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Chapter Text

Until sunset, you make good on your intention to gather information from the town. After alerting those already in your group, Four and Hyrule, about what’s going on, you leave the library and ask the locals of any rumors about Kakariko Village.

“Ha! As though anyone would buy into it, but they claim to have discovered a pit near their village that leads to a whole nother world deep underground!” a woman claims. “They get into it too, claiming that they can use it to make underground shortcuts across Hyrule, but I don’t know who they think they’re fooling.”

“I’ve heard of such shortcuts!” Hyrule says, eyes lighting up. He looks ready to practically pull you and Four outside of town to look for such. “I’ve used them before in my era. They’re real.”

He had? Then is your successor closer to a local guide for this sort of thing than you are? You crack a smile. “Have a map?”

“They don’t make them. We don’t want monsters finding out about the Depths!”

Or so Hyrule says. At sunset though, when all the Links meet back up, you take the chance to tell everyone what happened to Kakariko Village and recruit their help finding the nearest entrance to the Depths (as Hyrule called them), a tektite springs from beneath the boulder that covers the Depths entrance. You fight it off easily between the nine of you.

In the morning, the nine of you gather enough rope to climb up and down safely, and you find a vast expanse, a giant cavern, you think, whose ceiling is too far above you to be seen in the light of several bioluminescent flowers and roots that live down here.

Because you’re speedy, strong, and are the one whose Zelda called out to you, you are sent ahead toward Kakariko Village as a scout. Your Pegasus boots make it easy to cover the distance, and you are thoroughly alone by the time you encounter the Hinox.

You grab the Roc’s feather from your pack, and, as you avoid the monster’s first grabs, transfer it safely to the arm to which your shield is strapped. Though the Hinox’s blood comes away black on the Tempered Sword, the monster’s extra toughness merely lengthens the fight rather than change its nature. You come away weakened but victorious and snack on some hearty mushroom skewers the cook sent you with to regain your strength.

With the Hinox gone, the Depths are clear until you reach Kakariko Village. Black blood drips from overhead, but there’s nothing to fight, and you meet with a wizened, silver-haired Fable to organize an evacuation. You lead the way back toward the exit. Everyone survived this time – Zelda, the villagers, everyone, and it seems a great lead on your adventure, when you return to the surface, to look into how the villager itself met its

END

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