into a fairly trite, terrible stereotype. It's forgivable enough for the time.. but it's still pretty tone deaf. I can't blame them for fixing it as unlike the various lines corrected for save the world, this is a large part of the plot and thus really coudn't be futzed with.. but it's still not great.

Okay so for our final stretch our heroes run into your standard tone deaf "the natives are stupid and belivie anything is their god" plot only this time it's sea monkeys.

Yeah.. they.. really coudl've thought this one out a bit more. We have to convince them max is their god/chosen one/whatever instead, in order to replace an old advesary: Mr. Spatula, sam and max's goldfish whose mad he's died and thus is willing to take an island with him. Now you may recall, even if I didn't name him last time, he died. And he did. THIS IS HIS GHOST.

So to prove ourselves we have to do three tasks. The first is easy and I stumbled into accidently: We have to make the water into BANANG!, an energy drink powder bosco happens to have a lot of.

To get it away from him, we have to torment him.. again. This time we simply radio in, claim to be THEM

And Bosco goes deeper underground, there's too much panic in this town. So we got the powder.. but we also traumtized a friend for life so

Things We're Going To Hell For: 7

Next is adding an ear to a rock formation that looks like max. Once again the sandwitch is useless.. except as a clue. We finally need that basalt sandwitch for kidz, so it's time to use the fountain of youth water on ourselves.. and ONCE AGAIN the game gets frustrating as you transform back very fast from drinking it. The trick is to use a gong I honestly forgot about in Stinky's diner max reminded me of. I can't tell if I just suck at adventure games or this is poor level design.

Anyways we get the Basalt and get a really funnys equence with douchecanoe moai as it turns out dude just needed to blaze it and basalt gets moai REALLY good and fucked up. With that he casually laughs and dislodges a stalctite we use to finish the max.

We then finish this section. The stone feet of the buried moai are needed to anoit us. Also yes they have hands and arms stuck in there. We simply use the shell again, this time on a portal next to the best moai , she whistles, he taps his toes and we win. Kinda.

Problem is the island's still errupting with Mr Spatula planning to take us with it. The only way to stop it? Some clever puzzlery. We get a high preist medallion from the Sea Monkeys, dip it in some red slime, then shoot the triangle, using the portals to send the red triangle through it , eating the lava.. and presumibly murdering someone but we won't worry about that. Our ride home is gone though but Abe offers a lift while the moai celebrate.. before being sad they can't move. Then their abducted by what seems to be aliens!

Moai Better Blues... is a very mixed bag. The writing as usual is hilarious, and while it's a very

Sort of chapter, it's a FUNNY sort of what the fuck is this, from the various babies, to the black comedy shenanigans as usual, to our heroes riding out on Lincoln's head. It continues episode 1's mean streak, but the weirder setting and more over the top weird black comedy bits like unexistinsing hoffa help it feel far less opressive than last time. The deaths and what we do to bosco are way more over the top. Even abe and sybil's breakup, acompained by the mysterious maraichi's, is more funny than genuinely sad. I DO feel bad for Sybil, but abe is such a dick and he gets karmically punished for it as the moai lady SHARPLY rejects him, multiple times if you want, and he looses Sybil.

Gameplay wise.. it's a lot more obtuse. A lot more relying either on memory (Which isn't good for me but is at least fair) or hoping you figure it out and with most of the max clues being way less helpful. It's a pretty meh chapter all things considered and hopefully as we get spooky next time, we also get back to our quality. Speaking of which

Next Time: VAMPIRES! Just in time for the season. And since it's the 2000's their angsty emo eurotrash vampires! Oh BoY! Thanks for reading!

#sam and max #sam and max beyond time and space #sam x ma #sybil pandemik #abraham lincoln #jimmy hoffa #db cooper #amelia earhart #bosco #c.o.p.s.#video games #telltale games #skunkape games

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mamep · 4 years ago

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The Forging of the Legend: A Prologue to The Legend of Zelda

I wrote an almost-8,000 word fanfic to try and give the original Legend of Zelda game some context and backstory. Also, it��s my first real fanfic. While I did add a handful of things that were not mentioned at all in the original two games and their accompanying material, this story diverges from the source material in a couple of small ways.

It can also be read on AO3, linked here! Otherwise, it’s below the cutoff.

(CW: graphic violence, mild gore, warfare)

”The Forging of the Legend”

by mamep

“One, two!” a man said, his voice matched with the strikes of his wooden sword. “Link, keep your eyes up!” He laughed alongside the forest’s summer breeze. Eventually, the man raised his weapon up high, and the boy froze at the sight. It was too heavy, too quick, and the boy was disarmed with the blow landing on his shoulder.

Link was only ten years old and could barely keep up with his father’s sweeping attacks, who stood over him with the end of his wooden sword put in the ground, offering his hand. Link took hold of it, and was pulled up faster than he expected, almost losing his breath just as quickly as when he was blown back.

“That was too fast,” Link said, still grimacing and holding his left shoulder. “Can we take a break?”

“Of course,” said his father, “but not for too long. Here, have a swig of this.” Reaching behind his back, he gave his son a waterskin, unlatching the top. Link noticed it wasn’t the waterskin at front of his belt that he usually drank from. “Come on now, we haven’t got all day.”

Link gingerly took a sip from it, reeling from the aftertaste.

“Haha! It’ll do that to you,” his father said. “Alright, show it to me.”

The boy pulled back the sleeve of his olive roughspun tunic, revealing the fresh bruise on his shoulder, just starting to redden.

“It tingles,” Link said. “But it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

The boy’s father smirked. “It’s special water, from a spring deep in the woods. They say it’s got fairy dust mixed in, and it’s handy for pain and wounds.”

“It tastes funny,” Link mumbled, paying little attention, but he drank again.

“Alright, alright! Not too much!” the boy’s father said, taking the waterskin back. “I went through a lot of trouble getting to that spring. Come on, let’s continue.”

“Father, why do we have to do this?” Link groaned. The water healed his shoulder, but the young boy was still tired, and there was yet target practice after this.

Link’s father lost his smile in the wind, and he knelt down to match his son’s height. “Because I fear for you, my boy. You must be able to protect yourself, to not fall in the face of danger. Courage when it matters most.”

Link could only stare back into his father’s eyes, wondering at what he meant.

High in a tower of the decrepit Hyrule Castle stood Princess Zelda, looking over her realm from a small balcony. The sun shone brightly, revealing all from the crags of the Death Mountain Range to the glimmering coasts of the Great Hyrulean Sea and beyond. However, a frown made itself apparent on the princess, and she sighed deeply.

“My princess, what bothers you?” said an old woman, whose voice carried some whimsy. She tended to the hearth in the princess’s chamber, one she had taken up use of recently over the comfort of her former bedroom. The choice baffled the nursemaid, as the coming autumn would keep this place cold, even with the nearby fire. The princess had found her nursemaid’s jovial tone could easily lower her guard, however reluctant she was to yield.

Zelda let loose her tense shoulders. “This sight saddens me, Impa,” she said. “This realm they call a lesser Hyrule was once a grand country, much larger than... this.”

Impa approached the princess. “I know, child.”

“My people have dwindled, either by the division of this country, or that there is little wealth remaining in these lands. The few that have lingered can barely make a living in this petty kingdom.”

The princess looked down below at castle bailey, watching the handful of knights and workers going about their daily duties. She could barely afford to pay them, and some were even volunteers, whose help Zelda graciously accepted despite her shame.

“Your Highness, you shouldn’t speak so little of your country,” Impa said warmly. “Petty kingdom or not, the name of Hyrule remains proud, for it still keeps the greatest treasures of all. No amount of wealth can surpass them.”

“Not ‘them,’ but ‘it’... Were it that I could wield the full ensemble of the Triforce... With but a single wish from my heart’s depths, I could rule Hyrule properly and lead my people to prosperity, like the monarchs of old.”

Impa looked at her princess more closely, seeking to understand.

“I only want to do right by my people, Impa. That means making the right decision, even when it is difficult.” Zelda turned to her nursemaid, with unease weighing heavily in her brow. Impa noticed a glint of light from the back of Zelda’s right hand, which the young princess quickly hid with the other.

“Princess, what have you seen?” Impa asked.

Zelda breathed deeply, looking away for a moment. “An evil will strike this country soon, Impa, I am sure of it. Surely you have heard the rumors? The monsters stalking the wilds are amassing in greater numbers, even stealing weapons and tools from the outer villages in the night. Never before have they acted like this. There are even whispers of certain people consorting with them.”

“It’s certainly odd...” Impa said, maintaining a willful skepticism. “Perhaps Your Highness can arrange for more guards patrolling the roads? To protect the people from monsters, to dissuade dealing with them. But it may require some further thrift here...”

“No mere soldier can protect this land from what is to come, from what I have foreseen. You know of what I mean, Impa.”

“Your Highness, I am not so sure...” Impa said, reluctant to believe she would witness the fabled calamity return in her lifetime.

Zelda again looked back over the remains of her kingdom, lamenting its decline. “The fate of Hyrule will be decided in the very near future, Impa, at a point in time I cannot yet discern past. All else before then, however...” Zelda breathed deeply, trying to stand up straighter, more strongly. “The decision is still difficult.”

Impa’s voice became grave. “What must be done, my princess?”

“Please prepare for an escape from the castle, Impa,” Zelda said. “Not even this place will be safe from the storm.”

Link had begun to get the hang of his father’s training. His eyes could keep up with the wooden sword’s dance now, and his footwork had gotten better, too. This time, they practiced outside their home atop a small hill in the outskirts of their woodland village, with the sun setting behind the western mountains. Link’s mother was preparing thin wooden panels as targets, resisting the itch to practice on them herself before her son would complete his sword training for the day.

“Three, four!” his father said, and Link deftly parried his strikes aside, his green cap bouncing slightly with his movements.

“Five!” he shouted, to Link’s surprise, but the young boy quickly jumped back, evading the blow. Having put too much force behind his swing only to hit air, Link’s father stumbled forward, trying to regain balance. With a smirk, Link then leaped forward, lunging with his wooden sword, and the tip landed squarely on his father’s chest.

“Alright, alright, I yield,” he said, and Link withdrew, cheering a little.

“Link!” his mother called out. “Rest for a moment, and then get your slingshot!” Yet the boy was filled with energy despite the autumn chill, and grabbed the small tool lying aside the log Link’s father sat on.

“Let’s start now, Mother!” he said, pulling on the sling loaded with an acorn.

She sighed in wonder as she attached the target to the clothesline. “Ready?” she said, and then turned the crank on the contraption, attaching more targets as she went. From one end, the wood panels swayed in the air as they were pulled along. Link quickly landed the acorns on three out of four targets, though not very accurately, before they reached the other end of the clothesline.

“What about the fourth, Link?” his father said, taking a drink from his waterskin.

“It’ll do, dear!” his mother replied, watching Link as he looked for acorns that remained intact. “Don’t worry, Link. You’ve gotten good at this very quickly. You’ll be perfect in no time.”

“Can I try again?” Link asked, restless.

His mother laughed. “Of course, of course.”

But as she turned the crank the other way to bring the targets back, a scream was heard from the far side of the village. The three of them turned in its direction immediately, and Link’s father jumped from his seat to get a closer look.

There was a clang of metal, and another scream. Embers caught on another villager’s thatch roof, quickly lighting it ablaze. The piggish roars of moblins were enough to turn Link’s knees to jelly.

“Something’s wrong,” Link’s father said, urgently walking back to the door of their home. “Link! Quickly, now!” he said, and the boy obeyed, following him inside. Moving aside their supper table and the fur pelt beneath it, he revealed a trapdoor blended in with the planks of the floor, and he easily stuffed Link in the tiny space beneath their home.

“But Father!”

“No buts. Stay here and don’t make a sound until you hear me or your mother call for you. Do you understand?”

“It’s for your own safety, Link,” his mother said. “We’ll be back soon, okay?”

Link hesitantly nodded.

His mother took down a short bow from the wall, with simple wooden arrows in a large quiver, while his father pulled a thick club out from behind their bed, larger than the wooden swords they used for training. They wasted no time in shutting the trapdoor and putting the pelt and table back above it before heading out toward the rest of the village.

Link sat in the darkness of the hidden space, trying not to make a sound against the old wood, loose soil, and pebbles he sat against. Soon, the door to their home opened again.

“Mother? Father?” Link whispered, fear forcing still his throat.

He heard a dog-like snarl, and the moblin stomped on the planks of the floor, sniffing around for life. It took all Link had to not yelp in fright as he hugged his knees.

“No one here!” the moblin growled, and Link heard the heavy stamps of its feet leaving the house, and the door slammed shut. Link sighed in relief, but his face shot up when he heard crackling sounds above him. Through the little cracks between the floorboards, he could see an orange light, and Link pounded at the trapdoor above, screaming for his parents. But they weren’t there, and the door would barely budge against the weight of the table.

For a moment, Link despaired at his weakness, wailing in pain from throwing his forearms against the dirt wall. None of the training he endured had prepared him for this, nor made him stronger than his ten-year-old body. He cried at his powerlessness, at not knowing what to do.

In a moment between his deep breaths, he remembered his father’s words, muffling the sound of everything else, just for an instant.

Courage when it matters most.

Link found strength in his legs, and again he pushed up against the trapdoor, managing to open it just a little. A flicker of fell light and smoke threatened his focus. With the full weight of the table above him, Link could barely move it any further than a foot, but then he heard a thud behind him. Something on the table fell off, and then another, and Link pushed harder than before, every fiber of his muscles screaming. With a final push and his foot now against the edge of the floor above, he threw the trapdoor back and leapt out from the darkness.

With the support beams of his house’s roof collapsing, Link slammed his weight against the burning door, dashing right through, sustaining a few burns on his hand and legs, while the loose threads of his shirt and tunic singed away. By now, much of the rest of the village was on fire, homes and trees alike, covering the red sky in a thick smoke. Sparing no time to think or catch his breath, Link grabbed his slingshot and his wooden sword, and ran toward the village.

“Mother! Father! Where are you?” he called out as he neared the center of the village, its houses all ablaze, its people running, fighting, and dying.

A young girl screamed as she scampered past Link, holding her stuffed doll tightly in her arms, both of them bearing little burns. Removing its weapon from the body of a village defender, a moblin gave chase, prepared to throw its spear at her.

“No!” Link yelled, and swung his wooden sword hard and low, catching the fiend on its ankle. It tripped, landing face-first into the dirt. The girl kept running, unaware she was safe for the moment, while the moblin growled as it got up and picked up its spear, now focused on Link.

The young swordsman jumped back, grasping his wooden sword in both hands. He raised it up for a high strike, and he felt it pulsate in his arms. The moblin charged at him, its spear aimed straight for the boy. Link only planted his feet and grit his teeth, and at the last second he jumped to the right and swung his sword down and forward to meet the fiend, landing the tip right on its unarmored head. The wooden sword erupted with a burst of rainbow light, and the moblin was thrown back, limp and lifeless.

Some distance away, another moblin roared “Blood for the king!”

“Blood for the king!” others yelled in unison.

Link was thoroughly winded from the blast, and as he confusedly regained his breath, he noticed his wooden sword was cracked and split in parts.

“There are more on the other side of the building!” he heard ahead. It was his mother’s voice.

“Mother!” he yelled, but got no response. Link quickly picked up the shield from the fallen defender, strapping it to his right arm as he ran forward.

Ahead, Link’s parents were engaged with a duo of moblins; his father quickly evaded the strikes of their spears, while his mother drew another arrow, aiming for their heads.

“Keep them still!” she said, narrowly evading the thrown spear of a moblin.

“I’m trying!” Link’s father yelled, bashing the now-unarmed moblin in the head. In close quarters, he attacked the other, and the moblin had no choice but to defend.

“Father! Mother!” Link called out.

“Link?” his father said, and the moment of distraction was enough for the moblin to overpower the man, its hooved foot kicking him back, undoubtedly breaking his ribs.

“No!” his wife screamed. On the ground, Link’s father then brandished a knife from his belt and plunged it deep into the upper leg of the moblin, ripping through flesh as he wrenched it back out. Link’s mother loosed an arrow through the moblin’s eye, and it fell back, frozen in its stunned pose. With great difficulty, Link’s father got up, barely able to breathe and unable to hold the large club he had wielded.

“Link, I told you to stay home...”

“I want to help!” he yelled loudly in defiance.

“Link,” his mother said, running to him, “it’s not safe here.”

“It wasn’t safe at home! They burned it down!”

As Link’s father tried to approach them, holding his chest in pain, they heard roars on the other side of the buildings, through the crackling flame.

“More, more!”

“Blood for the king!”

Gasping, Link’s mother’s eyes darted around for assailants.

“Look at you,” Link’s father said, still some distance away, pushing against his forward leg for support. “My boy, my brave fighter—”

A spear slashed through his back, and a dog-faced moblin roared in victory, now pointing its weapon at the young boy straight ahead.

“No!” Link’s mother screamed, pulling him along by the arm, and running off as quickly as her legs could take her, as much as Link tried standing his ground.

“Blood for the king!” yelled the moblin as its spear sped through the air, and Link’s mother stumbled, falling with him tight in her arms.

Wresting himself out of her grasp, Link then threw the wooden sword with all of his might at the head of the charging moblin, its splintered and broken shaft knocking the creature out cold.

“Mother, come on,” he said, turning back to her, but his eyes were caught on the spear that had torn through her back.

“Link... You must run...” she forced out with the last of her breath, and the life faded away from her eyes, like wind through flowers.

Link, speechless with tears burning his eyes, screamed at the open sky. But the moblins were not yet finished. A handful of them remained, all gathering near the body of Link’s father, pointing their spears at him. One spiraled through the air right past him, landing and getting stuck in the ground. Something spurred Link’s legs to run, dashing away from the rain of the moblins’ spears and their stomping charge, running back home without a second thought.

His home was now entirely aflame, and part of the structure had collapsed. Frozen for a moment with wide eyes and the roars of moblins behind him, he grabbed the second wooden sword, once his father’s, and kept running. Over the hill and through the thick forest, Link ignored the burning in his legs and lungs, and kept running.

There was a banging at the castle’s gates, and the young Princess Zelda watched from above as scores of moblins kept throwing themselves into it with battering rams. An accident involving their crude bombs had dented the moblins’ numbers, but with the sheer amount of their recently arrived reinforcements, Hyrule Castle’s garrison had little hope beyond maintaining its defense of the wall. Hidden in the upper parapets, the wall’s few archers could properly hold their positions and pick their enemies off one by one, and the knights and fighters skillfully ambushed the ladder-climbing moblins, knocking them back and letting gravity handle destroying their poorly made tools. But the garrison’s supply of arrows would eventually run out, and the swordsmen just couldn’t keep up with all of the moblins coming for them.

“Blood for the king!” the beasts chanted. Together they would all stamp on the hopes of Hyrule’s last guardians.

“Set up the barricades!” the knight captain yelled, and others brought out what few they had to defend entrances to the keep both above the ramparts and down in the bailey. There was an explosion behind them on the other side of the keep, however, along with the screams of the handful of soldiers defending that position.

“No!” the knight captain yelled, his hand grasping his sword too tightly. “You all must hold this place at all cost, I must go—”

“You must stay where you are, Captain,” he heard in the far back of his mind. “That dark fiend is beyond you and all your soldiers. I will deal with it in time.”

He looked up to the keep’s tower, and though he could not see his princess, he knew she watched.

“I will stay here,” the knight captain said, raising his sword to his face, his eyes looking past its edges. “On my honor as a knight of Hyrule, I will smite the enemy of this land and protect my charge with my very life.”

With renewed strength, the captain led a forward push against the invading moblins, and together with his remaining soldiers, he cut through them with great speed and accuracy. His lovingly polished steel armor shone with a red gleam, and the weaker assailants were thrown back, awestruck when their spears would do little to harm him. While others went to deal with the ladder moblins at the ramparts, the captain faced those just now breaking through the front gate of the outer wall. He knew that the princess and the Triforce of Wisdom she wielded would see things right, and if he were to die on this battlefield, it would not be in vain so long as she lived.

Zelda above watched as her knights fought in spite of their dwindling numbers. “The stage is almost set. Impa, have you finished the preparations?”

“Your Highness,” Impa said, “I have readied our flight from the castle.” Her heart raced a bit too much for her old age. “But what was that sound?”

“It was an explosion, Impa. Their king has gained entry to our deepest vaults.”

“Princess... No! That is where...” Impa stopped herself upon noticing Zelda’s unchanging expression, as if it was something she expected to happen.

“Yes, Impa. Whether it is fate-designed, or pure happenstance that allowed this, I cannot say that it was a surprise. Or perhaps it was my weakness in not bearing the full Triforce as my ancestors did that allowed for this to come to pass.”

Impa would have scolded her were it not for the situation surrounding them.

“It matters not. He will be here soon. I have one more task to fulfill, but before that, you must escape the castle before he arrives.”

Impa’s eyes widened. “My princess! No, I cannot leave without you!”

“Impa, you must. The escape was never meant for me.”

“I will not leave you here to be left to the Demon King’s whims! The fate of Hyrule rests on your shoulders, Your Highness. So long as you live, Hyrule will survive, it can be wrought anew! Princess Zelda, you are Hyrule!”

“Nay, Impa. The fate of Hyrule is a shared burden. In this light, I require of you a mission, my faithful nursemaid.”

Unease forced Impa’s back to tighten, but she bowed all she could nonetheless. “What shall I do, Your Highness?”

“Seek someone of great skill and bravery, Impa. One whose shoulders can bear this weight. One with the will to save Hyrule.”

Impa breathed deeply, contemplating her mission. “I understand, my princess.”

“Now go, my dear Impa. We are running out of time.”

Impa’s feet were reluctant to move, but she bit her tongue and steeled her heart, and soon made for the lower hidden corridors of the castle. The castle’s few servants had gathered near the concealed exit, waiting for Zelda and Impa to flee together from the evil king’s wrath, but they would not see their princess this one last time.

Zelda returned to the balcony to observe the battle. Of the castle’s garrison, only the knight captain still remained. Though his breaths and sword were heavy, he stood against the advancing enemy, ignoring all notions of tire and pain. The horde of moblins assembled around him, readying their spears to skewer the armored man to the door. He gathered his breath once again, raised his shield, and dug his feet into the ground.

“As I still draw breath, you will not enter this castle.”

“Choke him!”

“Trample on his throat!”

One moblin thrust its spear at the captain, but he easily deflected it with his shield and ran his sword through the moblin’s neck in one swift motion.

Then he heard thundering footsteps, coming from the other side of the wall. Even the moblins trembled at first, but soon a laughter erupted amongst them. There was a pounding on the other side of the still-shut front gate, undoubtedly the moblins trying once again to break through with a battering ram. But they were hushed with a single swipe, which the captain felt rend the air.

In an instant, the stout gate of Hyrule Castle was smashed to a thousand pieces, the fist of the demon standing at its threshold burning with a fell flame. It looked to be a pig-faced moblin, with its flat snout, fangs too big to keep in its mouth, and bearing dried skulls and spoils of war, but the similarities stopped there. Its hide was shaded in a skin-crawling blue, it had thick horns sprouting from its head though they were now broken, and even hunched it was much larger than its footsoldiers. Stowing its broad trident over its back, it cracked its knuckles, and behind the deeply dark flame wreathed around its hand, the knight captain could make out a faint light, its shape all too familiar to any servant of the Royal Family of Hyrule.

“Princess!” the knight captain cried out.

“Worry not, Captain,” he heard in his mind. “I remain unharmed.”

“But the ancient relic! The treasure of your family! No, why are you still here?” he said back to her.

“I could not find the will to wield it myself, for fear of what I would become with its power. You may rue me if you want, Captain.”

The captain’s shoulders dropped, watching the demon ahead stare him down. “No, my princess, I will not,” he said, “for I was too foolhardy to heed your warnings.”

In his weariness and the heat of the battlefield, he remembered the words the princess gave him before the siege, as he and his soldiers kept to their vigil.

“I ask that you flee as well, Captain, for I fear the might of this invading army and the one who leads it,” Princess Zelda had said. “Please, Captain, your defense here will be sure death.”

“Your Highness, my soldiers and I will defend the keep to make sure you and the others can escape to seek someplace safe.”

“And if I call upon your oaths to serve me, your ruling princess, without question nor defiance?”

“Then I would beg your forgiveness, for I am set on this path. I ask that you allow me this honor of protecting you. Once I know you have successfully escaped with your treasures, my princess, I will retreat with whomever I can. My soldiers are aware of this plan, and will act on it should you approve.” Though the captain’s eyes were elsewhere.

Zelda lamented this thread of fate, for she knew what the captain did not. “Captain, with great reluctance do I give you my approval, for I know that I cannot defeat fate... But I ask that you use this for your protection.” She presented to him a little ring made of a silver-red band bearing a dull garnet stone; a trinket to most people’s eyes. But he knew this was a preserved magic treasure of Hyrule Castle, to be kept for the assistance of the hero of legend.

The captain smiled, accepting it. “I only do this to protect you, Your Highness. I know that you will be a good queen one day.”

The hazy memory faded away, and Zelda shed a tear remembering it herself. Now, the captain stood alone against the dark fiend, this purported ‘Demon King,’ and its army of beasts.

“So this is how it ends,” the captain said, tightly gripping his sword and shield.

“I will stay with you to the end, my dear captain,” he heard, and it was warm.

The dark fiend’s hand flared again with its wicked flame, and the golden light that appeared under it radiated enough for him to see clearly. The fiend grabbed the knight, its hulking hand wrenching through his steel breastplate, right past the protective red light. Soon it collapsed, and the knight’s ribcage shattered entirely. Still holding him, the snarling fiend placed its forefinger over the knight’s head, and clenched its fist one last time.

With unreal strength, the fiend broke right through the gate to the castle’s keep, leading the moblin army with heavy footsteps that shook the building’s foundations. Though the princess had foreseen this outcome, with each time she felt the shock in her knees and spine, she couldn’t help but be frightened.

But the princess knew she had to perform her duty, even at her own expense. Her mind called out to Impa’s, and gave the nursemaid her final orders.

Zelda fortified her heart, raising her right hand forward, and the light Impa once saw on the back of the princess’s hand shone again. The intense light dimmed for a moment to reveal a marking – three perfect triangles joined in unison at their points to make one greater triangle. The triangle of the bottom-left gleamed more strongly than the other two, before the full marking dimmed completely. Zelda turned her hand, raising the palm high, and produced a single triangle, one that appeared immaculately carved from shimmering, unblemished gold.

Grasping the triangle in her hand, she clenched tight her fingers around it, yelping in pain. With great difficulty and searing pain in her very core, Zelda broke the golden triangle, light pouring from its cracks. It shattered into eight pieces, and Zelda struggled to walk back out to the balcony. The moblin army still stationed outside could not see her, nor would their shoddy bows and arrows reach her. Mustering what she could of her magic, the princess let loose the triangle fragments into the sky, each wreathed with a blinding blue light as they flew like missiles to different spots around her kingdom.

Traveling through a hidden clearing in the woods, Impa and the other servants watched as they soared through the dusk sky, and the elderly nursemaid’s heart sank as she came to understand the princess’s plan. Soon, a wandering detachment of moblins spotted them under the starlight. Against the sways of her heart, Impa split off to fulfill her duty. Despite that, most of the moblins roared and chased the servants, and a few followed Impa. With heavy breaths and weary bones, she ran for the hills.

At the tallest tower of Hyrule Castle, the dark fiend effortlessly broke through the door of Zelda’s chamber, and with a raised hand, a glowing barrier formed over the smashed doorway. The moblins looked on, touching the barrier in wonder, as the Demon King and Princess Zelda stood opposite each other.

“Say my name,” said the king.

“Ganon,” replied Princess Zelda.

“You know who I am. Then you know why I am here.”

“Yes, I know. You’re here to claim the Triforce.”

“What times Hyrule has fallen into, that the Triforce is unwhole.”

Zelda betrayed a hint of annoyance, and Ganon’s fanged mouth smirked.

“How do you feel, Princess, having watched me utterly decimate your forces? Knowing you never had a chance to stand against my army? My own power?”

“Your power is scarcely your own, Ganon. You have stolen a piece of the Triforce from me. Along with that arrow and many more things, I see.”

“What, this tiny needle?” He removed the arrow from his satchel, holding it by the shaft, carefully avoiding the silver arrowhead. “I know not what it is. It was kept in your vault, so it must have some value. Perhaps I’ll pick my teeth with it.”

“Despite bearing golden might, the blight they called Ganon was also known for his cunning and trickery.” She knew Ganon could tell the silver arrow was crafted as a weapon against him, blessed with moonlight in the hopes it would repel evil. He placed it back into the satchel, along with the little gold and rupees pilfered from the vault, and the red ring taken from the body of the knight captain. “Though perhaps little of your scheming mind remains, having revived as many times as you have. Maybe once this happens again, you will end up a slimy thing, struggling to even stand.”

Ganon growled. “Do not think I will leave these foul tools here for your hero to claim. Oh yes, Princess, I know. Each and every time I have risen, in turn you raised the hero against me. I expect to meet him soon. It is only a matter of time. May I kill him in the cradle.”

Zelda showed an inkling of sorrow. “How could I have raised a hero, with my kingdom as weak as it is now? Perhaps this will be the time you win and break our cycle, Ganon.”

He roared in laughter. “Tell me, Princess, why did you not wield the Triforce of Power yourself? You knew I was coming for you, for it. You could have taken it in your hand to rule over this lesser Hyrule and beyond. You could have used it to destroy me on the battlefield, and none of your soldiers would be dead. Your knight would still live.”

“Do you think I would bandy such words with a foul creature like you?”

“Entertain me, Princess. You have done so up until now. Why stop?”

Every minute she could scrounge for Impa’s flight was precious, but in truth Zelda wanted not to speak of this, least of all with Ganon.

“I would not wield the Triforce of Power in fear of what it would make me. I arm myself with wisdom, so that I can discern what is right and what is wrong... and what will come to pass. With the Triforces of Wisdom and Power, I would see my country restored to its classical splendor, but I may also become a wrathful queen... And when I see your wretched and vile existence, Ganon, I fear it all the more.”

“You fear power would outweigh your ruler’s wisdom... You are scared witless to act as any ruler must. And without the third to complete it, you cannot make your wish upon the Triforce,” Ganon said, his toothy grin curving hideously. “Then give it to me, my Zelda.” He outstretched his massive clawed hand.

“You? The one called ‘Demon King’? I would sooner fling myself from this tower than give it to you, foul beast.”

“Then do so. I would claim the Triforce of Wisdom from your lifeless corpse. Princess, me having left you alive the moment I entered this room was mere courtesy, from ruler to ruler. As much of a dung heap this country has now become, I have come to respect you in some little way for defying me so many times. Give to me your share of the Triforce, and I will give you your life, to live the rest of your pitiful days in Hyrule’s carcass.”

With her head down and eyes closed, Zelda began to smile, seemingly resigned to her fate.

“You know this is the only way you get to live. Your Wisdom will show you.”

Zelda raised her head and met Ganon’s stare, and her smile became wry.

He growled. “Princess... Where is the Triforce of Wisdom?”

“It is gone. I no longer bear its light.”

“WHERE IS THE TRIFORCE?!”

“Not even I know, Ganon.”

“YOU LIE!”

“I have broken my piece into many pieces and scattered them around my country. It may take you a long time to find them, even if you knew where to start. But wisdom you do not have.”

He roared again, and the floor beneath him cracked. “Foul, despicable girl! I will kill you! I swear it! I will kill you worse than your puny knight!” Ganon’s hand glowed with the mark of the Triforce, its upper triangle of the three shining most brightly.

Zelda’s knees almost buckled.

“Stay your hand, demon. You will not kill me.”

“Do you mean to test me?!”

“I am the only one who can divine where the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom have become hidden. Kill me, and you lose your fastest way to acquiring it.”

“I can wait,” he snarled. “I have become very patient.”

“Do you expect to gather them all before the hero comes for you?”

“You admit it, then? You have raised a hero to defy me?”

“Nay, I admit that I have not. But I doubt you want to wait long enough to see one rise on their own, Ganon.”

“Vile, wretched princess. Your own existence disgusts me. Long have the people of Hyrule enjoyed the bounty of their land. You can imagine how happy I was to see how you all now suffer in this waste of a land, like mine. Fine then, Princess. You can play your little game of rebellion against me. Divine for me these cursed places where you have hidden the Triforce of Wisdom. When it rests complete and whole in my hand, I will claim your skull as the price for your childish defiance.”

Ganon clenched his glowing fist and a crystal prism formed around Zelda, trapping her in the fiend’s clutches. With the princess and her family’s treasures in tow, Ganon and his army left Hyrule Castle and marched for his base at Death Mountain.

Impa had been running almost nonstop for hours, and by the time the sun began to rise, she was all but exhausted. She found herself in a clearing outside the forest, near a low plateau by the kingdom’s southern borders. The nursemaid’s old body hurt beyond belief and capacity, but with the moblins having not given up on the chase, she could not spare much time for rest.

As she sat against a tree to catch her breath, only a few minutes passed before she heard rustling from within the trees. Impa groaned in pain and worry, with beads of sweat falling from her brow as the stomps and growls of moblins approached.

“Oh, Princess, I don’t know if I can do the mission you gave me... Forgive me for my weakness, sweet child...”

The very moment one of the moblins stepped out from the thicket into the clearing, something zoomed through the air, hitting one in the eye. In throes of pain, the moblin unwittingly slashed at the other three. More projectiles zoomed through the air as a boy holding a slingshot jumped out from a tree, continually readying new shots.

“There! Kill the runt!”

Two moblins flung their spears at the boy, who dodged one and deflected the other with his small shield. Loosing another acorn at the eyes of a moblin, the boy’s already-worn slingshot broke, and he threw it away before drawing his wooden sword, also battered and cracked. Swift as the wind, he dove into the thrashing pile of moblins, throwing them all back with a spin of his sword. Impa gasped in awe as she watched the boy fight. One would think a child would scream, hold their head, and run when faced with a moblin, a devilish and ever meat-hungry forest beast often mentioned in stories meant to make the children behave. Yet this boy fought unwaveringly with four moblins armed and trained for feral warfare. Impa thought the boy moved like a green flash, watching him whittle each of them down with the strikes of his sword.

The last of the four moblins, a larger blue-skinned kind, got in a lucky strike with its spear, cutting past the boy’s sleeve and skin. Still, he held his shield and his sword, almost snapped in half at this point, to face the fiend. It roared, putting all its force behind a quick thrust. But the boy deflected it to the side and jumped forward before using his shield to bash in the side of the moblin’s knee, and it fell. The boy then tightly grasped the hilt of what remained of his wooden sword, and smashed it into the moblin’s head. Any life that remained in the moblin was now gone, and the wooden sword was now broken, little of it remaining past the guard. After a moment of contemplation, the boy cast it aside.

“Young boy,” Impa called out weakly, coughing.

He turned, staring at the small old lady sitting against the tree.

“Come here... Quickly, please.” Impa slowly tried to stand, and when she almost fell, the boy ran to support her, and he gave her his waterskin to drink from. There wasn’t much, and Impa had not expected she would drink it all. Still, it rejuvenated her, and pain slowly left her body, though she was still weary. “What a good lad you are...”

The boy kept silent, focusing on carrying the small woman forward where she wanted to go. He squeezed out the last drops of the fairy water over the wound on his arm, and it stung and steamed as it closed shut.

“I am Impa, servant of Princess Zelda. She needs your help.”

The boy inhaled sharply when he heard the name. Though his home was a few miles from the Kingdom of Hyrule’s official borders, he had seen the few soldiers the castle had when they were on their regular patrols around the region, and he knew of the attack on Hyrule Castle. Though he had never seen the princess, his parents had sometimes talked about the state of the kingdom and the overall Hyrule region.

My parents...

Though Impa remained quiet waiting for a response, some semblance of acknowledgement, the boy’s thoughts trailed off in remembering his mother and father. Yes, he had to escape his house to live, but if he hadn’t called out to them, distracted them in battle, revealed their position to the moblins, perhaps they...

“Young boy? Surely you aren’t deaf.”

His mouth frowning tightly, the boy turned to face Impa and shook his head.

“Dear me,” she sighed in some mixture of worry and relief. “I must ask your forgiveness, boy, but Princess Zelda and this land of Hyrule need your help. I fear I must believe you are its best hope. Please, will you at least tell me your name?”

The boy felt as if his throat was bound in fetters. He managed to utter something with some difficulty, as if he was remembering himself.

“Link.”

“Oh my, a strong name. I will not have to call you the boy who hides in trees,” Impa said, laughing to herself.

Link carried her to the edge of the plateau, and she sat again, breathing deeply. Together they faced the remains of the kingdom, from the Death Mountain Range in the northwest and the Great Hyrulean Sea in the far east. Though the plateau wasn’t very high, they could see much of it clearly. The Lost Woods, Lake Hylia, Spectacle Rock upon Death Mountain itself... Some thought these grandiose names were all Hyrule had to remember its former glory.

“The princess is... in Ganon’s clutches, the one called ‘Demon King,’” Impa said, but her words were unsure and very pained. “To keep it out of his possession, she has broken a treasure most vital to Hyrule’s peace, its heart. It is the Triforce of Wisdom, a triangle of gold, now split apart in eight pieces.”

Link nodded, remembering the lights he saw the night before.

“I am not entirely sure of pieces’ locations, but there are many strongholds throughout the kingdom. They are older than even me, but they were well built... some even hidden by magic, to be used in the defense of this country. I am sure the princess has hidden the pieces of the Triforce within their depths. But the strongholds themselves have been in disuse for ages... There is talk of monsters and other evils having taken up residence.”

Impa was surprised, yet joyed nonetheless to see Link’s glare remain steady.

“You must recover the Triforce of Wisdom, both to keep it out of Ganon’s hands, and to save Zelda from him. For Ganon has taken its counterpart, the Triforce of Power. Without Zelda’s treasure, you cannot hope to battle with the Demon King. Link... I know not if I can trust you with the princess’s mission, but please, you must help.”

With his brow heavy, Link only nodded.

A smile formed on Impa’s face, but strength began to leave the old woman’s eyes.

“I leave it to you... Please, save Zelda... Save Hyrule...”

Impa lightly fell to the side, and Link gasped, but when he heard her snore, he knew it was alright. Just below them at the foot of the plateau, Link saw a person, an old man, who had seemingly been watching them. The old man turned back, hobbling into a cave of which the entrance Link could barely see. Doing what he could to lift Impa over his back, he carried the old woman down a pathway leading below, and took her into the cave.

With the cave illuminated by fires in two pots, the old man sat against the rear wall, with some scavenged provisions and a walking stick at his side. He looked upon Link warily as the boy laid Impa down against the cave wall.

“I saw enough of what happened, young boy,” the old man said. “You’re quite skilled, I have to admit. I can watch over the lady until she wakes. But I don’t have much in the way of provision here myself, and I don’t know if I’ll last so long anyway.” Link noticed some spots of red in the cave floor, and a bloodied rag wrapped around his leg.

Link nodded and turned to leave.

“Wait!” the old man yelled. “It’s dangerous out there. There are those pigs lurking about, but more creatures have come out from the trees, down from the mountains. You’re one boy, all alone. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but there’s a weapon, right over there, if you need it...”

Link turned to see a moblin’s spear off to the side, its head carved from animal bone. Link’s lip curled in unhidden disgust, and he shook his head.

“I see... Then, the only other thing I have left is this. Take it.”

The old man pulled from behind him a sheathed sword, holding it out as Link approached and took the weapon from his hands. Keeping an eye on the old man, he unsheathed the sword carefully; it was an old thing, rusted in parts, but still serviceable. Link swung it lightly a few times to get a feel for its weight before putting it back in its scabbard and strapping it to his tunic’s belt.

The old man smiled. “I’m sorry, that’s all I’ve got. And someone so young shouldn’t wield a sword so easily... It is less a boon than it is a burden.”

Link’s heavy stare met the old man again.

“But I suppose you already knew. I’ll keep you in my prayers, boy. Should I live, perhaps I’ll hope to see you again.”

Link took another look at Impa before leaving the cave. Back outside, he turned to face the cave, and took another look around him. In the far distances, he saw a cluster of tektites to the west, and more octoroks to the east and north.

He knew not why he had accepted Impa’s request so readily. He knew little of Princess Zelda, had no deep love for Hyrule. He could leave this place if he wanted to, and anyone in their right mind would. But even though the hate he bore for Ganon and his minions still burned strong, part of him felt compelled to do this task out of some duty.

“O brave hero,” Link heard. It was faint, far-off yet still close. “O brave hero, venture north. The great lake, you will find the first piece you seek. Save Hyrule.”

No longer alone, Link grasped his sword tightly, and took his first steps into the wild.

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