Showdown at the Shokay Corral [Doc Genzo]

The acrobatic Rito managed to light the branch aflame once again. Getting up, Eve admired the companion's wizardry and cunning. She approached the casting Snowblind, albeit carefully as the valuable branch was on the other side of him. Reaching with his recovering arm, the boss lifted the greatsword once more after his spell had resolved.

Keeping distance, Eve evaluated the monster's back. She could risk hitting him again if she could detect his next moves properly. The greedy boss turned, unwilling to stare at the swinging Rito while the girl still moved about the background. Eve leapt into combat, launching herself at the turning foe. She unleashed her Flame Choke on the unaware monster, his neck exposed. A green flame appeared and knocked the terrible man reeling back. The magical flames did not last on the creature, dissipating quickly as he was moved backward.

"Chicky! The branch!" she yelled raspily at the acrobatic character.

There was a hush, Eve backing off as the enraged swordsman hurled his blade around the room. Having taken a flaming attack from the front, Snowblind also set his shield facing the girl again. She vanished into the gleaming pile of treasure and picked up her hammer. Swimming in gold and gems, Eve tried to hide herself as the boss lunged into the dim room.

The madly swinging boss crunched treasure after treasure under his giant sword. Eve appeared from the pile to meet the madman in combat. However, something smelled of smoke. There was an eruption of licking flames as Snowblind's cloak caught fire. There was nothing quite as effective as a natural flame to cloth. Mesmerized by being covered in flame, Eve flailed at his open torso with a great swing of her hammer.

Engulfed in flames, the swordfighting undead cast aside his sword and shield. When the smoke cleared, only the monster's head remained. The head swirled around menacingly, jetting around with frost breath. Their chance at destroying him lay in hitting that head with everything they had. The flaming body moved about as well, although aimlessly. Eve launched her chain-dagger to shove the flaming body away. She focused on the head next, avoiding his spraying breath.

The room began to chill quickly, his breath acting like a small ice storm. Eve had methods of hitting a flying head, but right now she was relying on Ruairi's better aim to save her some potential whiffs. Rolling forward, she gymnastically deployed her dagger again to thwart the dissipating flaming body. With a final hit, the body vanished in a puff of black smoke. The spiraling head continued to terrorize the air. Eve followed through with her roll by avoiding to the corner of the room.

Eve noted Ruairi's dilemma, though she also saw that he wasn't trying to shoot the head down himself yet. She watched the body of the monster sizzle to ash. There was one thing she knew for certain she could do about that flying head. It was getting close to either one of them every second they left it twirling.

Eve equipped some Deku Nuts and threw them one-by-one up at the flying head. If she could just stun the thing she'd have a shot at capturing it. Miss after miss, she had already gone through four nuts. The damnable thing was rotating too fast. It was spinning out in the air like one of those teacup rides.

"Chicky we have to knock it down." Eve begged, throwing another nut.

The magical head teetered, blasting the pile of treasure with a slick coating of frost. Eve got the chills just looking at it. Or was that the room getting too cold. If they didn't do something soon the place would become a freezer. Maybe this overwhelming power of cold was why the boss had become obsessed with ice magic. It was certainly more difficult to deal with than other elements as the energy of pure cold filled the room. Rather, the cold was like the absence of energy obscuring everything it spread to.

Eve searched through her pack. She had been on so many adventures and through so much nonsense she had to have at least one thing for this. Scrambling through items, Eve plucked out the Harvest Ring from the pouch.

"This is the ticket." she sneered.

Eve summoned a pumpkin in her arms. She threw the large object at the center of gravity of the whirling head. A single flicker and the pumpkin was turned to pumpkin butter. The head veered off course, spinning dangerously low and near herself. Eve threw another Deku Nut at the unbalanced floating head. With a snap and a flash, the head rolled onto the ground. Eve ran to the treasure pile and emptied out a bag of golden coins.

Running to the rolling head, Eve covered it in the burlap sack and pulled the drawstring. They had thwarted the floating head. Eve had already forgotten the thing was once a man. There was a sudden quietness as the crackling continued inside the bag. The barred door was not budging. Eve had already lost focus and started to pile treasures into her shrinking pouch. She filled bags that were once full of coins with the more immediately-valuable Rupees. Without a monster from this dungeon to sell on the black market, Eve would have to haul as much sparkly stuff out of the place as possible.

The Kinstone piece was in there, for sure. Maybe with some more searching they would find it. In the meantime, the preoccupied Eve just continued pushing the bagged head away and hauling treasure. A lot of it was covered in frost and somewhat painful to the touch. They'd have to wait for some of it to thaw. But more pressingly, Eve would have to realize that the door didn't work with the villain still alive in that bag. Eve pulled out her note-pad and quickly drew a sketch with her crayons as they waited.

"This is us mister Chicky." she handed him a sheet of paper.

"No! No more fire, you'll taint the treasure." Eve explained. "So much just got crushed too."

She started to search it all too, looking for that coveted piece. There were a lot of bothersome green pieces, she was too loaded on treasures and just ignored those. She also went back for a second to shove her drawing into "Mr. Chicky's" face. There was a neat little branch on the drawing, on fire and everything. She wasn't going to let him not see it for himself.

The two had continuously ignored the state of the exit door, and of the head in the bag.

There were. . . a lot of red treasures. It was very tough to sort the pile for that Kinstone shard. Some of the treasure was already helpfully thawing, only having been exposed to the breath attack very briefly. Periodically she would try to get the performing Rito to see her picture. Having torn it from her diary, she wanted him to keep it. She had been forceful before, but that was out of necessity. Now she was being selfish and insistent on him seeing her crayon scribbles.

Some time passed, the head still rolling around in the sack. The treasure was becoming easier and easier to sort for some reason. It quickly appeared that the girl was specifically sorting it and preparing sacks of it to haul out of the place. Gradually, less valuable things would be swapped out of her Adventure Pouch for whatever trinket her eye caught next. With enough time, the whole pile would be sorted by color. . .

Eve was struggling not to pick up all of the Kinstone pieces for herself. Her hand made its way back into her pocket, ready to reveal that red rupee shard of hers once again. She was at an impasse, as there was nothing left to do aside from continuing to sort the treasure that was so dense a piled high they would never get all of it out of this place. She could either try to keep shoveling, or beg the pretty Rito to fuse the stone already. Eve gulped, knowing she might have to argue with the guy to fuse the trinket like she had tried at the market stall.

"Here it is Chicky. . . it's that match for your stone." she explained, turning her attention painfully away from the mountain of goods.

With a sudden dramatic movement, Eve tripped on a slippery icy stack of treasure. The Kinstone piece in her hand flailed around as she tried to stabilize herself with her other hand. Before she knew any better, the stone clinked together with the unwitting Rito's rising stone half. As the piece collided with its partner, Eve fell over beside the guy. She shivered on the ground quaking amongst freezing cold gems. She was going to get sick at this rate. . .

"Give me that!" Eve shouted.

The girl grabbed her share from his hand, sure he might try to keep both as they landed so safely in his hand. She swapped the red rupee with the drawing in her hand, making certain Ruairi was holding it this time. Making sure the new rupee was safely in her hoard, Eve checked her surroundings one more time.

The head bounced around in that bag. . . and the main door remained shut. This was the fifth or sixth time that Eve had observed this phenomenon. Assuming at last, after over half an hour of searching loot, that the head had something to do with the door staying shut. Eve retrieved her big hammer and went to smash the head a few times. She bonked the head in the bag over and over. There was several clanking and cracking noises as Eve kept hitting. She didn't stop until the door would unlock. The steel bars keeping the door stuck slid up and the door became ajar.

It was then that a creature pushed the door wide open. It was a larger-than-average Korok wearing a western style outfit, he had a wide-brimmed hat and a big slingshot in his hand. The enforcer entered the room with hushed footsteps. Eve looked on, her eyes previously following the door. His face was shaped somewhat like a handlebar mustache and his facial leaves were shaped like gigantic bushy eyebrows.

"Shokay, cur-dogs! Hold 'em up to the sky!" he bellowed. The Korok began pulling back the trigger on his slingshot.

"Stick 'em up I said eyyy." the big guy threatened, waving his slingshot.

"Chicky I think that's a thief and a guard. There's been koroks swarming this place to do dirty work for the thieves. He's kind of like. . . evil police?" she explained, rattling off ideas about the creature.

"I said drop yer weapons! An' no I'm not gonna tell ya what my station is." the bad cop antagonized them.

"If you pull that trigger you're gonna be very sorry." Eve threatened back at him.

Eve inched over to the bag full of evil guy's head. She raised her hands into the air, almost in agreement. She wormed steadily closer to the bag, ready to grab it and rush the Korok. She looked up again, the baffling Korok staring down Ruairi, who wouldn't put his hands up. This was her chance.

Eve ran over with the bag of smooshed head. She opened the burlap sack as the Korok turned toward her. Nasty pieces of frozen head poured out and she widened the opening of the bag further. The Korok snapped his weapon and launched a seed into the bag. It collided with the bag but also hit into Eve's torso causing her to screech out in pain. She shoved the bag over the enemy Korok's head, causing him blindness and confusion.

Then, although her Rito friend had probably expected otherwise, Eve started beating up the Korok in the bag. Her plans with the fellow were unclear, but now he was wriggling on the ground and being kicked by stubby feet. She wasn't leaving without all the loot she had found, so perhaps she would make use of the struggling forest spirit yet.

"Okay okay I'm sorry." Eve apologized to the beaten sack cowboy.

"But he was gonna shoot at us. I think I'm bleeding." Eve continued, checking the color of her. . . black outfit.

"At least make him carry some treasure back Chicky please." she asked, returning to the sacks of goods she intended to drag back with her.

"Ugh, uhhn." the Korok stirred. "I'm not dragging back anythin' an' no less yer stoopid hide!" he squealed, holding his boo-boos with his hands.

Eve wished she had brought some kind of wagon with her. She remembered the conveyors too, those would cause a problem. She used her smooth brain to concoct a plan for them.

"What if thief girl shows us the failsafes to the conveyors and we wheel everything back?" she considered, rubbing her almost non-existent chin.

"Ugh please." the Korok groaned.

"We just need to look around for a wheelbarrow." she continued, humming as she tried to make thoughts enter her brain. "The koroks move all the stash around this place, maybe they have containers we can use."

"I'm not tellin' you nuthin'. Pooey." the weird sheriff continued to complain.

Thief Girl eventually returned, holding a ring of keys. She was out of breath and appeared to have been pretty busy. The pink-haired teen looked up and down the scene, continuously become more and more confused.

"Did you destroy mister Blind? You hurt the sheriff too! He'll have to go on worker's comp now. Guess this whole place is worthless now. I was worried for you guys too! You just got yer trinket back and decided to take Blind's treasure huh. Guess yer the ones who keeled him so it's yers now. I heard ya talkin' in here too. I'll show you the way out but I'm not carryin' anything. That's all your problem now!" the girl ranted, giving dirty looks to the Kokiri the whole time.