A recap of each chapter of Chasing Dragons, our botw megafic. Itās part novelisation part rewrite-- I consider it anĀ āenhancementā bc it mostly just takes the game and puts it in written story form and then just cranks everything up to 11 and itās awesome. Not to toot our own horns but itās very good and definitely worth the read! That said itās long as hell and we donāt upload very fast, so this is why we have summaries of all the previous chapters; in case you forgot what the heck has happened so far LOL. I forget sometimes and Iām writing the damn thing! All chapter summaries under the cut!
Chapter 1
Link wakes up in the shrine of resurrection with no memories, guided by a light and a mysterious voice. He fights bokoblins, picks mushrooms, finds the ruins of the temple of time, and activates a Sheikah tower. He meets an old man that he doesnāt trust, who sends him to a mysterious shrine.
Chapter 2
Night falls on the Great Plateau. Link finishes the shrines, learns that teleporting sucks ass, oh yeah and also the old man is the ghost of King Rhoam in disguise. He gets the paraglider, sees his second sunset ever and leaves the plateau.
Chapter 3
Eager to get to Kakariko Village, Link makes the mistake of travelling on foot through the night, and almost gets got by two lizalfos. He almost makes it to Duelling Peaks Stable before passing out on the road.
Chapter 4
After waking up in the stable with his wounds dressed, Link talks to the young alchemist who found him, Sagessa. They cook together, and she tells him a little about Hyrule. Link catches a wild horse and names her Nyx. Just outside Kakariko, he meets a forest spirit named Hestu and gets his maracas back for him.
Chapter 5
Link arrives in Kakariko village and meets Paya, and Impa, who has been waiting a long time and has much to say to him. That night, the blood moon comes.
Chapter 6
After a restless night, Link sleeps in and spends most of the day in Kakariko village. He does laundry, plays with Cottla, buys things he will need for the road, and helps Koko make soup. After having dinner with them, Dorian tells Link that he can keep the coat he borrowed. Link leaves Kakariko.
Chapter 7
Link travels to Hateno Village. A haunted part of his past threatens to catch him at Fort Hateno. At the ancient tech lab, Link meets Purah, and she makes him relight the blue flame furnace in exchange for doing some work on the sheikah slate, restoring the pictobox. Link is not a naturally skilled pictographer.
Chapter 8
Link spends the day doing odd jobs around Hateno for some extra cash, and when he is attacked by an old womanās wily cuccoo, he gets his first flashes of memories. He buys some nice clothes, promptly re-emptying his wallet. Also, they have communism there
Chapter 9
On his way back to to Kakariko to ask Impa about the pictos on the slate, Link encounters his first Yiga assassin, who tricked him by disguising themselves as Sagessa. This leads Link to believe he is being watched. in Kakariko, Link talks to Paya a few times, and asks Dorian about the locations in the slateās picto album. He also asks him about the Yiga. Then he sets out for Zoraās Domain.
Chapter 10
A shortcut down the hill brings Link right to a stable, where he meets a travelling rito bard named Kass, who recognizes his slate. Link receives directions to the domain, but is warned that they are turning travellers away at Inogo bridge. Link goes anyway, and encounters the very dramatic Prince Sidon, who enlists his help in taming the Divine Beast Vah Ruta and curing the domain of their plague of rains.
Chapter 11
Arriving in the beautiful but deserted Zoraās Domain, Link and Sidon walk in on the councilās arguments on how to evacuate if-when the dam breaks. King Dorephan recognizes Link, to his surprise, and he is given the zora armour Mipha made for him 100 years ago. It was meant to be a surprise, a friendly gift to help Link swim better because heās such a terrible swimmer, but she couldnāt finish the helm before the Calamity struck. That night, Link has a strange dream, and the next day he recalls a memory of Mipha.
Chapter 12
Sidon teaches Link to swim up waterfalls, and it goes okay. Link climbs Ploymus mountain to steal shock arrows from the lynel, and is mostly successful. Together he and Sidon face Vah Ruta, which is very successful! Link goes inside the Divine Beast.
Chapter 13
Within the Divine Beast, Link finds Rutaās maintenance slate and solves puzzles to unlock the door to the main control unit. On the roof, he connects a call to Purah at the lab, with poor connection. Link finds the Lightscale trident embedded in the floor in front of the control unit, battles the Waterblight, and meets Miphaās ghost. She tells him he must keep his promise to her to not give up. Link says goodbye to his friend.
Chapter 14
Link leaves Zoraās domain, accompanied by Sidon who brings him down the river. He fetches Nyx from the stable, where the people thought he was dead after his horse ran back without him. Seeking more information on āthe sword that seals the darknessā that he heard about from king Dorephan, Link goes once more back to Kakariko.
Chapter 15
Link returns to Kakariko village, and gets a cryptic but enlightening speech and the repaired Championās tunic from Impa. He and Paya revive the great fairy Cotera together, who gives them blessings in the form of a nice hairclip for Paya and a fused kinstone good luck charm for Link. Link spends all his money on a stealth suit, gives Koko a hug, and makes meat-stuffed pumpkin. Then he gets a hug from Dorian. Busy day for Link!
Chapter 16
After a frustrating time with a slate memory at lake Kolomo of Zelda talking about the Master Sword, and a foreboding Yiga encounter, Link arrives at Outskirt stable. In the morning, he meets the keeper of the Temple of Time, Hoshi, which is very confusing, because Hoshi is actually who Ghost!Rhoam impersonated as his āold manā disguise. He learns he accidentally stole Hoshiās warm doublet, but considering the rips and bloodstains itās gained, Hoshi says he can just keep it. Link reaches the Gerudo Valley.
Chapter 17
In the Gerudo Canyon, Link meets a shady man on the side of the road who offers to buy his horse, but Link refuses. Later he ventures up into the expansive scaffolding above the canyon to rescue four travellers from bokoblins, who eagerly adopt him into their friend group. Link accompanies them up to the wasteland tower, and leaves them there at nightfall to continue his quest. Upon returning to the road, he discovers his horse has been stolen.
Chapter 18
Link is reunited with Nyx! Kass sings him a song about the hero of ten thousand years ago, and Link ventures out into the desert on foot. Unprepared for the harsh climate, he is in poor health when he finally reaches Kara Kara town after a full day of walking. The town is full of displaced refugees from Temple City, which has already been trampled by Vah Naboris. The Divine Beast stomps dangerously close to the down, and Link gets a slate memory of himself killing a yiga assassin 100 years ago there.
Chapter 19
Link meets Vilia who decides to take him under her wing and buy him proper desert clothes and aloe vera for his stupid poor little meow meow sunburn. Gender happens but somehow Link doesnāt notice. Vilia is rich and famous and glamourous and amazing. Link takes a bath, makes soup, and meets Viliaās husband, Reynold, who works at the townās stable and is also great. Link spends the night on their couch.
Chapter 20
Link travels to Palace city in the morning, kills two lizal on the way there and after getting a bad grade in customs check is arrested on suspicion of being a Yiga spy. cringe fail. He tries to tell the guards the truth about who he is and they laugh and donāt believe him. He meets an actual yiga spy also in jail, named Rystel Aresh. Link insists to General Buliara that if they send word to Impa in Kakariko, she will confirm he is telling the truth. Now all there is left to do is wait. Some days later, Naboris stomps dangerously close to Palace city and believing they will be forgotten and buried alive, Link and Rystel break out of jail together. Itās a whole thing. They go back in willingly.
Chapter 21
Finally Impaās response comes and Link is released from jail. He meets the three councillors who run Parapa along with Buliara in place of a chief (bc there isnāt one because the last one died and the heir, Makeela Riju, is too young) and they devise a plan to get the thunder helm back and calm Naboris. Makeela is introduced. Link talks to Vilia again, and tells her whatās going on. He experiences some gender confusion but he just has too much on his plate to figure that out right now. While meditating with the Championās Tunic, Link gets his first memory of Urbosa, in which she brought him to the seven heroines after he killed that Yiga assassin. At dawn, Link sets out to the Yiga hideout disguised as one of them.
Chapter 22
Link meets Barta, a Gerudo soldier taken prisoner. The Yiga are apparently very hospitable jailers and Barta is having a nice time. In disguise, Link meets the Yiga Spymaster, an inventory clerk who gets a crush on him and Link steals their coat (heās amassing a pretty nice collection of other peopleās coats), and learns that Kohga is over a hundred years old. In Kohgaās office he finds the Thunder Helm and some drawings of intricate circles of magic runes he doesnāt understand. He steals both those things and escapes out the back. He runs into Master Kohga, fights him, nearly gets his ass kicked, and is recognized when he loses the mask. He learns that the Yiga call him the āFalse Heroā. Kohga falls down the giant hole, Link gets away, sees that Barta broke herself out. He hands the Thunder Helm off to Barta to bring back, and climbs the Gerudo Highland tower, where he finds Kass, and realizes that despite having met the bard several times, he forgot to ever introduce himself.
Chapter 23
Makeela confides in Link about her struggle with her place as heir and that they are running out of time to subdue Vah Naboris. When she puts on the Thunder Helm Link gets the memory of Urbosa and Zelda on Naboris. He steals a bunch of bomb arrows and sneaks out of the city, meeting up with Makeela at sunset to act out their plan. Barta follows Link and volunteers her help. The three of them succeed in stopping Naboris and Link and Barta climb aboard.
Chapter 24
Link and Barta enter the Divine Beast. It starts walking again, only temporarily stunned, and they have to first find and engage the emergency break so it doesnāt destroy Kara Kara town, and then adjust the power generators so it doesnāt Literally Explode. They fight the Thunderblight, almost lose really bad a couple times, but upon finding the Daybreaker shield and Scimitar of the Seven, manage to turn it around and defeat the blight. Urbosaās spirit is freed, and she commends both Link and Barta for their skill and bravery. Urbosa asks Link if he somehow survived all this time, then has Zelda also survived, and Link tells her Zelda is still alive, even though he does not know for sure. Urbosa also informs Link that his Eye of Truth, what the Sheikah call oneās spiritual third eye, is now wide open, where 100 years ago it was fully closed. Exhausted and battered, the two heroes exit the Divine Beast, and are met by a huge crowd of grateful townspeople. Link passes out lol. Later Link and Barta wake up side by side in hospital beds, and, hopped up on painkillers, have a brief conversation about how thereās no more magic left since the Calamity.
Chapter 25
Link gets out of the hospital and attends a feast, gets drunk on Fruity Drinks TM and parties with Barta. Wakes up hungover with Barta. Goes and gets yummy greasy street food as a hangover cure with Barta. Goes shopping with Barta and spends most of his reward for freeing Naboris (3000 rupees) on a sapphire circlet and ruby circlet, #no ragrets. He goes and talks to Riju again to say bye because heās planning on leaving the desert asap, itās more emotional than either of them expected it to be. Riju tells him he better come back alive at some point. Then Link and Barta go hunt a molduga together at Arbiterās Grounds, where they successfully kill it and also encounter WOLF LINK. Link calls him Wolfy and thinks heās precious and adorable despite being a terrifying obviously-otherworldly ginormous wolf with human eyes and is nearly as tall as he is just standing normally on all fours. Everyone else finds Wolfy extremely off putting but Barta comes around when her and Link give Wolfy a bath in the pond at Kara Kareh. Link says bye to Vilia, itās very tearful and heartfelt. Barta accompanies him to the desert gate, and with Wolfy now tagging along, Link leaves Parapa.
Chapter 26
While travelling north, Link finds a stable worker in distress on the side of the road next to the smoking wreckage of a burned carriage, who refuses help but demands Link take the mask he has far away. It is the Majoraās Mask but ofc Link doesnāt know that. Wolf Link doesnāt like the mask but Link doesnāt think anything of it. Monsters donāt attack him when he wears it. He keeps it on for a while, and succumbs to the maskās possession pretty quickly, his thoughts and memories blending with those of a previous wearer (Skullkid). He gets dizzy, relentlessly hungry, headachey, frustrated and snappish. He gets super lost in a forest. Wolf Link tries to get the mask off him but the mask tells him to flee from the wolf so Link does. He spots a blupee and sees it as prey, becoming like a beast, possessed and puppetted, and chases it up Satori mountain. We call this segment 'horrortori'. He meets the lord of the mountain and runs from it. He almost does SOMETHING weird and definitely bad with a Stalnox that is reaching out for him but then Wolfy catches up with him and slams into him so hard Link sees the cosmos and basically teleports through the very fabric of reality itself away from the mountain and back into the forest at the base, landing by a pond. The possession broken, he gets the mask off, and for a second thinks he can see his Eye of Truth in his reflection in the pond. He realizes that his Eye of Truth being so open now makes him spiritually vulnerable, but he decides not to try and force it shut again.
Chapter 27
At Sanidin Park, Link finds the royal horse, which is Zeldaās own animal companion and has been around for the last hundred years. Since soul-bound animal companionsā life force are linked to their human counterparts, this confirms to Link that Zelda really is still alive in Hyrule Castle, which he had been privately worried about. He recalls a memory of helping Zelda bond with and train her horse, which is named Xerxes. He brings Xerxes to Tabantha Stable where he takes a much-needed three day break, and boards Xerxes there long term when he sets off again. While trying to reach the Tabantha Sheikah Tower, Link takes a nasty fall into the mass of malice, but before it can kill him it all gets blasted away by golden light, which Link assumes must be Zelda before passing out. He comes to to a traveller shaking him awake, the great fairy fountain guy Toren. Link is able to spot the dormant fountain from the top of the tower, so he and Toren go there together and re-awaken the great fairy Kaysa, who gives Link another fused kinstone charm to add to his fairy charm necklace, which will help him find hidden treasures. The rest of the trip to Rito territory is uneventful except for the terrifyingly rickety bridges because Link is lowkey afraid of heights, and by twilight he reaches the top of the hill overlooking Rito Stable.
Chapter 28
Link finally reaches Stonespire. At Rito Stable, he encounters Kass mid-argument with Beedle about whether ārito meatā insinuates cannibalism, and Kass gives Link a letter from Impa along with notes from Paya, and Dorian and the kids. Link checks out the paper mill neighbouring the stable, and buys a small journal. Upon entering the village proper he learns that many Rito have already been killed by Vah Medoh. He meets with Elder Kaneli, who after hearing that he has successfully tamed two divine beasts, entrusts him with attempting to tame Vah Medoh. Kaneli tells him to seek out Teba, and refers to Link as a descendant of the champions in more of a metaphorical, honourary sense, like an worthy heir to their legacy, rather than a literal bloodline sense.
Chapter 29
Link runs into Saki outside the Elderās hut, and she agrees to tell him where to find her husband on the condition he passes along a message from her: ādonāt die, asshole (lovingly)ā Link gets his first full memory of Revali on the landing platform. He looks around the village for better combat appropriate cold gear, but canāt afford the official mountaineering gear, so instead finds in an eclectic vintage shop the snowquill ensemble, which contains warming enchantments and technically was originally a bridesmaid outfit for a wedding, but it works. Donning it, he heads to the flight range to catch up with Teba. On the way he has a merry melodies esque fight with a Yiga soldier, who ends up getting body-checked by Wolfy. At the flight range, Link meets Teba, passes his aerial archery test, gets another memory of Revali, and doesnāt get Tebaās sense of humour.
