Confronting the Eyes Cavern (Ice Cavern with Cloob and Genz)

Eve rubbed her eyes again, the toss of that coaster of a ride really threw her for a loop. It seemed Julius was in the same boat. She tried to respond to Julius as soon as possible. Now that she had some good experience fighting Freezards, she figured she could handle it.

"Just getting up. . . hhrrr. . . I'm gonna crush 'em." she sorely replied while nursing a rib with her hand.

She noticed the smooth ice streamed up into a sort of ramp, upwards to different parts of the cave. The rest of the floor, dotted with mounds of snow and red ice, hiding possibly numerous secrets. He was right to send her off after the enemies. This search was a pawn's work. She would have to approach thoughtfully though, as she did have that creeping feeling that more of them would pop out of the drifts.

Eve crept around toward one of the Freezards. It let out the yelling yawn of an elderly man. Frost spewed in a sheet around the creature, making it difficult for Eve to get closer. The aforementioned experience fighting them came in handy here, since she at least knew this time not to get close to that frosty stream. The breath was cold enough to bite at her skin from afar.

Waiting until the creature ran out of its breath, Eve watched for the opening. It seemed like these things did have some qualities of living beings if it took them effort to keep moving and exhaling. The stream of breath began to slow and shorten in length. Eve slipped into reach, swinging down her hammer as if the Freezard were a pile, driven into the depths of the snow.

That's when Eve turned 'round to see how the guard's luck was going. Something seemed a bit off.

"Wow captain, I didn't know you could summon this many Keese!" Eve curiously yelled over to the man.

But of course, they weren't the captain's Keese. A small swarm of six Ice Keese menacingly scattered up near the ceiling of the cavern. The bright blue of the errant frosty flames created a thick mist in their wake.

"They're not yours! Look out muscle guy!" Eve yelled back, pretty sure she might not make it out alive without him leading the way.

He began to sift through the snow, coming face to face with... It looked like rust, which was great. It seemed to be a normal iron deposit, but there was only so much you could guess about it before you got it smelted down and formed into a bar.

He took out a pick and began to work away at the ore deposit. A nice pile had been formed by his efforts, and he quickly put it into a pouch, and placed it into his Adventure Pouch, along with the pickaxe he had been using.

"Wow, Captain!" He turned back to face Eve, noticing the cloud of Keese heading towards him. "Those aren't my keese!" he said in unison with her, drawing his sword and executing a Spin Attack near-instantly. It took out the majority of the cloud, leaving the rest to fling themselves harmlessly at his armor encased body. Even the extreme cold of their Blue Fire proved ultimately useless against the combination of White Wolfos Hide and Dodongo Hide underneath his armor.

He struck down the final few of the creatures before resuming his work. He came to a pile of surprisingly clear material-- might this just be a deposit of Mirror Silver? He continued dusting it off, coming to a sharp horn, before realizing... It was a Freezard, and it was staring him right in the face.

Quickly, he put up his shield, blocking the majority of the icy winds flowing from the creature's maw. If that had gotten him in the face, it would have been bad; but he was already in the motions of a Spin Attack by the time his thoughts caught up to him. The sculpture had been smashed to pieces, excellent in any case. Now, he could return to surveying the area...

Eve continued to shuffle through the snow. The entire area was really uneven from all the drifted snow and ice. It must have looked totally different long ago. Eve dredged up the slope of snow and tried to look for minerals like Julius was doing. Poking out from the wall of the cavern glinted something, a shine of gold caught Eve's eye.

Excited, Eve hurried up the hill. Snow began to collect in her boots and clothes. The discomfort would be worth it once she collected that gold. Putting some muscle into her legs, she tried to strain herself up the thick drifts. She finally got in reaching distance of the metal, her eyes gleaming. But something was wrong. She took a close look at the formation. The metal had crystallized into a very familiar cubic formation. Eve stared at the matrix, becoming visibly angry quickly.

"This is PYRITE! It's totally useless! Eeyeugh!" she barked at the cubes. It wasn't even worth picking out and collecting.

Eve turned her head toward Julius, her eyes bloodshot with rage. She wasn't motivated to dig anymore, but it looked like he was going to keep collecting before he would remove all the red ice. It seemed like Eve would have to look for more enemies to clear out. There was definitely a Freezard hiding somewhere, she saw it on the way in. The icy monster of course had vanished again, its body entirely clear.

Eve snooped around after sliding uncomfortably down the snow. Her bloomers were entirely filled with snow. It was a maddening feeling. A line of ice began to form down her nostril and toward her upper lip. She gritted her teeth and kept searching for something to smash apart.

The smooth ice was about where she saw an extra Freezard. They preferred flat surfaces because of how they moved. At this point, Eve was just flailing her arms around in open air, searching for a solid body of ice. There was a hefty grunt, once again like that of an old man. The tiny markings in her eyes flared up.

"UREREREREEEE!" she screeched, tearing the unwitting monster apart with the unspeakable fists that flew out of her eyes.

Julius chuckled at first when she heard her scream about the pyrite. It was to be expected, at least, that they would find a lot of materials that were, in essence, entirely useless to them, but that wasn't really what he was focused on. What he was really focused on was primarily gathering large enough amounts to essentially create alloys of the rarer materials, like Mirror Silver and others, to see if it had similar properties to a blade formed purely of the mineral in question.

Even if it were half as effective as the real thing, it would still be a huge leap in their general knowledge, especially given the scarcity of metals like those. But after turning over the tenth snow pile with his bare hands and not finding anything for his troubles, he decided to get a move on with their entire mission.

There were fishmen to save, you know. Not that Julius necessarily knew what they had been doing here, at least. He doubted that they were in any genuine danger, but he didn't want to stay here longer than necessary. Unlike extreme heat, extreme cold tended to make him much more... irritable, it seemed, even if he couldn't exactly feel it.

He summoned another Keese and this one, unimpeded by a cloud of its vicious kin, managed to successfully melt all of the piles of Red Ice around them. He looked at what was there, to find an abnormally large sapphire, seemingly radiating a freezing aura. "This will do for her compensation, I think," he muttered to himself, before placing the jewel in his Adventure Pouch.

"I think we're ready to proceed," he spoke towards Evelynn, noticing her with a foot already through the door. It seemed that, for someone that was relatively timeless, she carried a sort of hurried impatience with her.

Another yell echoed back into the cavern. It sounded like the girl was now cursing, and not under her breath. On closer inspection it looked like she was struggling to climb a rather poorly made ladder. It wasn't so much poorly made as it was poor by nature due to being made of ice. Her gloves, while thick, were beginning to get cold the more ice and snow she directly put her hands on. This coupled with the constant slipping of trying to grasp the frozen rungs, made her considerably more irate than before.

While she struggled with all of this, something entered her peripheral vision. Not too high above the lumpy ice ladder stood a neat stack of cubes. They were very large cubes, of a smooth sturdy material that resembled a mix between black ice and granite. It looked there was some sort of block-pulling puzzle in place of a door or gate for the last stretch of hallway. Of course, they didn't know how many rooms or hallways would be left. Such was a fact that proved to make Eve angrier.

She finally got some semblance of grip onto the ladder, tugging herself up rung by rung. This got her about halfway up the crude array. Which was, of course, when a large rat poked itself out of a hole above. The rat made a cheeky snort. Anyone approaching a large rat was known to find themselves in trouble if they didn't have any food for it. Eve was no exception. The rat climbed down to shake down the girl for her rupees. While she currently had no rupees, the rat didn't care and lashed out at her.

The Kokiri suddenly dropped with a cringe-worthy thud to the hard ground. Something that sounded like a painful but exhausted shrill moan came from the lump of Kokiri on the ground.

Julius just... watched, to put it simply, as the Kokiri fell from the top of the ladder.

He struggled to suppress a laugh, instead forcing an expressionless sigh to mask what he felt. He lurched down to Eve, and picked her form up from the ground, placing her onto his shoulder.

He looked up at the ladder. It was a ways up there -- about fifteen feet -- and whatever was up there was apparently strong enough to make Evelynn fly off the ladder.

He began climbing. It didn't take him long to reach the top and realize what was up there.

A rat. Mind, it was a rat that was larger than normal, but ultimately, it was still a rat. It fled in terror at the sight of Julius, taking its conniving mugging scheme elsewhere. Maybe they would encounter it later. Maybe not.

He set the help back onto the ground, his attention being drawn to the blocks stacked atop the ledge. It seemed that there wasn't a way around them, so he began to push and pull at the blocks with the help of his companion. "So," he began, grunting as he pulled the block from its resting place, "why exactly did you leave the Kokiri Forest, anyways?"

A blank look drifted off the face of the girl still hanging limply off the captain's shoulder. She seemed entranced, trying to remember something buried deep within her. Upon being thrust next to the large stack of blocks, her deep thought began to shake off, and she suddenly became very talkative.

"Um, mister. See what happened was. Kona said her stump was BETTER than mine, and I was too sick to make mine look fancy! But she insisted that I wasn't trying hard enough to make my stump as good as hers! Then Getselle has the acidity to say my hair wasn't as nice as Fado's!" she began to explain in a salty tone.

Judging by her hair now, it was impossible to tell what levels of planning and dedication Evelyn would go to style her hair. The subject continued to change, however.

"Then Mayon had to go and insult my attitude! Like I can even help it if I get picked on! I punched in his dumb glasses and he had to make new ones out of ground stones. But naturally Getselle wouldn't have enough of it, and she said my dress was too plain! Have you SEEN how Kokiri dress? We all literally wear the same thing apart from a pretty limited choice between shorts and kilt bottoms. Which I might add are all worn by both boys and girls! MY DRESS! PLAIN!" she began to scream. The rats began to scramble, fearing an avalanche at any moment.

"But Olwenn disagreed, he wanted to cut off my hair and put me in shorts. But that's about when I started telling him I wasn't done with my stump yet. BUT KONA DIDN'T CARE ABOUT MY STUMP! SHE JUST WANTED TO GET ON MY NERVES! I STARTED YELLING AND MAYON WAS BLARING HIS DIDGERIDOO BECAUSE HE DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR ME! BUT MIDOL WAS THE STANDING CHIEF AND HE DECLARED THAT IT WAS MY FAULT AND TRIED TO YELL LOUDER! HE STARTED SCREAMING THAT I WASN'T COMPLIANT WITH THE DRESS CODE BECAUSE I STITCHED SO MANY COLORS AND PATCHES AND FRILLS ONTO MY DRESS SO IT WOULDN'T BE PLAIN! GETSELLE THEN POURED WATER ON ME BECAUSE SHE WAS SHOUTING THAT THERE WAS TOO MUCH SMOKE COMING FROM ME AND MY STUMP! THEN I GRABBED HER BY THE NECK AND SCREAMED IN HER FACE THAT SHE NEVER HELPED ME PUT A CHIMNEY IN MY STUMP! OF COURSE KONA WAS YELLING BACK AT ME FROM THE TREE TO TELL ME AND THE CHIEF THAT MY HOUSE WASN'T LEGAL! SO I SHOUTED BACK AT HER 'WHY ISN'T MY STUMP LEGAL?! HUH?!' SO SHE YELLED 'BECAUSE IT'S ON FIRE RIGHT NOW!' SO I DROPPED GETSELLE TO THE GROUND AND I JUST RAN AND RAN AND I DID NOT LOOK BACK." the girl erupted, her face turning maroon.

She hopped onto one of the icy cubes to take a breather as the room slowly stopped shaking.

Julius continued pushing and shoving the blocks, beginning to realize how they were meant to be put together. It was supposed to form a staircase.

He listened to Eve's story. "That's some pretty twisted stuff," he said, visualizing the details alongside the staircase in his head. He looked to the tiny girl sitting on the granite blocks, and wondered just how much she had gone through. "Well, I guess that stuff doesn't matter a whole lot any more. After all, you're out here exploring Hyrule and fighting real dangerous monsters and stuff almost every day, while they're doing what? Sitting in their stumps all day whittling trinkets and talking to the Deku Tree?" He shoved another block into place.

"I mean him no disrespect, but..." He made a motion with his hands before shoving another block into place. It was nearly complete. "Let's get a move on. I get the feeling that we're almost to the end of this place." And thank Din for that, he told himself, beginning to climb the staircase.

Possibly as a result of how long and treacherous her life had been, Eve was never entirely sure how much of her wild backstories were the truth. Despite her uncertainty, she would never in all her life forget how poorly she got along with everyone in her childhood. As far as the truth went, she still had no measure of how long it had been. To the best of her knowledge she did understand that new generations of Kokiri had been created between when she left and the time to follow.

Cooling off her reddened face with ice, Eve remembered a red cloaked Kokiri who wasn't there when she was in the Deku Tree's domain. It was possible that the Kokiri Forest was totally different now. Even with the wars of Ganon and the changing times, she still vowed never to return to that village. She would probably talk to that tree if given the chance, however. She climbed the crude stairs, trying to shake off more thoughts about that wooded commune.

A thin corridor greeted them. The twisting stone and ice bent around so that it was impossible to see what lay ahead. The dangers at hand were evident, as it was still fairly clear how many loose icicles there were. At this length of the jouney, much of the brittle ice was shrugged off easily by the efforts of the captain and his hire.

The path sloped back down. It felt to someone as dull as Eve that the incline before was set there to spite her. As was the nature of caves, there probably was never a simpler option. As the path continued downward, Eve was met with a curious sight. The slug-like eye stalks of a pair of ChuChu poked out from a grim coating of ice. The monsters were probably stuck down here so long that they had frozen.

Eve held back. She made a little sound of protest to make sure Julius noticed.

"Tall guy wait. I think these could be Ice Element ChuChus." she postured brazenly.

Eve approached and threw a small set of rusted shears at one of the stationary monsters. The busted old tool fell apart as it collided with the solid ChuChu. Stiff as a board, dry as bone. The monsters were long gone from their station. But something wasn't right. There was something off-color in the cores of the monsters. Eve shuffled through her bag for the big hammer, and slid it out. With a careful smash, the ChuChu shattered to bits. In a moment there were two little piles. Eve feathered her hands through the ice. In each pile was a little metallic nugget. She figured she'd hand them off to Julius. . . but the ordeal wasn't over.

A loud growling shook the cave.

"That wasn't me this time!" she commented.

The growl erupted into a low boom. The low, menacing noise caused another tremor. The was a violent lashing as the cave audibly crashed behind them. It looked like the path behind them just got cut off.

"Let's get out of here!" Eve shouted as she hurried deeper into the cave.

A large square doorway heralded a new room. Eve forgot about the metal chunks she just gathered as she set eyes on the structure. The room was like a blinding kaleidoscope of stars, created by some sort of clever ice and mirror trick. But what had Eve in a daze currently was something else. Her body now in the light of the room, it was clear the shocking little lady was in shock herself. Strewn about the room was a red fog of deflated little Wolfos corpses. Sickeningly the corpses decorated the room as if the had been all bashed into the floor by something frighteningly large and heavy.

Eve just couldn't let it go.

For towering in the twinkling hall, like a king reigning over his dining room, was a rotund mass of frost. The yellow teeth of the structure had Eve stuck in her position, like stone. What she was looking up at was the very image of the ridiculous snowman she pointed out earlier.

But there was something hauntingly different this time. Amid the field of flattened corpses, the immobile sculpture stood with caked blood about his wrecking ball of a face, furry skin lodged horrifically in his rotten teeth. While he was motionless, Eve knew they would have to fight.

Cryomantic Demolition Construct
SIR FROSTY​

"Why isn't it moving?"

He began to move towards the completely goofy looking snowman without any kind of caution. After all, if this snowman were actually some kind of monster or fiend or whatever, then it wouldn't look so... ridiculous. It had some kind of dumpy-looking hat on, with part of the top portion beginning to rot apart. It also had a corn cob pipe nestled between its crooked, yellowed teeth, and a ratty striped green muffler around where its head joined its torso.

It was only when they closed a certain distance that he managed to see through its unmoving facade. It began to rumble, and soon launched its head from its body, disgusting teeth twisted into some kind of crude grin.

His head rolled around the room, a maniacal laughter echoing around the icy chamber. Julius dived out of the way. "How do we..." He looked around the room before spotting Eve. "How do we beat this thing?" He yelled, examining the creature's body. It had already begun to regenerate a new head before the old one had struck a wall, collapsing in the process. He looked around for any kind of leverage they could grasp in the room.

"Up there!" Julius yelled, pointing to a series of catwalks carved into the ice up above them. Now they just needed a way to get up there...

He looked around, before noticing a crate conveniently placed just within reach of his Hookshot.

"Hold on!" He grabbed Evelynn as he reached into his Adventure Pouch, withdrawing the contraption already upon his hand. He launched the hook, embedding it into the wood of the container They began to fly up there, Julius firmly holding onto Eve.

Eve still had wide, shocked eyes even as she sailed on Julius' little hookshot train. How long was that gigantic soulless wrecking ball following them? Regardless, it must have had them in its sights since they began. Maybe the powerful magic keeping it together was what was trapping everything in ice. It was no matter, Eve was focused on finding out how to destroy it. For that snowman was the only obstacle to escaping and getting paid now. Well, that and it was completely out to kill them.

As Sir Frosty grew a new head, Eve used the boost up to the rafters as her initiative to attack. Judging by Julius' face, he had a similar plan. She didn't know what the man had up his sleeve, but she figured she may find out if she gave him something to follow up on.

Eve reached around, and armed her hammer once again. It was either she jump from the rafters now or risk the monster recovering. With disappointingly little thought, she swiftly fell from the high roost. It was just enough effort to be considered useful. Eve made the point of impact of her hammer directly in the center of one of Frosty's spheres. There was a shock of impact, and small cracks appeared on his tough surface. Eve bounced off of him while he was shocked, and got out of the way so Julius could follow up.

The help seemed to have a good idea, so Julius followed her example. He landed with a heavy thud upon the snowman's torso.

Already, it was melting. But what else could he do to damage the foe? Well, considering it was a construct of primarily ice and snow... His Scorching Socks were likely his best offense, in all honesty, even if he did seem like some kind of school yard bully kicking over and knocking down the lower years' snowmen in efforts to make them cry.

But the roles were rather reversed here. This snowman was attempting to kill them, even if it was rather comical, and... probably highly unlikely. He continued to kick and pounce at the snowman, having already eaten through a large portion of his snowy carapace. Another kick. Another sword swipe. The snowman as wearing thin, dumb smile, hat, pipe, and all.

Its facade was quickly becoming more and more demented as Julius tore into the creature. His strategy was surprisingly sound, as already the killbilly snowman was more steam than frost.

This frosty meme would soon be over!

Or, at least, assuming it didn't keep regenerating. Like some kind of living battery, it seemed to use the snow and frost around it as a sort of conduit, harnessing the nature energy to continue rebuilding itself. Maybe if they ran around in circles a bunch, it would work to cut off its supply of frosty ice and make it have to actually fight them.

Its head, goofy frowny-face and all, rolled off of its head towards Evelynn. If she were going to flee from it, he decided he may as well go ahead and join her-- how else would his master plan work, otherwise?

"Be careful to not step on the flames!"

Still jogging away to the corner of the relatively small room, the little girl ignored her curiosity and missed the follow-up from Julius. At Surgate's comment, she made sure to be careful of the flames. As she was telling him a moment ago, being careful about fire was not exactly her thing. Having seen many houses burn down over the course of her life, she made a note to take special care this time.

Having finally reached the wall, she turned to see a head already barreling toward her. Its hat had seemingly already caught fire on its way over. Her eyes filled with dread, Eve panicked out of the way. Like a stone crashing down a deadly pachinko game, the head rattled off the corner wall and bounced around accordingly. The ricochet being a particularly standard bounce backward, Eve narrowly avoided it at the fault of the room's construction. Her eyes wide, she flopped over onto the powdery-hard floor. Not even her excellent fist-eye things were fast or strong enough to stop something of that size. She was pretty glad the fists didn't come out on their own since she was sure they'd be flattened by that festive rock of ages. It just barely occurred to her that maybe the arms weren't attracted to soulless constructs, like many other inanimate objects before it that didn't flag her rage.

A curse was a curse, after all. There weren't many ways to make light of the eyes or the horrible snowman situation. Eve figured she should help though. There was absolutely no gain in running away now. Given the circumstances and the pinball slated to return to squash her small frame like a bug, Eve charged the main body to get a good attack in. It was fortunate she was here, since the reshaping ice making up Sir Frosty would be vulnerable to a blunt attack of heavy metal. If she could make a larger hole in his thick body, Julius' fire would surely melt the whole thing.

She readied her weapon again, sure to aim for the center once more. She'd be on thin ice if she missed the middle and her hammer grazed off. Of course, she thumped her feet around nervously trying to avoid her cozy outfit catching fire. Fire was one thing her outfits never liked, and would spell her death. This time with a more nuanced horizontal swing, like that of a sports player, she nailed the horrid clothed orb in the center. A frightening, impudent head was already growing out. Eve looked closely before the flames grew higher.

The melting parts of the ice did not resemble water. It was very thick and milky.

"Ewwww!" Eve screamed at Sir Frosty, ready to flee away for Julius' plan.

Julius looked at the viscous white liquid coating his body.

He felt disgusting. But, the construct had been destroyed. That was all that really mattered to him.

He wiped his eyes free from the white filth. "That was... unexpected," he said, placing his helmet back on. He scouted the rest of the room, finding a thin layer of ice which was nearly transparent. Three blue, shivering figures stood on the other side-- likely the Zoras they had come here in the first place.

It was amazing that they even managed to get a message out of this place anyways, given the kinds of hazards that dwelled within. He was even more impressed that they were still alive-- he knew most things would likely have already frozen to death in these temperatures.

He inspected the thin barrier that separated the Zora from them further. As thin as it was, it was just too thick for a normal person -- or even someone who was considered strong -- to break through with improper equipment. He got his mining pick from his Adventure Pouch, clink clink clinking away at the wall. He looked back to his hired help.

"Want to take the hero's spotlight?"

It looked like the Zoras were still clinging to life in the cold, like fish do when they hibernate. While this probably wasn't the first curse of Ganon to leave Zoras under a sheet of ice, this Sir Frosty debacle had them behind literally just a sheet. Eve hoped, and strained her nerves that the only reason they needed rescuing was some demonic power of the snowman keeping the ice at deadly temperatures and his own menacing face staring them down.

Looking behind herself she double-checked that the blaze was continuing to rend Frosty into a puddle. She was rarely frightened by anything, but that gross abomination being alive was a fundamentally threatening issue. She needed to know it was no longer animated. Eve was in the process of adding "animated snowmen" to the list of things she hated. With a long look at the pile of opaque goo, it was quite clear that she already hated it with a passion.

Moving on, Eve resumed focus on the task before her. She gripped her battle hammer intently. Her instinctive and formless smashing was all she knew how to do so far. So she had at the ice with all her sloppy strength. After much of the fighting, her arms were nearly fatigued. To her fortune there was a spell they broke through destroying the boss that made the ice far easier to break. As she saw the shards falling away from the visible Zoras, she threw her sash over her eyes. She hadn't forgotten the punching fit she would get in if her fist eyes remained on the soulful tribesmen.

One by one, the Zoras approached. Among them was a freakish Zora with a seahorse snout. He really hoped the two hylian heroes wouldn't notice. They were mystified that a hero so young would come for them. The Zoras were seemingly in the process of defrosting, so it was possible they were frozen not too long ago. If they were frozen then. . . they might not have been trapped by the cave itself.

"Thank the gods." cried a Zora, to break the ice. "We knew terror at the branches of the ice demon. Had you not come, time would make us into statues. We arrived from a tunnel not too far from here. On our expedtion to find out what destroyed this mine, we found out in the worst of ways. The accursed demon stared us down and trapped us where we stood. His cold fingers are why the area is in such bad shape. His spherical reign is probably the reason for a string of brutal deaths outside the cavern as well."

Eve kept her head cocked on level with where the Zora's eyes would be. She was naively baffled about how they failed so hard to find a giant ice horror. A job was a job, after all. Her apparent patience continued so that her grubby little hands would get paid.

"The way outside is behind us. If the ice melts we can escape by sundown." the Zora added.

"Now that's what I like to hear! I can finally make my way to Castle Town." she remarked with a skeevy grin.

"Not before we celebrate, little lady. You saved our lives! The Zora tribe is in your debt! We will feast on the 'morrow." the Zora continued, giving Julius a knowing nod to show that he was included.

"Whoa, whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves! I'm not into large gatherings." Eve explained, barely being interrupted before getting to call them something offensive.

"But we insist! The King must have sent you, and you have earned our hospitality many times over! Our best eyeball soup from Zora's Domain will be there. Though if I may be blunt. . . why has the Royal Guard sent a child to a deadly mine? You could have been hurt!"

"I am NOT a kid! I'm a fairy person! Kokiri. We prefer "people of fairy" though. Kokiri has very hateful conjugations."

"Our mistake, ma'am. On second thought, you may do as you please. This is going nowhere." the Zora nervously added. They wanted to repay her but it was getting increasingly harder to even talk to her.

"You mean I can leave?! Wow mister that's pretty good. But I really wanna try that soup now! Bring me to your party! Make some tea!!" she insisted. It looked like they were stuck with her for another day.

"Damn my scales. Let's get this expedition over with, fellows." the Zora offered his tribesmen.

Eve turned to Julius, who was probably regretting letting the ancient moron talk first. She reached into her pouch and removed two sparkling masses. The raw minerals shined as they entered Julius' vision.

"I don't know what this stuff is, but I found them in those dead ChuChus. This is the kind of thing you said you needed in your posting! It's yours now, so long as I'm getting my fancy dinner an' my reward." she explained, a deranged frown coalescing on her tired face. She might have deserved something, after all. Besides, a warm meal would be heavenly after starving in the wilderness. Her payment would probably go toward some meals, with that in mind. "Don't forget to shake those Zoras down for a reward too, Metal Man."

"Well, this could have gone worse," he said to Evelynn, watching the Zoras turn away.

"Ah, yes, the metals-- give me a moment." He dug through his Adventure Pouch, bringing the enormous Ice Gem into view. "I came upon this, buried under snow and Red Ice. I thought it might be a nice parting gift for you-- of course, if you come find me in Castle-Town, I can easily make a weapon incorporating it... Or even modify your hammer so that it can use its effects. Now, about that feast..."

He looked over the Zora clearing debris. He went over there, and rolled a particularly large boulder out of the way, before clearing mining supplies out of the way. Light shined down the shaft, showing them an easier way to the surface.

He looked back at Evelynn, and then again at the fishmen. "You know, I helped too." They stopped in their tracks, coming to look at him. They examined his mail and everything about him. Eventually, they just nodded.

"Then feel free to come along as well. We'll hold the feasts in both your honors!"