Linked universe || Oneshots

The Piper of Krysa Hamlet (Whole Chain)

"Alright, let me think a sec," the old man interrupted, tapping the sailor's forehead with the back of his hand. The resulting contact made a funny sound that earned a chuckle from the group. "For now, I'll tell you a 'true' story I was told when I was travelling outside the kingdom."

"What were you doing?" asked Hyrule as he snuggled under his blanket.

"That's not important," Time dismissed. "Now is everyone going to quieten down for the story?"

"How old were you at the time?" asked Wild, but he immediately regretted asking when Time didn't respond and grew uneasy when the silence continues. Worried that speaking of age might have been an insult to the veteran, he was about to apologise when the silence was broken.

Time said with calm ease, "Anyone who interrupts will be sleeping alone over there in the field. Understand? Good...

There's an isolated settlement far beyond the borders of Hyrule- and also here- called Krysa Hamlet. I wouldn't be too surprised if it doesn't exist in the future eras or even now because when I visited years ago it was a miserable place. All decrepit and practically falling into ruin, there were rows of abandoned houses and unkempt gardens with overgrown ivy winding up broken swing sets and treehouses. Very unsettling.

Upon arriving at there one evening, I got a pretty unwelcome reception. There weren't many people about the small village square, but I received dirty looks from half of them and flat cursed at by the other half. To be honest I considered moving right through and spending the night in the wild- but I didn't have any food left and didn't feel like foraging. So I went to the local inn, booked a room, dropped off my stuff and headed down to the pub for bite to eat.

The people there were still unfriendly, and despite my attempts to introduce myself, none of them were interested in talking to me. They got especially angry and even threatened to get violent when I talked of music, even though none of them knew what an ocarina was. Just when I had resigned myself to eating alone a really old man with a battered walking stick came hobbling over to my table.

He asked the usual questions: what my name was, where I came from, where I was going and stuff like that. It was basic manners, but after getting the cold shoulder from literally the entire village, I eagerly answered his questions, though he said hardly anything about himself.

I asked him why every person here seemed to hate me and he told me that they haven't had an outsider come here in over a century and are just afraid. This intrigued me so I asked him to explain further and he told me this story:

...

Over 100 years ago Krysa was a large town, and while it was very much isolated being far removed from Hyrule, it was prosperous and thriving. Very much a merchant town, with thriving businesses and wealthy citizens.

However, suddenly over the course of just 2 days the town was suddenly besieged by a plague of rats. Thousands and thousands of them crawled out of the sewer system and went out into the streets and buildings through toilets, chimneys and cracks in the wall.

They were not only a nuisance, stealing food, spreading illness and leaving droppings everywhere but they were also dangerous.

A stand out tragedy among the many horror stories about the beasts told the story of a young family. The husband was an alcoholic who abused his wife. One night during a particularly violent drunk episode, he exited the house and left his incapacitated wife and vulnerable baby with the rats. The next day the half eaten corpses of both the young woman and the child were discovered. That was enough for the local council and mayor to finally start looking outside the town for help.

They had been taking action against the rats, every meeting held was centered around how to get rid of the rats, although nothing they came up with worked. Therefore, in response to that horrific incident and the new surge of public outrage they printed as many flyers as they could afford and sent them far out into the lands beyond. Each read: "1,000 crowns to the person or people who rid our town of the rat plague [...]"