Chapter Text
Normally, exploring dungeons was rather fun.
Legend had been doing all that for a long time. Dusty dungeons, convoluted puzzles, getting the map, finding the key, discovering the important item that would further progression, the works. And, truthfully, he enjoyed it. Sure, it got repetitive sometimes, and sure, some mechanics and enemies were infuriating, but there was something inside him that loved that kind of stuff. It yearned for it.
Ravio called it courage. Zelda called it stupidity.
Point was, he liked exploring dungeons. Something about old temples and towers and other ruins were fascinating.
This dungeon was not one of those.
This dungeon wasn’t a temple or a tower. It was a prison. And not the sort for rehabilitation, no. It was meant for punishment.
It lay abandoned now. The cells Legend and the others passed were occupied only by dust and dead moths. The ropes back in the courtyard were frayed, having been chewed on by rats. The cuffs dangling against walls and hanging from the ceiling were rusted.
Old it may be, this place still carried the weight of its sins. Legend could feel them crawling across the back of his neck, prickling his tiny hairs. The others felt it too; he could tell. They were all restless, eyes darting and feet shifting.
They had already explored the majority. It had been easy to get through thus far. The only things that had hindered their progress were skulltulas, stalfos, and some overgrown, mutated rats. While not pleasant, not anything they couldn’t handle.
Local townsfolk had mentioned this place to them. With hushed voices, they spoke of the abandoned prison deep in the forest. It was cursed, they said.
Once, two teenage boys had gone inside. They went missing for seven months. When they stumbled back into town, they were different. They refused to answer any questions concerning where they’d gone. A few days later, both had packed up and left the town. Ever since then, no one else had gone near.
So, here they were. Courage and stupidity, indeed.
“I don’t like all of the eyes,” Wild mumbled, eying the walls with distaste.
“It’s not anything I haven’t seen before,” Legend grumbled back, but he had to agree.
Usually, dungeons had some sort of motif to them. Forest, fire, water, magic, the works. This one was all about eyes.
They lined the walls, carved into the stone. Even the locks on the cells and doors were shaped like them. Several times now, in order to progress, one of them had to shoot an eye above the door to get it to open. Not anything new, really, but it was… excessive.
If the people who made this place wanted to make their prisoners feel like they were constantly being watched, Legend would say they had certainly succeeded.
“This is the last room,” Four stated. He held the map. When the others crowded around, he showed it off. It truly was the last one. It seemed the rest of the rooms had been leading them to it. It jutted off from the rest, somewhat isolated.
The double door to the room, the one they stopped before, was bigger than the rest, and much more ornate. Gold trim shaped like an eye stared down at them. The pupil was one big ruby. Set beneath, again, like another eye, was a fancy lock.
They had gotten a boss key earlier on. Hyrule procured it from his adventure pouch and tossed it over to Time, who stood closest to the door.
“No doubt something's waitin’ for us in there,” Twilight said.
“It’s gonna be a massive spider or something,” Hyrule mused.
Legend nodded wisely. “With a big eyeball on its back.”
Hyrule snickered. “How much do you wanna bet, veteran?”
“How about that purple rupee you found?”
The traveler let out a dramatic gasp. “My precious treasure? How could you ask such a thing?”
Wind wrinkled his nose. “But you’re already agreeing it’s gonna be a spider. That’s not how bets work!”
“I think it’s going to be a huge gold automaton thingy,” Sky said. “With multiple arms and big swords. And a creepy laugh that sounds like a baby.”
“...Why would you think that?”
Legend stared at the skyloftian. The cheerful knight ignored Wind’s very valid question. He just kept that happy smile on his face, the one that never seemed to leave. It looked rather smug.
Legend rolled his eyes. Typical.
A loud clank rang out as Time unlocked the door. “Ready yourselves,” he ordered.
He and Warriors pushed the doors. They creaked open with a mournful moan, splitting the gold eye in half. Dust billowed out around their feet. Someone sneezed.
As they cautiously stepped into the room, torches sparked to life along the walls, one after another, trailing all around until the entire place was lit. The sudden influx of light, vividly orange in color, blinded Legend for a second until his eyes adjusted.
The chamber was circular. Along the curved wall, Legend counted twelve torches. Above each one, sticking out from the stone, were numbers. One through twelve.
The ceiling curved and met as a dome. In the center, a massive stone eye, its lids currently closed, bulged outward. A long stretch of stone attached to the ceiling trailed from a point at its base to the twelve, almost touching the wall. It was like a pillar just… on the ceiling.
There was writing on the floor. Big, noticeable, and painted with a vivid red. “Can anyone read that?” Legend asked. The words were unfamiliar to him. Not too surprising—they weren’t in anyone’s era. They were somewhere in between.
Scattered “no’s” came from the heroes. They slowly stepped further in, painfully aware that the doors would probably lock behind them and a monster would then show itself.
“It sort of resembles the Hylian from my time,” Four commented, squinting at the lettering. “I’d like a picture of that… Maybe I could decipher it with more time.”
Wild procured his Sheikah Slate and snapped an image. “Gotcha covered, smithy,” he said.
They shuffled further in. Legend counted down in his head, but no bars slammed down over the doors behind them. No monster dropped from the ceiling or appeared from the shadows. The room was empty.
“This is weird,” Wind muttered. “What’s with the numbers? And that eye up there?”
Sky hummed. “One through twelve… like a clock?”
“It would seem so,” Time said.
Legend looked back up at the pillar stretching across the ceiling. If this whole room were a clock, then that would be a clock hand. It certainly resembled one, with the way it pointed to the twelve. But it was missing a second hand.
A horrid screech rang, not of some monster or beast, but of stone scraping against stone. All the heroes jolted. Nine heads snapped up. The massive eye opened, slowly, revealing a deep purple pupil. White circular designs were etched onto its surface.
Sky made a noise of recognition. “Hey, that looks like—”
The pupil lit up. A beam of purple light shot down, like a spotlight. They all backed away from it. With another, grating shriek, the eye turned. The spotlight followed, trailing across the floor. Instinctively, they all kept away from it. It wasn’t difficult—the eye moved slowly.
But it also moved erratically. It jerked about, as if searching. Every time it moved, that awful noise screeched out. If it kept up, Legend was going to get a headache. He went to grab his bow.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Sky and Wind about to run into each other. One had his head craned up, watching the eye, while the other stared at the door. Legend wasn’t quick enough to warn them. The two heroes tripped over each other and landed in a heap of limbs.
“Ow! Sky,” Wind whined.
“Sorry, sorry,” the other said.
The eye snapped in their direction. The spotlight followed. Sky shoved Wind aside just as the beam of purple light locked right onto him. Everyone stilled.
Nothing happened. The light remained trained on Sky, the young man shielding his face with his arms.
The chamber shook. Dust rained down from the stone clockhand as it trembled to life. It started to turn, grating and scratching the ceiling as it went. It was turning about to point at Sky, who remained frozen on the ground.
“Sky, get out of there!” Warriors barked.
The skyloftian scrambled to comply, then he tripped on his sailcloth. The clockhand kept on turning. The knight had dropped the Master Sword in his second fall, and he fumbled to grab it, not moving out from under the purple spotlight.
Legend wanted to strangle him. “Get up, idiot!”
The clockhand lurched to a stop right above the one trapped in the light. It pointed directly at the nine—the number Sky was closest to.
The spotlight vanished. Their heads whipped back up to the eye. The stone was dim for several seconds, then it turned blue. That was the only warning they got before a huge flash of light erupted from its surface. It filled Legend’s vision, completely blinding him. He saw nothing but blue.
He flinched back, eyes squeezed shut on reflex. He felt something, a strange tingling, like a hundred feathers tickling across his skin.
Just as quickly as it had come, the sensation vanished. The light faded. Blinking dots out of his eyes, Legend hesitantly lowered his arms and looked around.
He wasn’t in the dungeon anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even in a forest. All around was nothing but… sky. Clouds and a pleasant blue. A happy, warm breeze caressed his skin. He stared, dumbfounded.
No, wait, he stood on a kind of… dock? He turned. Vaguely, he saw the others all standing about, looking just as shocked as he.
They were on an island. An island floating in the sky. And it was big. Big enough to hold a multitude of colorful homes, a big, tent-like structure, and even a lake with a little waterfall. Across the way, a huge statue of a goddess-looking figure stood proudly, its light gray stone practically shining in the sunlight. It dwarfed everything else.
People meandered about. None of them had seemed to notice the gaggle of armed strangers quite yet. In the distance, shapes flew about the clouds. They almost looked like… giant birds? With people on top?
He knew this place. Not because he’d seen it. No, he had never seen anything quite like this. He knew it from stories—stories told over a fire in the evening, from a certain knightly doofus.
“Guys?” Wind’s shaky voice called out. “Where’s Sky?”
Legend let out a loud groan and buried his face in his hands.
Now he really wanted to strangle him.