Synopsis: They say the heat makes people crazy. Deep in an economic depression, the simmering civil unrest reaches a fever pitch on Summertide in Castleton when the Yiga cause a city wide blackout. When Link offers to accompany Zelda to check on her ailing father, he quickly finds he has more to worry about than the dark when rioters flood the streets and a killer takes advantage of the chaos to make a final sacrifice to the Old Gods.
Zelda gapes at the blackness beyond the window of Romani's. Suddenly it feels like she’s floating in some dark cloud, not high above a city that should be filled with the glow of lights and neon. Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen, but no sign of the lights coming back on. The quiet murmur begins to pick up to a light chatter and then to animated talking in the restaurant.
The first was Revali on Summertide. The next was Urbosa on Autumntide. Then on Wintertide was Daruk. Mipha was last on Springtide. Rusl wonders who might be so unlucky to face Calamity tonight. The fierce look in Mipha's little brother's eyes and the way they demanded that somebody DO SOMETHING haunt Rusl even in the waking hours.
Content Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, Horror
Amidst an unprecedented heatwave, an economic depression, and an arsonist group causing civil unrest, a serial killer stalks the streets of Castletown, taking sacrificial victims at each turn of the season. Following a city-wide blackout, Link offers to escort Zelda to see her ill father, but unbeknownst to them, Calamity has already chosen his final victim and is set to claim her before Summertide's end. The story already has all the makings of a great supernatural thriller, and I am here for it. This author is incredibly talented at writing rising tension and juggling many characters with distinct voices, and I am excited to see how the story unfolds! - PitchBlackEspresso
The stakes are high immediately in this story. Modern-ish set up, feeling like mid-century, and the action is in a City that’s suffering from a recession and currently, a nasty heat wave. Not to mention a gang of arsonists and a serial killer…
It’s nerve wracking in a very good way.
Link and Zelda are a very interesting duo, with Link struggling with survivor guilt and Zelda clearly very interested in this boy who practically lives in a different world than she does.
There is darkness here, mind the warning tags. But if you’re up for it, it promises to be quite a ride! - Karama9
A thrilling mystery awaits as the lights go out over Castletown. This one is weaving a lot of threads in together to get to the heart of this mystery and I am excited to be along for the ride for the heat after our cast as this adventure reveals itself. - amelias-hart
Five years post a world war, the former sailor turned alcoholic PI Link Coutts and his snarky assistant Midna Dahl are tasked by Daphnes Nohansen with finding his missing daughter Zelda, whose disappearance comes following her auction win of an eerie, talking mirror piece. The mirror's strange powers and abilities to open portals to dark realms pits the three against adversaries looking to seize the mirror for their own twisted desires.
When he’d been drafted, nobody asked him if he knew how to swim or if he was any good with machinery. Link simply had all his limbs and a heartbeat, and he could nod on command. That was good enough. And thus, he was quickly reduced, like so many other young men, to his family name and a serial number, and then told, “Congrats, you’re submarine material!”
He turns to Zelda, feeling chilled from all the sweat now. “Can you help me up?” he asks her. “I can’t get my leg unstuck.”
She squeezes his hand. “Link, you’re not stuck. You don’t have a leg to get stuck."
Part 1 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
6 January 1923
Complete
He just asks Zelda, “You want to play cards Saturday? You should make a deal though under the table with Ashei, or she’ll clean you out.”
“The sixth?”
“Whatever it is.”
“It’s Mikau’s week, right?”
“… You keep track of that?”
And on the sixth, Link forgets how close to fire he is playing. “Gods, you men are so stupid,” says Midna, unwittingly to the rescue. Partially. “Does no one listen to me?” Link would prefer they don't in this specific instance. Can he just get out of here without being interrogated? Midna’s making it very hard.
Part 2 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Legal's Trap
Complete
Zelda’s mother hates Link’s guts, but Link had thought he and the old man got along. With the chess board between them, Link is currently reconsidering this.
Link glowers at Nohansen. “Zelda gets that same stupid smirk when she thinks she’s got the upper hand,” Link tells him, which sets the old man off again in new bubbles of laughter.
When his laughter finally subsides enough, Nohansen asks him, “I take it, then, that you’re calling it?”
Link throws his hands up.
Zelda's mother hates Link's guts, but hey, at least the old man likes Link.
Part 3 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Waiting
Complete
Link spends his days waiting in the late summer of 1917. He’s got not much else going on, honestly. He can hobble his way down to the park and wait, or he could wait in a bread line, or he could wait at the flat for his next disability and maintenance checks to come. So yep, Link decides that he might as well go and wait somewhere scenic like the park.
Link looks over at Ravio, accusingly almost. “You know that I walk here, sit around for a long time, and yet you judge me for not having anything else to do?” He counters, “I could ask the same of you then.”
Ravio tilts his head to one side. “Ehh…” Ravio hesitates. He sucks on the cigarette. “It’s just a job,” he says vaguely. He looks over at Link and asks, “But hey, you do a lot of waiting yourself, don't you?”
Part 4 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Closed Sicilian
Complete
Midna Dahl gets the sense that she is on the precipice of something, feet hanging over the drop precariously. She just doesn't know what, but she can smell it.
"How do you even put up with him?” Midna admits, “It’s definitely not like I haven’t thought about dumping his body off in the river.”
Zelda smiles brightly and says, “Ah, I suppose it’s easy when you’ve known them since forever.”
And Midna just thinks Link and Zelda are frickin' weird. She’s not sure if it’s related to the big something though. “You’re being weird,” she accuses Zelda. Zelda doesn’t even blink when Midna storms by and whips the front door open. “I’m out,” she tells Zelda. As Zelda gives her a quiet “Okay, see you,” Midna snaps, dragging the door behind her, “I’ll figure it out!”
Midna does, but that doesn’t happen for about another year after Link starts coming back stupid late from his Monday talk therapy sessions. That annoys Midna to no end, because she’s over here starving.
Part 5 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Link and Zelda's Paranormal Investigations
Complete
It's two in the morning at the Stock Pot Inn, and for some reason Mr. Barten has the bar open. “I think I need to be somewhere else,” Link says at last, and he gets the feeling like he’s echoing that. Hasn’t he said that before? Gotten that feeling?
Stupid déjà vu. Didn’t he get rid of that?
Mr. Barten’s sympathetic expression is a hard slap though. “You always find your way back to her one way or another,” Mr. Barten assures him. He smiles a bit devilishly at Link, and Link can’t help but think there’s something sleekit about it. He doesn’t like it. “She can wait. Don’t you like whisky?” Mr. Barten asks. “You look like a whisky man.”
“As long as it’s without the ‘e’,” says Link.
“Oh, I would never serve you whiskey,” Mr. Barten promises. “I know what regions you like.” Whatever bizarre stupor Link’s in shatters at that, and Link numbly rises from his seat and steps back from the bar. He TOLD Zelda that this better not be some super spooky supernatural crap. Link's had enough of that to last a lifetime.
Part 6 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Coin-Operated
Complete
We elected a president and got an authoritarian. The president's voice crackles through the radio speakers as he makes his announcement: magic has been outlawed.
I’m a walking target so long as I have this wild magic. I am ruled by my fear. I keep my head bowed and hope that nobody notices me as each day passes, and so far my prayers have gone answered. This is the only thing left I have to be thankful for. The president’s motives are not mine to know, but what he wanted was clear, and he’s got it. I live in pure, unadulterated fear with my townsfolk, my co-workers, my neighbors. It’s all the same.
My only respite comes in the form of a mechanical man that's existed for centuries thanks to his magic, but releasing his soul is a daunting task. Especially when the mage that took his original body holds a prominent place in the government and swears Link Coutts killed Hylian Impressionism.
WILD GO
In Progress
They say the heat makes people crazy. Deep in an economic depression, the simmering civil unrest reaches a fever pitch on Summertide in Castleton when the Yiga cause a citywide blackout. When Link offers to accompany Zelda to check on her ailing father, he quickly finds he has more to worry about than the dark when rioters flood the streets and a killer takes advantage of the chaos to make a final sacrifice to the Old Gods.
Zelda gapes at the blackness beyond the window of Romani's. Suddenly it feels like she’s floating in some dark cloud, not high above a city that should be filled with the glow of lights and neon. Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen, but no sign of the lights coming back on. The quiet murmur begins to pick up to a light chatter and then to animated talking in the restaurant.
The first was Revali on Summertide. The next was Urbosa on Autumntide. Then on Wintertide was Daruk. Mipha was last on Springtide. Rusl wonders who might be so unlucky to face Calamity tonight. The fierce look in Mipha's little brother's eyes and the way they demanded that somebody DO SOMETHING haunt Rusl even in the waking hours.
Midna gestures wildly at Zelda, who sits like a stone unbothered by the vitriol being launched at her. “This is stupid. You going to get her in line here?"
“I don’t know what’s happening.”
Zelda flips a page of her magazine. “It’s a case out in the Gerudo Highlands,” she explains. Oh. That is far. Why the hell would they go out there? Zelda’s bored eyes look at him from above the magazine. “There’s a Twili temple out that way that’s experiencing a leak, and they need assistance.”
Link stares at her. “Sounds like they need to call a plumber then.”
The Scientific Hyrulean slaps down on Zelda’s desk. “Don’t be obtuse,” Zelda chastises. “It’s a super spooky supernatural leak.”
Part 8 of Link and Midna's Investigative Services
Smothered Mate
Complete
By the late winter of 1930, Link has to face the dumb dog's mortality, but the bean nighe will never let him go it alone, and Link finds himself stalked on a job.
“Ye’re not giving him yer surname,” Link finally snaps.
“It’s the kind of nepotism that calls for a security expense write-off," says Midna.
“I don’t think ye know what a write-off is,” Link retorts. “Also, I’d like tae remind ye that while we got away with the Misko spaghettification incident, Revenues and Customs isn’t liable tae be so kind.”
Link mistakenly believes that’s the end of it when Midna doesn’t say anything more.
As he races down the cliffs to the beach, he feels something soft and uneven underfoot. Link pulls his skimmer away to find a mouse lying on the path, dead. He stoops to take a closer look at it. Blood has spurt from its mouth, though he’s not sure if he’s the cause honestly. It strikes him that he may have killed the small rodent, but he doesn’t think much on that.
No, that’s not the odd part of it. Of course there are field mice and rats on the island, but the rodents are never this close to shore, and they certainly keep out of the open where men are known to frequent, the skittish things that they are. The likelihood, essentially, of him running across a live and healthy mouse is slim.
When he comes to the shore, the captain is sitting in his waka ama’s main hull, staring out into the ocean. Seeing him approach, Tetra quickly wipes her eyes and nose, her cheeks a dark, rosy color. Her strange purple eyes are swollen and puffy. The shattered expression on her face is so different from her usual confident, steely air.
WILD GO
In Progress
They say the heat makes people crazy. Deep in an economic depression, the simmering civil unrest reaches a fever pitch on Summertide in Castleton when the Yiga cause a citywide blackout. When Link offers to accompany Zelda to check on her ailing father, he quickly finds he has more to worry about than the dark when rioters flood the streets and a killer takes advantage of the chaos to make a final sacrifice to the Old Gods.
Zelda gapes at the blackness beyond the window of Romani's. Suddenly it feels like she’s floating in some dark cloud, not high above a city that should be filled with the glow of lights and neon. Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen, but no sign of the lights coming back on. The quiet murmur begins to pick up to a light chatter and then to animated talking in the restaurant.
The first was Revali on Summertide. The next was Urbosa on Autumntide. Then on Wintertide was Daruk. Mipha was last on Springtide. Rusl wonders who might be so unlucky to face Calamity tonight. The fierce look in Mipha's little brother's eyes and the way they demanded that somebody DO SOMETHING haunt Rusl even in the waking hours.
Zombie Cake
In Progress
He opens the door to the bus to let the sound of the rain in. The drops beat against the roof in a fast tattoo. He yawns widely, trying to hold it together for a bit. Squatting in front of the open door, he watches as the rain comes down across the plains. He kind of misses the ocean, he thinks.
As if summoned by that thought, he hears his slate buzz. He ignores it. It buzzes again. He rubs his nose. The buzz comes through again. Link puffs.
He reminds himself that he loves her as he reaches behind him for his slate. Even if he wants to toss her into the ocean.
Link barely scans the barrage of messages on his slate and just calls her. When she picks up, he tells her, “Hey, I’m outwith Kakariko. I’m alive. No meds. You’d like these stupid frogs statues they’ve got.”
“You weren’t answering!”
“Yeah, I was sleeping,” he yawns. “Hold on…” He taps through his slate to get to the fitness app and opens it up. “Yeah, so in the last twenty-four hours I’ve slept… almost seventeen of them.”
“No way.”
“Want the screenshot?”
Bury Them Bones
In Progress
Standing just outside the portal is a beast of a man, at least twice Link’s size. The behemoth turns to the pair at the threshold of St Fi’s grounds. “This is as far as I can go, yes?” he asks the behemoth. The beastly man grunts and turns to watch a pair of cardinals flutter by.
Zelda gives Link a small curtsey, and he feels his face redden. He is not used to such courtesy, not deserving of it. “Until next time,” she says, and she walks through the portal with a polite nod to the behemoth.
Link watches her go for a spell until he feels the stirrings of guilt, knowing he is shirking some of his duties within the cathedral. He looks over to the guard, who seems to take no notice of him. Trying his luck, he leans over through the portal. “Do you wish to lose your head?” comes the low rumble, and Link immediately straightens.
Link has one year to prove himself innocent so long as he stays within the grounds of St. Fi's cathedral, and he swears to the gods that he'll do it.
“Yeah. That’s right. Wasn’t they goin’ somewhere far though?”
“It was still in Lanayru, I thought?”
“He didn’t even introduce us!”
“He didn’t? That’s so rude!”
“Not like you would have gotten an introduction anyway, Proxi.”
“Hey, yeah, what took you so long on those pillows?”
“It was like unreasonable.”
“Yeah, well, so is Purlo!”
Cremia feels a headache coming on. She thinks she probably doesn’t give Link enough credit for his people skills, considering he willingly deals with this bunch. Cremia cuts in through their chattering once more, and she tries to get the five of them to refocus. “Alright. He was with a girl, and they’re still in Lanayru?” Cremia asks the group.
When he steps back, Revali collides with someone, and the bottle of Green River slips. It shatters on the floor, and the green glass bits litter the tile floor and the splattered soda like glittering emeralds. Revali spins around. “Do you not have eyes?” he snaps.
The man he’d collided with in the tight aisle of the corner store flushes deeply. “Sorry, I was just trying to get by,” he says sheepishly.
He looks young, not like school-aged, but young enough that Revali knows he’s got more than a few years on him.
“Uh, look, I’ll cover the broken one,” he offers.
Revali, huffing as he turns to grab a second bottle of Green River, tells him, “If that’s what you want to do, blondie.” Revali yanks out another Green River, and from a cooler on his way back up front, he grabs a bottle of water for himself. He takes it all up to the front counter, where the blond man keeps his word. He even offers to clean up the mess, and for some reason, Revali just finds that annoying.
Like someone who has a fucking decent moral compass shouldn’t exist in this rotting place.
