Legend of Zelda: Spirits' Memories

Setting: Kingdom of Hyrule. Starting area: The King's Tomb Graveyard.

Purpose:
Weaken the Triforce of Power by dramatically lowering the amount of lifeforce throughout Hyrule, one of the largest powers in the land.

Create a location that naturally pulls all the evil spirits of Hyrule to one location.

Further weaken the Master Sword's seal on Demise by having it face another evil force to kill.

Overall, finish preparations in the Power Timeline for Demise's plans to return.

Zelda: She doesn't have as big of an impact in this one. She has been mostly studying about spirits since the altercations with the villain began, to try and find a way to counter him somehow, and thus has been calling upon Link's master frequently. She also is the one to reveal to Link the location of the weapon he must gain to stop this new villain to their kingdom. But, other than that, she's more focused on organizing their soldiers into trying to protect their land from what the villain has unleashed upon their kingdom.

Link: For this story, Link starts out as a bodyguard and part-time apprentice to a shaman, living in and studying the spirits of the graveyard of the King's Tomb, having started when the shaman he was assigned to protect noticed his unusual aptitude for seeing and detecting spirits.

Special Features for Link: Has awakened within him 'soul fire' powers via his master. This allows him to track living and dead souls, as well as evil spirits. And later as he adapts it, using it for offensive abilities as well. Possibly others, but haven't thought as fully on this yet.

Plot Points: WARNING. MAJOR PLOT POINTS AHEAD.

Where the plot begins, as of late, there have been many disturbances in the land. Ones that have been foreboding to Link's shamanic master. Sudden increase of the disappearance of living souls in Hyrule. That alone already indicates a threat of sizable amounts. But what's worse is what Link's shaman master can see. Normally, after death, the spirits of the dead wander at least a short while before finding the direction the afterlife will take them..... but not only have the livings' souls been disappearing, but the dead have as well.

But, things turn more grievous still. The most recent of directions this strange incident has occurred stopped in a place.... the shaman fears that the cause may have found a location that has been hidden for ages. In fear of this, he tasks Link to travel there before this unknown threat can truly reach it.... the home of the Sheikah Tribe.

Link, surprisingly, has indeed heard about them... but only in the detail that they are the silent defenders of the Royal Family. The shaman chuckles, stating that is only part of their designation... after all, the Sheikah only tend to be called upon in times of need. So he asks... what do they do when they're not called upon? What important task keeps them hidden from public view? Seeing Link's confusion, he tells him he'll find out soon enough, and then calls upon a spirit to guide Link to their home, said spirit being his aid for the game.

However, reaching the home of the Sheikah is far from easy. Not only is the entrance hidden through bushes, but also, the hidden entrance leads to a dungeon in and of itself to traverse. The Sheikah Waypoint(until a better name is thought of), a type of defended entranceway to the home of the Sheikah, and essentially, the first dungeon. Filled with golems and monsters that the Sheikah have tamed to guard their home from intruders. As if having the dungeon itself hidden in the rock of a mountain to hide the path hadn't made finding their home difficult enough...

At the end of this dungeon, the first boss ends up being one many Zelda players may be familiar with.... Jalhalla, King of the Poes. Having been caught and used by the Sheikah in this timeline as a last line of defense against intruders to their village.

After beating him and entering the village proper, his letter from his master quickly allows Link the honor to meet the Sheikah Elder. It is from the elder he soon learns why he was sent to warn the Sheikah.

Apparently, all poes Link has thus encountered are all lesser spirits, including Jalhalla. The stronger evil spirits.... are the Sheikah's primary enemy. When not called upon by the Royal Family, the Sheikah stay in the shadows and the spirit realm, ensuring the maintenance of the seals upon the Spirit Realm, making sure to maintain its stability and prevent the evil spirits from ever leaving their designated sectors that they live in. Considering the fact that there's something in Hyrule causing spirits to just outright vanish, that's a very concerning detail for those whom maintain the balance of the spirits. And the fact that it seems to be headed in their direction is a greater concern, for if it were to rea- a sudden explosion interupts the elder. Link and the elder rush outside to see the cause of the disturbance.

Turns out, the explosion was caused from Sheikah warriors trying, and failing, to stop a strange looking intruder. A man with a sword with a lantern built into the hilt.

He demands that the elder tell him where the Divine Spirit Crystal is. She refuses, and Link quickly decides to face this strange intruder.

The intruder is quite skilled with the sword, but not enough to overcome Link, even early in the game.

After the fight, the villain is surprised at Link's level of skill. He states he'd actually have to get serious if this continues... but there's no need for that. After all, he has no need to fight Link... and he has OTHER ways to find the crystal.

Suddenly, a blue flame ignites within the lantern of his blade's hilt, and he yells for them to try and stop him. The flame travels down his sword as he slams it down, creating a massive blue fire explosion.... and afterwards, the villain is gone, vanished from their view during the explosion.

Afterwards, knowing what his objective is, she decides to send Link to its location to aid the Sheikah there, stating that he's got impressive skills for one so young, and considering what's at stake, they need all the blades they can get to prevent what the villain seeks from happening. He's also given something to present to the Sheikah guards on duty there. They'll inform the other Sheikah in the compound, and help make sure that the villain never reaches the crystal.

After all that, he's given directions to the temple. It doesn't take time for Link to find it.... only to hear laughter, as the villain reveals he expected that the elder would send someone to warn the guardians of the crystal, and he was right. He just had to follow Link, and he ended up finding exactly what he was searching for.

Before they can react, the villain suddenly appears behind the two Sheikah at the temple's doors, slashing through and killing them, burning them at the same time with his flaming sword. But.... what he does afterwards is even more terrifying.

Standing in front of Link, a great smirk on his face, he pulls out a potion.... then smiles: "I no longer need these for this task." He drops the potions.... and in front of him, poe souls start to rise from the corpses of the two Sheikah. Suddenly, he grabs them.... and starts to eat them, right in front of Link... the villain's form fading in and out of a black skinned yellow eyed version of the villain as he eats with a wide mouth'd smile.

After his feast, he thanks Link while in his more human form.... then changes to phase through the door to the temple, going through its locked mechanism as if it weren't even there.

Despite knowing the impossibility of catching up with him when he can pass through walls, Link decides to still try. And thus, the second dungeon begins.... this time with the various Sheikah guards as enemies. Due to it being their home turf, they take the policy of attack first, ask questions later. And of course, an elite Sheikah tribe warrior as the final boss of the dungeon.

After the boss fight.... the boss, struggling to stay conscious, and Link, are shocked when they hear a blast like sound coming from the door behind the boss.

They rush... or rather, Link rushes while the boss stumbles after... to see the cause of the blast.

In the next room, they find a giant floating crystal floating and gently spinning in the middle, slightly cracked. And carved upon its five crystal faces it is showing are strange masks, carved directly into the crystal itself. And lying on the ground beneath it are a group of rings, the runes upon them fading along with a faint veil of energy surrounding the crystal. And standing before it all is the villain.

He turns to smile at them, saying that they're just in time.... for life as they know it to end. His sword ignites as he leaps up towards the crystal and slashes at it. Not enough to split it in half.... but enough to break it, causing the crystal to fall and shatter the rest of the way, despite the efforts of Link and the boss of the temple in trying to stop him.

Energy from where the crystal was floating then pulses before it disburses in a shockwave across the land, the villain laughing in glee, stating that finally, his hunger will be satisfied! With that, the fire of his hilt encompasses him before the fire shrinks, him turning into a poe flame before he floats off away from the temple.

The boss of the temple is dismayed, saying after all their generations protecting it.... the Divine Spirit Crystal has been broken. And as he says this, the elder walks up, stating.... "Perhaps. But..." she walks over to the crystal masks that broke off the crystal... "...perhaps not all hope is lost..."

She picks up the masks and looks at Link, explaining the situation to him.

Apparently, long ago, when the goddesses were still in control, they realized that some spirits were not passing on to the afterlife like they had created the world to be, becoming poes... At first, this was not too big a concern. It was worrying, but not truly a threat.... but then, poes began to evolve into stronger spirits. Evil spirits, whom began to prey upon the land and its people.

Seeking to placate these spirits, a realm was created for them to live in peace, separate from the living.... but this failed to please them. If anything, it made it worse. The spirits using it as a refuge to return to and back from at ease, attacking the living when they least expected it.

With no other options, they set up a seal in the form of the Divine Spirit Crystal, with each mask carved into the crystal designed as a focal point for one of the five types of evil spirits. They even set it up so that the crystal's power would automatically sort the spirits whenever poes evolved into evil spirits.

Without the crystal to seal them, the evil spirits can now run free across the land. Portals shall now start opening up between the spirit realm and the human realm. The longer this goes on, the larger the portals will be... and thus, it won't be long till even worse spirits can arrive to plague the land.

But, there is still hope. The five crystal masks that were part of the crystal were a focal point for its powers. The power of the crystal still resides within them, even if the larger crystal that once powered them can no longer spread their influence across all of Hyrule.

As such, if Link can get the masks to the center of power of each of the five realms, and successfully activate them there, it should prevent the evil spirits from ever escaping their prisons again, having their own power be turned against them to power their prisons.

Learning of this, and learning that it'll help save Hyrule from these 'evil spirits', Link quickly agrees.

Along with the masks, Link is then given a gift by the Sheikah. The Soul of Fire, an artifact of sorts. It will allow him to sense spirits nearby and their types, both living, dead, and evil spirit alike. And, it'll allow him to sense similar spiritual essences, such as the portals he'll need to use to reach each of the separate realms. The portals are spread across Hyrule, and it is up to him to find them. The five realms of the evil spirits.... Sorrow, Lethargy, Desire, Ego, and Malice... it is up to Link to seal them off.

Despite the darkness of the story and the situation... a bit of humor soon follows. I may like dark Zelda stories, but a bit of humor added in can be good as well.... and this occurs by the elder interupting Link as he's about to step down the steps, causing him to tumble with a crash.

With an annoyed moan, Link gets back up, to learn from the elder that with his current equipment, even though he could find the evil spirits, he'd stand no chance of surviving long enough to get to the center of their realms. He'll need a new weapon to give him a chance. For this, the elder decides to give him a letter. Telling him to take that to Princess Zelda. That once she knows what's going on, she can guide him to where he needs to go.

When he goes there, he's at first prevented from seeing the princess, till his master shows up to vouch for him.

As they walk in, the master states that by Link being here, he takes it things didn't go well. Link weakly shakes his head. The shaman sighs, and says that he guesses he'll hear what happened when they meet with the princess... after all, no point in wasting time with Link repeating himself.

Learning of the situation, Zelda immediately takes action. She orders all soldiers to send message to the other tribes and to prepare what defenses they can against the evil spirits. She asks the shaman to lead this effort, since he knows the most about spirits. He feels honored to be given such a task. Then, she turns to Link.

She tells him to fight the evil spirits, there's one weapon that'll aid him beyond all others. The evil cutting blade, the Master Sword. Long ago, it was relocated from the royal city to another location to hide it and what it guards from being found. But, now its aid is needed. To find it, he will need to find the Kokiran, a once peaceful and now secluded race born from the woods and the Great Deku Tree. After conflicts in the past, the once peaceful race was forced to evolve, having learned from the dangers of another great evil. They likely will be hesitant to approach Link, but they are good people. They should be able to aid him if he explains himself to them.

Learning this, Link nods and heads out, intending to find these Kokiran.

When he does find them, he is attacked by them. Starting out with mischievous attacks till Link can force them out.

When they DO show themselves to Link to fight him directly, he finds them an odd sight.

They appear to be teenage Hylians... only, parts of their skin have bark and leaves and branches growing from them. Not only that, but when they face Link, these structures extend and grow out into various weapons, similar to how Zora Link could change his fins in Majora's Mask.

When he refuses to finish them off, they realize Link's not an enemy and apologize, inviting him to their village and taking them to the Great Deku Tree.

Once he learns about the situation from Link, the Great Deku Tree is quick to allow Link to the Lost Woods, and even offers a guide to help him reach the relocated altar for the Master Sword. Said guide.... a now teen Kokiran Saria.

Needless to say, she's shocked to see Link. Saying he reminds her of someone dear from her past. Regardless, she says it's been decades since anyone has ever ventured to the altar.

Once they arrive though, she's shocked that the location has been.... 'renovated'. Apparently, the Skull Kids of the forest have taken over the place and constructed their village there. And they're not fond of visitors. In other words... the third dungeon. Skull Kid Village. A dungeon filled with various types of Skull Kids and their wooden constructs, as well as some plant type and bat type monsters like Keese.

Eventually, he reaches and faces the Skull Kid Elder, the same one that befriended Ocarina of Time Link, even has the same mask. But it's been decades, and he's no longer such a pushover.

Eventually, Link defeats him, and befriends him when he refuses to finish him. With that, he kindly directs and allows Link to retrieve the Master Sword. And with that, he's allowed to go after the spirits. With the Skull Kid Elder and Saria's aid, he finds out the nearest location of the nearest spirit portal, and thus, begins his adventures to hunt down and seal off the five Spirit Realms.

As Link travels through the spirit realm.... he soon finds entities like Stalfos, Redead, and Poes trying to flee from the Evil Spirits.

After Link saves the lesser spirits... they see him, pause... and some almost start to attack while the others look at each other unsure... they're stopped when an elder for the area stops them, saying it's not time for battles with humans now that the evil spirits have returned. So, basically, in this game, the stal, poes, and Redead's species(I like to call the species for the flesh covered undead as 'cordead', but that's my name for such) are actually allies. Doesn't mean you can't fight them though. Was thinking of having optional training challenges against them for rewards, since fighting such beings are such a staple to Zelda series games.

Irregardless, these undead help guide Link to the corresponding realms. And the longer his adventure goes.... the more he finds the realms filled with holes into a seemingly bottomless abyss, as if they've been... FEASTED on. Considering earlier parts of these notes, I doubt I need to state the cause.

Oh, and also, forgot to mention that the Soul Fire item that the Sheikah Elder grants to Link allows him to re-visit the sealed off realms should he need to.

Eventually, Link succeeds in sealing the five spirit realms off.... but the battle is far from over. The villain is still out there. Worse, as he leaves the final realm, he still sees the lesser parts of the spirit realm having parts disappearing into the abyss.

And that's when the Spirit Realm quakes. Link cannot see the source however. His spirit aid for the game suggests they go see his shaman master. Maybe he'll be able to tell what's going on.

When they get to him, he informs Link that he can sense an unusual gathering of spiritual energy within the spirit realm. Noticing the soul fire artifact he's carrying, the shaman informs him that he can adjust it to allow him to reach the area where the spiritual build up is occurring. Based on what has transpired, it's quite possible that the source of this spiritual build up is the villain that caused all this.

By following the soul fire, he finds where the disturbance in the spirit realm is, near the center of Hyrule. When he enters the Spirit Realm from the portal he finds there, he's shocked by what he finds. A massive illusion of a tower sticking out of the ground.... but when he uses the nearby spirit portal, his shock increases further.

In front of him is a massive palace, formed from ghost-fire taken form, along with patches of skin and bones forming various symbols sparking with magical power, maintaining the massive fortress of spiritual energy. And the tower illusion that he saw... was just the top of the fortress/castle. It's so large that it's trying to force its way into the land of the living. The final dungeon. The Spirit Castle. And upon closer inspection, you can see the remains of spirits, the state they appear in when you kill their physical form, being drawn to the structure like a vortex.

After he finally makes it to the villain, he finds that he's no longer in human form. He's now in the poe form he had shapeshifted into.... but it looks stronger than before, and the lantern hilt of his sword has become noticably more intricate, with additional smaller flames... five new ones along with the main one.

The villain seems... unsurprised at seeing Link there. As if he had expected Link to make it through.

"So, it's just as they said. You truly are more powerful than you look, Link. Seems everything is going exactly as predicted."

He stands up from his throne and starts to float down towards Link, drawing his sword with an unconcerned motion.

"Well, regardless of how things turn out here, you won't win. I only knew part of what was going on before... but now.... now, I know just how much of a conflict we are in."

He points his blade at Link with a smirk.

"You are in an endless conflict, Link. Your spirit has faced villain after villain, only to be reincarnated again and again. Your spirit is doomed to conflict!"

The villain looks down at the power flowing in the flames of his sword...

"I know very well that this may be my end here today, facing YOU... 'hero'... but that fate has not yet been decided. Just as you will fight for your people, I shall fight for the power I have sought. The strength of one soul with many lives.... versus a soul that's feasted upon countless souls.... Let's see whose spirit is stronger... En garde!"

And thus, their first phase of their battle begins, but he starts wielding poe powers during the battle, from many types of poes known in the Zelda game series, but altered to fit the villain's combat style.

Eventually, Link overcomes this first form.... but the villain seems unsurprised. Apparently, he was using that form just to test out how strong Link really was. And now, it is time to get a bit more serious.

Before Link had shown up, the villain had split his powerful soul into parts, since he had yet to fully gain control of the tremendous powers he had gained. And since the realm(spirit realm) was split into five... he made five sections cut from his soul. He motions to his sword, and a closer inspection reveals that the sub-sections of its soul fire had indeed been split into five around the hilt. After revealing this, he states that it's time to actually harness them.

The hilt transforms to where it has an exquisite looking gauge and pointer on it. It then shifts the pointer down to one of the subsections, causing that section to grow more fierce as part of its essence feeds into the gauge and in turn into the larger central flame.

As it does this, the villain transforms, and the second phase begins. A phase where the boss has five life gauges, in a sense, each based on one of the five realms, and he randomly switches among the five till all five are down.

Once that is done, the villain is shocked that Link is THIS powerful... he knew Link would be strong, but....

"Very well... you leave me no choice. I will fight with all my strength. You will not take this life of mine so easily! I finally have all the power, and all the souls, I could dream of, all thanks to following THEIR plan! If you wish to stop me, then you'll have to finish me!"

With that, the gauge on his sword's hilt transforms to a five pronged star, as the five sections of the soul get pulled in to fuse with the main one.... it transforms once more in a flash of blue fire that travels over his entire body, transforming him into his ultimate form, combining aspects of all five of the types of evil spirits into himself, facing Link with all his spiritual might.

Though the fight is difficult, Link eventually prevails. But.... this isn't the final battle.

Needless to say, the villain is shocked that Link is proving to be so powerful. Even after all the souls he's devoured, Link is still proving more powerful than him. Link now leaves the villain no other choice. At this, he turns to Link, contemplative...

He asks Link what he knows about the Dark World.

He explains that long ago, the Dark World was more well-known due to the dark king Ganon, whom long ago had stolen the legendary Triforce from the Sacred Realm.... but, he was sealed away before he was able to open the gateway back wide enough for his new form.

Despite that, back then, Ganon's attempts to escape caused dark portals to the Dark Realm to be more frequent. And any humans and creatures that wandered there got turned into creatures representing the darkness in their hearts. Though, since Ganon's defeat, the portals have been sparing at best.

The reason for this sparing appearance of portals is because there was originally a 'barrier' of sorts blocking it off. That barrier.... is the very spirit realm they are now in.

As if to make a point, as he says this, the realm quakes once again, which it has been doing more frequently since this villain began his plans.

"*chuckle* Convenient timing. As you see, Link, my devouring of the spirits has led this realm to be unstable. And I chose THIS spot because it's the closest to the Dark Realm, the thinnest part of the barrier now that I've used most of its essence to form this castle! .... and we're on the bottommost floor."

He grins wider as he powers up his sword, raising it up as he aims at the floor. With a mighty strike, the floor gives way beneath them. As Link and the villain plummet down, Link watches as the blow picks up speed as they plummet, aimed at the floor beneath the castle. With a mighty blast, a rift in the floor is broken open. The blast slows Link's descent, all while he falls down after the villain.

As Link lands, the master sword glows, an aura covering Link and protecting him from the Dark Realm he has fallen into. He turns to look at the villain, even as the camera briefly zooms in, to show minor cracks in the metal on the Master Sword having been formed.

The villain isn't protected like Link.... as he cackles in glee. All the souls he devoured had already turned him into a ghostly monster. Now, his evil powers are being brought out in full, transforming his form a final time as he raises his head upwards, facing his mouth towards the rift in the air, sucking in more souls while creating a mighty vortex of souls to form in the air above the rift. He turns towards Link, stronger than ever before, and ready to test his powers against Link himself.

"It is time.... for this conflict to finish! Die, hero! So that I may feast upon your eternal soul!"

At this, the final battle starts.

After finally defeating him, the villain seems... melancholic. As if sad about an inevitable, but believing that he knows something that Link does not, thus not fearing his death.

"Nicely done... hero. You've saved the kingdom... for this generation.... but you've already fallen for their plans.... Your next life.... shall be your last! ... and I'll be there to see it.... farewell.... for now! *cracks up as his body and his laugh breaks apart*"

As the villain dies, his poe spirit screams as it floats into the rift above, gathering souls before disappearing among the vortex. The rift begins to close, and Link and his poe ally leave the Dark Realm before it closes.

They look around as the palace crumbles, the mist like energy it changing into billowing about as the souls continue to swirl into a constant vortex of evil spirits. Even Link's poe ally is seriously disturbed by the presence of all the evil souls around them, even if they lack bodies. So, he asks that they leave as soon as they can, and use the Master Sword to close the portal.

As Link and his ally leave, some dark spirits take an inordinate interest in Link... but without bodies, the most they can do right now is freak the two out. Passing through them.... ghostly flame versions of bosses of the past within that timeline and from before the split in the timeline, excluding Demise since his soul is in the Master Sword.

After leaving the spirit realm, Link closes the portal, but doesn't seal it(which becomes a problem later). Closing it seems to be good enough, and he's glad it's over, not noticing the cracks in the Master Sword have become more noticable. He leaves and informs Zelda and his master of his success, the conflict finally over.

Before the credits, the camera zooms into a forest before enterring a cave with intricate internal decorating.

The camera viewpoint makes the view of the individuals talking constantly unclear, but there's bits and pieces involved to hint at whom are talking. One seems to be wearing red cloak over his shoulders, about elbow length... along with a diamond patterned outfit, the black diamonds tinted red as he leans upon a massive claymore. And the other.... a strange biped creature, its body not fully tangible and seemingly made from a combination of influences.

To those that pay attention to the games, as well as the voice of the creature, they'd be able to recognize the figures as Ghirahim and the living curse in a new form, from Chaotic Lands.

They essentially mock about the fact that the curse's latest servant once again failed. As expected. But, thankfully, his defeat was all part of the plan.

Basically, they offhandedly comment about the plans, and how they're eager to finally have their rematch against Link.

Ghirahim: "Now, if only our counterparts can effectively complete their part of the plan. At least we're near enough to it that we'll know when they have. Soon, our master shall return, and this pathetic kingdom shall bathe in beautiful blood!"

The living curse reminds him that the kingdom is now in peace, however.

Ghirahim: "Ah, don't ruin the moment. Besides, we've waited this long... what's another century of years, give or take? Let them enjoy their moment of peace. It shall not last."

The scene backs off, as the credits roll, showing off the peace they speak of.

Then, at the end of the credits, it shows Link leaving the Master Sword back in the alter. And as he leaves, the camera zooms in, showing the near unnoticable crack grow once again, as the glowing eyes of Demise appear in the metal's reflective surface, laughing in eagerness for the plan to succeed, and so the game ends.

Additional Notes: Not much to put here.

For one, involving the villain's forms... was thinking of calling his second-to-last form Sin 'insert villain name', and his last form Devil 'insert villain name'.

And lastly, for the five evil spirit realms, I was inspired by the 8 gods in Asura's Wrath, whom each represented various aspects, then took those aspects, combined like aspects, and changed their names, to create the five evil spirit realms. They were altered as shown here:

Melancholy => Sorrow
Sloth => Lethargy
Greed + Lust => Desires
Pride + Vanity => Ego
Violence + Wrath => Malice

Haven't fully thought up these realms in detail yet. But, at least for Lethargy, likely poison gas emitting enemies being among them, so that though they're sluggish, they're still dangerous.

For the rulers of these realms, to fit in with my theories about some of the villains from within other realms(from other games), the 'spirit' villains from other games would be battle scarred spirit rulers in these evil spirit realms. For them, they are:

Sorrow = Illusion Master(from Deceits in the Dark)
Lethargy = Happy Mask Salesman, true form
Desires = Bellum
Ego = Malladus
Malice = Stal Emperor

Had to change Dethyl off of this, cause in this timeline, Dethyl already was eliminated in Link's Awakening.

As a note, defeating the ghosts in these realms doesn't destroy them completely. It merely destroys their created physical form, which takes a lot of time and energy to create.