Chapter Text
Accounts of the Great Calamity
Collected and transcribed by Kast Aborous
Foreword:
These are surviving personal accounts of before and during and after the Second Great Calamity, the event in which a significant portion of the Hyrulean population was massacred by the entity we refer to alternately as “the Calamity”, “Calamity Ganon”, or “Ganon”. Survivors were few, and records from surrounding the event are similarly sparse. Most of our knowledge of the event comes from oral history from our elders, and I wish to record their knowledge in the event it may be lost too soon.
While this record itself may fall to the fate that many of our written works did during the Calamity, hopefully it may be of interest to you my reader.
I have collected these accounts during my own expeditions into the wilds and ruins of Hyrule, often a half destroyed journal or text preserved by the rubble. In some places, the texts are damaged, and notes will be made in such cases, or in the case of others' handwriting aside from the main writers’. I have attempted to transcribe these as their writers wrote them for posterity.
Note, some of accounts cover events during the Great Calamity and its aftermath in the Age of Burning Fields, so we advise discretion.
[Record 1: Armi, Citizen of Deya Village]
Author Name: Armi [No known second name]
Location: Deya Village [Eradicated]
Occupation: Citizen, Farmer
Approximate Record Dates: Age of Calamity
Account found in burned and waterlogged notebook in Deya Village, located in the southeastern corner of Central Hyrule. Record ends around the presumed date of the Second Great Calamity.
[Begin text]
Ay havent seen this thing in yeers!
Well no time like the present, Ay guess Ay can start writin in this thing again. They say its good to keep a record a yer thoughtes, and my dauter Mirian myghte like this someday. Hmph, my housbonde Arron says my spelin is wrong, but he aint the one writin now is he? This is my journal, not his.
[In a second handwriting] It’s writing, Armi.
So what if it is? Ay know what Ay mean. And keep yer nose outta my journal. Get yer own!
Anyways, what myghte ye want to knowe, my litel pea?
- - -
Dear gods, oon of thise days Aym gonna strangel Mirtaz. Ay told that preest that Ay dont beelyve in Hylia but he is stil comin to oor door, askin Ay go to service! Ay told hym Ay pray to the Golden Thrie, the Tripel Godess but he is stuborn as a muel.
Next time he comes round, Aym dump water on hym.
- - -
Dumped water on Mirtaz, sayde it was ‘holy water’.
He looked good and shook, then he tapped himself with his sigal, sayde a prayer, and sayde ‘now it is’.
Ay shoulda thrown more water on him fer that, but Ay was to busy laughin.
- - -
All of Deya is gossipin today. The King sayde that the Calamity is comin, and that Hyrule needs to readye fer war. Sayde he was told by a ‘seer’.
Hmph. Horseshit if ya ask me.
The Calamity is a bedtyme story, every oon knowes that. Smoke and mirrors. It was lykly some giant storm that flatened a lotta land. Some old legends say thare was a flood back then, Ay bet thare the same thing.
Ay don knowe who this man is tryin to fool, but it wont be me.
- - -
Aym startin to think the King has gone mad.
He is drafting every able bodied Hylian thats not a soldier to work in digging fer something. He calls ‘em ‘Divine Beasts’, sayde thare to help against the Calamity. Just makin an excuse fer war if ya ask me. Just not a war against any mythic ‘Calamity’. More lyk with oon of the other kingdoms. Holdrum or Tykrik maybe.
Arrons been drafted, but he was always good with exploshons. He sayde the King is ryghte to prepare but ye cant prepare fer something that dont exist.
Let me set it straight for ye Mirian. We myghte spook ye with tales of the Calamity and shadows under yer bed, but there aint any. The Calamity is a story, legends of a thoosand yeers back to explain a storm or flood that looked like the wrath of the gods, but wasnt. It aint gonna hurt us.
- - -
Ah, Mirian dont scare me like that!
If ye dont recal in the future, shame on ye fer scarin yer ma like that! Ye ran off into the woods with no warnin! Thare are monsters thare! Ye said ye were following a spirit, but if yer followin spirits, maybe follow the ones closer to home, yea?
Yer makin my hair gray, child.
- - -
Arron’s been gone fer weeks now. Ay hope he gets back before the frost. It wont do to leave the rice patties out, we coud lose the crop.
- - -
Village is stil whisperin aboot the Calamity.
Half of em seem to think its real, other half dont. Mirtaz hasnt gotten any omens from Hylia, so he thinks its a fools errand. Aym not sure if Ay should be angry or smug that Mirtaz agrees with me.
Ay dumped a bucket of water on him. Need to be sure he aint gettin off easy.
- Aym writin this the next day, he put water on me. I chased him with my spoon. Gave him a proper whallop.
- - -
Arron returned today!
Hes… not shaky but he is shook aboot something. I tried askin but he sayde hes gonna talk aboot it tomorrow.
- - -
…
Arron says they foond stuff, when diggin. Thise… things made of something lyk metal but not, lyk stone but not. Ay told him he wasnt makin sense, so he showed me this odd rock. It was lyk a nail, but grooved, with a knob at the end.
It was made of something lyke metal and stone but neither.
Ay asked where he got it, he sayde it came from whatever it was they dug up. He foond it in its shell and took it to show me. He thinks the Calamity is comin, but I dont think so. Buried treasure? Hyrule is full of it! Just listen to Maggie talk aboot the Zonai in Faron, or those go find one of those overgrown metallic caves if ye want treasure.
- - -
Gods above, the king gets madder every day.
Hes enlisted ‘Champions’ to ride these ‘Divine Beasts’ but Ay havent seen a lick of one. He even sayde they have the Hero, and Princess Zelda is training to get her godess powers.
If Ay ever see the king, Aym gonna hit him with a shovel.
At least then the Princess can get the throne. Maybe the king has gone mad because the gods are angry that a man has been on the throne so long. Withoot a Queen, Hyrule is hurting.
Arron says its treason, but Ay thinks its ‘speedin up fate’.
- - -
Ground has been rumblin lately.
Arron sayde thay are diggin more, or that its the Divine Beasts. Some folks who went to Death Mountan sayde its hes ryghte, we arent meant to get rumbles out here in the flatlands. The ‘earthquakes’ they called ‘em happen around the volcano.
One of the folks sayde it was the Calamity, but hes a fool.
The Calamity aint real.
All the legends say it was from thoosands of yeers ago, for godesses sake, nothing coud live that long.
- - -
Some sort of strange storm blowin in from the north. The clouds are dark, so Ay bet we are in for a hell of a downpour. Aym gonna hunker down in the house. Lets hope it passes quick.
[The next section of the text is burned and any remaining words are unreadable due to water damage]
[Text ends]