Ocarina of Time

Chapter Five: Soldiers and Gorons

The shadows cover the path like a blanket, making it seem more late in the night than it really is. Link gave Princess Zelda's letter to the guard. After he got his laughs out, the guard let him pass. He warned Link about needing a metal shield, but there's no time to go back to the market and buy one, even if the store is still open.

Link can barely see the sun over these dirt walls next to him. He's glad that he's wearing boots because of how many rocks he's kicking up. If his boots didn't go up to his knees, the rocks and piles of dirt would be flying inside.

The ground starts leveling out, and Link gets to a bend in the road. Straight ahead of him is a huge pile of freshly fallen boulders, and the path branches off to his right. Link is about to follow the path, but he hears someone scream. Link runs over to the boulder pile.

When he gets there, he sees someone trapped on the floor. It's a man, a young adult, with shoulder length purple hair covered in dirt and red, frightened eyes. He is lying on his back, his legs trapped under huge rocks. Big four-legged spiders surround the poor man and Link gets his sword out. Navi flies up next to her partner and informs him, "Those are tektites! Watch out, their jump is higher than you think!"

To prove her point, one of the tektites notice Link and jump over him. Now he's flanked with one spider in front of him and the rest behind him. Link raises his shield as the tektite jumps again, attempting to crash down on him. After it bounces off his shield, Navi forms Link's slingshot and he catches it, quickly notching a seed and shooting the red spider right in its one eye. The monster burns into green fire before dissipating completely.

The man under the rocks yells again and Link quickly turns around. Surprisingly, Link sees that the man is able to defend himself pretty well. He has a one sided axe that he swings around expertly, fending off the tektites that are trying to get close. His other arm isn't moving that much, and Link thinks he must have hurt it somehow. Link loads his slingshot once more and shoots three of the remaining spiders while the man stabs the last one.

Link runs up to the man with white hair and Navi dissolves his slingshot. "Oh no... mister, what happened?!"

"There was an avalanche, agh!" The man tries to move one of his legs, but his whole body is shot up with pain. "I-I was climbing the trail with my friend's daughter, Peyton. I told her not to come with me... The rocks were falling and I pushed her out of the way. She's trapped behind these boulders."

"But she's alright! You saved her." Link puts his hand on one of the rocks that is directly crushing the man's legs. He knows he doesn't have the strength to move them himself. "I'll go back to the village. They can help get you out-"

"No! There's no time. There's monsters in that cave Peyton is trapped in." The man waves his injured arm and he draws a sharp breath. "Go up to Goron City. You can't miss it - just keep climbing the trail. They'll tell you the secret to getting into the cave, but you have to hurry!"

"I can't just-"

"Kid, you can and you will. Now, get out of here!"

Link doesn't want to leave the man, but he knows he's right. There's no way Link has time to get help. Every second he wastes, the less of a chance Peyton will survive by herself with the monsters in that cave.

Link sprints up the trail, dodging tektites left and right while making sure to not lose his footing. As he gets higher up the mountain, the wall next to him shrinks and the threat of him falling back down to the bottom becomes even more evident. Despite his fear, Link keeps running until he makes it up to a cave-like doorway.

The inside of the so called cave is hectic. The city is a giant circle with a canyon drilling down the middle. There seems to be four floors, and ropes connect the circle from one side to another for quicker travel. The citizens are just as weird as the city itself. All of them are taller than Link and they have great camouflage. Every time Link thinks he's walking past a rock, the object stirs and unfolds itself so that it's standing up like a normal person.