the wyrm's mask part 7

The path to the area of the swamp known as Woodfall wasn’t very hard to find, being a fairly large, cultivated path through the tops of bog trees and strange, colorful plants. It was marked by the only Goblin Fruit in sight on the outside of the palace gates, which Zora swiped from the branches of the plant and chowed on without a second thought.

She leaped up to the path with grace, and then across the tops of the wondrous foliage and the giant mushrooms that dotted the swamp. She followed small signposts tied to leaves and stuck in the bells that pointed the way to the inside of the tremendous wall of greenery and stone fixture in the center of the region.

On the inside was a trail made of fallen logs and smoothed over stumps of what once must have been truly tremendous trees, built around a large body of water, stained a sickly purple by the same poison that infested the whole marsh around it. The color was much stronger inside this hollow, Zora noted, as if it was much more concentrated here. Toward the other side from her, she saw, were a cave much like the one in Clock Town, and a pavilion more toward the center.

However, a temple was nowhere in sight.

“Well. Coming here was a bust, huh.”

Verity nipped at her ear. “Well he did say you needed a song to get inside.”

“Yeah, but I was expecting, like, a door or something.”

“Look, let’s just go see the Swamp Primogen first. See? The entrance is right over there. Maybe she’ll know how to get inside.”

“I mean… couldn’t hurt. But didn’t the other Primogen say-”

“Yeah, but she could still talk to us, right?”

“I guess… I’ve been trying to figure out the logic here for days.”

“Come on. Little bit more jumping. You can do it.”

“It’s not that I don’t think I can do it, it’s just… whatever. Let’s go.”

Across the fallen trees and stumps they leaped, and into the painted cavern they went. It was a much more sterile feeling than the last cave they had gone in, to be sure. It smelled like disinfectant and saline. What greeted them at the end was not so much a homely library, as last time, but what could easily be mistaken for the floor of an operating room. Drifting over the table in the center, were green points of light. Not like will-o-wisps this time, but like lightning bugs.

“Child of the heraldry...” A voice spoke into Zora’s mind, and through her body she felt a refreshing, almost healing sensation. “She who has stitched together the Great Primogen of Magic. Listen well. The Temple of Woodfall is infected with a plague. It is your mission… no, your duty, to enter the body of the Swamp and excise the cancer on its heart.”

“I mean… I guess that’s what I’m here to do, so...”

“In addition… an untrained hack fraud appears to have dissected me in brutal fashion. Retrieve my missing parts and see about reassembling me.”

“Y… yes, ma’am.”

“You have been gifted the mask to do so. Go. Apply the anesthesia and enter the patient. I’ll be observing.”

They left the cave just as promptly as they had entered, feeling relatively unfulfilled and confused.

“How the fuck do you apply anesthesia to a swamp.”

“That is a very good question and I wish I could answer it. Let’s just… hop over to that pavilion. Here’s another fruit you can use.”

Another fruit sent them sailing over to a platform made of roughly cut wooden planks and hung with small flags depicting symbols she had never really seen before. To one side, there was a raven statue, just like the one at the entrance to the swamp, that activated at Zora’s touch just like before.

Painted on the floor, on top of a raised circle, there was the icon of a deer’s head, facing the center of the swamp. Zora stared at it, furrowing her brow. Something nudged at her mind. This was clearly a place where she was supposed to play a song. She couldn’t place just how she knew that, however. It was a strange and familiar feeling.

“The song Jason played. Right here...”

“If you think it’ll work, by all means.”

Out from her tail came the flute with the charm on it, and she played along to the song in her head, the Forest Maze. The platform began to rumble beneath her feet, and the poisoned water below them began to ripple, and soon rise and part in the dead center along with a tree. Soon, an ancient, mossy stone building parted the surface of the water before them. When the song ended, the swamp fell still again.

“I… I guess that’s how you apply drugs to a swamp.” Verity commented. “This must be the temple. It has to be.”

“I don’t see any other buildings around. This has to be it.”

“You know… if we have to go back in time after this, none of this might have mattered. The swamp might still be poisoned. That guy might still be captured.”

“But we won’t have to invade the castle again, or talk to the awful snake man. We can come straight here, raise the temple, and get through it. That’s all. And we’ll know our way through by then, if we have to come back. It’ll be fine.”

“But what if we have to keep doing it?”

“Then I’ll keep doing it. I can’t stop now… not now that I’m starting to remember.” Zora swiped a Goblin Fruit off a plant in front of her and bit in, taking a grand leap over the gap between the platform and the temple.

“But-”

“I don’t know why you’re doubting this now. Your brother is still out there with the little shit. And me? I never do anything halfway.”

As she leaned on the doorway and waited for her drake companion, she closed her eyes and took a breath. She almost swore, somewhere in the distance, she could hear the tiny cries of two babies. It was very strange, recognizing those cries. It was even stranger to feel that burning pang in the pit of her stomach. But she wasn’t even sure if she heard them, let alone where they were.

She couldn’t worry about it now. She had a surgery to perform.


The inside of the temple was as cool and damp as could be expected, stained green by the overgrowth of moss. The air was heavy with the scent of peat and the burning sour of the poison that tainted the whole area. Massive roots and stumps provided platforms for her to leap from the entrance to the next door.

Just in front of her, was a bright green wisp, like a small lightning bug. On one of the stumps sat a wooden chest, a similar glow visible between the old, mouldered wood. These, she knew, were the pieces of the Great Primogen. She remembered what the one in town had told her about the mask she had given her, and wondered if it was possible to stack two absurd magical masks.

However, putting the mask the Primogen had given her on over the face of this changeling body didn’t quite fit as well as she had hoped it would. As it would happen, wearing a human-shaped mask over a fox-like face didn’t work. So she relented, and removed the Changeling’s mask.

Transforming still felt strange, but it was getting less and less jarring to do, at least. She delicately placed the mask on her face again, and the first wisp began to drift toward her. Getting the second one would require getting over to that platform, but that would be easy to do. She supposed that she would have to get used to swapping masks frequently for things like this.

Looking down would see her facing a sea of shifting blackness and an audience of beady yellow eyes watching her every move. Well, that wasn’t good at all. She’d have to avoid falling down there. Losing her footing in a damp place like this would be rather easy to do. She replaced the Changeling mask, took a deep breath and ate the fruit of a small plant growing out of the mortar in between heavy stone bricks.

As she soared from stump, to platform, to root, to anything she could get footing on to get across, she couldn’t help but feel as if somewhere, she had done this before. The more she thought on it, in fact, the more all of this felt like second nature. She knew this place somehow, but she wasn’t allowed to grasp how or why, and it frustrated her.

It frustrated her enough that she lost her grip on the last platform as she landed, and nearly fell into the sea of black creatures below. As she dangled there, she felt them begin to leap up, and nip at her feet as they flailed and tried to find an outcropping to get back up on. No such luck, sadly, and her weak arms in this form could not keep a grip on the slick stone for long.

If she were alone, she certainly would have fallen to a terrible fate. But she had a dragon companion to watch her back, and that companion shot under her and began to push up. You could hear the rapid beats of her wings even more than normal as she felt herself lifted back to safety and rolled onto solid ground.

“Well, that sucked.”

“Maybe don’t do that again!”

“I… got distracted I guess. Sorry. Everything about this...”

“… feels familiar. A lot of things feel familiar to you.”

“Yeah. It’s so strange… ugh. Whatever. Let’s just keep going.”

Walking into the next room, Zora had to cover her nose with her tunic and try not to cough. The air in here burned with acidic poison more than any other place in the swamp, and the water below was a sickly pinkish-purple – almost more poison than water, now. There was no question that this was the source of the swamp’s troubles.

Floating inside were strange, strange plants, with protrusions on each petal that looked like wicked fangs. In the center, a flower-shaped platform, with an unlit torch in the center.

“Hey… look down there. Look at that.”

“I see it, Verity. Do you think we could…?”

“It’s worth a try.”

Zora pulled the stick from her tail and began to channel the magic through it. She swung it, releasing the fireball that had built at the end toward the torch in the center of the platform. She watched with an almost dejected look as the fireball disintegrated halfway to its destination.

“No dice. The range is too short. So much for making this easy.”

“It’s never that easy.”

“Never.” Zora scanned the room for anything of note, and noticed two more emerald glows. One in a stray pot within the range of her fireball, and the other trapped inside a plant next to a locked door down a smoothed out root forming a bridge downward. Freeing the wisp in the pot was a simple task, and the plant needed only be lit on fire and left to burn to release its stray piece.

Once that was finished, she looked toward the doors. The one directly across from her would have to be addressed later, as she could see no way to enter it right now. The door to the left, where the plant had been, was locked tight. That only left the door to the lower right of her, near an outcropping in the poison.

She sighed, and slid down the root bridge to the lower platform. This was going to suck, and she was probably going to get chewed on by these horror plants, but maybe if she was quick about it she could make it without dying horribly.

Hopping across the water and landing on the plants was rather surprising in that it didn’t seem to react to her standing on it, even though a gross, yellow eye in the center stared right at her. It rumbled a little bit, but didn’t seem to do much more than that. She took this as an opportunity to keep moving, and eventually made it to the next door.

The room that greeted her was largely the same, and she breezed across it after freeing the wisp trapped in a beehive in here. Instead of a flower-shaped platform, the one in the center of this room was stone, and a lone Goblin Fruit plant stood growing in between the bricks, like before. A much sturdier chest was just out of the reach of her normal jumping range, but eating the fruit off the plant let her land on top of it and recover a shining silver key from within. After that, it was back across the room, to the next door.

The water in this room had no poison, for how little there was compared to the other rooms. A few flowers lay scattered about that were black and round, as if they were about to burst. More pressing, however, were the gigantic spined turtles staring her down, who ducked into their shells with a cry that sounded somewhat like the word ‘asscrack’.

Zora didn’t have time to consider the implications of their calls however, as they spun rapidly out of control toward her. She vaulted over them and out of the way, only for them to change course toward her again.

“Fuck!” Leaping over them again only yielded the same result.

However, this time, one of the turtles smacked into one of the black, round flowers around the room. The flower promptly violently exploded, flipping the thing and the others next to it onto their backs. This revealed their soft underbellies, and Zora ripped off the Changeling mask and brandished her rapier.

She brought the point down and pierced through their bodies in turn, eliciting pained roars and screeches from the beasts before they slowly melted away into black ichor. When she looked back up again, there was another sturdy chest sitting in the water that she swore hadn’t been there before.

“What the...”

“That wasn’t there before.” Verity interjected. “I swear. I didn’t see it.”

“No, you’re right. It wasn’t...” Zora scooted toward the chest and carefully cased it for any traps. She didn’t know why, but it was her first instinct to do so. Once she was satisfied with the mystery chest, she hefted the lid open, and reached down inside.

What came out with her hand was an old, somewhat tattered piece of parchment, and nothing more. On it, seemed drawn a crude map of the temple, with several small red x’s in spots in some of the room. A dungeon map, for sure.

“I have to admit I was hoping for something a bit more dynamic than an old map.” Verity sighed. “But it’s better than nothing.”

“It’ll tell us where we need to go. X marks the spot.”

“I guess you’re right...”

“It’s better than having nothing to go on. If we go to the X’s, we’re sure to find something.”

And go to the X’s, they did. They followed the paths marked on the maps as best they could, clearing the various rooms they entered of creatures the likes of which Zora had never seen before and searching them thoroughly for wisps. Until they came upon a dead end room, completely empty besides tremendous roots piercing through the wall and into the puddle on the the floor.

“Say… do you ever feel like you’re being watched…?” Zora’s voice lowered to a dread whisper.

“I don’t like the way you said that.” Verity groaned.

“No, I mean it, something is watching us. I swear. I feel it.”

“I believe you, don’t get me wrong. But wouldn’t it be a pisser if we just got led into some kind of-” Verity was interrupted by a set of strong iron bars falling over the door they had just entered from.

“… trap.” Zora finished, shortly before a beast dropped from the ceiling and bellowed at her loud enough to cause the water below them to ripple. It was like a reptile, though it stood on two legs, wearing armor and carrying a curved sword in one hand. Its slitted eyes were burning with hunger, hunger it clearly thought could be sated by consuming the unassuming human and her little winged companion.

Before she had time to prepare her blade, it brought down its scimitar upon her, which she caught by the blade in a reflexive reaction. The puddle below them began to stain red with the dripping blood from her now-wounded hand as she grabbed the handle of her rapier with her other and stabbed toward its stomach.

With a hiss, it leaped backward, not appreciating the new hole in its gut. At the same time, Zora was given enough breathing room to take an attacking stance. She allowed the phantom of her husband’s instruction to correct her pose, and it helped her to put the stinging pain of her hand out of her mind. It was time to go on the offensive. If she went on the offensive, the door would open. It was a logic she knew extremely well, for some reason.

When it attacked again, she blocked with the guard of her weapon, and parried, sending the point through its body yet again. And again, and again. As she thrusted a fourth time, however, it returned the favor and send its blade careening into her side, making her shout out with pain. It jolted her off-course, and the point of her rapier pierced the soft skin of its throat through a gap in its armor.

Once she realized what had happened, she twisted the point in its neck and brought it to one side. Its green blood sprayed on her face in a geyser, before it fell limp and disintegrated away, armor and all. Once it was gone, she fell to her knees and clutched her side.

“Fuck!”

“Shh… shh shh. I can help. Probably.” Verity looked around, hurriedly, for anything she could use to stem the bleeding. The only thing she spotted was some sturdy-looking moss hanging from the roots. It wasn’t the most sanitary thing ever, but it would have to do until they got out of here and could find somebody else to treat this. She pulled a strip free of the tree and began to wrap it around her companion’s side, and then tore off another to use on her hand.

“Are you sure this is going to help, ugh...”

“It’ll stem the bleeding.”

“But it’s swamp moss that’s been festering in a temple for who knows how long. Won’t that get infected?”

“It won’t if we make this as quick as we possibly can. Then we can get back to town and see if anybody can care for it.”

“I guess… hey was that chest there before?”

“No. No it wasn’t. It happened again.”

“Huh...” Zora stood up again, and cased the chest for any traps. Once satisfied, she opened the lid and reached inside. Within, she found an elegant crossbow, decorated in gold plating and lapis inlay. It looked almost Egyptian in design. Along with it, came a satchel stocked with about thirty bolts.

“Well, that’s more like it.” Verity commented. For a moment, it looked as if she were going to say something else, but to look into her companion’s eyes as she looked at the crossbow was to keep quiet and let her speak.

“...Jade LeClaire. No one ever really saw much of her, but I knew about her through… through Valentina. The girl in the town, the pudgy one with the hair. She was an expert marksman, I knew that much. She also had a ghost following her around… one that kind of looked like this bow. How strange… strange how these names, these places just suddenly come back to me like that. It’s like I always knew. I know I always knew, but it’s so… surreal.”

“Huuuuh...”

“We need to keep going. If I keep going, maybe I’ll find my ticket home. Maybe I’ll remember everyone. In the meantime… I can use this. I mean, I’m not trained to, but I can figure it out. It’s some kind of option to hit things at a distance, so I’ll take it. Especially after that last fight. Ow.”

“Just take it easy for a little bit. Let it seal up.”

“I know, I know...”

The pair exited the room again. Having the crossbow served as a way to trigger certain things that she hadn’t been able to hit before. It got her into a tall room full of alcoves that had trapped wisps nestled within, on the other side of which was a tall, ornate door. Something in her mind told her that was where she needed to go, like a neon arrow pointing to it that only she could see.

A fruit plant on the ground before her allowed her, after putting on the Changeling’s mask again, to leap up into the alcoves and collect the wisps, which now surrounded her like a swarm of divine magical fireflies. She fired her new bow at a switch across the room, removing a ring of flames from a platform that it would otherwise be a simple task to jump to.

When she reached the platform with the ornate door, however, was when she couldn’t help but feel that strange gut twinge that meant things were about to take an acrobatic pirouette off the handle.

More specifically, she landed on something soft.

Very soft.

Like the fur of her changeling form.

Soft and somewhat moist.

She looked down slowly to see just what it was that she was standing on, and nearly startled so hard that she slipped off of the platform. She had been standing on a skin that looked just like the person whose face she wore as a mask. It was messy and covered in blood and clearly very hastily done, before being thrown in front of the door like a twisted welcome mat.

“Oh… ohhhhh. Ooooohhhhhh no. Oh I think I’m gonna barf. Holy shit.”

“Deep breaths.” Verity urged, tilting her head up so as not to look at the mess on the ground. “Keep it together. We need to find out what happened to the royal tailor.”

“I know. Need to just… not look. Can’t look.”

“Keep your head up. Don’t step on it. Come on...”

“Okay… okay… I got this.”

Opening the door was a bit of a task as she tried desperately not to step on the skin below her, but it soon slid open slowly and allowed her inside.

Upon entering, she was greeted with the sounds of an echoing, rumbling drumbeat that rattled the whole room. It was a round room covered in faded paintings and overtaken by vines, and in the dead center, there hung the skinned corpse that matched the furry welcome mat outside, still gently dripping blackened blood even as it began to turn green. A person – or, what looked like a person, nearly nude with olive-colored skin danced around the corpse and hooted and hollered some sort of chant or another.

What made this person stand out physically, more than anyone else Zora had seen so far, was the short, blood-red hair behind a tribal-looking mask, and the unusual number of arms. Where a normal person had two arms, this one had four. Enough that the only thing separating her from having to witness full-frontal nudity in the middle of a torture-murder scene was a tube top and some loose-fitting pants.

It was distinct enough that, as they turned slowly to look her in the eyes with one glowing, feral yellow eye in the center of their forehead, Zora bristled and froze as her mind was thrown into disarray from the flashback that now consumed her.

–

It was a quiet night at a cabin. She sat on the couch playing Smash Bros for the billionth time with some friends, when her phone rumbled, and a text tone played. When she checked it, she felt a chill down her spine. It was a story detailing how her sister in law had had her eyes callously blown out, and how they could hear the tortured screams of her twin sister in a nearby run-down house. It was so abrupt, so startling, the gamepad she was holding crashed to the table underneath it. Those around her wondered what was wrong.

When she was able to gain a location from the friend who had called on her, she took off running. She ducked through alleyways and charged through busy intersections to get to where she was going. She vaulted over fire escapes and walls, and soon landed at the scene of the crime.

Those people there with her still remained fuzzy to her, whether from her incomplete memory or from the burning tears making it difficult to see. She was directed to the run-down house, and charged forward alongside somebody else. She remembered changing shape mid-stride, and having the sheer strength to blow the door in with one punch.

And most of all, she remembered Anya.

Cast aside and mutilated and electrocuted, she remembered how broken she was. She recalled the bitter laugh-sobs, and the table thrown at her to try to keep her out of the business this disgusting hive had with this ‘warlock’. She remembered searing lightning, but it didn’t stop her.

The one holding the torture impliments had stared her down with piercing yellow eyes. Just like this.

Just like this.

–

“Hey uh… Zor?”

Verity tapped on her companion’s head as she and the monster stared each other down, trying to get her to come back to herself as the four-armed woman drew slowly closer to them.

“Chaaaamp…? Are you in there…? it’s kiiiiind of important.” She squeaked a kind of dragon-y squeak as the four-armed woman brandished two curved swords. Still no response.

“I really need you to come back now--!”

The four-armed woman came into range and took a swing with one of the blades, only to have that arm caught in a fluid motion and tossed backward. Zora snarled in a way that sounded largely inhuman, which echoed through the chamber as she drew her rapier and dashed forward, nearly sending her drakeling friend spiraling off of her head.

The fight was on.