#also random guess but he and legend will split for the dungeon to go find their different boomerangs

[luna-loveboop]

HYRULE

YOU

STOP BEING AS FAST AS EVERYONE AROUND YOU HYRULE

IT DOESNT END WELL

HYRULE

...Ya know of all the people to suddenly be forced into teamwork, I wasn't expecting it to manifest into 'Hyrule repeatedly having and carrying out the exact same thoughts as the person next to him in a destructive way'

Art by Jojo @linkeduniverse I love it I love it I love it

:)

[jinmukangwrites]

For the writing prompts, how about Link with song number 79? (Any link of your choosing)

Or if you'd prefer, a Batman character with that same number?

1-100+character ask meme

Flags - Coldplay

Shocking how well this song fits with the boys :D

Also, the scene in my head took longer to write than 5 minutes, so enjoy 15 minutes and minimal editing

---

Wild's hands were trembling.

Trembling, and not even over anything important.

It wasn't uncommon for the chain to stumble into caves and puzzles, it was more uncommon for the group to deem the sporadic miniature dungeons unworthy of their time and to walk away from them.

He huffed, throwing the tiles he had been trying to line into little grooves across the small room. He could hear Twilight and Legend chatting the next room over, voices excited as they figured out their own puzzles. Splitting had seemed like a great idea, that was, until Wild found himself with a puzzle that should form some sort of pattern than he couldn't figure out. He was blunt forcing it at this point, and each time he heard the others solving their own one by one, it only served to make him more frustrated.

He wasn't dumb, he wasn't bad these types of things, but most puzzles he'd frequented in his own era had to do with things he already knew. This was random, no explanations, and no rules. Just tiles, with symbols, waiting to be placed in grooves.

He placed his chin in his hands and huffed, trying to get ahold of himself, glaring at the grooves in the wall. Five grooves. Five different symbols on five tiles.

He heard footsteps come behind him. Twilight. He'd finished his puzzle and came to find others who were stuck. Of course Wild was the first one he'd come to.

"Why are the tiles over here, and not in your hands?"

"I'm thinking," Wild snapped.

Twilight sighed, the sound of clinking hardened clay echoing across the room as he picked up the mess he had thrown. Wild supposed he was lucky none of them broke.

"An owl, a heart, a rupee, a sword, a whale," Twilight mused, looking through the clay and sitting down next to Wild. "Place them in the walls, unlock the door. No hints, you got a rough one."

"Thought it had to do with us, maybe," Wild said. "But I don't know who the heart, rupee, or sword could be. Time is the owl, and Legend is the whale."

"Hmm. Heart, could be Sky. He has a lot of it. Rupee... I would guess Legend, but he's clearly the whale, so I'd say... Wind? He loves his treasures. And the sword, Warriors, he swings it better than anyone. If we assume timeline order... Heart, Owl... Oh, it's impossible to tell if Wind or Legend came first, but Sword would be last..."

"I've been going at this for years, I don't think it's that. It's too specific to us anyway."

"You may be right," Twilight hummed. "Y'know, why don't you go find Hyrule for me, I bet he could help. I'll mull it over, I believe Hyrule was hanging out at the mouth of the cave."

Wild was too frustrated to argue, he felt sick and angry at needing help. He supposed it felt a little better that Twilight wasn't figuring it out right away...

He ran to the mouth, and he was disappointed to find Hyrule wasn't there. He huffed, glaring at the walls surrounding him. He wasn't good at this. Caves weren't for puzzles anyways, they were for getting dirt under your nails while you searched every cranny for a single glorified frog monster. They were mazes not-

A sword.

He ran to the wall, running his hands over a carving right in the entrance way. A sword.

Breath in his throat, he ran further down the cave. THERE! Under the torch, a heart. And further down... A whale. The rupee. The owl.

One by one, carved down the length of the caves main hallway.

He sprinted back to Twilight, grabbing the tiles from his hands and spotting them into the wall one at a time, in order, of how he encounterd them. The second the final piece was slotted, mechanisms whirred to life, and the locked door on the other side of the room opened with a chime. Wild hooted, turning as round to see Twilight... smiling up at him with a barely disguised knowing look.

Wild felt his joy drop. "You knew they were on the cave walls..."

"Random symbols in places like this are hardly random. I didn't notice them right away, it was Legend who told me the order after the fact, just in case either of us found the puzzle corresponding."

Wild wilted a little. "Oh."

Twilight shrugged, standing up and brushing off his pants. "Some of us are more used to winding puzzles, ending up at the beginning for something you need at the end. Some of us have more straight forward things, unlocking each new step the further you go. It's ok that you missed it, it's always okay to go back."

"But you guys didn't miss it..."

"You're not us, kid," Twilight said, walking over to the opened door and poking his head inside. He hummed, sounding reluctant. "And we're not you. We all have different strengths, and it's what makes us who we are... It makes you you. Anyways, how do you feel with mini boss battles? This rooms shaped like a colosseum and I'm willing to bet the second we walk in, the other gates are opening and we'll be in moblin and chuchu central. I suck at these hack and slash-"

Wild was already running in, grinning.

[luimagines]

He reacts to seeing you Sick/Wounded Part 3

Final part of the prompt below!

Masterlist

First Part Previous Part

Scenario under the cut!

Four

Four starts looking through Wind’s borrowed telescope at the monster below them and tries to search for weak points and guard trails. There’s a good number of them, at least two per person here but they’re closer to the town than anyone anywhere is comfortable with so they have to go.

“AHHHCHOOO!!”

Multiple monsters look in your direction.

“Will you keep it down?” Legend snapped. “Sneeze a little louder next time, I don’t the monsters in the back heard you.”

“I’m not trying to be loud.” You sniffle and furiously wipe your face. “There’s got be something in the air here. I’m not allergic period. This just isn’t like me.”

Four nods in agreement and takes his eyes away from the telescope. He hands it back to Wind, who eagerly takes his spot and makes his way toward you.

In all honesty, you look miserable. And have since that morning.

You’re constantly sneezing, your nose and eyes are red and blotchy and it goes out to cheeks. You’ve been blowing your nose on random leaves since you’ve run out of tissues earlier that day and it continuously seems to be plugged despite it all. You also seem to be shivering ever so slightly but you never made any mention of being cold.

Four frowns to himself and pokes your neck, only to startled into placing his whole hand there. You’re covered in a cold sweat but warm despite the temperature outside.

“What the heck Four?” You knock his hand away and take a step back.

“I think you’re sick.” He blurts with as much grace a bull in a china shop.

“I’m no-” You cut yourself off with a cough this time. It’s so strong that you bend over and fall to your butt on the ground with barely any time in between to catch your breath.

“Benched.” Time turns on his heel and points you back the way you came. “Go back to the town. You’re not fit to fight.”

You whimper after the cough attack and nod, getting to your feet. Four doesn’t like the idea of you going back alone but he knows his friends need the numbers to take the monsters down fast enough, so he doesn’t offer for a moment. He tries to come to a decision before they make any more moves without him but Time speaks again.

“Four. Go with them. Make sure they actually make it to the town.” Time commands and turns to the rest of the group. “We’re going to need fire power.”

Four catches Warrior and Wild grin manically. “Leave it to us!”

“You had to say something.” Four snickers at Twilight misfortune and jogs slightly to catch up with you.

You’re still trying to wipe at your face with your sleeve and it leaves a trail of snot and tears on the fabric.

It’s a bit disgusting....Ok, it’s super gross and it makes Four want to gag somewhat but he’ll let you have it.

Being sick is gross. He’s just got to make sure your clothes are washed when it passes.

“Four?” You call.

He perks up and speeds up to fall in line with your steps. “I’m here.”

You look at him for a moment and sniffle again. “ ’m sorry you got sent back with me. You looked excited to take some monsters down.” 

“I’m...” Four looked to the side and tried to find the right words to talk to you. “I mean, I’ll live with it. I’m not that disappointed to be honest. I was thinking of joining you anyway. It didn’t feel right for you head out on your own.”

“But you want to support the others.” You argue. “I could see it. You had to think about it.”

“Ok well-”

“There’s a lot of them out there, isn’t there?” You press and frown to yourself. “A lot of monsters that are going to take all their hands and then some to be taken down and I get sent back and you have to come with me-”

“Ok, hold up.” Four grabs your bicep and shakes it a little. “Slow that down. It’s not like you asked to get sick. I know just as much you do that we’d both rather be up there with them. That’s a given. But you need to take care of yourself as well and I don’t mind being with you anyway.”

You push your mouth to the side and don’t look at him. “I better not get you sick.”

Four snorts ever so slightly and moves his hand from you arm to your hand, lacing your fingers together and swinging them ever so slightly. He knows you don’t want him to see the smile on your face when he does so but it’s your reaction every time.

“While I doubt it’ll happen, you’ll take care of me if I do get sick, right?”

“Always.” 

Warrior

They were in a new area this time. Warrior can’t recognize the landscape or the town’s names as they pass so he’s content to let someone else take the lead for a change.

The town’s people had mentioned a sealed temple of sorts that hadn’t been used in ages. Bad things had been happening in the area so they were advised to steer clear.

Naturally they had to go check it out.

Don’t leave no stone unturned and all that jazz.

If anything, it sounds more like a dungeon at this point so he’s a bit excited to get some practice in. 

Warrior walks near the front of the group and lets outa whistle when the reach their goal.

It a large dark blue building with three spiraling towers in a triangle-fecta with multiple columns around the front of it, acting as a sort of imposing gate. The columns themselves are full of grotesque monstrous faces, which are realistic enough to cause some discomfort amongst the ranks. 

“Oh, we’re going to be here for hours.” Legend groans and tilts his head to the sky. “Maybe even days! Why are here again?”

“To eradicate evil before it grows beyond it’s borders.” Time take a breath and walks forward. “The people are afraid and it’s our job to put an end to it.”

Warrior can agree with that, it’s what the hero does after all. Fine print and all that.

But you make a small whimper from behind him and turns around to see you. You don’t pleased one bit with your arms crossed and your head down. “I don’t like this place.”

Right. Not a Link. This technically isn’t in your job description, unlike them.

“You could wait out here?” Wild offers. Warrior remembers that they’re alike in a  away with the lack of experience with dungeons and wonders if maybe either one of them can stay back as well. Surely, they don’t all have to go in, do they?

Sky grins good naturally and punches you gently on your shoulder. “You good?”

“This whole place feels wrong.” You reply. “Do we have to go through there?”

“It’s because it feels wrong that we have to go in.” Hyrule shrugs. “We have to make it better.”

“If we find loot inside, it’s just a bonus.” Wind bounces up to you with grin.

“What’s the problem? Are you scared?” Legend taunts. “Do you need someone to hold your hand?”

“Are you offering?” You snap back.

“He may not be, but I am.” Warrior holds his hand out and smiles at you with as much charm as he can conjure up. He has no idea what possesses him to comment and he hopes that you don’t take offence to it. He wasn’t trying to mock you.

To his surprise, you look at his hand for a little moment longer than he think it’s worth and gently reach out to lace your fingers together.

Your hand is warm and you don’t look at him when he feels you give it a small squeeze. “Ok, let’s go.”

This is not a big deal. He’s not going to make it a big deal.

He just wanted to be a good friend is all. Yeah, that’s all it was.

As the group you all head into the cursed building and are immediately faced with choices.

Five hallways. No end in sight in any of them and no other options.

“Guess we split the party.” Twilight shrugged. “I’ll go with Wind.”

This was first pair off and others started to claim a partner for the journey ahead.

“I guess I already have my partner.” Warrior smiles and begins to walk away. “Should we take the far left?”

“Don’t you know, you never split the party.” You sing under your breath and tug on Warrior’s hand to the beat. “Clerics in the back, keep those fighter hale and hearty. The wizard in the middle where he can shed some light and you never let the damn thief out of sight.”

You’re not paying attention to him.

He chalks it up to your previous nervous energy and takes the lead instead.

The hallway you both travel through is dark and beginning to shrink. the two of you are now shoulder to shoulder and with more time, have to walk in a single file line.

You don’t let go of his hand.

Occasionally there is the lone torch to keep the path ahead illuminated but Warrior thinks that they’re more for decoration and peace of mind than any actual use. You know, considering the vast space of nothing in front of you.

The hallway comes to an abrupt stop and Warrior can feel you crash into his back. Before him a large room with torches on every other wall, eight walls in total, counting the one with the entryway. There’s nothing inside but a single glowing blue ball of light.

It reminds him faintly of Proxy and he steps inside the room to get a better look.

“Will o’ the wisp.” You mutter from behind and stop from entering the room any farther, stopping Warrior as well in the process.

“What?” He turns to you and can see how tense you are.

“Back home,” You begin. “They are known to be by swamps, bogs and the like. They’re supposed to mislead travelers and are used as a symbol of a goal that’s impossible to reach and are typically sinister in nature. What ever you do, don’t follow it.”

Warrior takes the warning to heart, takes a step and returns to your side.

Nothing like Proxy at all.

“What do we do then?” He asks, not taking his eyes off of it.

“I don’t know...” You gulp. “I didn’t even think they’d be here. They’re not known to be fighters... just mess with your head and lead you to your doom.”

On cue, the light shifts and begins to circle the room. Warrior makes a grab for his sword and you copy his movements. The two of you stand back to back and watch it closely.

It flies straight into a wall after a dizzying moment and a door appears where there wasn’t one before.

“That’s it?” Warrior stands down but his grip is tight, on both your hand and his weapon. “Guess that’s the way out.”

“No. What did I just say? Don’t follow it.”

“But it’s gone.”

“It went that way. Don’t go in the same direction.” You stress.

Warrior lets go of your hand and turns to stare at you head on, taking a step back and entering the rest of the room. He goes to open his mouth to reply- but his foot goes lower than he anticipates.

He’s activated something.

You jump as the entryway where you once were, shuts and the torches go out instantly, plunging the whole room into darkness.

“Link?” You call out and Warrior has no idea where you are all of a sudden.

He regrets letting go of your hand.

“Still here.” He chuckles nervous and finishes the sentence with an audible gulp.

The Will o’ wisp returns from a different direction and he hears you scream.

Warrior is quick to reach for Legend’s fire rod and he fires it into the air.

The ball of light leaves but the he’s taken gives just enough light to see what’s happened. You’ve ended up on the floor and somehow took a hit to your head that’s pouring blood all over your face, with a massive skeleton over you, poised to take another hit.

The fire from the rod dies out and the room goes black again.

But at least Warrior knows where you are.

And now he’s pissed.

He fires the rod again right at the monster and feels a vindictive sort of satisfaction when the creature catches aflame. He’s quick to launch the monster away from you and help you up. He passes you the rod, taking a full hold on his sword and stands in front of you.

“Light up the room and monsters, yeah? I’ll finish them off.” He says and drops into a defensive stance.

“Bad things happen with Wips.” You mutter and prepare to fire rod again and instead spin across the floor. Some of the torches relight but it’s clear they won’t last long.

More monsters start to appear from the doors the wisp activates now that the initial key has been set off.

“I’ll listen to you next time!” Warrior finishes the first beast and begin on the next.

“I think I’ll leave the dungeon stuff to the Links. Leave you, your puzzles and your monsters to each other.” You start talking to yourself. “This is no way to make a living.”

“Tell me about it. I didn’t even have these in my Hyrule.”

Hyrule

Hyrule has no clue what he’s was doing.

He could admit that.

He was used to having magic at his disposal and fixing the problem with it. But this? This was a little beyond his pay grade.

He wasn’t even being paid.

“ ‘Rule!” You cry from the bed. You hand is outstretched in an attempt to reach him but he’s too far away from your grasp.

He walks over to your side and grabs your hand. “I’m here. What do you need?”

“Can I have a glass of water?” You grip his hand and he’s hit with a wave of concern when he sees it’s not really that strong.

“Yeah, sure.” He says, getting up. “Give me a minute.”

You smile at him and close your eyes again. He hates how miserable you look. Flushed cheeks and forehead, raging fever, cold sweat running off you in a vain attempt to cool yourself down, you’re shaking and he catches you mumble every now and then but he can’t catch what you say.

Hyrule’s silver lining is that you’ve been mostly asleep through the day, making his job a little easier as nurse and doctor. The most he can complain about is that it’s a little boring.

He still doesn’t know what’s he’s doing.

He had thought that it was something he could handle but but was only within the first hour that he realized he was powerless to help you with anything.

He feels a little useless.

The others had gone out to survey the town they’re cooped up in and get details and equipment.

Hyrule knows himself well enough and has learned enough from the others that he’s pretty much... well, useless in a market. Money isn’t really a concept where he’s from or at least not with the bells and whistles and unwritten rules that everyone else seems to know at the drop of a hat.

On top of that, with Hyrule’s bleeding heart, he had offered to be the one to stay behind and look after you while they were gone most of the day. He figured that if he was the groups healer then he could help you with this too.

Wrong.

Again, he’s thankful you’ve mostly been sleeping.

When he’s retrieved your request and made it back to the room, he stops dead in his tracks at the door.

There’s... something over you. A shadow like blob with no discernable shape, figure or features. The revelation shocks Hyrule into stillness at the idea of you being in danger.

It’s not outwardly hurting you. Just watching.

Or so he thinks anyway.

You still look peacefully unaware of the conscious world and look to be in a deep sleep once more. Meaning, you have idea that this.. thing is here.

Hyrule doesn’t move but he looks around is immediate vicinity. His sword is barely within arms reach and he knows that the step he’s about to take is directly on a squeaky board. It would alert his presence and he doesn’t have anyway of currently fighting that thing.

He crouches down and places your cup by the door frame. He then places is hand just beyond the squeaky board and crawls those few inches to reach his sword.

As soon as it’s within his grasp, he calls on his magic and throws his astral sword in the thing’s direction.

It makes contact, but does no damage.

The shadow mass merely “stands” straighter and stills all movement.

This thing may not have a face but Hyrule is sure that it’s checking him out, assessing him, gauging what kind of threat he might be if he were to attack again.

Hyrule readies himself into a defensive stance and glares right back.

There are no words spoken.

Just as he’s about to charge, it dips down and disappears through the floor boards. The air in room ceases to be charged with unfathomable energy and he knows that it’s gone.

Hyrule is confused and on edge. He’s never seen something like before and he doubts that it’ll help your condition if he asks you or if you would know anything about it.

He straps his sword on his back, just in case, and picks up your cup.

“Link?” You call again, trying to push yourself up into a sitting position. You’re still very weak and very tired and you give up half way.

“I have your water.” He says instead, trying his best to smile for you. He holds it out to you and hopes that you don’t notice that his hands are shaking.

You grin in response and take it, seemingly none the wiser.

You sigh in relief as you sip. “You’re a good friend. Thanks for staying with me. I’m sure it’s been pretty boring when all the others are been productive.”

“I don’t mind one bit. I’ll be here for as long as you need me.” He sits on the bed.

Hyrule continuously has no idea what he’s doing.

But he certainly isn’t going to be bored from here on out. 

He has to protect you now, from whatever that was, so he will. 

[a-singing-carebear]

Thank You Critical Role - My D&D story

“The adventure begins, they were always beside you. Your nerdy best friends and the DM to guide you”. Critical role, what more can I say?

I started playing dungeons and dragons when I was around 4\5th grade, playing with a group as an afternoon group\class. 4E, and I don't remember much besides my halfling ranger and a lot of glances and readthrough of my still existing Player's Handbook. (Well the first half of the book, the miniatures section didn’t really speak to me) Finding out my father was a DM when he was younger, and I even went to some events. I can't at all recall why I stopped, but the happiness and creativity wonder I felt still lingered in my mind. 

I had the love for fantasy, I had things like LOTR, “hey! it’s just like D&D”, and a lot of creativity and storytelling crafting.

After that, I kinda moved on I guess, felt lonely, and like geekness and role-playing was a bad and childish thing (though it made me feel so spectacular). The closest I got was some lively Avatar OC with some new friends.

Fast forward to 2015, The episode “Dungeons, Dungeons & More Dungeons” from gravity falls. All those feelings rose again and I remembered how much I loved playing.

(also enjoy role-playing and with LARP being mentioned there too, when I went to some Cons I had a blast with the foam swords there).

I took out the 4e Player's Handbook, made with my brother (who got in and out of d&d by that time) a carved foam platform and a cubes map - thus started a made-up game by the name of "D&F" (Dungeons & Fandoms), using his found old dices and it's a 1 on 1 encounter magic arena with no distinct roles. What started as "let's make Ability Scores to characters from shows" became a random "I cast a tree of pancakes on you! -no, I burned it with fire-bending you’re dead". A game that also slowly died as we grew up and apart (“I mean, they used to be best friends, but then they got all stupid. Can you promise me you won't get stupid?”)

(FOUND IT!!!) A mild discovery of the ingenious song “Never Split The Party”, an actual d&d song I discovered after watching Semblance of Sanity and figuring out that their ditty “don’t you know you never split the party” is an actual song their singing.

[This video is just a d&d podcast they had, but kinda sums up everything I feel about why I enjoy D&D!]

Then another tiny spark 3 years later when the Voltron episode “Monsters & Mana” came out (BTW, a great d&d parody episode). Which mostly came to an end after a glance in the book and dices and helping a friend with ideas to craft his own RPG game.

We arrive at the date when everything changed (well, almost), December 7th, 2018. The day I discovered the “Mighty Nein Animated Intro - Your Turn To Roll” and my life were never the same.

Stumbled upon it by complete accident. I was at a loss for words, I heard the name “Critical Role” thrown about many times on tumbler’s trending list and saw pictures and art of mostly Jester. I didn't even know what is it - a tv show? a game? well, it looks like D&D. The song was incredible and brought me back, I started writing a full-fleshed out character - a human ranger taught by an elf, but the idea was quickly shifted to another fantasy story by me (it’s heard sticking to it when you know it’s just backstory and character info and you will not play and you have no one). But I continue watching this video on repeat (haha not even knowing what it actually is), scouting tumbler for info and watching some random animatics, learning it's probably a podcast d&d\rpg or something. It could have been amazing as a tv show (XD)… and then another video got released, same incredible essence of d&d song but different animation, and different characters That was my first introduction to Vox Machina.

I had to check this out. Tried to get into the fandom but got lost, even though the interest was there. Stepping upon the awesome cosplay OP and even found out about a hamilton album parody - and my musical loving self was ecstatic.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIDuJAvTTRc&list=PL39vwIwCtLi3l4J6IMV6rS2HaLCujNzRT -  Vox Machina: An Exandrian Musical)

Found the full podcast list of champion 1 and started this May. But it was hard following just by voice, and I wanted to see what was happening, every episode was 3-4 hours long, with me in my military base it was impossible. (also I thought to myself “it looks cool, but what so investing and amazing about watching some people play D&D - boy I was wrong).

Then my unexpected savior arrived, miss Corona the pandemic.

I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands and the Critical Role vids got suggested again on YouTube, yes indeed, I discovered there are actually filmed episodes. Towards the end of May, I started the journey and the flame reignited. I started talking to a good friend of mine about his interest in d&d and we started crafting characters - I resurrected my charter into a half-elven ranger with a full backstory. Down the road, I asked another two friends of mine about their interest in d&d (because maybe I can join together an actual party), one of them said, and I’m quoting “no I don’t have experience playing…but I swear I wanted to talk to you about D&D”. Unfortunately, the two friends groups didn’t mix but we made an improved first session with me as the fucking DM, simply magical. Later that week I started a 1on1 campaign with the other friend, with him as the DM and a marvelous start of an adventure (and helping him learn the rules as an ADM, with the past faded expirations I had).

All while fangirly, hyperfixation way continuing with the journey of Vox Machina, it’s amazing because as opposed to other shows I can also completely see the fandom growing along with the show and cast (i just hope I can catch up to the Mighty Nein before the inevitable 3rd campaign, 198 episodes to go - happy 100th ep!). It’s also difficult to get into the Critters fandom right now because most of the community is focused and recognized by Mighty Nein. Also burning up creativity slots and making more various characters then I could ever use - I’m enjoying myself so muchhh. Diving headfirst into this beautiful crazy of the mess that is D&D.

Nothing’s never too late and it’s ok if you have hiatus. It doesn’t make you any less worthy and I don’t need to feel bad about this journey of that a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons & Dragons got me back to loving, playing and caring about the world of d&d, it’s part of the intent. As a fantasy lover (spells, costumes, items, structures, creatures, you name it), aspiring creative writer and an untalented lover of acting theatrical and role-playing, along with the incredible mechanism of RPG and the vast community, the amazing time with friends, its the game for me, it always had been. So thank you Critical Role for igniting that flame once again - even if I will lose it again I will always have you guys. “Can you answer the call? Dig in deep in your soul. As the legend unfolds, now it's your turn to roll!”

(sorry for the lengthy length, it was meant to be much shorter)

[blindwolfadventures]

Blindwolf’s Awakening: Pt. IV - Key Cavern & In-betweens

I forged my path onward to Key Cavern to be pretty underwhelmed by this dungeon, so I thought I’d wait until I had a bit more to write about. Key Cavern is so named because the dungeon map looks like, guess what? Yeah it’s a fucking key.

This dungeon is accessible after obtaining the “Slime Key” (sounds gross tbh) and the dungeon itself is more or less straight forward. You get a cool item, the Pegasus Boots, so now Link can do that same thing that he does in A Link to the Past where you just hold down the A button and he dashes forward! Except in Mario’s Awakening, the Pegasus Boots, like the Shield and Power Bracer, are, OH YEAH! ACTIVE! Because fuck passive items, right? We just don’t see that inventory screen enough. We need more of it. We want to live in it. In fact, fuck playing the game, let’s just stare at the inventory screen the whole time.

Are you sure you saw it? Here is is again JUST in case.

Okay, moving on.

The Key dungeon’s boss is a stupid watery eye who splits into two stupid watery eyes. I had no trouble making him shed some tears, and was rewarded with a new Instrument of the Sirens, the Sea Lily’s Bell (damn, that’s a pretty name, gj team).

“Great,” I thought as I beat the Key Cavern with ease, “now I can move on to the next dungeon.” Let me use this opportunity to say that in Mario’s Awakening...one does not simply “move on to the next dungeon”. There’s a shit ton of side questing, both optional and also completely necessary in-between these dungeons. The game takes a step back towards the original Legend of Zelda in this sense. In its prequel, ALTTP, the story was more or less linear and having no idea what to do next was rare. in Mario’s Awakening, however, even with the telephone feature in which you can call some random creeper in Mabe Village who tells you what you need to do next, it’s easy to get lost or confused, or be missing a key item you need to move on to the next dungeon with no clues on how to find said item. I found myself resorting to an online walkthrough several times, due to the fact that I didn’t want to spend hours walking around the map aimlessly, speaking to everyone I saw, hoping for the next hint or item.

A fun side quest I did pick up is searching for Secret Seashells. They’re scattered among the map in hidden areas, and when you collect them, you are told that if you collect all of them, something good will happen...Uh, thanks. Still, I do find joy in happening upon these adorable lil’ shells.

Another side quest that I stumbled upon was the Color Dungeon. It’s a secret dungeon in the graveyard, so you know it’s gonna be dope as hell. You descend into a grave and find yourself among multicolored enemies. The boss is an annoying shelled dude who you have to continually hit until he turns red and then dies like a bitch. Upon beating him, you gain access to a Great Fariy Fountain. This delightful Fairy lady grants you some badass new clothes, either red or blue (for added offense or defense, respectively). I went with red cuz I like to beat the shit outta things (and Link’s red clothes always look badass), and now my sword strikes make people fly across the map as if I have a permanent Piece of Power.

Finally, the last cool - albeit necessary - side quest was obtaining the Ocarina. Yes, there’s an ocarina in this game as well. And you get it while you’re sleeping. Link finds a blocked off house-cave in Mabe Village, and upon entering is presented only with a bed. Naturally, the lil’ guy is tuckered out so he takes a nap, and then is transported to some nightmarish room where these mimic enemies deplete 3 of his hearts if he so much as touches one of them. With the Pegasus Boots, they’re hardly a problem as Link barrels through them, and is rewarded with 100 rupees and a badass RED ocarina.

Thought so far: I’m enjoying these dungeons, and I enjoy most of the side quests as well...but the thing that kills the gameplay for me the most is not knowing where I’m going next. The map in Mario’s Awakening (YES, THAT IS WHAT I’M PERMANENTLY REFERRING TO THIS GAME AS) is covered until you uncover it, meaning that when someone says “there’s this thing over here to the southwest”, you know where southwest is, but you have no idea about the details of what that area looks like. It doesn’t help that when you DO actually uncover the map, it is so hideously nonspecific that you can’t even tell what is a path and what isn’t. I find myself wasting a lot of time figuring out where the fuck I’m going, more so than any other Zelda game I’ve played.

Next up: Angler’s Cave. Sounds like a WATER DUNGEON??!?!?!

- blindwolf

[flowing-paint]

Myth the boardgame. A review.

This post is going to be my very first review on the blog and it’s about a board game that in my opinion deserves way more attention. I am talking about the dreaded “Myth” designed and published by Megacon Games. This is also the first post of a small series because the subject is vast (at best) and I would like to cover it in the details. One thing that I would really like to point out is that I have no affiliation with Megacon Games (although I have many of their products) nor I took part in this game’s Kickstarter so all you will read is just my personal unbiased opinion. 

Well, enough said for the introduction, let’s move to the actual game review.

Myth, the board game.

All the reviews I’ve seen for this game almost always seem to agree on the fact that Myth is a cooperative dungeon delving kind of board game. However, I see this game from a slightly different perspective and I think calling Myth “a board game” is reductive. Yes, it comes with a lot of boards, tons of tokens and a whole bunch of cards in a big cardboard box but in that very same box there is more than meets the eye. You know..,? Many games happen to stand right in between the classic board game and a tabletop miniatures war game like, let’s say, Warhammer40k. They are usually called gateway games and Myth is definitely a kind of gateway game even though it elevates the concept to a totally different level. After diving into the game mechanics and starting to grasp the philosophy behind the game you will surely realize that this is a hybrid gateway game that stands on the vertex where board gaming, tabletop wargaming and role playing meet. And then it mixes all of them together creating a kind of experience that is very hard to reproduce with other games. But let’s try to analyze this game point by point.

What is it about

As I said, it’s a game where players cooperate to fight against grim hordes of minions manipulated by the evil will of the Darkness. How do you do that? Of course with you stereotypical fantasy heroes. But don’t let this turn you down: what you have in your hands is definitely a unique incarnation of said stereotype. In fact, each hero gets to draw from a special and unique set of hero cards that represent the limited actions available in the present turn and players must ensure they pull off the best combos to kill as many Darkness minions as possible. There is no “IgoUgo and then we throw a bunch of dice and count casualties”; people really need to sit down in a circle and try to figure out the best approach to the fight. It is therefore a cooperative game with a strong built-in strategic approach that will make your group thinking for the whole game. The heroes featured in the base game are the following:

Soldier: the tank in the game. Can deal massive damage to single or multiple targets

Acolyte: the healer of the group. He can also smash the enemies with his big hammer.

Archer: ranged attacks allow her (or him) to move around avoiding melee fights.

Apprentice: the magician of the group. He can manipulate the elements at will and deal a lot of damage.

Brigand: the Myth version of the thief. He can lurk in the shadows and strike hard and repeatedly. Probably the deadliest character.

The game comes with a dynamically sculpted miniature specific for each hero: if you go online and do an image search you can find some gorgeous paint jobs so that you can have an idea of the quality of the minis. If you are lucky enough you may also find the alternate gender heroes that came as a stretch goal in the Kickstarter… here is a combo picture of the original KS images where you can see a couple of the models.

According to all the stuff I covered up to this point, this is the part of the game that is closer to the board game spirit hence, a lot of people make their final decisions at this point: 5 players, tiles, cards, tons of tokens, a bunch of hero miniatures fighting random villains? This means “board game”. In my opinion, this is short sighted and you will understand why as we move further into game mechanics.

Darkness Mechanics

Myth puts you in control of your heroes but, unlike other games like Descent, there is no “evil player”. Instead, you have a sort of randomized AI mechanic that takes control of the bad guys for you. Basically what happens is that when you play a hero card it comes with a small cross-like icon in the bottom right corner that tells you how dangerous that action is (in terms of the so called Action Points) and if it puts you on the Darkness’ radar. If the total amount of AP you generated reaches 6, the darkness will activate and will do its thing. This does not immediately result in monsters attacking you as they may be too far away to notice your shenanigans. You have probably seen this in many video games if that’s your thing: just imagine you enter a big room in a dungeon and have some monsters minding their business on the other side. They don’t mind if you jump around or even cast spells on the distance as long as you avoid them. However, throw them a fireball and when they see some of their friends on fire, they will come at you. Pretty hard. And it’s not over: when you kill a bunch of bad dudes, your threat level rises and you will become more and more dangerous for the Darkness up to a point where the more intelligent enemies will start targeting you before other less dangerous heroes. If you keep with your bloodbath (threat level 10), the Darkness will eventually get really mad and throw top tier countermeasures at you, like mini-bosses or agents. That is something you do not really want to do.

I find this to be one of the most interesting and innovative mechanics in the game because it leaves you the freedom to decide how to approach the enemy. You can either go berserk (and get tons of Darkness activations and maybe a mini boss) or have a more stealth-like approach to keep the Darkness at bay more easily. You can dive straight into the battle or flank your enemies from the side if they haven’t noticed you to better coordinate with your team mates. It’s completely up to you to choose the strategy you think may fit better. These kind of things usually belong more to the miniature wargaming realm where on the contrary, board games tend to slightly limit your freedom to somewhat limit the game length. Myth leaves you with all the decisions and that’s why, in my opinion, it is a great gateway game.

Word exploration and tile population

Another aspect that puts Myth in a different category from your standard dungeon delving game is how the exploration of the dungeon itself is carried out. Usually when you start a dungeon delving game, you get a sort of preset scenario with enemy, token and treasure locations already fixed on the dungeon tiles. And again, probably the tiles themselves will probably have some fixed arrangement that will drastically limit your choices. In Myth you don’t even have a real reason to go out and fight the Darkness (unless you play modules. More on that later) as nobody tells you where to go and what to do. As a result all of these exploration/game setup matters needed a totally different approach and the guys at Megacon Games came up with the idea of legends on the world tiles.

This is a screenshot from the 2.0 Rulebook where you can see all the symbols you may find on world tiles. I won’t go into the details as you can look for them in the rulebook but as you can see they basically tell you how many treasures are available on the tile, if there’s a trap, monster hunting packs and so on. So, how do these come into play? Let’s imagine you and your friends heroes are having some mead in a tavern and then somebody comes up with an idea like: Guys! You know what? We should definitely go out and find some adventure where we can smash some critter and get some gold ー The dude is probably drunk but so are all of your team members so you just decide to head outside the town to look for adventure! Here’s the deal, you have to design your own adventure from this point on: you have to decide where you are heading in your quest for adventure so what you do is going through your reserve of world tiles and choose the one you think is appropriate as your first step. Here is where the icons come into play. If you have a quest symbol in your tile, this means you can decide to draw a quest card that would kickstart your adventure or maybe you decide that you just stumbled upon a grubbers camp that you then proceed to destroy. Whatever your decision regarding the world tile setup, none of the the icon is mandatory so it is you and your friends decision only. You can go as hardcore as you want. Or just loiter around the empty tile. Well, the loitering option is not good for you as you get affected by a penalty that lowers the total amount of available treasures for the rest of the campaign. But you get the idea: you get to write your own story with your own rules while still obeying to the global system rules. This is practically what happens when you play a role-playing game. You don’t need a dungeon master to drop monsters and events on you but instead you get to decide as a whole group what you guys want to do. I may be wrong but I have never seen this kind of mechanic in a board game and this makes Myth even more fascinating to me.

As I was expecting this post is growing pretty big so I just stop writing for now and split the post into two parts to avoid overloading this one. In the next post I will cover the aspects of the more boardgamy game mode (Modules) and the aspects of the campaign mode (the way your hero evolves) as well. Ah, and don’t forget the miniatures! I will also give a brief description of the two expansions belonging to Myth Journeyman and probably conclude with some final thoughts. So I guess I’ll see you next week! In the meantime,

... game on!