Chapter Text
Part 1: Recklessness
Death #1: Great Plateau Tower
Link peered over the side of the tower he now stood upon. This was… a lot to take in for him. He just woke up inside a cave maybe an hour ago, with no memories prior to doing so save knowing his own name, to a voice instructing him to get up, take this strange (though admittedly cool) interactive tablet called a Shiekah Slate, and activate a device that made him rise into the sky, standing upon what was now a large tower. And just now the voice had spoken again, telling him he had been sleeping for a hundred years and he had to hurry up as a gigantic, gaseous monster swirled around the castle in the distance.
It was a lot for one day, let alone a single hour.
Well, nowhere to go but down, I guess, Link thought to himself, and turned to the gap in the floor and started to climb down the wall to drop onto the platform below. He looked down. Ugh. He had a lot of climbing to do. Maybe there was a quicker way? He could try jumping down to the next platform. It didn't look too far down. He decided to try, and hopped off the ledge he was on. He landed on his feet easily. With a sigh of relief, he went to jump down to the next platform.
But Link jumped too far to the left. He plummeted past the platform, his eyes widening in horror. He felt an awful crunch in his back, and the world went black.
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Link's eyes shot open as he drew in air with a loud, trembling gasp. He was standing at the top of the tower again. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest, and he sank to the floor so he didn't lose balance and fall. He forced himself to slow his breathing and clutched at the thin fabric of the old shirt he was wearing.
What just happened? Was it a dream, or did he really just… die… and then wake up? Link swallowed and pinched himself. He certainly wasn't dreaming now, but he had no idea how else to explain to himself what had just transpired. He looked behind him at the hole in the floor again.
No matter how much he didn’t want to try going down yet, he had to leave this tower eventually. Gathering his courage and taking a deep breath in, he got up and slowly, carefully climbed down to the first platform. After catching his breath, he started to climb down to the next, and the next after that. And slowly but surely, he reached the ground below. Link let out a long exhale.
"Ho, there, young man!"
Link jumped at the sudden shout and looked up. The old man from the hill drifted down from the air on what appeared to be a glider of some sort. Link’s jaw dropped as the large man touched down on the ground in front of him. Okay, he wanted that thing.
"What a strange phenomenon!" the old man exclaimed. "This tower and others just like it all over Hyrule have emerged from beneath the soil! Almost as if they reacted to something…" Link just nodded, though found it weird how the old man didn’t sound surprised. More like he was glad such a thing had occurred.
"I hope you don’t mind an old man's nosiness, but did anything… odd happen at the top of that tower?"
Link’s heart skipped a beat. His mind immediately went to his fall from the tower. Odd was an understatement. After waking up, it was as if he had never attempted to leave the tower in the first place. As if time itself had turned back to a point before he had put himself in danger. But there was no way he was telling this man that. Instead, he decided to say something else, not a lie, but not the whole story either.
"...I heard a voice."