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Part 80 of Meowmix's Linked-verse Journey
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Published:
2025-08-08
Updated:
2025-10-16
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25/?
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Manners Matter

Summary:

The Chain find them split up and facing a classic dungeon. They just need to find each other and wait what direction did you go Legend?

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Being Polite is a Good Idea

Chapter Text

Legend groaned as he sat up before jerking back when he found him face to face with a large gargoyle, “Hylia’s hairy legs what the fuck is that?”

The gargoyle shifted, “Now is that anyway to talk to the one that can set you forward?”

Legend slowly stood and looked around; he was in a stone box with only the gargoyle with him. The room was small enough that using bombs to break out would not be wise. He could use Ravio’s bracelet but it was probably bet to at least give the gargoyle a chance and he was going to have to do something horrible to get that help, apologize. “Sorry.”

“Well, you are not completely rude it seems so I will give you my challenge and if you will be free.”

“What’s your challenge?”

“Not even a please?”

Legend narrowed his eyes at the gargoyle, “Are you going to give me the challenge or not?”

“Only if you ask politely.”

Legend rolled his eyes and pressed his hand against one of the walls, “Fuck that, bye!” With that Legend flattened onto the wall and flowed through to the other side. Standing in the wall on the other side he carefully looked around.

Good news, no more gargoyles. Bad news three gold moblins were sitting on the ground. He carefully walked along the wall until he knew the wall behind him wouldn’t led him to box, he had been he again flowed through the wall.

Sighing in relief he stepped out of the wall. Looking around he noticed he was standing in a three-way break that had hallways going to his left, right and front.

“Well, being able to sense were the others are would be really useful right now.” Looking around he decided to go left, unknowingly the direction that would lead him away from the other groups, and far more challenges than the others would face.

-x-x-x-

Wild, Time and Twilight looked around the room having killed all the Bokoblins that had been present in the room they had appeared in. It was a small room barely holding themselves and the five Bokoblins and the smoke from the defeated room had Twilight and Wild’s noses scrunching up at the smell.

Leaving the younger two trying to protect their noses Time inspected the room hoping for something to help them get out of the room as there didn’t seem to be any doors. Seeing a gargoyle Time hopefully addressed it, “Hello.”

The gargoyle came to life, “Why hello it seems you’ve seen the welcoming committee off, quite quickly to.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all, in fact that was the key to your escape. Simply choose a direction and I will open a door. From any wall you may go.”

“Ugh,” Twilight blocking his nose, “Please tell me there is there a direction that has more air to clear out the smoke? My nose is hating me.”

“Well, you’re a polite enough fellow so I guess I can show you that way,” The gargoyle looked to a wall and a large door appeared in it, “It’s quite dark but the smoke should clear fast.”

Twilight quickly staggered from the room, “Thank you.”

“You are quite polite fellows; you should head left at your next option if you wish to met with your fellows. Oh, and what does your group wish to be called? It cannot be your names.”

Time frowned as Wild and Twilight had already staggered out of the room, Wild learning just why her mentor hated smelling monster smoke even as a Hylian. Wolves and Fox.” Hopefully if the others heard their name, they would know that at least they had Twilight and Wild, if they remembered Twilights comments about Time being a golden wolf in his quest they might figure he was part of the group as well.

“Very good Wolves and Fox I wish you good luck!”

x-x-x

Four rubbed their head as they stood. They were in a small room, it had five walls with a gargoyle sitting in front of each. “Hello?”

They didn’t jump as all five gargoyles came to live and spoke in union, “Hello young traveler. May we have your group name, we know your team is but one but a name that is not your own is needed.”

Four blinked before choosing, “Rainbow?”

“Very nice group Rainbow. The challenge you face is you may choose to go through the walls behind one of us and we will give you a clue of what is behind the wall of the gargoyle you touch first.”

“And if we managed to touch two or more at the same time.”

“It has to be with bare hand but if you manage, I will give you a clue for each gargoyle you touch first.”

Shrugging Four broke into the Colors and each went to their own gargoyles, Green leading them in, “One, two, three!”

Well trained to act simultaneously the five each touched their gargoyle.

“That is quite the trick but you touched each of us first so we will give you hints for each wall.” The one under Green’s hand spoke first, “I will lead you to many monsters.”

The one under Blue went next, “I will lead you to more enemies than allies. If your allies go straight.”

The one under Red spoke, “I will lead you nowhere.”

Shadow’s hummed, “I will lead you to your allies if they travel left.”

And Vio’s ended, “I will lead you to your allies if they travel right.”

Again, they spoke together, “Which way will you go?”

Green hummed, “Well my wall is obviously a no go, as is Blue’s due to guaranteed monsters. We should go with Shadow’s.”

Blue frowned, “Why Shadow’s?”

“Remember when we talked about labyrinths mazes? Which this probably is.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh!” Shadow grinned, “We all agreed that we’d just keep going left so if the group behind my gargoyle we will run into them!”

Red clapped bouncing in place, “Great lets go that way then!”

“You have chosen a direction?” The gargoyles asked.

The Colors nodded.

“Press the head of the one you wish to travel past and the way will be cleared.”

Pressing his hand Shadow grinned as a door appeared in the wall behind his gargoyle and the five Four’s headed forward.

Chapter 2: Migraine Maybe

Chapter Text

Warriors groaned sitting up, he was pretty sure he hit his head when they landed. Looking around the room as he rubbed his head, he noticed it was on the smaller side and only Wind was with him, great another splitting portal. He hoped the others were in groups at least… especially Hyrule if they had to find each other and find were ever Hyrule got distracted two they would have a long search in front of them. If they were lucky the others were just in adjoining rooms, but he doubted it.

“Hey Captain, how are you feeling?” Wind at least sounded like he was in good shape. “Are you okay?”

He groaned, not bothering to open his eyes yet, “I’ve been better, do you see any way out of this room?”

“No doors or anything delicate looking in the walls. All I got is four walls that are all the same size with one wall has a zigzag pattern spaced over the rows of bricks and another has numbers and symbols and the last two are blank. Then there’s a cool looking gargoyle over there to but it hasn’t done anything.”

Warriors sat all the way up careful as the world swayed back and forth, he carefully opened his eyes glad to find the light didn’t hurt his eyes, not a migraine then at least probably. “What about if you put the pattern over the numbers?”

“Huh, that might be onto something, let me grab a piece of chalk.” After pulling out a piece of chalk Wind stood on his tippy toes to try and reach where the numbers started, “Bile sucker, stand up Warriors I can’t reach the bricks I need to write on.”

Carefully levering himself up Warriors stood and stood before taking the chalk from Wind, “What do you want me to do?”

“Keep writing the numbers on the bricks going in all the way to the left and then the next row going right, if I’m right the four numbers on there will line up with the numbers that are carved in.”

Shrugging Warriors quickly started filling in the numbers finding they did in fact match up with the carved numbers. “Well, that’s interesting but what next?”

“Probably something to do with the symbols but I’m not sure what a sword, bow, fire, water, cat and snake have to do with each other.”

Warriors shrugged, “Maybe the gargoyle will be nice enough to give us a clue.”

“Why if you ask nicely I very well might.”

Both heroes turned to the gargoyle’s hands going to their hilts.

“Oh,” The gargoyle smiled at them, “I promise I prove no danger but I might prove a hint.”

Mentally shrugging, it’s not like it could hurt… well it could somehow but it was unlikely to so, “We would greatly appreciate any help you would be willing to give.”

“Yeah, Mister Gargoyle,” Wind grinned, “Could we please have that help?” Sometimes asking nicely was the key so Wind would go for polite before swearing it out for not being helpful later.

“Well, you are both very polite young gentlemen,” The gargoyle unfurled its wings stretching them wide, “I wish I could speak more on it but I have already given you my only clue. If you solve the puzzle I might have more advice.”

Wind pouted, “Are you sure you can’t help more? Please?” The gargoyle seemed to like manners so might as well lay it on thick.

The gargoyle fluttered its wings as it shook its head from side to side, “Unfortunately I can speak no clue. I simply cannot.”

Warriors frowned, “So you gave us a clue but you didn’t speak it?”

“Quite right young man.”

Wind tilted his head to the side looking closer at the gargoyle, “But you still gave it to us so it was something we didn’t have before you woke up.”

The gargoyle nodded.

Wind’s eyes lit up staring at its wings, “He’s got two patterns on his wings! A Sword on this side and a water drop on the other!”

Warriors turned to the wall frowning as he walked closer to it, “So we just push the sword and then the water bricks?”

“Maybe, try it.”

The gargoyle shook his head after Warriors pressed on the two rocks, “That was close! Almost… yes, practically on target… but when all is said and done never less wrong! I am sorry to say.”

Wind frowned, “Well the sword is brick nine and the water drop is seventeen, what about pressing nine, one and then seven? Like breaking up the code.”

Shrugging Warriors pressed on the indicated stones and a groaning sound came from the wall as the stones of the wall retracted into itself.

“Good job lads, now if you head to the left, you will face some frights, but if you head to the right the path will be clear. To the front is unclear.”

Warriors frowned, “This is definitely a labyrinth and when we were talking about it we said we would always go left…”

Wind pursed his lips, “But if that’s what everyone else does we’ll never meet up.”

“Each group will be going at different speeds and this way they will know which way we went.” Walking up to the wall Warriors pulled out a dagger and scratched into a brick an arrow and the symbol the group had made up for him and Wind. “There if someone catches up, they will know where we went.”

“Oh!” The gargoyle called after them, “I almost forgot! What name will your group be called? It can’t be your names of course!”

“SHARKS!” Wind grinned, “Tetra never lets me be the shark team!”

Warriors rolls his eyes, “Alright Sharks it is, now let’s get moving.”

With that the pair, with weapons ready for the fight they knew was coming headed down the left passage way. Behind them the gargoyle smiled as the pattern Warriors had carved changed to point towards the middle corridor.

Chapter 3: Ropes and Things

Chapter Text

“Ow,” Hyrule sat up rubbing his head, eyes closed in case the light would hurt, “Is anyone there?”

“I am.” Sky’s voice came from his left.

“And I!” An unknown answer answered.

Opening his eyes Hyrule carefully positioned himself to face the unknown voice hand going towards his sword, “Hello?”

A gargoyle smiled at him, “Hello. It is always good to see someone here.”

Sky smiled at the gargoyle, “Well met, could you perhaps direct us to our fellow travelers?”

“Quite polite you are but I can not yet. If you solve the puzzle of this room I may give you a hint.”

The two looked around the room it was a small room with several smaller gargoyles across the four walls; each had different colored gems for eyes. On each wall was a number one through four.

Sky pursed his lip, “The answer must be one, two, three or four so if nothing else we have a one in four chance of getting it right without any hints.”

“I would advise,” The gargoyle spoke, “To not rely on chance when you have a chance at finding the answer.”

Hyrule nodded, “Yeah figuring out the answer would be better but Mr. Gargoyle do you have any help? All I see is bats and that string over there.”

Sky blinked into the corner Hyrule pointed to before picking up the rope, “This is pretty long,” He looked up at the small gargoyles, “The gargoyles have a ring in their hands so we can string this through that but in what order?”

“I mean the different gargoyles have different colored eyes but,” Hyrule frowned glancing around before lighting up as she looked at the ridge of the gargoyle’s wings, “Oh! The gargoyles wings have gems on them!”

Sky held one of the ends of the rope in his hand, “Alright which color is first?”

“Red.”

Pushing the rope through the ring Sky tied it on to the ring, before picking up the other end, “Next?”

As Hyrule listed out the colors Sky strung the rope through the gargoyles that were at different heights and walls until the rope ran out just going through the last ring. Sky turned to Hyrule, holding the last bit of rope in the way, “Alright do you see anything?”

Hyrule tilted his head looking around, “No, maybe I need to stand somewhere else? Do you see anything?”

Sky shook her head, “Just random ropes.”

“Hm,” I’ll crawl under and see if I can’t go to a different angle.”

“Do you think you need to be along one of the certain walls or a corner?”

Hyrule rolled on his back to get under the lowest rope, “I’m not,” His voice cut off.

“Hyrule?”

“The answer is four. I can see a four formed by all the ropes.”

“Great!” Sky dropped the rope and it slipped out the ring Sky had been holding it in and further slipping out a few more. Sky turned to the gargoyle as Hyrule carefully stood, “Will you please open the wall with the four on it?”

“Well,” The gargoyle hummed, “You are quite polite in your request so I will and give you a clue.”

Hyrule bounced in place, “Oh thank you!”

As the wall with a four on it shifted until there was a door in it the gargoyle spoke, “Left and straight will lead you to where the sharks currently stand. Oh and what do you wish to be called? Your group name although it can contain no names.”

Sky hummed, “Can you tell us all the team names?”

“There are three names, the Wolves and Fox, Sharks and Rainbow.”

Hyrule blinked, “All of them are clues so we should give one to. What do you think?”

Sky bit his lip, “Flying fairies? No that’s to vague, what about Air Fairies?”

“Sounds good to me.”

The gargoyle nodded, “Good luck Air Fairies.”

Hyrule turned a grin on the gargoyle, “Thank you!” Before to two walked from the room.

Sky hummed as they walked down the hallway that was revealed, “So the wolves and fox are obviously Twilight and Wild but why pluralize wolf?”

“Well Twilight was pretty sure Time would turn into a golden wolf so maybe it means Time is with them?”

“Alright Rainbow is obviously Four, but what about Sharks?”

Hyrule nodded agreeing about Four, “Well obviously it includes Wind but he said there’s three groups.”

“No he said three names.”

“Well yeah they didn’t have our group name yet but I think Sharks has Legend and Warriors although it’s weird that Legend agreed to go with Wind’s name, maybe he lost rock, paper, scissors?”

Sky nodded, “That would work, oh a branching spot! The gargoyle said to go left, right?”

“Yep, left than straight. So we should turn here and go until we reach another intersection and go forward, not sure what to do after that.”

“Well hopefully there will be more clues or another puzzle, or we can just keep going left as we are suppose to when we don’t have description on what way to go while in a maze.”

“Sounds good… did you hear that?”

Hyrule frowned listening as he came to a spot, “It sounds like shuffling but not like boots. Do you think there might be monsters?”

Sky pulled the Master Sword free of its sheath, “Only one way to find out.”

Nodding Hyrule pulled his own blade free and followed Sky around the corner in front of them.

x—x—x—x

A dark form looked down at the sprawling labyrinth beneath him. Each of the heroes’ groups had managed to escape there rooms before using up the breathable air but no matter they had other dangers instore. They watched as each move through the map. The gargoyles had been more helpful then they had wanted but they hadn’t thought politeness would be a trait of heroes trapped in a dungeon. The only one not to get advise from the gargoyles had been the Hero of Legend. Well, they would see how the groups faced, who would meet up and who would wander alone… forever.

Chapter 4: Stone Snakes

Chapter Text

Wild blinked at the corridor in front of them, it was filled with stone snakes bouncing back and forth on the two walls. There were enough that dodging through wasn't an option. Also, they didn't know how deep the snakes went. It was obviously more than one set going from wall to wall.

Twilight sighed, "We'll have to back track. I don't see any signs of puzzles or the like."

Stepping back into the middle of the corridors after having inspected both walls carefully Time nodded, "No puzzles this time."

Humming Wild started looking though her slate, "I have an idea, but not sure if it will work, or if I have one."

"No bombs," Twilight eyed her suspiciously, "We don't know if the walls will hold."

"Oh no, I have plenty of those but aha!" Tapping on the screen a boulder breaker appeared in front of her. Slipping the slate away she grabbed the boulder breaker before it could fall to the ground. 

Time shook his head, "You use that on already damaged stone or ore deposits, they won't work on these things."

She grinned, "That's what I can do with them, but what if Twilight tried?"

Giving the stone snakes a apprising look Time nodded, "Worth it to try."

Accepting the boulder breaker from Wild Twilight moved it around in his grip and gave a few practice swings before he approached the snakes. The snakes snarled to hiss at his approach and he gave his first swing.

Stone snakes pulverized under the boulder breaker. Continuing forward Twilight carefully continued through the area the snakes had been floating through.

Crushing the last snake he turned to smile at the two behind him only to discover that his view of the others was blocked by a giant pile of stone. There was a small opening on the top of the pile but not much, "Guys?"

"We're fine!" He heard Wild shout.

Time's voice came next, "Is there anything dangerous on your side?"

Twilight looked around but the corridor merely stretched out behind him, no signs of monsters. Looking over the wall he snorted, "I'm fine, there's nothing over here but I found the puzzle."

"Still we don't know what might come towards you on your side so I'm sending Wild over to you."

Twilight blinked up at the opening, "I don't thin she'll fit."

"She will."

There was the sound of stones and pebbles moving as Wild must have been climbing up the other side, only for a long snout to appear inside the opening. Quickly followed by the rest of Wild's kitsunes form. As soon as she got down to where Twilight was she shifted back into her Hylian form, "Made it!"

Twilight blinked, "I thought you'd be to big to get through the opening."

"I shapeshifted myself smaller than normal."

"Ah."

"I'm going to keep an eye out for any monsters approaching as you and Time work on clearing the rocks enough that Time can make it through."

The group proceeded to do just that, with Wild keeping an eye out for monsters Time and Twilight quickly set to moving enough stone aside for Time to wiggle through. He had to sent his armor through separately but soon enough everyone was on this side of the rock pile and Time was back in his armor.

Grinning Wild started forward, "And off we go!"

Chapter 5: Dragon, Bat, Horse or Starfish

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Legend growled as he came to another split in the path. On the ground was an assortment of items with a pedestal in the middle of the area that splintered into different hallways. It was probably holding a puzzle. Ignoring all of it, unfortunately to well as he tripped over a bucket, he chose the most left path and started down it. He wasn’t bothering with puzzles that could easily have no worth. There was no reason the labyrinth maker had to actually hold true to the riddle’s answers.

Feeling his ears twitch he stop before carefully listen and yep there were monsters ahead and judging by the sounds, they were awake.

Looking along the walls of the corridor he was in he saw where the corridor took a sharp right. He carefully eased himself down the corridor until he could use a minor to look around the corner.

Swearing, silently, he slowly started to go back the way he came. He moved silently until he was finally back to where the puzzle intersection.

Turning to the puzzle he sighed, “Well it’s one in three chances on each of the hallways being the right one to take now so I might as well try to solve this. At the very least it will tell me if the puzzles point you a safe way some of the time. Right, where’s the riddle?

On the pedestal there was a paper map that showed the five hallways that branched off the pedestal stand. The map showed a series of foot steps heading to the platform from the path he had come from so going backwards was probably not the clue. The other three hallways had creatures drawn on them. He mentally discarded the bat path as that was where he had just found a pack of monsters. Well hopefully that wasn’t the best path as that had been a lot of silver and gold monsters.

“Dragon, horse or starfish, and these items are my clues.”

Looking around the area he noted a map, one of those fake treasure maps Wind liked to make, a pinecone, a horse bridle, a bucket, a star, a broken compass, a fake snake, a fish that did luckily did not smell, yet, and a ring.

“So, treasure map,” Pulling it off the wall he looked it over before dropping it, “Useless just a curvy like, a X and a few trees. Now I have a horse bridle for the horse, a snake for the dragon and a fish and a star for the starfish. Well, I’ve got two items for the starfish and,” Legend stopped, “I have a star and a fish, if starfish isn’t the answer, there isn’t a solution.”

Turning to the correct corridor and started forward except somehow managing to trip on the bucket and scrape up his knee pretty bad. Not bad enough to bandage as he didn’t have water to wash it out, “Right no one needs to know what that’s from.”

Standing again he headed down the corridor, leaving a few small drops of blood behind.

Notes:

Current total is 35 puzzles and only missing 1 puzzle! This currently is at 24 chapters written and I've only gotten through 23 of those puzzles so buck up this is going to be a while

Chapter 6: How do we Move on?

Chapter Text

Warriors came to a stop facing a bottomless pit, on the other side of the room was a door way, “Blasted. I don’t have anything like a claw shot.”

“Me either,” Wind frowned, “Not that it would help there’s nothing to grab onto.” Wind glanced up, “Or something to use to anchor my whip two.” Above them also looked roofless.

Warriors grimaced, “No floor and no ceiling and nothing to garb onto even if we did have clawshots. Another dead end.”

Wind shook his head, “I think this is a puzzle the other dead ends we encountered where made of stone. We can see the way forward we just need to get there.”

“How? Theres nothing to get us over there unless you can fly? It’s the same height as us so paragliding over won’t work.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Reaching into his bag Wind pulled out a large bag.

“Oh?”

Wind grinned, “This might not be as cool as Time’s Lens of Truth but if there’s something hidden this will work.” With that Wind dug his hand into the bag and pulled out a handful of sand that he scattered around the small platform they were on, “Bingo.”

Warriors groaned seeing the sand sitting on something, “Invisible bridge. This is going to suck to cross.”

“Eh,” Wind shrugged, “I got plenty of sand so I’ll just scatter it around to catch any deviations in the path. I just hope there’s no dead ends.”

Warriors grimed, “Right. Let’s get going then.”

Pulling out another handful of sand Wind slowly walked forward scattering sand on the apparently empty space in front of them. A path that went straight across the pit. When they were both on the new platform Wind looked back blinking, “Well that was pretty simple.”

“Not every puzzle is hard Wind, and anyways finding he hidden bridge was hard to figure out. Then if you didn’t have the sand we would have had to slowly crawl across or something the test to see if the bridge continued straight or not.”

“True, well let’s keep going.”

Nodding Warriors followed as Wind crept forward, he let Wind go first as he was able to better sense if there were any monsters ahead. They had already with a few blue Moblins and a Lizalfos.

It wasn’t that much farther along that they found themselves in a new room. In the room there were five podiums and on the ground in front of them were lanterns lit up different colors.

Wind frowned as he went up to the pedestals and walked around each, “I don’t see any symbols or words on these.”

Warriors who had been inspecting the walls nodded, “Nothing on the walls, well except for a couple door ways that are blocked. Check the lanterns and I’ll check the floor.” A short time later Warriors shook his head, “Nothing on the floor.”

“And nothing on the lanterns.” Wind frowned looking at the different lanterns, “I think we just need to put each on a pedestal and see what happens.”

“Probably. Why don’t we just put them on the pedestals they are in front of? Theres no other real clue to a code.”

“Alright.” Wind picked up the first lantern and placed it on the platform grunting with effort, “Damn I miss Twilight he could probably juggle there without problem.”

Warriors nodded as he placed the last lantern the platform behind it, “Or more people with power bracelets.”

Soon the two had all five lanterns set down on pedestals. As Wind set the last one in place the green lantern, the fourth lantern flared brightly. And the ceiling rumbled and seemed to descend.

“Welp,” Wild looked up, “I think we got the green right and if we keep messing up the ceiling will come down and smush the room.”

“Yeah, I think we should make sure to only have all five platforms filled when we have a new idea. That seems to be when the room checks the pattern.”

“Makes sense. I’ll take the first one off and set it aside until we are ready to set the final order in place. I say we just move everything left with the last coming the front.”

“Sounds good to me,” Warriors pulled off the last lantern, “I’ll put this on the first spot as you put the first lantern down.” As soon as the lantern was off the platform the green lantern went back to being the normal burning like the others.

In short order they had moved the lanterns and Wind was taking the first lantern, the one that burned blue, put it on the empty second location.

This time when the lanterns lit up the third lantern, purple in color flared up as well as the green, the ceiling again sinking down ward, this time further than the last time.

Wind frowned up at the ceiling, “Do you think it was stuck the first time?”

Warriors hummed, “Probably, lets move everything but purple and green.”

Soon enough they had switched the lanterns all five of them light up brightly and the roof didn’t move. What did move was the bricks inside the doorway to what Wind’s compass said was north, they had been traveling generally westward so it was interesting to see the path turn. “Alright looks like we are shifting directions to be going north.”

Warriors nodded, “Sounds good, you want to stay in front.”

“Yeah, I have a lot better chance of sensing the monsters before they sense us if your clanking armor isn’t walking with me.”

“My armor doesn’t clank!”

“Keep telling yourself that and maybe it will become true but for now keep your clanking behind me, the hallways don’t seem to echo much but that could change any time.”

Sighing Warriors nodded conceding Wind’s point. It was a lot nicer to get the heads up on the monsters and not the other way around. “I just hope we find some of the others soon.”

Wind sighed before heading towards the doorway, “Me too.”

Chapter 7: Matchy Not Matchy

Chapter Text

As the last monster disappeared into gas Hyrule and Sky inspected the room they had entered. They hadn’t noticed earlier but there was a large mural on two of the walls. The walls faced each other.

Sky frowned at the doorless walls, “The gargoyle said to go this way but it’s a dead end.”

“Maybe it’s a puzzle.” Hyrule surveyed the two murals, “I mean to get past the gargoyle we had to solve one so it makes sense we’d see more, but I’m not sure how these are a puzzle. I mean they are identical.”

Sky looked over one mural and then the other before shaking his head reaching up to tap on one spot, “This is differ- woo!” Under Sky’s finger the small frog, that was not in the other mural, compressed into the mural.

“So,” Hyrule looked at where the frog now laid, sitting further recessed into the wall then it had been before, “We just have to poke the differences?”

“Apparently,” Sky glanced between the two murals, “Here’s another one.”

“No!” Hyrule shot out trying to grab Sky’s hand, “That’s the same.”

Unfortunately, Hyrule’s warning came too late and as soon as Sky touched the wrong thing a puff of monster magic formed in the middle of the room in which a red bokoblin appeared.

Throwing out his hand Hyrule summoned a fireball and quickly destroyed the bokoblin.

“Sorry,” Sky grimaced as he tried to wave the fresh monster smoke away but was only partially successful because of being in a small room and the smoke left over from killing the other monsters. He hated fighting monsters inside corridors and small rooms, he was sure if any more smoke happened, he would start coughing on the stink.

Hyrule waved the apology off, “Happens, lets both agree before picking anything going forward.”

Sky nodded before pulling out his gust bellows, sick of the monster smoke, and sucked all the smoke in. He would have to release it once they were outside and clean the bellow of the leftover stink that always happened after his bellow sucked in air. Cleaning it was always annoying as the only way to clean it was to suck in clean air and then blow it back out having to wait until it was all the way full and then all the way empty somewhere between twenty to thirty times depending on how long he let the monster smoke sit in the bellow. “Remind me to clear that out when we get somewhere with fresh air, the sooner I empty it the less work it will be to clean out the traces of monster gas.”

“I’ll do my best,” Hyrule promised, "Now I think this fish is different.” He carefully pointed at a fish on one of the murals without touching it. When Sky nodded agreeing he tapped it and it recessed into the wall like the frog had.

They quickly found the differences and a door appeared opposite of where they had come from. Grinning, the pair continued on looking forward to finding one of the others.

Chapter 8: Problems with Pressure Plates

Chapter Text

Legend glared at the hopping statue that was walking back and forth across a room. He had attacked the statue thinking it was a foe but nothing had happened. No matter which weapon or magic he hit it with it didn’t stop in its march back and forth through the room it traveled along the outside edge of the room.

Also in the room was a door that was positioned so that he would be going back towards the gargoyle room, if not directly. The door was made of a solid stone and there did not seem to be any switch or inscription on the walls.

Glaring at the statue he saw when the statue hit some sort of pressure plate, a flash of light appearing as Legend heard a click. Quickly turning to the door way, he frowned at seeing the doorway still blocked.

Legend walked over to where the statue had hit the pressure switch and stood on it, causing another flash of light but the door remained closed. Stepping off the switch he started surveying the floor. If there was one switch there was likely at least one other if not more.

When he stepped on the stone in the exact center of the room the stone flashed like the other switch had and again Legend heard a click.

Unfortunately, when Legend looked to the door it hadn’t moved, “Great two switches and only one of me. Do I need to drop something on that one and then stand on this one? I mean the statue will make it all the way around again but that would take a while. But how heavy of an item do I need?”

Stepping off the pressure switch he dug in his bag and tried to find something that was heavy and would rest on the switch. Deciding to just chose something that would definitely work he placed the Organ of Evening Calm onto of the switch. It was definitely two big but it compressed the switch causing a light to appear.

Satisfied with the organ’s placement he walked over to the other switch and stepped on it. He frowned when the light appeared again, along with a click noise but the door didn’t open. “Am I missing a switch?”

Legend sighed and walked around the room and stepped on every stone only to find no other stones lit up.

Frowning he walked into the middle of the room and put away the organ. “So, pushing down both pressure plates doesn’t work what,” Watching the statue slowly circle the room Legend groaned, “Fuck probably need to step on it at the same time as that thing.”

When the statue got to the pressure plate Legend stepped on the switch but swore as soon as his foot went onto the switch, he had miss timed it and the statue was already moving on.

Sighing Legend watched the statue slowly circle the room again and once it finally got to the switch again carefully timed it so he stepped on it at the same time. This time a sound of rock grinding on rock rewarded him as the door slowly opened.

Grinning, he exited the room and continued on.

Chapter 9: Do I Lie of Do I Not

Chapter Text

Green signaled for everyone to stop as they approached an intersection in the corridor. There were two doors and two minotaur statues beside them. "Not sure if we have a fight or a puzzle so let’s approach carefully."

Hands already on swords hilt flexed as they continued forward.

Red smiled at the minotaurs, "Hello, might you be to help us out."

The minotaur statues shivered and came as if to life, for all that they stood on their pedestal and both gestured at a plaque on the wall between them.

Exchanging considering looks Vio pulled out Four's bow, against stone it would be useless but if the minotaurs came fully to life they could at least distract one by shoot it. While Red and Blue stayed out of reach of the minotaurs large axes Green slowly walked between them until he could read the plaque.

"One question each we will answer, one will lie, one will tell the truth, then you must choice your path." Having read the plaque Green quickly backed up, not giving the statues his back, but out of their reach in case they came to life. Which it sounded like they wouldn't but you could never be sure.

Blue scowled, "Only one question? If we ask them which door is safe the one that lies will say the wrong one aka the one that isn't safe, and the one telling the truth will say the safe one meaning they will both say one of the paths is safe and we'll have to guess."

Vio hummed, "Not exactly, they didn't say we needed to ask about the doors. I have an idea."

Green shrugged, "Go ahead I have nothing better than Blue's idea which as she said won't work."

Vio grinned looking at the minotaur, "You," They pointed to the minotaur on the left side of the doors, to them, "What is the main color of his shirt?" Vio pointed at Red's tunic.

The minotaur glanced at Red before saying, "Green."

"Right," Vio clapped their hands turning to the other minotaur, "Which door leads towards our allies?"

The minotaur motioned to the right door as he spoke, "The right path will lead you nearer your allies."

Red grinned at the minotaur as they carefully walked through the door keeping an eye on the minotaurs didn't swing their axes, "Thank you!" Before they headed down the new corridor eyes sweeping the area ever ready to spot monsters before the monsters spot them.

Chapter 10: Goats

Chapter Text

Stalking across the newest room Legend glared around at the door less room, “At least this room isn’t already unlocked. Now what is up with all these goat statues running around?”

Stepping further into the room a light shone into the room illuminating the room. The goats froze in place.

Legend frowned looking back towards the hallway he had entered from without looking into the light, “So light puzzle. I’ve gotten goat statues that I probably need to make so they can move again and,” He glanced around the room, “And I got a lot of random furniture to do it. Great, they want me to cart entire couches around to black light from hitting these goats. Hopefully they don’t start running into the light once they are blocked from the light, I only got so much furniture.”

Looking at the largest goat he grabbed the largest arm chair and started dragging it across the room until the first time it passed a goat. The goat came back to like running around in the shadow.

“Okay they are still caged by the item but they do move, that’s annoying. Now I need to get them each blocked while they can move around when I move furniture to block a different goat meaning I can’t plan the entire room and just do that I will need to put a piece in and then figure out where each of them is now.”

Legend blinked, “Wait if I block the one that is farthest from the light first then it can’t get into an area that isn’t blocked. The only thing that could happen is that it would go to other areas blocked from the light if shadows meet up.”

Nodding to himself he continued moving the arm chair until it was all the way across the room and stashed it there. It wasn’t blocking anything right now but it would be easier to move in front of the first biggest goat once he got to the front.

Going to the scattering of furniture he grabbed the grandfather clock. It was so skinny it would only be able to block the smallest goat so he needed to use that on the goat closest to the back as it was the smallest. When the goat was moving behind in the darkness he turned to the rest of the items, “Okay next goat, the chest should work to block it.”

That done, he pulled the long couch all across the room to block the two goats that were close enough that the couch would block them; he didn’t have enough furniture for each goat to have an object to itself.

Those two goats blocked he turned to the next pulling over a set of drawers only to frown when the goat didn’t start to move. “Great, this goat is being picky. I must have to use the drawers to block something else cause all of this can’t just be simple.”

Glancing around he saw the chest, “Ah yeah that is a bit big for that goat.”

Switching the items he placed a small book case in front of a goat before using the armchair to block the last, and biggest goat.

As soon as the last goat was blocked the light brightened even further causing the gold face plate of the grandfather clock to shine light onto one of the walls that then crumbled into pieces revealing a new passageway.

Leaving the goats to play he quickly entered the revealed hallway and sighing when it just seemed to stretch out as far as he could see, “Great, can I find something useful already? I mean in a dungeon I would have found a new item or something by now.” Still grumbling he headed down the hallway off to whatever was set for him next.

Chapter 11: Familiar Songs

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Twilight frowned looking closer at the stone door, “A song you all know played hummed or sang will open this door.” He stepped back, “So we need to play a song we all know?”

Wild pursed her lips, “A song, it could mean a specific song.”

Pulling out his ocarina Time nodded, “Well I’ll play a song you’ve all heard and see if that works.” Bringing the ocarina to his mouth Time played a short tune, carefully not smiling at the groans the other two let out.

Wild glared at him, “You play that storm summoning when I’m cooking again your going to be eating dubious meat for dinner.”

Time chuckled, “Fair enough, Twilight will you check the door?”

“Sure,” Pushing on the door he didn’t feel any give, “Alright why don’t we take turns playing the songs we each learned during our quests before moving onto songs from the others?”

Wild sighed and turned to look back the way they had come, she was one of the Links that music hadn’t featured predominantly in her quest, and there wasn’t even Warriors here to complain about everyone’s obsession with music.

At least it was nice to listen to she thought as the other two started going through each of their repertory of songs. Twilight ran out well before Time who had a longer list of songs. It wasn’t long before Time also ran out songs.

She could hear the grimace in Twilight’s voice, “You’ve played along with Sky when he was playing sometimes do you think you can play them without him?”

“I can try.”

The next couple of songs weren’t as practiced but they definitely sounded like the things Sky played.

Having gotten use to music at this point, as they had been at it for at least an hour now so as the two tried to figure out what songs to try next. Twilight remarking that he couldn’t play anything Legend did on his string monstrosity on an ocarina. She started to hum a tune that she often heard when she was staying at the stables.

“Wha?” Twilight’s voice was laced with confusion as the stone door started to sink into the stone, “Wild, what were you humming?”

Wild turned and blinked at the now open door, “Just something I’ve heard at the stables in my time.”

Time frowned, “Could you hum it again? I’m wondering if we know the song.”

Shrugging she started humming only stopping when Twilight face palmed, “Epona’s song. We didn’t play Epona’s song.”

Time frowned, “Why didn’t you play it?”

Twilight scratched the back of his neck, “Any time I play it in a dungeon or somewhere she can’t get to she glares at me the next time I see her. Doesn’t matter how deep I am in a dungeon she knows I screwed up and glares at me. Why didn’t you play it?”

Time snorted, “Same, Epona once almost kicked me when I spent an entire dungeon accidently playing Epona’s song instead of Zelda’s lullaby.”

“Well luckily, we had Wild to hum it. Now ready to keep going?”

Wild nodded skipping forward, “Yes! Let’s go!”

Notes:

Epona must hate me ALOT for this mistake

Chapter 12: Door Troubles

Chapter Text

Warriors frowned as they came to another door. It was a large door with a grid pattern on it. Each grid space had a large golden letter in it, some where in uppercase and others in lowercase.

Wind growled, “What the sign says up top? Its letters are so small and the letters are practically the same color as the sign so I can’t read it.”

Spoken words unseals me. It starts with a K. Halfway between twins the next character lies” Warriors dutifully read aloud.

“Logic puzzle then? Right between twin letters,” Wind frowned at the door, “But there are a lot of twin letters. Which is the right set of letters? I mean you have an O between to Ns and an K between to Cs.”

Warriors tilted his head, “There are two Ks and there is a N in the middle.”

“Huh, and between that and another N is a O. Do you think we just need to follow the pairs?”

“Would make sense.”

“Alright then it’s K, N, O uh where is the other O?”

“It’s near the top here and in lower case so harder to see.”

“Well, what’s between them?”

“The letter C, which has the letter K in between it and its twin. Wait didn’t that already spell knock?”

The both turned to the door which remained closed.

Wind frowned, “We spoke the word spelled out but it didn’t open? Did we get the wrong word?”

Warriors looked up at the puzzle again, “It says words.”

“So what?” Wind rolled his eyes, “We need to say knock knock?”

The door started to creak open showing another door but this time made of stone.

“Gah,” Wind looked over the door, “Another puzzle?”

“Looks like it. Well lets work on it then. So, two- or three-words Rock and Done but the way Rock is written its as if they wrote Rock twice but only using C once by having it hovering between the two sets of R and Cs.”

Wind nodded, “Probably because whatever new word code we need to make only has one C in it.”

“Word code?”

“Down at the bottom,” Wind pointed near the bottom of the door where a series of dashes sat. “Theres four dashes, a space and then another set of dashes but seven long. We just need to rearrange the letters into two new words.”

“See any clue on what the words might be?”

“Well, the D and one of the Ks are kind of glowing like the first two lines on each of the words so I’m guessing each of the words starts with a D or a K.”

“Makes sense so what words can we make?”

“Far to many, maybe its themed on the other door?”

“Well how does knock knock have to do with all of this.”

Wind frowned before he started mutter under his breath before smiling, “Door Knocker!”

As the door grinding open, revealing a corridor and not another door Warriors ruffled Wind’s hair, “Good job kid.”

Growling Wind tried to bite Warriors but he pulled his hand back fast enough to avoid Wind’s teeth.

Laughing Warriors continued on and Wind was forced to follow him as he tried to fix his hair. Warriors always ruined it.

Chapter 13: Blood Everywhere

Chapter Text

 

“So,” Green looked to his siblings, “How do we want to handle this?”

“Well,” Red frowned looking down towards the corner they had peaked around, “That is the direction that’s going to led us to the others faster so that is the best way to go.”

Blue snorted, “There is just a giant Black Hinox in the way, who probably has black blood, considering our luck.”

“Which means,” Vio looked around the group, “Our allies are headed towards it.”

Green grimaced, “Do we wait for another group to attack and then join?”

“They may only be a team of one person like we were.”

Blue nodded, “And they might decide to go a different way on seeing it.”

“So,” Shadow grinned looking around at everyone, “Are we killing it then?”

“It has been a while since we’ve all gone out together without anyone else,” Blue smirked, “Might be fun.”

Red nodded eager as he pulled out his fire rod.

Vio looked over their bow as they spoke, “Careful with that Red you could easily bounce fire off a wall at one of us if you use to much magic.”

Nodding Red watched as Blue pulled her hammer out of her bag. It was always interesting to see as the hammer head was to come out. When ever she pulled it out Blue pulled on the handle, pulling it as far as it could and then suddenly the next blink the hammer was out.

“Right,” Blue hefted the hammer onto her shoulder, “Now Hinoxs are pretty dangerous. Their weak points are their eye so Vio you’re on that.”

Vio nodded.

“Now it’s black so it’s got armor around one of its leg that will block most attacks but if I hit a weak point, I might be able to snap it off. It looked wooden so it will be easier to snap then metal. If I do Green start slicing that leg up as it will probably be weaker then the leg you can start on, otherwise go for its back and stomach. Red if you can set his loin cloth thing on fire. That will keep him distracted.”

Green and Red nodded, Red holding back a giggle at the image of a Hinox with its loin cloth on fire.

Blue turned to Shadow, “You can fly so use that. If you can target his hands, wrist and lower arms.”

Shadow blinked, “His arms?”

“Hinox like to raise their hands to defend their eye, their weak point which will get in the way of the big damage hits, Vio’s arrows. I want you to make sure he can’t block Vio’s shots.”

Shadow nodded now understanding.

“Remember these guys are big and one of their tactics is trying to land on people. There are no trees for him to make into improvised weapons so his reach is only his normal one. He will make a fist and try and crush someone against the ground so stay vigilant. Questions?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Right. Shadow go find some shadows to hide in and wait for Vio’s first shot. The rest of us will move from this direction on Vio’s first shot. That will hopefully distract him some with us coming from different directions. Let’s go!”

-

Time, Twilight and Wild finally reached where the sound of combat was coming, they had been running for several minutes, from they watched as the Hinox disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Wild blinked, “Was that black?”

Twilight stared at the blood covered Green and Blue, “With Black Blood?”

“Um…” Red shrugged, “Yes?”

“Good job,” Time grinned at them, “That is very impressive.”

Red, Shadow and maybe Blue blushed, it was hard to tell under all the blood, from the compliment.

“How did you get so bloody?” Wild looked between Blue and Green, “Did you hit like an artery or something? I never get that bloody.”

“Generally,” Vio hummed, “You don’t have to do as much damage to kill a Hinox as was necessary due to it’s Black Blood. Also, your primary stick with arrows due to their high efficiency rate so less blood is shed. While I attacked the Hinox’s eyes, Shadow focused on it’s arms and Green it’s stomach and lower back meaning there was significant blood falling from the monster and as Blue and Green spent most of the time directly or just to the side of the Hinox it’s blood dripped onto them.”

“Yeah,” Blood made a disgusted look at her sleeve, “Let’s merge so I’m not covered anymore.”

Before anyone could say anything else the five grabbed their sword hilts and five became one. Four appeared exactly in the middle of where the Colors had been, feet actually hitting the floor a moment afterwards as Shadow had been floating and the average had Four slightly above the ground.

Wild blinked at Four’s clean tunic, “Where does all the blood go?”

“If you really want to know ask Vio for details later,” Four sighed, “But basically magic takes everything we don’t see as us, or belonging to us and makes a tiny rock with it and makes a tiny rock with is on the ground around here somewhere.”

“Oh, cool.”

“Right where are we going next? We figure there’s three choices, the corridor that was to the left of where you entered, the one to the right our left, or the one to the left of where we entered and right of where you entered?”

Time hummed, “Let’s go my groups left.”

“Sounds good.”

The new group started down the chosen corridor only an hour later to appear in the room again, the room still covered in black blood so they knew it was the same room.

Twilight blinked, “It was a loop?” Twilight looked back to where they had come from, “But the hallway wasn’t curved? Did we some how end up in a curving hallway and just not notice?”

“Apparently,” Four, eyes blue, growled, “Let’s go our left this time.”

Time chuckled but followed as Four led the way down the chosen corridor.

All of them were hopefully they would find the others soon.

Chapter 14: Darkness 'Fun'

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Legend glared as the light from the fire ball he had shot from his fire rod was swallowed by the darkness. Nothing lit up the darkness, none of his piles of items. It was if there was a wall of darkness that nothing would light up. Well, nothing but the little sprites that he could see just inside where the darkness started, he could see another set somewhere in the distance but too far away to light up the area in front of him.

He could already tell that this was a stay on the path challenge as he could see stone pathways going into the darkness straight ahead and to his right which was also blocked by darkness but had no sprites.

Grimacing, he took his first step into the darkness, into the sprite and found although it was pitch black around him, but the sprites lit up the area just enough that he sees a little bit around him, not a full steps worth of vision but about half a step.

Taking that half step he was surprised when the sprites followed him. Alright he had some light that works, he just had to shuffle.

Since the path hadn't forked, he kept going forward cautiously. The path was only one person wide so he didn't want to chance going too far to the right or left. 

Even being careful he almost over stepped when the path stopped going forward, "Fuck! Shit that was close."

Rocking back on his heals to escape falling he groaned watching as three of sprites flew off, "Of course you fucken leave."

Sighing as another sprite flew off, he looked around. His visible area was only about a fourth of his normal step. There were more sprites about equal distances from where he was currently. Well, if the paths to them were equal lengths to them.

Choosing the left path, he slowly made his way along the path which had turned to wooden planks he kept a careful eye to the side of him looking for a branch. He'd need one going right now to go to the new group of sprites. He frowned, stopping as the wood planks turned to sone with some sort of pattern on it. 

Looking back the way he had come, not that he could see anything, "Right fucked if this is some sort of trap but fucked if I go back and run out of sprites before hitting another trap." He frowned as two sprites flew off learning him with two.

Taking a breath, he stepped onto the store quickly shifting all his weight on to it as the wooden planks he had been standing on disappeared. A new set of planks went forwards and another to the right.

"Great a shifting path puzzle, in the dark." Turning to the right he started down it hopping to get the new sprites before all of his left.

He lost one sprite before he made it but at least he made it.

Enjoying the smaller zone of light he noted an unlit torch. Pulling out his fire rod he was happy to see it light the torch and a small portion of the room. The torch was in a corner so there were probably at least three more.

Turning from the light, he started walking to where the path had forked, where the darkness once more coated the area.

He frowned he needed to go on the other path that was currently out but if they stepped onto the stone that switched the paths it would make the path he wanted would disappear. He wasn’t confident that he could step onto the path he wanted without being able to see it.

Kneeling down he carefully didn’t touch the changing pressure plate and reached out into the darkness to see if he could feel the path he wanted to get onto. His fingers brushed the path but it would be a stretch to step from his current path to the other which would be very dangerous to balance between the two paths.

So, he had to step onto the spot that would change the paths.

Quickly stepping onto the spot, he watched as the two paths disappeared and the old path appeared. Good it was only two options for the paths. He walked onto the old path before turning around and stepping back onto the changing stone which gave him back the desired path.

Walking down the path he found himself at another piece of stone platform, this one lacked any pattern so he stepped on it and looked around he saw a path that he was rather certain would lead back towards the entrance which he still needed to get to a torch that was going to be in the corner to the left of the entrance.

Heading down the path, since he had no other option, he found a platform with a stone path going further down from it, this would be the first platform he got to once he left the entrance. Continuing down to the entrance he found the other stone pathway, and a wooden pathway that hadn’t been there before he hit the switch. Going down that path he reached a corner of the room and another unlit torch. Lighting it he returned to the entrance.

His options now where to go back forward and take the pathway that he hadn’t taken earlier or to go to the first platform he had gone to and taken the path he hadn’t taken before. “Great two paths and I have no clue which to fucken take.”

Legend rubbed his face as a sprite flew away, “Alright I need to get to the corner opposite this one so straight is the best path,” Glancing up he frowned, “Hopefully I run into more of you.”

Continuing on he walked down the other stone pathway until he hit a platform that had a pattern on it. Sighing Legend stepped on it and only one platform appeared. Continuing on the only option he found another corner with a torch. Lighting it he looked at his two options.

“If I go back the direction I went, I’ll probably activate a pathway going further into the room, or I could take the other path here and possibly lead me towards the last corner but could also be a dead end.”

Rubbing his hair, and almost dislodging his hat he glared at the two options. “Shit lets try hitting the changing pathway stone. So far, each platform has had only one of this type of paths so I’ll probably hit a dead end if I don’t hit the pathway switch. Especially since I’m pretty sure the first platform I reached had a path going this direction so the platform has two of the current type of path leading to it.”

Nodding he set back the way he had came and hit the patterned stone where, as expected a new path led further into the other room. Taking the path, he came to a platform with no pathways coming from it.

“Fuck really? I have to take the other pathway set to get here and go forward?” He frowned as a sprite flew off, “Right no time to dawdle.”

Going back to the patterned platform he glanced at the wooden and stone pathways. “Screw it, I know the stone pathways will lead me to a pathway that has to lead to the platform I was just on. The pathway I saw from the corner could lead to a dead end so I’ll take the two stone pathways and then the wooden pathway to the platform I was just on.” He grimaced as another two sprites flew off leaving him with only two sprites, “And fast so I don’t completely lose you guys.”

Hurrying, as much as he could with his limited visible, he made his way back to the platform he had just been on, where a pathway was leading deeper into the room and one towards the wall.

Heading deeper into the room, in the direction he could tell more sprites where located he swore as he hit another patterned stone and the pathway he had been on disappeared. As he stood on the patterned platform he watched as the last two sprites left.

“Fuck.” Looking around the darkness he noted if he continued forward, he would reach an area with more sprites but he couldn’t be certain there was a pathway going that way, there was probably not one considering his luck, but he needed to get that direction so better to test it.

Shifting forward he tried to use his foot to feel for a platform. Unfortunately, he over reached into the darkness and started to tumble forward.

“FUCK!” Legend quickly twisted himself so he could grab at the platform he had been on. Catching himself he let out a breath of relief before pulling himself back onto the platform. Sitting on the stone he heard the pathways shifted. Remaining sitting so he couldn’t overbalance he again reached out with his foot and found a pathway towards the sprites. Carefully maneuvering himself to stand on the platform he carefully shuffled forward sighing in relief when he reached the sprites.

“Thank fuck, light.” He stared in disbelief as one of the sprites flew away, “Oh come on. Already?”

Sighing, and blaming his luck, he walked back to the changing stone platform. This time when the pathways shifted, he could see a pathway that headed towards the wall. Hoping that it would lead to last corner he headed down that path and caught when the path suddenly turned to head deeper into the room. Finding another platform, he sighed in relief at finding a unlit torch.

As soon as he lit the torch the entire room lit up so that he could see the entire room and all the platforms positioned through the room. All the sprites flew off as the light filled the room. A moment later the rumbling of stone could be heard and he could see a new stone pathway appear from one of the platforms on the other side of the room that reached out to a new door.

“Cool found the exit, just need to get there now.”

Now able to see he carefully walked down the pathway he had used to get to the corner, easily navigating when the platform suddenly changed to lead towards the patterned platform and quickly arrived at the patterned platform. Now able to see he investigated the patterns on the platform. “Words Keep Light? Did I need to talk more to keep the sprites around? That doesn’t make sense every time I talked spites seemed more likely to leave.” Shaking his head he put the puzzling words out of his mind he stepped on the platform and watched as the pathways retracted into the platforms and other pathways reached out to the nearby platforms.

Remembering what pathways should currently active he headed down and then across to the far wall. Walking up to another changing platform and then followed the new pathway to a platform he had yet to get to and followed the new stone platform out of the room and into a new hallway.

Notes:

32 chapters and counting... so many puzzles

Chapter 15: Letter Letters Every Where

Chapter Text

Sky frowned coming to a stop before a set of square flagstones, each seemed to have letters carved into them and he could see that the room was rather full of them. "Careful, these are probably trapped."

Hyrule frowned stopping next to him to look at them, "I can feel magic on some of them."

"Do any of the first row feel magical?"

Walking down the edge of all the flagstones Hyrule nodded turning to Sky, "Half of them are magical, or at least have magic on them but I can't tell what type. Its not every other or any pattern so that's probably not a factor."

"Can you sense the second row at all?"

"Not for certain they are too far away with the other stones in front of us putting off magic. I'd need to basically be able to touch them to sense if they are magical or not. I don't have to actually touch them just get that close."

Sky frowned, "The letters might spell something out but we can't see them all from here."

"I could turn into a fairy and look at them. It would take a while as it looks like there are a lot and I'd have to keep turning back to write down things down so you could see what I had."

"Let's figure out the possible first letters first, if you have something to work off it will be a lot easier. I can read the letters as if they are in my Hylian, can you read them as well?"

"Yeah, although every time I look away the change between Legend's and my times language and not all of them are either Legends or mine. I'd have trouble figuring out words without something to work off because I still have problems with Legends times writing. I'm working on my vocabulary but its still limited."

"Huh, maybe it's because you know more than one language? Obviously there is some sort of magic in place that makes it so we can both read the letters."

"That might be why I'm having trouble sensing further out, if the letters are magic, they will put off enough magic to fog up the area. Oh I hope Legend doesn't end up here then, he knows a lot of languages and it would get horribly confusing with all the languages different characters, or at least I think it would," Hyrule shook his head, "Focus." He turned to Sky, "How do you think we can figure out which spots are safe?"

Sky grinned sheepishly, "By triggering them? I mean it will give us an idea of what the trap is as well."

Hyrule looked out at the flagstones, "I don't know, that seems really dangerous."

"We need to figure out the theme so you can figure out what words matter, there must be a bunch out there."

"I don't like it," Hyrule's shoulders sagged, "But I don't have any better ideas. Where do you think we should try first?"

"I'll test the stones that way if I do get hurt you can heal me, you have a harder time healing yourself so to spare potions I'm the best to test the flagstones."

There was an angry buzzing in the air around Hyrule as he pursed his lips not liking Sky risking himself when he could instead, but Sky did have a point, "Fine, but no complaining or fighting back from getting healed."

Sky nodded agreeing he knew purposefully walking into a trap would make Hyrule even more twitchy and likely to go in pissed off healer mode but there weren't many other options. Hopefully they could figure out the puzzle quickly. "I'm going to start at the top and work my way down."

"The first one doesn't have any magical signature, but the next one does."

Nodding Sky carefully touched the flagstone that bore the letter L. When it stayed in place he put more weight on it. "Looks like we AH-"

Hyrule grabbed Sky's arm pulling him back from where the stone had broken away, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, it took my full weight to crack it so they are sturdy. Probably could make it just by running straight out but this room looks to big for me to make it over in one shot." Sky glanced into where the stone had been, "That would have hurt."

"The fall?"

"I was taking more about the spikes in the bottom but the fall wouldn't have been good either. It isn't that deep at least," Sky shook his head, "Let's keep moving. I'll try the next one, you said it was magical?"

Hyrule nodded biting his lip, "Be careful."

Sky gave what he hoped was a comforting smile, "I'll do my best." Again, stepping slowly one the flag stone he was surprised when it started to glow. Jumping back, he waited for a different effect, when none came, he blinked, "Not a trap, but it is glowing so that’s either a good sign or a bad sign."

Hyrule hummed, "It's green. That's usually a good color. So, P is possibly the way to go. Maybe we should just go with it? We can always back track, probably."

"Is the next one magical?" 

"Let me test if it's another pit trap so we know what we are working with for failures."

"I think we should keep going. I don't like that stone."

"Okay forward then. So from the P we can go to the A, L, or E if the answer is always to go forwards and not side to side. Are any of them magical?"

Hyrule stepped onto the P so he could better sense for the magic in the stones as it was rather weak. "The L and E are."

"Right magic was safe last time. I'll step on the L." Switching spots with Hyrule Sky cautiously stepped on the L which lit up gold. Stepping back he frowned at the stone, "Another color. Should I try E and see if I get green?"

Hyrule pursed his lips, "Gold is generally a safe color."

"But it's a different color and that might be bad."

"Alright but be careful!"

Chapter 16: What Goes With Please?

Chapter Text

Nodding Sky stepped onto the E which lit up green. "Alright more green. Hyrule, can you tell me which stones are magical fast the L and E? The Y, E, A and C?"

"Another E?" Hyrule asked as he stepped onto L.

"Well vowels are pretty common in words so if this is spelling something there are going to be a lot of them."

Hyrule hummed as he switched places with Sky to sense all of the letter options. "E, A, and C are magical."

Sky nodded, "So we probably have P E as the first two letters of the word. I can't think of any words that start with P E E, other than well pee."

"Pee could be it but we'd need another word and pee isn't really theme'd to anything we've encountered... neither does peel."

"So probably not E. I think there was a peacock on the matching so I'm thinking A."

Hyrule bit his lip but nodded, he didn't have a better idea and they did need to keep going. Sky couldn't fly over the board like he could as a fairy.

Stepping onto the A he sighed in relief when nothing happened, other than the stone turning gold.

"Gold again?" Hyrule looked at the L that was gold, "Does this mean that it goes green, gold, green, gold? That would mean we would be on P L E A."

"Let me try the C to see if that will turn green." With that he stepped forward only to dodge back as the square lit up in flames.

There was a chime to Hyrule's voice as he looked down at Sky's leg, "Are you okay?"

Panting from the fright, Sky nodded, "Managed to dodge back quick enough that it didn't get my clothes. So not C."

"Let me check the next row for magic we should focus on going forward."

Still breathing heavy from the near miss Sky switched places with Hyrule. 

Scanning the next letter Hyrule lit up smiling, "It has to be S! If we use L then we'd be spelling out Please! And please helped with the first puzzle!" Without waiting for Sky to say anything Hyrule stepped onto the S and then the letter E which lit up green for the S and gold for the E. "There!"

"Hyrule!" Sky quickly caught up with him, "I thought we were waiting for both of us to agree before moving on."

Hyrule blushed, "Oh sorry. I just, I figured it out."

Sky smiled knowing he would have had the urge to do that himself if he had figured it out. "Probably at least. We haven't figured out the rest of the phrase or words. We are only a little under half way across."

Hyrule nodded, "We just need to find the next word so though so we are pretty close. I'm going to turn into a fairy and try to find something you use when your being polite."

Nodding Sky watched as Hyrule transformed, it was always a treat to see fairy Hyrule because he was just so cute! 

Sighing he watched Hyrule flew off and stepped onto the gold E. Looking at the tiles in front of him none popped out to him as the start of another manner word.

After watching Hyrule for at least half an hour, or at least that's long, it felt like he turned his attention to the letters in front of him. None of the letters started manners words to him but one to the left corner was a M so that could start the word match which was their second puzzle. Since Hyrule was looking for polite words it made sense to test it himself. 

Nodding his head he carefully stepped onto the M before jumping back as it exploded all the flagstones around it, but the E. Sighing in relief he tensed noticing he had stepped onto a new flagstone. The one that had been directly to the right of the E he had been standing on.

Quickly stepping back onto the E he let out a sigh of relief.

Leaning back he tried to grin at Hyrule who had darted down into his face to yell at him, or at least that's what he thought the angry sounding chimes meant.

Sky scratched the back of his head blushing, "Sorry Hyrule. I just thought... well there's less letters to work from now?"

The angry chimming did not stop.

"I'm not hurt and that letter didn't break." He pointed at the spot that was now glowing green, "So I found the next letter, not sure what word A could be starting but it's next."

More angry chiming.

"I promise to stay here this time!"

With one last chime Hyrule flew back up to where he could see the whole room.

This time he remained in place not wanting to risk an even more angry healer. Stepping on something he didn't even know if it was magic or not was rather stupid. At least they knew the next letter at least.

Several minutes later Hyrule flew back and landed on the A, "And thankyou."

Sky blushed again, "I'm really sorry I should have waited."

Hyrule glared at him, crossing his arms, "That's the rest of the puzzle but it's good you realize you were an idiot. I mean if you had fallen into a pit, it's not like we have Twilight here to pull you out."

Sky felt his ears start to heat as his blush spread, "Sorry, again."

Dropping his arms Hyrule sighed, "The A did really help as I wasn't looking at that letter but follow me. We should work on getting out of here so we can hopefully find the others."

Nodding Sky followed Hyrule across the rest of the flag stones and out of the room.

Exiting the room Hyrule grinned, “Look Sky it’s one of Warriors marks! It says to go this way.”

Sky frowned, “That looks sort of like where we started so wouldn’t they have gone left, not straight?”

“They probably got some hint towards people so they left a mark so we would know to go this way.” Hyrule grinned and started down the pathway the mark showed they should go.

Sky looked at the mark suspicious, something seemed a little off but turned and followed Hyrule, it’s not like they had a better way to choose between the two hallways. 

Chapter 17: When am I?

Chapter Text

Four looked out into the room they had entered, "Monster crawl then."

Time nodded "As soon as we open that first doorway they are going to burst out and attack."

"At least they are contained in blocks. We won't get hit with all of the monsters in the room at once," Twilight pointed out.

Wild grimaced looking at the floor, "The floor is full of piles of gears, bolts and other shit so everyone is going to need to keep a careful eye on their foot work."

Four knelt down next to a pile and used their poking knife to poke the pile trying to move things around in the pile, "They are fused to the ground so they won't shift under your feet if you step on them, but we can't sweep them off to the side either."

"Looks like this isn't just a monster crawl." Twilight waved at the strange glowing device near the wall farthest from the door way to where the first group of monsters was, "We probably need to take this with us."

Four hummed moving over to the podium and looking up at what was on it, "A hexagonal cube. This is an interesting shape for a carrying puzzle. Has anyone seen this before? We might be able to hypothesize what could happen when we are carrying it if someone does."

Wild frowned, "I think I remember Sky mentioning one when we were comparing different weird things we've had to carry on our quests. I can't remember anything about it though."

"Huh," Twilight cocked his head to the side, "I think I remember that, he complained that it was bulky and heavy so hard to carry. Then someone made a joke about it be Time's crystal. Do you remember?" He aimed that question at Time who was looking at the doorway into the next room.

"No. I think I was writing a letter to Malon at the time. We have a bit of a problem here."

"What is it?"

"This door? It's just barbed wire, barbed wire that is woven together. I'm not sure how to get past this."

Wild pulled out her slate activating Magnesis to see if the wire was magnetic. "Not magnetic so I can't grab onto it and try and pull it all out of the doorway.:

Twilight pursed his lips looking down at the hexagonal cube, "Maybe this will help?" 

"Might as well try bringing it over," Time sighed, "Pretty sure Four would kill us if we tried to hack our way through all the wire."

"It would only be great bodily harm," Four mussed, "Probably not murder."

Rolling his eyes at Four's no-nonsense tone. Twilight picked up the hexagonal cube.

As soon as the hexagonal cube came off the pedestal and circle of light appeared around Twilight. Inside the circle the floor appeared clean, almost freshly laid, and within that circle the piles of debris changed into a tall robotic looking pilar that had an eye at the top and different sections twisting back and forth. It was obviously an enemy if one they had never seen before. 

"Shit," Four jumped back so the enemy wasn't quite so close, "Has anyone seen these before?"

"No," Twilight changed his grip on the cube so he could pull out his shield, the cube was to big for him to use his sword instead, "Look a bit like a Beamos to me."

Wild already had her bow out, "Do eye shots, like always."

As she let the first arrow fly Twilight nodded, "Just need to crack it, shit! Four look out for the laser beam!"

Four flipped backwards to avoid the beam of deadly, or at really painful, light, "How in the Dark Realm do we kill these? Vio can't pull out our bow like this," Four dodged the beam again as the enemy Wild had shoot collapsed to the ground sparking before turning into smoke.

Twilight stepped forward so he could block the beam from the third enemy as Four focused on the first. "Try slashing the glowing blue line that goes around it near the bottom."

As Wild lined up her sight on the third enemy, trying to get an angle to hit the recessed eye, Four slashed the enemy all the way through its body.

The bottom third of the enemy poofed away but it now rested on its middle portion where the bottom portion had been. Its top portion started to move back and forth as though looking for an enemy.

Not giving it time to do so Four slashed though another blue line leaving the top containing the eye sitting on the ground.

Grinning Four thrust their sword into the enemy's eye as Wild's arrow sunk into the third enemy’s eye.

All the, current, enemies dead Four frowned looking at the floor, and the piles of machine bits that still lay on the floor around the circle of light from the cube, "As soon as the cube gets close enough to those piles, they are going to come back to life. They may be more of these robotic Beamos or other enemies."

Twilight nodded, "I'll try to only wake one uh, monster? Well only wake up one pile at a time."

As he slowly progressed Four stuck close to his side in case a revealed enemy was able to lunge at Twilight.

Wild easily snipped each new robotic Beamos until the circle started to coat her in it's light as well.

"Fuck!" Wild swore as an arrow fell from her hold as Hylian flesh was replaced by Zonai. The too long fingers unable to grab where she had been holding the arrow. Quickly summoning a new arrow, she killed the latest Beamos.

That dead she looked at her hand, "Well that's one way to confirm that Raura's fingers are longer than mine. I'm going to have to watch for the circle any time I go in or out as my grip is going to change.

"Can you show me?" Twilight asked, "Is that what your arm looks like in the future?"

Chapter 18: Keeping in Time

Chapter Text

Wild nodded nearing the group and held out her arm for them to look at, "Yep. That cube thing must do something with time as this feels just like when I'm asleep."

Four hummed looking at her arm, "Interesting, does it feel different that you current, well not this moment current, arm?"

Wild chuckled, "I know what you mean and kind of? I mean for one the proportions of the arm are just different than mine but I also think it's less sensitive to temperature changes but it generally just feels like my normal arm."

Time peered down at her arm, "It does look as unusual as you have described."

Twilight blinked, "Wait, weren't Sky's enemies from the far past? I mean we are getting attacked by enemies that have crumbled away by our time."

Four hummed, "Perhaps the cube is a temporal displacer? As if it displaces time either forward of backwards if there is a time the person or enemy was different then they are now, and only if it had been a very significant different in time from now? Seeing as we are all still our normal ages it would make sense that the amount of time difference from now would have to be significant."

Wild shrugged, "Could be but let’s keep going I want to get out of the room where my arm will time travel without the rest of me."

Time nodded, "That makes sense. Maybe walk behind Twilight, then you'll be able to see anything to the side and front that gets woken up."

"Behind?" Wild blinked before her eyes blew wide, "I know what to do!" Quickly pulling out a shield she grinned at Twilight. "Can you hold that out?"

"Sure?" Twilight held the orb out at chest height, "Why?"

Activating her hand's abilities, she fused the orb to the shield before placing it on her back, "There! Now I'll always be just slightly ahead of the orb and I won't have to worry about shooting Twilight."

Time frowned, "Didn't you say you can't unfuse things?"

Wild nodded, "I'll just leave the shield with the orb. The sant was big enough that the shield won't get in the way when we put the orb down."

Four hummed, "That should work and the extra fighter will be advantageous. Now hopefully the time distortion of the orb will affect the door way."

Wild snorted, "Sounds like Vio is forward."

"Just until combat starts. Blue is rather looking forward to inflicting violence."

Time grimaced looking past the doorway at the large assortment of different times, "Well she'll have plenty of targets soon. Ready everyone?"

After a chorus of yes was heard Wild took the last step that would have the circle of light, light up the doorway.

As soon as the area was covered by light it turned into an empty archway, but as the first monster stepped into the light to get to them it became a pile of bones. 

"SHIT!" Wild lunged forward as monsters kept trying to go through the door. As soon as the light touched any monster it turned into a pile of bones. "If we let them pile up in the doorway then we won't be able to get through!"

Four dashed through the door before Wild headed straight for a Beamos that had appeared. Time and Twilight followed close behind Wild keeping an eye to the back and sides.

"Good point." Time narrowed his eye at the Bokoblin archers. "You should be good now so stay still while Twilight an I take out the archers."

Wild nodded, not that anyone could see, before pulling back on her own bow to take out one of the archers already ready to fire at Four as Blue relished in stabbing the Beamos's eye.

Twilight growled when one of his Bokoblins dodged backwards but turned his attention to one of Sky's as it was prepared to fire it's shot. His would need to draw to fire again. While that Bokoblin dissipated into smoke he turned back to his getting it in the throat before it could fire off its shot.

On the other side of the field Time was thankful that all of his foes where from the same era as they all fought the same.

Soon the archers were dead and the group started a slow progression towards the next doorway. As Wild, and the orb, moved monsters came back to life behind her where Twilight and Time were quick to deal with them. In front Four, or Blue more accurately, took down to size any Beamos that Wild couldn't get a shot on right away. When time displaced winged balls started appearing she had to turn her focus on them leaving Four alone bring Beamos down to size.

Slightly past the center of the room, far enough in that all the Bokoblins that would come back to the life were dead, but not close enough to the next doorway to risk opening it Wild stopped and took three steps back from where she had been standing, carefully stepping into the exact spots she had already stepped in, "Alright break and lunch time."

Four bounced over sheathing their sword and with, unsurprisingly due to the bouncing, red eyes. "Ya! What's for lunch? We're so happy we met up with you before lunch time. The uh MRPs? Well they work but we'd rather save them, forever."

Time chuckled, "MRBs or meal replacement bars and after the War Across the Ages I will admit I rate hate the things. Although I will admit Wild makes far better ones than the bricks we had during the war. I swear dirt tastes better than those."

Wild grinned as she passed out sandwiches, an easy standing no utensil meal, being careful not to move from her spot. "Glad mine are better and I am trying a few new recipes. The only problem is Warriors is the only one willing to try them so possible improvements to the bars is going slowly."

The others nodded but notable none agreed to help taste test her experimental meal replacement bars.

Chapter 19: Mirror Room

Chapter Text

Legend growled as he entered another puzzle room, he was sick and tired of all these puzzles he hated dungeons and this definitely was one. If he could run into at least one other member of the Chain that would be nice as well, a second set of eyes and hands could be useful for a lot of these puzzles. He knew it was a puzzle room because he couldn't see a door and he hadn't had an alternate path since the goat puzzle, at least none that were visible. The fact that the room was full of large statues and had a giant mirror along one wall was rather indicative as well. 

He carefully walked through the room looking for traps but found none. The statues seemed rather oddly place but none had weapons or looked aggressive. They was no pattern to their placements that he could determine at least on his first walk through.

The next point of interest was the mirror which had a plain wooden frame. Looking it over he found no symbols or words. With that he finally risked looking in the mirror and when nothing happened let out a sigh of relief. Mirrors could carry all sorts of dangerous magic in them.

Which this mirror obviously had some magic to it as it showed the room behind him but didn't show him. He stepped back to get a better view of the entire room which confirmed his suspicions. The statues where in the wrong places.

Looking at the looming statues he groaned. They looked heavy and he didn't have Twilight's Dominion Rod or his muscles to move the statues around. He considered the other items he did have and came up short on answers. Well, he might be able to use Ravio's bracelet he could. His thoughts cut off as his stomach growled, again and he sighed. Right he could eat lunch.

Rummaging through his bag he grumbles at how disorganized it always was now. Every time he reorganized it by the next day things would be out of place. Fortunately Ravio's charms on the bag did make it easier to find what he was looking for, even if the charm was really meant to help during combat where he couldn't pay as much as attention to where each of his weapons or other items was.

The disorganization had been going on so long now he knew it wasn't one of the other messing with his bag. They wouldn't put this much work into a prank, and there were no curses on the bag. He had checked, six times now.

Finally finding one of the bars Wild gave them in case they were separated during a meal time he pealed back the wrapper and took a bite. As he ate, he started to mentally map out what needed to go where. By the time he was finished he had everything but how to move the statues planned out. Well a better idea than using Ravio's bracelet on a mirror.

With no better idea he approached the mirror and touching it, turned into his painting form. He almost face planted into one of the statues at how easily the magic let him slide into the mirror. Hopefully it would be as easy to get out of the mirror. 

Taking a hold of the statue nearest to him he almost met with his face he easily lifted it before moving it to where it needed to go. The mirror version of the statue weight nothing, which actually had been a problem as he had almost chucked it over his shoulder when he picked it up expecting it to be at least a little heavy, not that weight was really something he could sense in this form.

Moving the statues around was easier than he had expected it would be and he was done quickly. 

Mentally taking a breath, as his painting form couldn't, he tried to exit the mirror.

Sliding out of the mirror when he didn't feel even the small resistance he had felt getting into the mirror he actually did face plant into the floor.

Standing he brushed himself off happy none of the others had seen that. The teasing would have been merciless. He would have been if it was someone else so he could just imagine how long it would go on.

Looking around the room he didn't see any indications that he had solved the puzzle. Frowning he walked to the different statues and comparing everything matched.

Frowning he stepped behind a statue to see if there was a further puzzle on the statues back, which hopefully wouldn't be based off placing the statues in the actual room where the mirror had shown them, he heard the grinding of stone on stone as two doors appeared on the walls. One opposite the mirror wall and one on the side of the room opposite where he had entered the room. 

Frowning he looked at the back of the statue. What had he done?

He realized nearly face palming, only stopping because it probably would have hurt, he realized the solution was from the room and the mirror to match completely and with him in view of the mirror they didn't.

Cautiously stepping out from behind the statue, he was worried that he could cause the doorways to become covered in brick again by breaking the perfect mirror reflection.

Glancing around he studied the two doors but there was nothing interesting carved on them or otherwise indicating they were different.  Shrugging he chose the one shown in the mirror as that probably meant it was the real door. Opening the door, he blinked, seeing the room behind him. 

Looking back to the mirror he saw the door was open and he could see the room through it, like when a mirror was angled to look into another mirror. 

Closing that door he went to the other door, and when nothing weird happened, stepped through.

Chapter 20: What Should You Say?

Chapter Text

Warriors sighed as they continued walking though the seemingly endless corridor, it had a very minor curve to it so they had to be constantly vigilant about a monster, or a group of monsters appearing with their next step when further down the corridor was revealed. Well one of them had to be on alert as Wind was whistling one of his sea shanties at Warriors side as he walked.

"I'm hungry." Wind looked up at Warriors, "Can we stop for lunch?"

Warriors pursed his lips, "It would be better to eat as we walk, we need to meet up with the others."

"But Warriors," Wind whined, "My feet hurt and we've been walking forever! And maybe we need to let the others catch up with us! They could be behind us."

Warriors signed conceding to Wind, "Not for long, we need to keep moving."

Wind cheered dropping to the floor, Warriors took longer to sit before pulling out his bag of MRBs deciding which to risk next. 

"Why do you have different wrappers on your bars?" Wild pulled out his own bar that did not match any of Warriors. Pealing it open he took a bite barely holding back a grimace, it tasted much better than it had in the war but it was still a just a nutrient rich bar. There was only so much even Wild could do to make it tasty.

"Wild gives me her experimental bars. She really wants to find something people will like or at least not grimace and put off eating until their stomach is growling. I think if I can true fully tell her a bar tastes palatable, she'll finally listen to me and switch us, at least partially, to MREs."

Okay maybe she could make them better, maybe, but he wasn’t volunteering to help taste test anything, "MREs?"

"Meals ready to go. Can't eat them and walk, well not without it being really awkward, but they will be more pleasant to eat then just a bar. She's been resistant to the idea as she wants us to eat her real meals at meal times and not eat MREs just whenever and then not be hungry for dinner." Biting into the bar he decided on Warriors grimaced before reaching into the sack for a different bar, that was not in any way a success, he could normally stomach any bar, time from the war still made it hard for him to waste food, even bad food, but no that was a hard pass.

Wind blinked, "If we get her to have a decent bar won't she worry about us eating that and spoiling our meals?"

"Theres no way she can get the bards to be that good. I mean it’s a bar for a meal no one’s going to eat that when they could just ask her for a snack or wait for dinner."

Wind nodded, "Yeah I don't think anyone would pick a bar when Wild's cooking is coming up. I mean she gives out snack all the time so why sneak a bar, and wouldn't it be really hard to sneak a MRE? I mean since you have to sit to eat it?"

"You try to argue that with her, I'll watch."

"Wild is rather set in how she thinks when it comes to how she thinks we should be doing to properly feed ourselves. I mean it's like she doesn't trust us to eat right!"

"Yes Mr. Scurvy."

"Hey! I was only like barely sick when I joined the group."

"You didn't start eating citrus until she started glaring you down when you tried to leave it on your plate, or sneak it into a bush."

"Look it was weird looking and tasted funny. I mean I love oranges now but I wasn't eager to eat my pants color. Not like you were much better with trying to survive of MREs rather than her food. Huh, maybe that's why she is so unwilling to make them?"

"Maybe, but they sure would be nice to have right now." Warriors sighed standing, "Come on sailor were both finished so lets get going."

Wind's sigh of complaint lasted long enough that Warriors felt his eyebrow arch, somewhat impressed. When Wind finally stopped, he grumbled as he stood before blinking at the gargoyle in front of him, "I've seen this gargoyle before."

"We've seen a lot of gargoyles recently your just getting them confused."

"I swear this is the one I tripped on, see it's tail is laying on the ground."

"It's against the wall, not where you could trip on it."

"What if that's where we entered from and since then we've been walking around in circles? I mean the path is curved."

"Not curved enough for us to make a full circle at this gradual a curve."

"Look we didn't see many gargoyles earlier this morning but recently we've seen what one every twenty to thirty minutes?"

Warriors blinked looking aback the way they had come before looking to where he had planned for them to go, "A never ending path puzzle? I've never heard the others mention one of those."

"Me neither but it would make sense, Zephos's gas if I know how to escape."

"Well, you could try apologizing to the gargoyle for tripping on it."

Without any better ideas Wind turned to the gargoyle and feeling a little silly for talking to a statue, apologized, "Sorry I tripped on your tail."

As soon as the apology left Wind's lips, they heard the sound of bricks griding against each other as a new door way appeared to a new hallway.

"Uh, thanks?" Wind wasn't sure where the proper response to a gargoyle opening up the way because he apologized but that felt safe.

Warriors left another mark on the wall to show the path they were traveling as they went down the next corridor.

When they were out of sight of the mark on the wall started to fade away, only to stop and reform at a flare of a gargoyle's eyes. 

It was always good to reward good manners.

Chapter 21: Lunch and Figuring Out What to Do

Chapter Text

Sky groaned looking around the newest room, "Why couldn't this have been a puzzle?"

Hyrule hummed, "It could still be. I mean maybe we have to travel a certain path to get to the door up there?"

Looking over the edge of the platform Sky looked wishfully at other door. "Why can't the answer ever be down?"

"Well sometimes it is," Hyrule pointed out, "But all these obstacles sure make it seem like we need to go up and if we check down first and it's a dead end we'd need to go up from there and here."

Sky sat down, "I am eating lunch before doing any of that."

Looking at the, what would Warriors call it? Obstacle course? Well, it was something like that. There were tightropes and plank bridges and all sorts of challenges, including a strange climbing area? Well, it had to be that as it was along the wall going up to the next platform and had brightly colored grips and rests. 

Agreeing Hyrule sat, "Do you have any of those meal bars Wild gives out?"

Sky blinked but pulled out two bars, handing one to Hyrule, "Did Wild forget to give you some?"

"Oh no. She gave me some I just ate them."

"When did you get separated from the group enough to need to eat one of those? We haven't been split by a portal in a while, well before this. We probably were do for a split."

"Oh, I just ate them when I was hungry."

"You ate them," Sky stared at him putting off eating the horrible bar, "When you didn't have to?"

"There tasty," Hyrule took an eager bite. "And I didn't want to interrupt her for a snack."

"Ah well, you can have that one and then we'll continue on."

Having finished lunch Sky walked over to the strange climbing wall, "I'll head up first to see if there's any traps and you can either follow on this or fly up to the next platform."

"I should conserve my magic so climbing would be best. I can't change back and forth constantly or I would have shifted back to really yell at you."

Sky blushed at the reminder of his mistake, "Right, wait for me to get up then." Looking up at the wall he grabbed one of the higher up strange colored rocks, which turned out to be slightly curved inside the top of it making it a fantastic grip. Then he put one of his feet up as high as he could and used it to push himself up and grab another block with his free hand.

Carefully he managed to get his other foot onto a nearby rock grip and then pushed up with that leg to get his first hand to grab a grip even farther up then where he was currently.

"Oh no."

Sky froze as he heard Hyrule speak, "What's wrong?"

"The hand grip you let go of, it disappeared!"

Sky craned his neck trying to look back, "That's not good. Will you still be able to get up?"

"I could but what if more people need to get through this room? They'd need hand holds too!"

"Let me get up to the next platform, then we can talk." With that Sky did his best to hurry and use as few hand and foot holds as possible. Landing on the platform he watched at the spots he had been using disappeared.

Lifting his foot, he froze as he watched a hole the size of his foot disappeared from the platform, "Demise's toenails."

Looking over the platform he set his foot down so he could get closer to the different obstacles he could use to get from here to the other platforms, "The platform disappears after I pick up my foot. If other people, more than us, need to go through the room their going to run out of platform."

"I'll use magic to turn into a fairy then, that way I don't use up stuff they will need. Better to not use up anything we can avoid."

"Maybe you can go look at the archway up there? To see if there's anything odd about a door or something? I'll wait here so you can tell me if I need to find a key."

"Okay."

Looking around the variety of obstacles Sky tried to plan a path that would involve touching, or standing on as few as things as possible. Well, a plan if he could go straight to the door.

A few minutes later Hyrule flew down to where he was, and tried to sign something but his hands were so small, and he was so bright that Sky couldn't deceiver anything he signed.

“I can’t understand you, and I can’t see you well enough to read your hand signs.”

Hyrule stopped making an angry sound.

“I don’t want you using magic to change Hylian and then Fairy again so we could do yes no questions.”

Hyrule bobbed up and down, as if nodding. Which Sky thought he was doing but he couldn’t be sure.

“Alright is the door locked?”

Hyrule bobbed.

“Puzzle or key?”

Hyrule bobbed then flew side to side.

“A puzzle key?”

Hyrule bobbed. Before flying down to the platform and bobbed above something laying there.

Grimacing at needing to take another step to get there Sky reached down and picked up a small strange metallic square with a whole in the middle, “I’m guessing I need to collect a bunch of these?”

Hyrule flared his magic nine times. Then flew side to side and flashed out eight.

“I need eight more of these?”

Hyrule flew side to side.

“Seven?”

Hyrule bobbed up and down.

“Alright can you see if each platform has a key piece? There are seven I can see.”

Hyrule bobbed again before flying off to investigate the room.

Sky grimaced looking around the room, and the challenges between the different platforms. This was not going to be fun.

Chapter 22: Fun Times Had By None

Chapter Text

Managing some more communication with Hyrule Sky looked over the room knowing he needed to get to each platform, which as things he touched disappeared would be difficult, he needed to take the least amount of paths possible while still getting all the key fragments.

From where he was standing, he could jump to a net that was hanging down from the ceiling, hop across some random barely two feet wide platforms, or a balance beam. “Well, the mini platform and nets can be used more than once, but not infinitely so I think I should start with the balance beam as it will get me the platform that is farthest out from the others.”

Hyrule bobbed in place agreeing.

Grimacing Sky took two steps to get onto the balance beam. It wasn’t the worst beam he’d ever been on, thank Hylia it wasn’t a rope, he hated those. It didn’t take long to get to the platform and start looking for the door fragment. Hyrule found it first chiming as he hovered over it.

“Thanks, Hyrule.” Picking up the key piece he slid it into his pocket and turned to leave the platform. His options were the mid air broken up balance beam, not something Sky wanted to use if possible, and a balance wire to the next platform.

Looking back at the beam that was still partially there he remembered that the beam had split off with a beam towards the other platform on this side of the central three platforms, and one that went to the first of the middle platforms.

Sky frowned, “I hate tight ropes so I could go back on the beam to where it branches to the other platform on this side of the central platforms and go that way to get the piece from there, and then back that way and then up to the first central platform.”

Hyrule chimed angrily. He flew in a giant X pattern over the way he had just gone before flying around the large gaps that were now in the beam.

Sky sighed, “Yeah it would be dangerous trying to step on the small pieces of beam that are left. The little platforms at least I could step on with both feet, but I really hate balance ropes.”

Hyrule flew side to side when he looked back at the partial beam before flying above the wire, then the balance beam that left that platform and then forked to head to the first central platform.

“That is the safer path. I just really hate tight ropes, like super hate them.”

Hyrule flew back and pushed against Sky’s side in the direction of the tightrope.

“Fine. I’ll use the tightrope. No telling Legend about me cursing though.”

Hyrule bobbed up and down.

Swearing several times as he wobbled side to side Sky eventually made it to the next platform and picked up the key piece. Having that he used the balance beam he followed Hyrule’s instructions and was soon picking up the piece on the first of the three platforms. “Right, that’s four of the pieces. Now should I go to the middle platform of try to go somewhere else? I could use this bridge across to the middle platform but then how do I get to the first platform off that side of this path?”

Trying to peer into the room he noticed some sort of hanging items that led off the central platform towards someplace to the left of the central platform but Sky couldn’t see where. There were also hanging items leading away from the platform left to the one he was currently on. So those might lead to each other but he could see from here that if he took a couple of the platforms between him and where he started, he could get to the hanging net and climb to the platform he wanted to get to next.

“Hyrule? I was thinking about using a few of these little platforms and then the net to get to the platform over there. Is there a reason I shouldn’t? I can’t see all the way into the room so you can see more than I can.”

Hyrule bobbed up and down before flying over the small floating platforms towards the net.

Following Hyrule Sky used as few platforms as he could manage, and then the net to get to the first platform on the left side of the central platforms. Picking up the key piece he took a closer look at the hanging items. He definitely couldn’t go back without taking out a large amount of path possibilities for if someone followed them. The hanging items seemed to be metal circles on the ends of ropes from the ceiling.

From here he could see that the line of hanging circles branched off to the most central platform, or if he continued to the other platform he could distantly see from here. “So, I need to keep going forward, should I go to the middle platform or the platform straight ahead? I can’t see all the paths from here and I don’t want to get myself stuck.”

Hyrule chirped before flying off to look.

Sky carefully didn’t shift his feet while he waited, even though he really wanted to move around and loosen up his muscles. He couldn’t afford to let more of the platform disappear.

Eventually Hyrule came back and when he had Sky’s attention flew in a pattern. Humming Sky looked from Hyrule into the room, “So I should use these rings to go to the middle platform, and then use them to get to the other platform on this side, and then go to the last middle platform before going to the exit?”

Hyrule rose into his line of vision and bobbed up and down.

Following Hyrule’s directions he swung on the circles to help him get to a new circle further away from his current one so as to leave as many as he could for anyone who would have to follow him. Going to and then from the middle platform showed him how difficult it would be for someone else to follow him, but he could only do as much as he could and still get to the second to last platform he needed to get to.

Picking up the key fragment he groaned, another tightrope, but this time there were two hand wires, as well as a rope that went above the tightrope, just close enough that he could reach if he wanted. Grabbing onto the side wires he stepped as far as he could before moving his hands forward to new grips. Working his way forward he did his best to leave as much of the wires behind for the next person to use.

Making it to the last platform he picked up the last piece of key, “Right just need to get over to the door and we can be done with this room. Just need to get through this weird spiral thing.” Slowly making it through the spiraled metal rod down to the door.

Hyrule shifted back into Hylian form and picked a piece of lock from the floor. “Here’s the last one. Let me work on the door. I think I have it figured out.”

“That’s why you said nine at first, because there are nine pieces but you didn’t want me to keep looking for a ninth piece when it was up here.”

Hyrule nodded accepting the lock pieces and quickly fit them to the door causing it to open, “Yep, but lets keep going I just know we're getting closer to the others.”

“I sure hope so.” Sky stretched out his back before following Hyrule from the room, he was really hoping for a mental puzzle, all the obstacles had worn him out.

Chapter 23: Opening and Closing Locks

Chapter Text

Legend frowned as he entered a room with a large closed container near the door, in the middle of the room was a large bridge and then there was another container except that one was empty. On the wall opposite him was a stone door.

Crossing the bridge carefully which he was right to do as one of the large rocks fell into the apparently bottomless pit he checked out the container. The container had several dents in the stone floor of it. One of them was just a medium sized square, one looked like a pair of chicken feet and the last was a set of four circles spaced as if they were the corners of a rectangle.

“Okay that’s weird looking but apparently I need to get the contents from the other container and get it over here.”

Going back across the bridge he grimaced as another stone dropped away, “Alright can only cross so many times. Let’s see what we got in here.”

Opening the box he quickly reached in and pulled out a stone chicken before the stone fox could attack it, or the chicken could attack the bag of grain.

Legend groaned holding onto the chicken, “Right only moving one thing over at a time, shit this is a heavy chicken. Well obviously, I need to carry over the chicken first.”

Carefully watching for which stone would drop next Legend got across the bridge and set the chicken into the container where it started to walk around.

Frowning Legend carefully walked over to the box and looked into it, “What do I take over next? The fox would eat the chicken and if I bring over the grain the rock chicken will eat it while I get the fox. If I bring the bag over it will take a little while for the chicken to finish the grain and I’ll have time to get the fox.”

“Or…” Legend picked up the stone bag and crossed the bridge. Once he was on the other side, having dodged the stone of the bridge that had fallen away while his foot was still on it, he set the bag of grain on the ground next to the container, only for it to fracture into pieces. “Right can’t put anything outside the container then. Fucking hope, I have enough bridge to last long enough to get across.”

Making his way back across he was happy to see a new sack of grain, “Right you are going in the container.”

Making it across again he set the bag down in the spot it fit into and watched to see what would happen when the chicken pecked at the bag. When a crack appeared in the bag, going all the way down the bag he grabbed the chicken, “Okay I need to take you with me or,” Legend set the chicken fractured and broke apart, “Now I don’t need to carry you back over.

When he got to the other side he looked into the box, “FUCK!” Legend quickly grabbed the fox before it could take another bite out of the chicken, “Shit forgot that could happen.” He looked into the box where the chicken was standing, several pieces taken from its side. “Well, you still have two feet so it should still be okay… hopefully.”

Carrying the wiggling fox across while waiting to see what stone would fall was slightly stressful but he got the fox into the container and went back for the chicken. Grimacing at the chicken he carefully picked it up accidently slicing his finger in the process. “Great bleeding all over the place.”

Getting across was a challenge but he managed and carefully set the chicken down where the two chicken foot prints were. As he did that the fox settled into place it and he heard the door unlock.

“Great now I can get out of here, ah shit.” Before his eyes the chicken and grain broke into pieces and Legend heard the door lock again.

Legend dashed across the bridge and lunged for the grain, barely managing to pick it up before the chicken got at it, “I will take this.”

Getting the grain across Legend set it into place. “Okay now to get the stupid chicken.”

Legend grimaced at what was left of the bridge, “This is not going to be fun.” He carefully crossed having to jump two different times to get across.

Picking up the chicken he surveyed the path he had left to take to get to the other side it was not looking promising. “Right, I need to walk over that and then jump that walk again then jump and then jump over the spot the latest stone fell from and then I will be across.”

Settling the chicken under his arm, happy that it wasn’t as wiggly as the fox, and started his way across swearing as the first stone he stepped on disappeared, “Right, jump, jump, walk, jump, jump and ditch the chicken and get through the door to what ever fuck up is next.”

Taking a breath, he jumped the first gap, and the second but had to do a little bit of panicked balancing on the third jump the chicken unbalancing him. After breathing for a second he made the last jump and sighed in relief.

Walking over to the container he slowly settled the chicken into place, “You better fucking stay where you are supposed to, none of this cracking shit.”

Standing up he heard the door latch again. “Finally going to get out of here.” Reaching the door, he pulled on the handle frowning when it didn’t move. Pushing the door had no effect either. Stepping back he stared at the door, “I completed the puzzle. This should be open unless,” He glared at the container, “Let’s start by closing the lid, because if the puzzle actually locked the door, I am going to have a fit.”

When putting the lid on the box did nothing Legend reached into the container and pulled out the chicken flinging it into the darkness under the bridge causing the door to give another click.

Pulling on the handle he barely kept back several languages of swears back as the door then swung open. Leaving the door open he stalked, fuming, further into the labyrinth. 

Chapter 24: Splitting Up

Chapter Text

b

Having finally escaped the time traveling room the group of Wolves, Foxes and Rainbow found themselves facing five doors.

“To continue forward you must all split and only when each goes forth may you all go forth.” Twilight read the tiny script that was near the ceiling out loud so Four didn’t have to ask for someone to tell them what it said. Something they hated to have to do.

Time hummed looking at the line of doors in front of them, “Five doors and four of us. If each hallways puzzle needs to be solved then we need someone to go down all five paths.”

Four hummed, “We can split into the Primaries and the Love Cats.”

Wild blinked, “The what?”

“Red, Blue and Green, and then Vio and Shadow.”

“But green isn’t a primary color.”

“Eh close enough, have we not referred to those groupings before?”

Twilight shook his head, “Love Cats maybe but I’ve never heard you refer to a group named Primaries.”

Wild blinked, “Isn’t the phrase love birds?”

Four shook their head, “Shadow can’t figure out flying as a bird and he likes the cat form and will often drape himself over Vio so Love Cats. Red picked it.”

Knowing there was no arguing with things Red names, no matter how oddly they do it, the others turned back to the wall with the five doors.

“I should take the first door,” Twilight pointed at where it said, ‘Strength Moves On.’ “If the words are hints the puzzle will probably be best set to me.”

Time pointed at the next phrase, “That’s me then, I have the lens of truth which should help me ‘Follow the Unseen’.” He turned to the others, “Any of the others pop out to you? Primaries do you want the ‘Colors Light the Way’?”

Green nodded, “We will take that. Which just leaves ‘Squeeze on Through’ and ‘Rotate the Way Through’.”

“We will take the squeeze,” Vio looked over the words searching for other symbols or puzzles in all the words, “Shadow can simply turn into shadow and go through any gap and I am smaller than Wild height wise and otherwise roughly the same so I should have an easier time squeezing through anything.”

“I’ll take ‘Rotate the Way’ then.” Wild walked over to her door, “Everybody ready?”

With nothing left to discuss the others nodded and headed through the doors, which slammed closed behind them. “Well,” Wild looked back, “No retreating then.” Turning forwards she started walking until she reached a small room. On the wall there was a large symbol inside a circle and in the middle of the room was a pedestal.

She walked through the room looking for any traps or other surprises before she would approach the pedestal. Near one of the corners, she blinked at the small strange stone on the ground. Picking it up se turned it over and realized it was a disk with large pieces broken from it. Continuing through the room she found two other broken disks that were all intact in the very middle.

With the broken disks, and having found nothing in the room otherwise, she approached the pedestal. On the pedestal was a recess that was roughly the size of the three disks, both in circumference and in depth. With nothing better to do she placed all three disks into pedestal and watched as they clicked in place. Peering closer she noted that what she could see of the three disks, as the top one was blocking the bottom two, and the middle blocked the bottom partially from view.

Looking the rest of the pedestal over she saw three buttons, experimentally she pushed one of the buttons and watched as the top disk turn clockwise several degrees. Pressing the other two she saw that the middle disk traveled counter clockwise, and the bottom refused to move.

“Alright so I have to align these in a way to make a pattern?” Looking to the wall she had first seen when she entered the room, “That symbol. Well might as well just get the disks aligned in a way that it looks like a solid disk.”

Several minutes of pressing buttons later she had the disks aligned and she heard a click as the symbol on the wall rolled into the wall, leaving a way into another room.

Walking through the opening she headed straight to the pedestal to see how big the broken disks she needed to find. Looking into the pedestal she groaned, that was much deeper than three disks.

Sighing she looked over the room and the piles of rocks hiding the disks she needed. Time to search down some disks.

In another room Time came out into a damp room with three stone archways out of it. Pulling out the Lens of Truth he looked over the room and after a few minutes he saw a hand print in an archway. The handprint seemed to be facing as if someone was entering the room which seemed odd.

Looking over the room, now focusing on the sides of the arches he saw a hand print in each of the archways. One was pointing straight up, as it someone stood in the doorway and put their hand on the arch, another had the hand pointed as if they had touched the wall as they walked out of the room.

So he had three choices. He could go towards where something had supposedly come from, he could go the way someone may have stood in the archway or follow the hand print that seemed to being leading away from the room.

So it was like the lost woods, but no music to follow, instead he had hand prints. Since the description of the room said follow the unseen it was most likely he was supposing to follow the hand print leaving the room.

With nothing better to make his decision with he headed through the arch way the hand print had been pointing out of. Finding himself in a room identical that he left he knew he was in a puzzle like the lost woods. Hopefully with his increased age, and the different clue he wouldn’t get kicked back to the start, or at least less often then when he went through the lost woods.

Chapter 25: Kitten Kisses

Notes:

This started as just an easy puzzle, the aim was 500 words and then Vio and Shadow decided to be cute, and I had to fight Shadow back with a broom as he really wanted to raise the story's rating. So it’s three times that long. I doubt anyone will be displeased about that though.

Chapter Text

Vio snorted as they stopped in front of a crack in the wall, still holding onto Shadow’s hand, “Right Squeeze on Through. That looks… doubtable.”  The crack in the wall was maybe big enough for them to squeeze through, emphasis on the maybe.

Shadow pressed a kiss to Vio’s cheek letting go of their hand and walking to the crack, "I'm going to go to the other side and see if there's anything over there."

Vio sighed missing Shadow’s hand in theirs, they didn’t often get time for just the two of them, "Sounds reasonable."

Turning into a shadow Shadow easily made it to the other side of the crack as Vio looked around the corridor they were standing in. Nothing stood out to them.

"There's a switch!" Almost at the same time as Shadow said that the two parts of stone almost blocking the corridor receded into the walls of the corridor.

Vio hurried though in case there was a timed mechanism but nothing happened after they made it to the other side. Turning to Shadow they grinned, “My hero, getting me through that dastardly trap.”

“Does this hero get a reward?”

Vio leaned into him and kissed him on the cheek They giggled when Shadow pouted at them before leaning forward and giving him a real kiss, “Is that good enough my hero?”

Shadow grinned, “Maybe.”

Shaking their head Vio looked forward seeing another gap, this one going horizontally. This opening was definitely too small to squeeze through, "Can you see if there's another switch my Hero?"

“For you anything,” Shadow nodded and turned to shadow to get to the other side. Finding another switch on the other side of the narrowed corridor moved it so Vio could quickly crawl through.

Standing up Vio dusted their knees off or the non-existent dust, "Right looks like another one."

Shadow pouted, “Kiss? I defeated another trap?”

Rolling their eyes Vio gave him another kiss, not that it was a hardship.

Eventually pulling away, having lost track of time for a bit Vio turned to look at the next gap. It might actually big enough to squeeze through. The only danger was all the small sharp stone spikes coming from the walls that would be all too easy to walk into, or back into.

Shadow went through again as a shadow and Vio could hear that he was biting his lip as he spoke, "No switch this time."

Walking closer to the to the stone projections they inspected them, "Barbed as well. This is a very nasty thing to force someone to walk through."

Shadow sounded even more worried, "Can you make it through?"

Snorting they waved their hand and all the stone projections sunk into the stone walls, "It's all stone." They walked through the gap easily, "Nothing challenging to someone of my power."

"Oh right, Might Earth Mage.” He grinned cheeky at Vio, before humming, “Could you have forced the other stones apart?"

Vio shrugged, "I could have but it's usually best to solve puzzles how they are meant to be then force one's way. As there was no switch, I decided to smooth out the walls to clear the path. Also how could I do such a thing when my hero was there to led me through the traps unharmed?”

Grinning Shadow giggled, “And my Mighty Earth Mage to get rid of those pesky stone barbs.”

Smiling softly enjoying hearing Shadow laughing Vio turned to continue on, “Now let’s keep moving."

Shadow nodded and walked along with Vio, grabbing their hand and swinging their hands in between them as he started talking about how he had tricked Legend into thinking Warriors messed with his bag. It was rather cleverly done and Vio was enjoying the retelling until Shadow's eyes blew wide as he stepped onto a stone that depressed.

"VIO!" Shadow’s form shifted into shadows as he screamed.

Throwing out their hands, grateful that their hand was freed from Shadow’s to more easily throw out their hands, and that they knew as a shadow even if they were to slip Shadow would be unharmed, to the sides they caught the stone trying to come and crush them and held them still, "Should have known there would be something else.” Keeping their hands out they continued to walk, “Now how did you sneak Legend's tuba into Warriors bag?"

Giving the walls an uneasy look Shadow continued talking, obviously relaxing one they got out of the area trying to crush them. Now that Vio didn’t have to worry about them getting injured by the walls they turned solid again. “Okay you just stopping the walls like that was hot. You literally just lifted your hands and boom stopped. Do you think we have time for… you know.”

Vio shook their head, “Not now but I can definitely show off some more later, never thought you liked my earth abilities."

“Well normally your not stopping walls from crushing us without even blinking, let alone sweating.”

Vio chuckled, “I’ll keep that in mind, now let’s keep moving. What was your next plan?”

Shadow had started in on his plans to frame Wild when this time Vio stepped on the trap step.

Vio glared up at the ceiling throwing a hand up to push the stone trying to crush them into the ground, "If this pattern continues, we will have to pass through an area with crushing spikes next. What are you planning on putting in Wild's bag?"

Trying not to fret to much Shadow hurried his steps, "I was actually going to take one of Wild's Chu Chu jellies and put it in Legend's bag. Wild has, traded, items like that before."

Vio nodded, "She then usually forgets about the traded item simply returning what she, borrowed, and leaving us to find whatever she traded us in our bags. All of us had to hold Blue back from strangling her when we found those muddy snow boots in our bag."

Shadow nodded once glad to be free of the area Vio was preventing them from getting crushed, "Took her forever to declare our bag clean. I thought she was going to throw the bag and make Four get a new one. Also are you sure we don’t have time to stop? That was again very hot.”

"It was a close call on the bag and no, we would likely get to distracted and make the others wait to long. Now ah the wall spikes are here. Hm," They frowned at the spikes, "Metal not stone. I can change metal some if I'm touching it but this is too much for me."

"Then how do we get through?"

Vio hummed before looking up, the corridor was quite tall, "I'll turn into a minish and if you drop me from up there, I can use the Roc cape to get most of the way to the other side. Blue is obviously better with the cape but I can get some distance if I start high enough."

Plan made Vio changed and shadow carried them up into the air before letting them go. 

Vio opened up the Roc cape and started to coast through as Shadow rushed forward as a shadow to avoid hitting any trapped steps. Unfortunately, this time it seemed the trap was set off by something other than a depressing stone as when Vio was almost to the other side of the trap the spiked walls suddenly crushed into each other. 

"VIO!" Shadow's panicked voice was load from outside the trap.

"I'm fine!" Vio got out in between calming breathes. That had not been fun. With the spikes being so large this time, they had bounced off the side of a spike and ended up falling on top of another spike that they were now carefully balancing on. They used their magic to make small ridges for each of their feet to stand on. "Uninjured. Just had the wind knocked out of me."

"Are you sure?"

Vio sighed looking at the wall of spikes in front of them, the gaps between the spikes just big enough for them to escape getting pierced, Shadow was definitely fretting now. "I'm standing on a spike; I'll need to jump down from spikes to lower ones until I reach the ground. Then I can walk the rest of the way out. With the spikes like this the walls can't crush any further together so I'm at no further risk. Now do tell me, you must have a plan to blame someone else for messing with his bag."

Shadow started to talk about his goal to somehow indicate Time had taken something, or just messed with Legend's bag but only really relaxing as Vio walked out from the spike wall and shifting to their normal size.

Grabbing their tunic Shadow pulled them into a desperate kiss before pushing them back, "Don't scare me like that! I thought you died!"

Vio sighed rubbing Shadow's back as they pulled him into a hug, "I will endeavor to do my best. Now I think I hear the others. Once you feel up to it we can go join up with them."

Shadow nodded into their chest, "Just gimmie a minute."

"Of course, love, all the minutes you need."    

Notes:

Look I'm finally writing an actual dungeon for my Zelda series. Pulling on my old DMing hat here and wow are there are a lot of puzzles in this... Frantically searches the internet for more puzzles. I already have 16 puzzles written and I'm not even a quarter of the way through writing this story...

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