Convergence [Goron Temple]

Alternative Title: "Oh Yeah. It's All Coming Together."



“Dindamnit all,” Guy cursed he watched his trusted sword sink into a pit of lava. Even if he could dive in after it, there was no way that weapon would ever be the same after this.

“You absolute asshat,” the scrub spat at his foe. The morningstar-tailed dinolfos standing across from him cackled wildly, relishing in what it perceived as a disarmed enemy.

Guy’s obsidian hand winced from the disarming blow it took a moment prior. Already his fingers felt so naked without that blade. He had paid way too much to have it specifically commissioned to him, waited so long for it to be forged, and seen so much with it--only for the thing to be tossed aside by this absolute imbecile.

The dinolfos was already upon him with another strike, swinging first with its greataxe and then with its morningstar-tail. Guy wasn’t ready for that tail-strike last time, and it had already cost him a weapon as valuable as his own arm. He couldn’t be falling for it again.

Guy deflected the vertical axe-swing with his Mirror Shield, and as the tail swung around his bare stone-fist punched as hard as he could into the gap between the tail’s vertebrae. The dinolfos howled in pain as Guy winced from the tail hitting him--its momentum diminished but not stopped.

“Fuck off with this,” Guy snarled. Taking a page from Tent’s martial arts and Sienna’s sheer ferocity, the scrub ripped his arm from his shield so both hands could focus on the tail--using all his strength to bend and finally BREAK the appendage like a stick.

The dinolfos blasted the stone scrub with claws and the butt of his greataxe, but at such a position he couldn’t get a solid enough swing to break the little rock-goblin.

Clutching the broken tail with both arms, Guy squeezed hold if it tight as he activated a mighty Propel away from the Dinolfos while kicking with both feet--just enough force wot RIP the already-broken limb clean off, and sending Guy skidding across the stone floor.

The monster’s voice howled in agony as Guy rose to his feet, wielding his new “weapon” in his free hand. This fight was already over, though. The amount of blood gushing from the monster’s ass made that overwhelmingly clear.

Still the monster’s glare shone with inhuman fury--fury so intense Guy thought he was looking at his sister for a moment. The Dinolfos tore across the ground and through the air like a keese out of Dark World.

‘Angry but clumsy,’ Guy mused. ‘Seems familiar.’

The scrub kicked to his feet and, using his Roc’s Cape, leaped over the monster’s furious charge with a front-flip--while acrobatically thwacking the back of the monster’s skull with the morningstar tip of its own broken tail.

The monster stumbled forward, nearly collapsing. Between the blood loss, concussion, and severed limb its sheer adrenaline could barely keep it on its feet. As it struggled to regain its senses, Guy took the opportunity to land, then propel back into the monster with a full-body tackle that was just enough to push it the remaining distance--sending the monster off the cliff’s edge, and into the same pit of magma that took Guy’s sword.

The problem, of course, was that the tackle was too much--Guy was flung over the cliff’s edge too.

“Shit shit shit fuck shit fuck,” the scrub spat as he kicked off the Dinolfos. He called upon his Roc’s Cape one more time to get a double-jump that was just enough to send up back to the rocky cliff-face from which he tackled.

His hands and feet glued to the wall with his precious Wall-Walking ability, giving him a sigh of relief as he looked down to see that Dinolfos screeching into a horrible end in a pit of lava.

Breathing hard from all that, Guy climbed back over the cliff onto the solid ground--collapsing onto his back from how draining all that was.

His eyes stared at the rocky ceiling of this cave. Dodongo’s Cavern? Fire Temple? He couldn’t even remember where he was anymore. All these fiery hell-pits started to blur together. He was getting really sick of fire. Not only had it been all around him on all these reckless quests, but these days it was even inside him too. Yet his entire childhood as a lil scrub he was taught to fear fire--and that fear still hung inside him, so deep he could still feel the waking nightmare of it all. Go figure.

During this tiresome reflection, Guy suddenly remembered.

“Fuck. My sword.”

How many times had that stupid steel been replaced? Wasn’t he up to thirty-something now. Even he wasn’t stupid enough to go through the rest of this dungeon unarmed. He wasn’t Tent--screw that noise, he thought.

“Fucking. Julius. Ass-hat isn’t around when you need him.” Guy called out to the ceiling above him, knowing that no one he cared about was within earshot. The fire keese around here surely wouldn’t give a damn.

“You know what? Fuck it. I’ll learn to make my own weapons just so this shit stops happening.” He kicked up to his feet, suddenly instilled with vigor. “I’ll make my own swords and axes and--all kinds of weapons. Stuff my pouch with ‘em all. Throw ‘em into lava whenever I feel like it.”

“Plus Sienna will--well she’ll still openly threaten to murder me next time I ask her for an armor repair, but at least I can shove her a weapon.” A smirk entered his voice, “She’d have to clam up if I became an endless well of her second favorite thing in the world.”

Content with his haphazard plan, Guy strolled back towards the entrance. “Fuck this place I’m gonna go make some weapons.” Of course he hadn’t yet figured out who or where or how to suddenly become a blacksmithing master like it was just something you picked up. Oh well.

It begins.



“Alright alright alright,” Guy quietly hissed, “Keep the fire just like that a bit longer.”

Several months had passed. Several months Guy had spent locked away in Nabooru, borrowing the temple that more or less belonged to his friend Tent Emberwood. He thought he would pick this trade up in a few days. Like almost everything he’s ever gained in the past few decades he thought it would be some instantaneous miracle. Just an item picked up, or a spell imbued.

But no.

This was real work. This was long, hard, grueling work. Every day and almost every hour he spent training, practicing, learning--and any hour he didn’t spend at the forge or in a musty tome he spent as a woodworker, or a bowyer, or a chainsmith, and...

“Fuck! It cracked again. This one’s trash but... Alright, let’s patch it up. Even if we can’t sell this sword it will still be good practice. Get another slab of iron ready.”

“But Mr. Guy! That wasp the last of the iron!” Buzzari announced. His tiny bee-sized body was standing on the bellows over the furnace’s flame. “Beesides, I gotta keep the fire like this just a beet longer, right~?”

“Fuck.”

...and any hour he didn’t spend crafting, he spent gathering more raw materials. Or stealing them. Whichever.

Buzzari smiled upon his prized tulip, sitting cozily on one of its huge petals. “Off he goes again. Hmm. Honeystly, where does he find so much iron? I can barely beelieve it!”

“Oh Mister Tulip! It’s time for pollination. Miss Daisy and Mister Ember and Mrs Gale and--” The wannabee rattled off dozens and dozens of names for all the plants that he’d cultivated in Tent’s greenhouse. Or, what he called ‘Mr Tent’s Greenhouse.’ It was just a room with a couple windows but to Buzzari it was like a jungle.

Beefore he realized it, over the spring and summer Buzzari had turned a few empty pots into his own forest of flowers! Every day he pollinated and planted and watered and kept them all nice and happbee! Whenever Guy was off doing his illegal activities side projects, Buzzari found time for more flowers... and more plants... he was even beecoming something of a beetanist!

“Oh my. Lately Tent and Guy have been such busy-bees!” Buzzari smiled sweetly upon his sweeter flowers, “Well that’s okay! Whatever makes them happbee! I can help them for now, but don’t wanna bee here forever... I hope someone will be around to take care of you when I’m gone, sweet-bees... You’re too beeg for me to take on my buzzing adventures!”

...

“Oh! I think I know someone like that... who could take care of you. He’s a real home-bee. I’ll have to send him a letter!”

A few more months passed, during which Buzzari and Gustav sent more than a few letters back and forth across Northern Hyrule.

Although it took quite a few penpal exchanges--all with Gustav struggling to read the microscopic chickenscratch of a beekin Minish--the unlikely pair came to an agreement. Perhaps just as much, Gustav began to formulate a plan that he had been wanting to spring for years and years now.

Eventually the day came when Gustav arrived to talk with his little bee friend in person--as well as the two roommates of that little bee friend.

With Gustav’s horse-drawn wagon pulled up into Nabooru, he soon spied the home of one Mister Tent Emberwood. While Gustav had yet to meet Tent, Buzzari was a friend and Guy was... well, someone who could be exploited.

After reuniting with Buzzari and exchanging pleasantries, it was time for Gustav to act upon the real reason he had come all this way.

vs

“It’s been a long time, Guy.” Gustav the business scrub smirked slyly. His favorite little bee stood proudly upon his wooden palm. “Buzzari here has told me all about how hard you’ve been working, and--well, he also told me how you’ve changed. Who would have ever imagined you two would be roommates?”

“If you’re gonna send the guards after me get it over with,” Guy snarled. He didn’t bother making eye contact. No, he was too busy at the grindstone. This time the axe was going to be perfect. That’s all he cared about. Some pissant merchant wasn’t worth even occupying his frontal lobe, or so Guy thought.

“Oh no, as long as you don’t cut into my profit margin--again--whatever you do is fine with me.” His eyes, too, wandered towards the grindstone. Sparks flew across the room. Being a sane scrub, he was sure to keep his distance from those sparks. One day many years ago Guy was like that too but... The figure before him certainly acted and sounded like Guy, but was this really the same person? Gustav couldn’t be sure what this obsidian-like figure was, but he certainly wasn’t a scrub anymore.

vs

After a long silence, Gustav refocused on why he was here. “You know what I’m about. I know what you’re about. I also know how you go about those things.”

“Talk like a person, Gustav.”

The business scrub sighed. “We both want profit. I know you’ve been stealing all of the--”

“Can’t prove shit.”

“Watch me.” Gustav snapped immediately, before his voice calmed. “But I’m not here to blackmail you. Not this time. No, I’ll provide you a legal means... so people like me don’t get in your leaves... or hair... or wires or whatever that stuff on your head is these days.”

“And charge me a fortune.”

Gustav’s eyes moved towards the pile of weapons sitting in the corner, “You’re not even bothering to sell what you craft. Axes sitting there rusting, bows sitting there rotting. Send them to me. Maybe have Buzzari or--or maybe that other friend of yours, Tent, was it?--have them sort those goods into a create, then send them through the post. That can be your payment. And I’ll send you more materials than an entire guild could ever use.”

Guy’s grinding stopped. His stone fingers slipped across the blade of his newly-forged battleaxe. Yes. “Sharp enough to cut stone.” He pointed the weapon towards Gustav with a smirk, “Certainly enough to chop down a tree.”

“...Buzz. You’re always so mean, like a hornet.” From Gustav’s palm, Buzzari pouted at Guy--with an expression so sour it was almost visible on his tiny face from across the room. “I heard all of that! It’s gotta bee a real good idea! At the very least it wouldn’t hurt...! Tent and I else could box it all up! We already help you, you know! Would only bee once in a while. Beesides, that would help Tent too...”

Gustav’s smirk flowed into his words, “See, our friend has the right idea. Somehow I doubt Tent is letting you live here for free... and if he has, he won’t forever.”

Guy turned back to the grindstone, hands moving into position from muscle memory--only there wasn’t a blade to sharpen between them anymore. Defeated, his hands drooped and he let out a sigh. “If Buzzari and Tent will send my work to you, that’s on them. They can do whatever they want with it.”

“See? Now everyone can be happbee!” Buzzari quietly cheered. Guy didn’t look very happbee but it was really hard to tell with a face like that!

Guy waved them off without meeting their eyes. It isn’t like Tent paid rent on this temple of his. Really, they were not much better than the monsters that squatted in places like this. But it didn’t matter. He had no plans with those weapons--none of them were good enough yet, anyway.

“That’s it then? Excellent,” Gustav chirped happily. His eyes moved towards the flames trickling on Guy’s hands. “I would shake on it but, hm, those hands of yours these days don’t seem very--”

“We’re done. Talk to Buzzari or Tent if you want to do logistics.” He grimaced, moving back towards the forge for the next item to practice. Even living the miscreant life he does, Guy couldn’t help but feel dirty whenever he interacted with Gustav. “You’re far from an idiot--unfortunately--so you have an idea of what materials I can use based on what you get. That’s it. If this was my house I’d tell you to leave.”

“Very well. I’ll leave you to it,” Gustav said with his well-practiced customer service voice. He turned towards Buzzari, carrying the little man upon his palm, “Shall we go back to that greenhouse of yours? It was lovely.”

Guy’s stone hand reached for another blade to sharpen. His mind, distracted for the first time in a while, reflected on that leech of a merchant. Of course his honeyed words would work on Buzzari, and Tent was always more naive that he let on too. Revolting. He tried to shove the thoughts from his mind. He found himself looking at the knicks on his stone fingers--wondering if this was supposed to hurt; wondering if this was how goron smiths felt.

Back in the ‘greenhouse’, Gustav sat on a stool overlooking the jungle Buzzari had raised. “It’s really amazing to see these in person. Your, uh, prose didn’t quite do them justice.”

The man listened patiently as Buzzari spent the next ten minutes or so rambling about all his flowers and seeds and gardening and on and on, “But it’s honeystly really easy to look after them! Once they’re all grown up. Just bee sure to water ‘em! Sunlight, greenhouse, nice and safe!”

“Of course! I’m a plant myself so I know a thing or two, Buzzari. I’ll be happy to take them on my wagon, and back to my shop--I’ll look after them as long as you want. You would be welcome to come see them any time, and can even stay with me whenever you feel like it.” Of course, Gustav conveniently left out the part where he might harvest some seeds and other materials here and there to turn a profit. But nonetheless he was sincere about taking good care of them. It would just be another branch in his rapidly expanding venture.

Between an endless supply of weapons and botany, Gustav needed one more spoke before this wheel would really get rolling... and he had just the person in mind to provide it.

A few more months went by.

Sienna found herself panting. The mask normally covering her wooden visage cracked and peeled off, revealing a face twisted with trembling glee. Her hands shook with overwhelming adrenaline as fingers curled into open fists, each digit dripping with blood as she stood in the massacred corpse of yet another moblin.

Yet another victim.

Her trembling hands brought the blood to her cheeks as she let it trickle down, her body and soul awash in the bliss of it all. “How kind the goddesses are... to let me live in a world like this...” In a world where she could maim and kill by the hundreds, yet still sleep soundly at night whenever she wished.

Her glowing golden eyes looked fondly over the battlefield, over dozens of corpses all maimed by her hands and her weapons. Some would call her a hero, a notion at which even she laughed--aloud--to the dead and to the open evening sky. How ridiculous. How delightful.

Even with all the care she put into her armor, after a day-long battle so intense even steel and leather expertly crafted could not contain her ferocity nor protect her from so many blows. With everything from her spaulders to her greaves in utter disrepair, she let out a stretch--letting most of it slip off her bulky wooden frame, like flesh from so many bones.

It was so peaceful here. In the wake of so much death, so much battle, there was her own private solace from it all--and from herself.

That was, at least, until she heard a creaking sound. A wagon wheel? Reinforcements so late? It was coming closer, from behind the nearest hill.

Her glee morphed rapidly into the all-too-familiar rage, and contempt, and ferocity, and the trembling need to annihilate.

Sienna, for once clad in little more than her own wooden skin, dove for her barely-intact halberd. The corpses beneath her splashed as if reduced to mere fluid. Taking cover in the hollowed out body of a bokoblin, her glowing orange gaze met the distant thread with an unerring glare. An ambush, if necessary.

As the silhouette rose over the hill, what came into her sight was... She arose to her feet, letting out a mocking laugh. After everything she had seen and caused today, a single business scrub on a dinky one-horse wagon looked as harmless as a butterfly.

She didn’t care to notice that after taking cover inside a bokoblin, her entire nearly-naked body was now dripping with a crimson fluid that could make a frail person faint.

For weeks now Gustav’s caravan had rolled from outpost to outpost, tracking down nothing but rumors and hearsay. More than once he reminded himself that it would all be worth it. More than once he reassured himself that, despite all odds, there wasn’t a better person nor a better monster for the job in all of Hyrule... and by Nayru he had searched high and low for anyone who could come close, but alas, she remained his best option.

The fresh battlefield crunched under the wheels of Gustav’s wagon. He tried to avoid running over corpses out of respect for the dead and to avoid needing to clean the wheels later, but there were just... so... many...

Gustav generally considered himself confident and calculating. His calculations screamed that the potential profit outweighed the risk. But as a single silhouette in the evening sky came into view, he couldn’t help but doubt...

“It was a calculated risk, but...” He swallowed his unease as best he could, “I must be horrible at math.”

There was no doubt about it. The shape of that body. Those glowing orange eyes. Standing alone in the middle of so many fresh corpses. No one and perhaps nothing in all of Hyrule could fit this description.

“S-... Sienna...”

Someone recognizing her on sight? A deku scrub, no less? Probably one of her brother’s--ugh--degenerates. So much doublespeak, so much sneak, so finicky. All those thieving and business types were not only revolting but weren’t even much fun to slaughter. Sap was never as satisfying as--she sighed with content just feeling it drip off her bark--as blood.

Curious, the woman waded through the ponds of it--the fowl fluid mixing with the grass and dirt to create the most fowl of fluids imaginable.

“I could hurl this halberd,” her voice boomed with inhuman force, not at all sounding like any deku scrub that one would have ever met. “But I shall pop your skull between my bare hands instead.” It was implied, of course, that he would still be alive for that part.

vs.

“N-now Sienna..! Sienna! I can give you something---something you want more than my death!”

She waded without pausing, “I am sure you think so.”

“Weapons! Scores and scores of weapons! More death! More murder! I could--”

Sienna slowed, if only slightly, to at least her out what he was offering.

“--I could even provide you victims.”

She scoffed, “Pathetic. No values. No backbone. I have weapons. The world is naught but victims. Bribe me more, you sniveling worm.”

Gustav’s leaves quickly spun into the air. Instantly Sienna’s throwing arm heaved back to aim her halberd--not like she would let such a pathetic excuse just fly away.

But no, Gustav only moved to the side of his wagon so he could pull away the sheet of canvas. A literal avalanche of steel, of blades and bows and hammers and more, came out of his vehicle and spilled across the open plains.

Even Sienna, who ate weapons for breakfast and replaced her own armor daily, had never seen so many weapons stuffed into such a small place before. Not in the armory of a castle nor the camp of bulblins.

She would never have admitted it, but the woman was actually impressed. Her stance adjusted as she waded out of the blood-mire and onto solid ground, still wearing nearly nothing.

Gustav likely would have noticed the woman’s gaze was transfixed on the hoard.

Sienna at first assumed these would all be trash, sacrificing quality for quantity the way bokoblins and their kin usually do. But no. They weren’t masterpieces but every single one was fairly good quality from the look of it.

“...There is more, yes?”

Upon hearing that, Gustav couldn’t help but rub his wooden hands together--a habit he struggled to suppress, but couldn’t in the wake of the deal that would soon be his.

“Yes, yes! Of course. You can consider this the, ah, initial payment.” He was unsure if this monster was familiar with how hylian-style transactions usually worked. Most monsters weren’t. Nonetheless the Sienna did not appear confused, so he continued.

“Your armor. It is wonderful. It is legendary even. All who know of it speak of you in praising whispers.” Gustav tried to appeal to her ego with praise, but hesitated going further down this path when it elicited no reaction.

“Guy--” Her fist tensed upon her weapon. “A guy I know--” The fist loosened again. “Would be delighted to make a--shall we say--ongoing deal with you, yes? Your armor, your wonderful armor, your expertise, your skills, they could be used to fulfull his requests--if--IF you felt like it, of course.”

Gustav found himself gulping and trembling, as if he was trying to make a deal with a dragon. Perhaps he was. But his hands wouldn’t stop rubbing, “And, in exchange, you get plenty more weapons like these, yes? Yes? Perhaps even meeting your, ah, preferences, if you would care to specify them. Yes?”

Sienna sneered. He was within reach of her halberd now. He could be made into firewood with little more than a flick of her wrist. But, she thought, no. Perhaps that would come later. For now she preferred to toy with her food.

“I’m not a fool.” She was honestly not even sure if this one recognized she was a deku scrub. It wouldn’t be the first time. “You send me armor requests, I fulfill them, and then you send me weapons.”

By now Sienna had already planted her halberd to free up both hands to examine the slew before her. Cutlasses, axes, bows, daggers, spears, ah--even a halberd. She ran her scarred wooden fingers across the blades, ignorant to the fact her own brother’s stone digits had done the same.

“I will keep... some of these... Take the others back until I have use of them. All weapons are good, but blades--axes, swords, halberds--are the best. Large like these. I don’t need your puny scrub-sized weapons, peddler.”

She let her old halberd, rusted and cracked, lay in the mud without ceremony. Many of her weapons had been destroyed or damaged in the fight, and those of her slain foes’ were not much better. But these... these would be suitable replacements.

“The deal is struck. You know how to reach me.” She scowled at the merchant as if to suppress any resistance. “Show me a form to sign if you want your life to end. I will not shake your hand lest you want me to crush it. What do I call you and how shall I contact you?”