Linkguistics

Part 9: Preparing for Vah Rudania

The narrative has moved back to 100 A.C. where Yunobo, Rhoam, and a Shrine Monk are feeling somewhat disconcerted.

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Yunobo looked at the small Hylian and realized there had been some kind of misunderstanding. This was because Link was climbing into the barrel of the cannon. Link looked very much like he'd rather be doing something else, yet he was still swinging himself into the barrel.

"Link, um, are you trying to get across? Wouldn't it be safer to let me lower the bridge?" Link looked out of the cannon barrel and didn't need much coaxing to leave the barrel. It only took a few vague shooing motions to get him on the ground. Yunobo jumped in. He put up his shield and said, "See, look. I'm invincible with Daruk's Protection so you shoot me out, not you."

Link said, "You shoot from cannon? Not me?"

"Yes. Shoot me out of the cannon." The two teenagers discussed the plan with a lot of pictures scratched out in the rocks. Yunobo then loaded himself in with Daruk's Protection activated.

Yunobo heard a grateful and very relieved, "Thank you." Link then showed his gratitude by dropping a bomb into the chamber and blasting Yunobo across to knock down a very solid metal bridge.

Later, as they were climbing to attack Vah Rudania, Yunobo was trying to really make sure to explain everything. It would be best not to have Link climbing in any more cannons. The instructions were repetitive, but Link had rapt attention in his eyes. Yunobo got the impression Link liked cannons. As he'd been rolling away from the vault back on home, he'd heard explosions without the telltale rumble of Rudania's rampage.

"Oh... Yikes... A sentry is always a nuisance, no matter where it is or how many of them there are. If one finds you, Rudania will go nuts, which will cause Death Mountain to erupt, goro." Link nodded. "Er, you know the word erupt?"

Link hesitated then said, "Mountain go boom?"

"Yeah, mountain go boom. So bad thing." Yunobo ended up explaining sentries. Then the idiom. It took a while and Yunobo was having second thoughts about this whole plan. "Maybe the best idea is for you to give me a signal to let me know when I should stop and when I can move forward. Let's hurry and decide what the signal will be, goro! Um, got any ideas?"

"What is a signal?," Link asked Yunobo.

While Yunobo was explaining what a signal was for the fifth time he realized Link was not around anymore. The poor Goron activated Daruk's protection when he heard crashing and some explosions. Yunobo realized the mountain wasn't rumbling only after Link came back and said, "I found a box!"

Yunobo wondered if, maybe, Link was why he heard explosions when rolling home from the vault.

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Now for people wondering about what Rhoam was doing, he had recovered enough ghostly energies to re-manifest in solid-looking form. Back in his hut, he dug out the Book of Mudora. It had been something he meant to give Link along with the paraglider. The first conversation with Link went okay. It had taken him years of haunting to poltergeist this book all the way up here. This book was worth far more than mere rupees to Rhoam, and perhaps Hyrule. It had taken him even more years to try and learn how to speak the language without auditory lessons and would have been nigh impossible for the old king without the Book.

The way Link adopted a gleam in his eye after picking up the torch caused the old king to keep a really close eye on things. After Link had caused a considerable amount of scorching, Rhoam realized he made the correct decision. He'd helped put out more fires than he could count. The Great Plateau survived once Link had calmed down a little and learned how to put out fires himself. Frequency of wildfire occurrences dropped significantly after Link started getting the hang of survival.

Rhoam wondered if, perhaps, this was why the Champions had been... oddly uncommunicative. Were there other things about Link which they failed to inform him of? These were the things Rhoam was contemplating as he looked from his grave at the slightly charred trees of the plateau. The Book of Mudora would stay safe here, away from the pyromaniac.

Seriously, what else were they not telling me about Link?, Rhoam thought to himself.

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Link stopped to rest at the steps to the shrine monk's residence. He looked forward to this part with every single shrine and wished the monks didn't take their duties so seriously. They seemed uninterested with small talk after waiting ten-thousand years for him and it was a crying shame. Not a single one he'd met had a good sense of humor. Eventually one of them would have to have a personality. This also was infinitely preferable to the volcanic atmosphere outside and he'd been hoping to get some more fireproof weapons. A silver sword was currently slag in the caldera.

"Okay, sooo where do I start... I've got a few gaps in my knowledge of history..."

The monk didn't say anything. Link hadn't touched the glowing walls on the platform yet.

"Hey, can I ask you something? Please?" Link noticed the slightest movement from the monk's head and interpreted that as an invitation. "How did I end up being all possessed and lurching out from the underworld and all that? Am I actually the hero or did we have some divine mix-up or..."

"You know, we don't actually know. When we decided to await you in the future we assumed it would be your reincarnation. We heard you died and your body was never found after banishing Ganon. Zelda cried for weeks about how it probably ate you after your sword was dropped..."

That was unsatisfying. Nightmare inducing too. At least he'd been mourned but he was just gonna have to speculate on the rest. "Did you guys know me before?"

It was a long time waiting for the monk to respond. "Not everyone who decided to serve Hylia in this capacity met you. I am among those who did not," the monk said with the usual ethereal disembodied voice. "Will you be finishing the trial?" He was not an impatient man. (Or she? It's hard to tell with desiccated mummies.) It was just that the monk had been waiting to finish their duty and move on to the spirit world for a very long time.

Link knew that, but still just craved social interaction in his native language and maybe some information about himself. This was a monk that he'd managed to get to say more than just rehearsed sentences. He pressed for more, "So, can you tell me maybe about some of the guys who did? Please?"

The monk did not sigh. He did, however have a little tidbit of information to share. "Some of the servants of Hylia were eager to be of service to you, personally." The monk decided not to tell Link about the trial requirements which many monks set up. Come to think of it, these shrine trials were kind of life-endingly dangerous.

Maybe Link wasn't the only millennia old person who was a little unhinged?