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The more bomb flowers Yunobo detonates within this blasted, dead end mine, the more he frets that maybe— just maybe— Boss was right.
Maybe there aren’t more diamonds tucked away down this shaft. Maybe he is a foolhardy, ignorant soul… so stuck on his hopes for a quick and easy solution to their mineral shortage that he’s willfully ignoring the pervading threat of a cave-in just to chase a hunch.
So why, then, after all his years of cowering away behind his ancestor’s protection, is he still so insistent on seeing this mission through?
Yunobo clenches his molars together, lighting the fuse on the next bomb flower with a swift, grinding snap of his fingers and hurling it clear across the passage. It explodes on contact, blowing chalky chunks of rock to mere dust and smoke. He yelps, curling himself inwards. On automatic, that warm, humming rush of Goron might he’s grown so used to wielding these past few years surges outwards like magma from the mountain’s core, coalescing into a solid, fiery orange shield. Fragments of stone cleave off from the cave’s roof and bounce off this barrier, clattering harmlessly to the ground. As brave as he’s been so far, he doesn’t dare drop his guard until his surroundings settle and he’s absolutely positive the whole ceiling won’t collapse on top of him.
He takes a deep, gasping breath, and— steeling his nerves once more— pulls another bomb flower from his pack. Blast mining like this is terrifying work, but one can’t argue with the results. Slowly but surely, he’s pressing forward. Step by step, he’s lengthening this shaft far beyond where any other Goron dares tread.
H-he… he can do this. He’s the only one who can do this.
Seeking a momentary distraction from all the risks and rigors of this reckless plan, his thoughts drift back to the rather heated argument he had with the Boss this morning… and to the overarching predicament that pushed him to take up this job in the first place.
Goron City’s plight is simple: their coffers have been running dry for a good few years now. The reason? Death Mountain’s constant eruptions this past century flooded their territory and collapsed the entrances to many of their old mines. And then, poor resource management led to all the shafts within what few mines remained getting picked clean. These days, a patient and resourceful Goron may be able to source a good load of flint or rock salt from those routes, but gemstones are in critical short supply.
Now that the mountain has finally fallen dormant, though, they have a prime opportunity to reinvigorate their economy. Trade and tourism is returning to their region. Numerous Gerudo and Zora merchants have already inquired about bulk gemstone deals, but they barely have anything worthwhile to sell.
One thing’s for sure: his brothers need a breakthrough, and they need one fast. If they can simply strike it rich with a brand new vein of diamonds, their economic future would be set for the next few decades. Those old shafts may be depleted, but they can still use explosives to expand them, right?
The problem is, Bludo— bless his stony heart— is far more soft for his fellow Gorons than he lets on. Even if there is more ore to discover, he doesn’t want to risk sending his best workers back into any of those over-mined, unstable shafts. He thinks they’re too dangerous to touch. He doesn’t want to risk an incident like the freak collapse in Ardani Cave about a decade back, a tragedy that took the lives of seventeen hardworking souls, including Yunobo’s former mentor. Thus, ever since that day, blast mining has been off limits. The old shafts are off limits, too. Boss’s orders. From now on he wants to prioritize the creation of brand new mines, through manual excavation only.
This, Yunobo believes, is a terrible idea.
“But we can’t afford to wait for a new passage to be dug out!” he told him naught but seven hours ago, his voice raising to a far higher volume than he usually lets it. “I know there’s still diamonds down there, Boss, I can smell them— and with my power of protection I’m the only one who stands half a chance of surviving a collapse!” Inhaling deep and heavy, he puffs out his chest with all the pluck and gung-ho bravado false confidence can provide. “S-so… so I’m going to the Northern Mines, goro, and I’m not coming back until I prove to you I’m right!”
And oh boy, oh boy, is he beginning to regret his impulsivity. He’s gonna be in such deep silt if he doesn’t come back with a full minecart of ore after running his mouth like that! So far, his prospects don’t look good. Hours and hours of careful, precise detonation with these bomb flowers hasn’t unveiled anything. Not a single new vein, much less any roast worth a Goron’s time.
Once again, Yunobo cowers under his shield after the next explosive goes off. Crumbling, craggy walls rumble as he ducks his head. The sheer size of the loose stones that are knocked from the shaft’s roof over the next few seconds is… foreboding. As bold as he initially was, pushing back against Boss’s orders and charging down here anyways, this is still one of the most terrifying things he’s ever done.
Sucking in a sharp breath, he drops his ancestor’s protection.
He’s just about to retrieve the next bomb from his stash when he hears the soft rumble of rugged Goron moxie rolling towards him from behind. An exacerbated sigh slips off his tongue. He whirls around, features creasing inwards… halfway expecting to find Bludo standing at the top of the shaft with his arms crossed, his weathered gaze picking him apart like he’s nothing more than a slab of brittle sandstone.
Bludo, however, is not who his widening eyes discover.
A icy surge of panic flows through the once molten channels of his core. He casts his bomb bag aside.
“Offrak… Slergo!” he exclaims upon recognition of his two pint sized visitors, still so young that their shells haven’t fully hardened yet. “What in Din’s name are you two doing here, goro!? This place is too dangerous for you!”
“Well, it’s jus’ as dangerous for you, innit?” Slergo shoots back, the young Goron’s voice echoing all the way down to him from the shaft’s entrance.
His face heating up at the untimely reminder of the fool’s errand he’s thrown himself into, Yunobo scratches at the nape of his neck. “I-I— no, wait, hold on, how did you two even find me?”
Slergo shrugs. “Uh, well Jengo said he saw you rollin’ this way a few hours back, so—”
“You gotta come back with us, please!” Offrak begs, creeping a few tentative steps towards him. “You’re gonna hurt yourself if you stay!”
A nervous habit he really outta coax himself out of, Yunobo wrings his hands together as he ponders their request, rock grinding on solid rock like he’s halfway to whetting a blade on a grindstone. He has to admit, there’s a small, gutless chunk of his spirit that’s rather tempted to pack it up and call it quits, after spending hours and hours lengthening this shaft with not a gemstone to show for it.
But then again…
“No. No,” he repeats, the word catching in his throat a little. “I’m sorry, but I— I can’t come with you. And you two, you gotta get out of here! I know what I’m doing, okay? I know there’s ore back there, I know there is, but no one believes me! No one wants to take the risk. A-and I… I can’t just sit back and watch the rest of my brothers give up when we’re this close to a breakthrough! I…”
His gaze follows a few stray pebbles as they rain down to the stony cave floor, shoulders falling slack as he’s suddenly pummeled by the blunt truth of why he’s embedded himself so deep in this mess to begin with.
“I just… I can’t let myself be useless again…”
“But you’ve never been useless!” Offrak insists, calling his attention back. In the time Yunobo’s eyes were drawn elsewhere, the kid’s shuffled forward halfway down the shaft, a sight which has his gut squirming with unease. “You’ve always helped Boss with the canons, an’— an’ you helped that lil’ guy take down Rudania a few years back, an—”
“You’re a hero, goro! You’re the bravest brother we got!” Slergo adds from afar, offering him a toothy grin.
His breath stalls. Despite all their innocent kindness, he can’t quite find it within himself to pay back this smile with one of his own.
Him, a hero? Hah.
The very thought leaves a bitter, metallic aftertaste in his mouth, like a rock roast that had been left to mature in the fertile volcanic soils a few days too long.
He wasn’t a hero, not at all. He was merely the hero’s reluctant tag-along.
He should’ve followed him. He should’ve hardened himself to take that terrifying leap, to plunge into the sweltering unknown of Death Mountain’s maw and strike vengeance against that horrible blight by Link’s side… but he didn’t. Sages above, he didn’t do anything. He just stood there, chained to the caldera’s rim by the sheer disgraceful weight of all his cowardice and doubt.
And even though this arduous quest all worked out in the end— even though the little Hylian appeased Vah Rudania and emerged with only a few minor burns and bruises to show for it— that’s yet another moment of inaction he can never take back.
That’s yet another failure he’ll always be haunted by.
Yunobo shrinks into himself. Grinds his fists inwards.
“Yeah, well… I wasn’t brave enough,” he mutters.
A spine tingling rumble interrupts his downward spiral.
His watch snaps to the passage’s unstable roof, and he gasps with horror as a jagged, gaping crack snakes through that shelf of stone like a stray lightning bolt slicing through the stormy heavens.
Chronic over-thinker that he is, his mind carves out their inevitable future in milliseconds flat:
Offrak. His little friend stands right underneath the bulk of this shelf, and he’s too far away for him to reach. Even if he throws himself into a roll, he’ll never make it. And even if he could, there’s no guarantee that he’d succeed in throwing his barrier around the both of them in time. There’s no guarantee that Daruk’s Protection can withstand the force of a whole shaft collapsing atop them to begin with. After all, his mentor Darmek wielded this power too, and even that wasn’t enough to save him twelve years back.
He… he’s going to die, isn’t he? They’re both going to die, and it’s all his fault.
“Offrak!” he yells as he pushes off his heels, a cold, stagnant dread coiling within his molten core.
And in the space of that isolated, terrifying second, a whole geological epoch may well have passed.
“Yunobo… my little rock,” his mentor calls for him, perched upon the cliff’s edge overlooking Goronbi Lake. “Come. Sit with me, goro.”
He sighs, and tucks tight into himself to roll over his way.
His mentor Darmek is many things— slow to wake, irritatingly introspective, and a wee bit of a drunkard from time to time— but a coward, he is not. If there’s monsters knocking at the gate he’ll gladly answer. If he bears a controversial opinion, he’ll boast it with his whole chest. If assigned the riskiest mining job in all the lands, he’ll see it through no matter the cost. Darmek is truly every bit of the bold, brash Goron his predecessor Daruk was before him. Formed from a hunk of shell that the late champion planted deep in the mountain’s soils before his end, he wields that ancestral power of protection with equal parts grit and gravitas.
And while Yunobo may— on technicality— be forged of the same stuff, a brother born of Darmek’s own shell, the two of them couldn’t be more different.
He’s not brave like his mentor. He’s not confident enough to speak up when others disagree. And he certainly doesn’t have the guts to see a challenge through. Earlier today, a small pack of moblins tried raiding one of their mines for their precious rock roast. The expectation in an emergency like this is that all young miners work together to fend them off. Yunobo genuinely tried to fight, he wanted to fight— but even though he’s got this potent defensive ability that the others don’t, he merely threw his shield up and ran away.
“You don’t have to say it,” he mumbles, planting himself down at his side and sinking his face into his arms. “I already know I screwed up bad.”
His mentor clasps a sturdy palm against his shoulder. “No, no. I didn’t call you here to blow up on you, goro. Look at me. I need you to understand something. Something important.“
Blinking through the threat of tears with all the desperation of a Goron hatchling vying to earn his spines, he lifts his head.
“You and I, we’re worth far, far more than that ancestral power we inherited. I know you’re frustrated,” he says, eyes softening, “about today’s incident, but I truly believe there’s a fire raging within that’s all your own. You just have to dig for it.”
Tick by tick, time lurches forward.
The magmatic glow of his forebear’s age-old protection surrounds him as he surges up the shaft towards his little friend. He’s curled up within his shell as he rolls, so all he can sense beyond the lifeblood pulsing in and out of his core and the thunderous clamor of collapsing rock is faint vibrations of nearby movement rising up to greet him through the cave floor. Offrak… he’s close. He’ll never reach him, but he’s so agonizingly close he could scream—!
He thinks about his young friends’ sweet smiles, about their playful, bickering banter with one another, about the innocent way they tag along after him and turn to him for guidance, even though he’s no one worth looking up to. (Not now. Not yet.) He thinks about every last harrowing failure he’s committed to memory, the mountain of moments where he allowed his fears to outweigh necessity… where he froze in place, or ducked to a corner, or held back his strike.
Maybe his own inner blights are right. Maybe he is no hero.
But… he could be.
Something deep, deep within him shifts. That semisolid shield that once barricaded him from all the terrors of the outside world burns so hot that it near about liquefies. His ancestor’s power wreathes his body in tongues of fire… and he shoots forward like a cannonball, rolling faster than ever before. Those subtle vibrations he felt earlier grow closer and close and closer, until suddenly—
Right as he reaches Offrak’s side, his explosive mass collides into the falling rubble. An earsplitting explosion overtakes his senses. He yanks his friend to his chest and throws his shield up, scarcely able to breathe as endless fragments of shattered stone slam against the barrier and clatter to the shaft’s floor.
For a good half a minute, he’s terrified the whole cavern is coming down on top of them.
It’s only when the youth clasped tight in his hold nudges for him to let go that he realizes that— somehow, against every odd— they’re still alive. Tentatively, he rises to his feet, the last of the rockfall’s debris sloughing to the ground with a soft thump as he drops the barrier to survey the damage. He whistles, impressed. Rather than a narrow mineshaft, they now stand within a sizable cavern. Moreover, there’s no more gaping cracks lining the walls, and no tell-tale rumbles to suggest any further instability. Feeling satisfied that the threat of impending doom is now over, his frazzled attention drops to his young friend.
Are you okay, he mouths.
Wordlessly, Offrak nods his head yes. He’s a little shaken, but— thank the Goddess— there’s not a scratch on him.
“WHOA, that was awesome!” Slergo hollers from a ways up the shaft.
“What did I… what happened?” Yunobo asks with a furrowed brow, still rather confused as to why he and Offrak aren’t like, y’know.
Dead.
“You were like, a fireball! You shot forward an’ blasted all the rocks away like they were nothin’!”
He gazes at his open palms in slack-jawed awe. “Did… did I really do that, goro—?”
Before he can dedicate any meaningful level of thought to this matter, however, Offrak yanks at his arm.
“Yunobo,” he calls. “Slergo, come look!”
His glance snaps up again. He follows the young Goron’s finger towards the roof of the grand, vaulting hollow that the combined force of the rockfall and his blazing prowess opened within this shaft. The low light catches upon a grand constellation of facets.
He draws a sharp gasp.
“Is that—”
Embedded within the walls up there is a dense, glistening cluster of…
“Diamonds!” Slergo cheers, knocking into him from behind. “Yunobo, d’ya know what this means??”
“I… I was right,” he breathes.
He can hardly believe it.
By some miracle, his instincts were dead on: there is more ore to discover down here. As scary as it was, if this shaft didn’t almost collapse on top of them he’d never have known. And if what Slergo said about him is true, if he can find a way to replicate whatever strange surge of power he experienced a moment ago… if he can operate as both an explosive force and a shield… he may have just discovered a brand new method for safely expanding these old shafts.
Yunobo flashes a crooked smile as he watches his young brothers whoop and holler and chase each other in circles. But as much as he’d love to join the celebrations, daylight’s wasting, and he owes Boss an update after toiling away down here for hours on end. He cracks his knuckles, already preparing himself for the overwhelming volley of questions Bludo’s bound to hurl his way when he returns with proof of a new diamond vein.
Oh boy, oh boy… he’s got a lot of work ahead of him.