The Legend of Zelda - A Link Across Time

Game Information
About The Legend of Zelda: A Link Across Time:
Date Released:	n/a
Genre:	Action/Adventure/RPG
Developer:	Miles07
Publisher:	n/a
ESRB Rating:	Everyone/Teen?
Platform(s):	PC?

CONCEPT OUTLINE - WORK IN PROGRESS

Less of an active project, more of a concept - A Link Across Time is a Zelda project of impossible proportions. Made by Miles07.

When the fate of the world is threatened by seemingly detached conflicts in different eras, heroes in each of the ages in question must band together and work in their own periods to prevent catastrophe from wiping out time and space. The one common bond between these heroes is a reincarnating spirit that lives within each of them - the Spirit of the Hero. When this Spirit suddenly gains the power to access some of his past and future lives, he is then able to view a chain of events that would lead to a darkened future for the realm of Hyrule. To prevent that shadowy end, he must travel from age to age to strengthen his avatars and their allies. All the while, the heroes must deal with political intrigue, ancient curses, technological booms and dearths, and a quest of the ages to unite the light and bring hope to the world of Hyrule.

Story

Caution - SPOILERS!

Legends of Old

Hyrule... A mystical land full of history and legend...

Long ago, it is said that the world had been created by three goddesses: Din, Nayru, and Farore. When their work was completed, they created a symbol of their power in the form of three golden triangles, known as the Triforce, at the very point where they left this world to return to their own realm. This location has come to be known as the Sacred Realm, and its treasure was considered very desirable, as it is said that whosoever lays his or her hand upon it would be granted any one wish.

This power became so enticing that demons from another realm broke through the barrier between worlds through a fissure in a vast underground cavern, and began to travel to the surface to secure it. The leader of these monsters was a devil named Demise.

The races of the surface world were in peril. Their guardian, a lesser Goddess named Hylia, outlined a plan to destroy the unbeatable Demise using the Triforce's power, which was inaccessible to deities. She chose from the humans of the world one to be her Chosen Hero, who would lead the charge against the demon flood and protect the Goddess as she lay the groundwork for that plan's fulfillment. It is said that during that seven-day battle, the Chosen Hero slew many demons, and ultimately succumbed to his wounds as the final piece of Hylia's plan was set.

Sending the humans to a settlement, the Goddess lifted the earth from underneath their feet and sent that island heavenward, to await the day of Demise's destruction. Hylia then challenged Demise directly, successfully but temporarily sealing him into the sacred grounds of a temple once dedicated to her. She knew this seal would not last, but ensured that it would remain in force at least until the fulfillment of the plan.

Legends go that more than a thousand years later, two of the skyborn humans, one who was the reincarnation of the Goddess, and the other who possessed the spirit of the Chosen Hero, succeeded in finishing the plan. After obtaining the Triforce, Demise was destroyed, and humans were allowed to return to the surface world once again.

In time, the humans who returned from their heaven-bound island established the first kingdom of their land, known as Hyrule. The Royal Family consisted of those who were descendants of those skyborne heroes. The Hylians began resettling the land and reconnecting with the other tribes of the world, slowly expanding their territory. In time, a few hundred years later, the Temple of Hylia would be refurbished and rededicated as a Temple of Time, a project which progressed slowly despite political intrigue and a new interest in the legends of the Triforce among the many races of the land.

It is uncommonly believed that some interlopers succeeded in piercing the veil to the Sacred Realm and almost obtaining the Triforce, but the light of its guardians and the wrath of the gods had succeeded in banishing these souls into another realm of perpetual twilight, never to be seen again. With that conflict resolved, the legends of the Triforce have quieted down to obscurity, although the Royal Family of Hyrule retains knowledge of these events and of the legend of the Triforce... and of a location to access the Sacred Realm.

A Tour of Peace

It is now several generations later, and the threat of civil war has begun to be whispered throughout the land. In an effort to keep war from breaking out, the princess of Hyrule, Zelda, has opted to initiate a peacekeeping tour to each of the outlying four tribes - the Deku, the Gorons, the Zoras, and the Gerudo - in hopes that this would help bring peace talks into possibility.

Despite the cohort of troops protecting her, as well as her strong and able bodyguard/nursemaid, Imparu, the princess's troupe gets threatened by bandits, which almost succeed in carrying the princess away, were it not for a brave boy and a fairy who step in and rout the rogues. That boy is Link, our young hero! With his fairy Kyri, whom he met in the fields of Hyrule when he was young, the two beat back the foes and earn the gratitude and respect of the soldiers, Impa, and Zelda. Thanking him once more, Zelda then asks Link if he would continue to accompany her on the journey, to which he agrees, and which Imparu finds to be a tactical advantage (to have a "plainclothes" guard accompanying the princess, despite his strange green garbs). Link then sends Kyri to go tell his family that he'll be out for a few days, perhaps, and for them not to worry. Kyri agrees, saying she'll rendezvous with the envoys at the Deku Palace.

The group travels to the Deku Swamp to gain audience with the Deku King, but Link gets separated from the group and finds himself lost Faron Woods. He encounters a young girl by the name of Miredo, one of the Kokiri, which are local forest children under protection of the Great Deku Tree. Miredo tells Link of their plight, that at that moment the great tree was plagued with monsters within, threatening to destroy the guardian. Link helps to clear out the Great Deku Tree, and the great oak returns the favor by helping Link reach the princess's escort once again, which was also lost in the woods. The Deku Tree causes the forest to open a pathway through to the Deku Realm, where the Princess converses with the Deku tribal royalty behind closed doors. Kyri is there waiting for Link, surprised that it took him so long to get there.

Next, they travel to Hebra Mountain, in north Hyrule. The climb is difficult, and made more burdensome when native Gorons accost the group, preventing them from completing their hike, despite their request to meet with their chief. Link manages to find a way past the Goron blockade and into the area around the Goron City, only to be caught by a young Goron named Dagoro. When the young Goron finds his would-be prey friendly, he explains that Chief Darenue would only be approached by anyone considered a "brother" to the Gorons. Dagoro then tells Link that if he wants to be considered a brother, he'd have to follow the Brotherhood Challenge, which consists of navigating through the nearby Goron Mines and obtaining a stone from the deepest cavern. Link ventures to the Mines. After a while, he discovers that he is being followed by Dagoro, who eventually offers his help in getting through the challenge. Upon completion of this challenge, Link presents the stone to nearby Gorons, who allow him to approach the Chief Darenue. After a short exchange of words and a subsequent ceremony, Link is pronounced a "brother" to the Gorons by the chief. Using this as an opportunity, Zelda impresses upon Darenue her mision, who explains that the Gorons' hostility was due to some conflicts with the Zoras of the upper river region, who had accused them of kidnapping someone or other.

With this in mind, the peace tour travels to the Zoras' domain. Arriving at the Zora's home, they encounter an armed platoon of Zora warriors preparing for battle. Demanding to speak to their king, Zelda enters their great hall alone, only to return shortly thereafter with bad news: the Zora are marching to attack the Gorons in retaliation for kidnapping their prince, Tarris, and his yet-unborn sibling, still in its egg. The princess and her group is then met by the Zora Royal Family's butler, Mizael, who was assigned to find the heirs and return them to the Zora Royalty. He is of the personal opinion that the royal children, but is unable to voice this to the king unless he has proof. They then witness a monstrous fish enter their domain, and fight it off. Mizael reveals that the creature was a young spawn that had traveled from upriver, somewhere in the vicinity of Zora's Fountain, which was supposed to be kept empty. The team then goes to the spring to investigate, and Link finds an entrance to an icy cavern, noting the Prince's ring at its entrance. Link and Mizael delve deeper into the cave, and finds the young Prince and his unborn sibling within, after besting another great monster. Upon returning the two to their parents, the Zora issue an apology to the peace team and the Gorons, and the egg hatches - a young female Zora, Laruto, is born before their eyes!

Three of the four tribes have therefore been visited, and the Princess and Link move on towards the Gerudo Desert in the east, to visit the last tribe. Their journey is short, as the Gerudo are quite receptive to the group from central Hyrule. They are brought to the chamber of their king, the only male among them - Ganondorf - who readily accepts the princess's treatise to unite with the kingdom. In truth, Ganondorf desires sanction to move the tribe into the central region, out of the harsh desert region, and wishes to personally surrender his fealty to the King of Hyrule.

As they journey back to the castle with Ganondorf's escorts, he tells them of growing unrest among the Gerudo, with some of them going so far as to breathe out threatenings against him. Sure enough, once the reach the palace, several of the escorts reveal themselves to be separatists, led by one Vitarra, who grabs the young princess and whisks her away deeper into the palace. Ganondorf, enraged but quickly collecting himself, proclaims to the King that he would rescue the princess to show his loyalty, and pursues the traitor. Link follows him out of concern for the princess, and manages to get ahead of Ganondorf due to his small stature and puzzle-solving skills. Eventually, the Gerudo King admits that the young Hylian has admirable qualities, and so Ganondorf officially joins Link's party and helps to find Vitarra and Zelda. After an exchange of heated words, Link and Ganondorf manage to free Zelda from Vitarra's clutches, but she manages to escape wordlessly by jumping off of a tower window.

Zelda seems more shaken than before, mostly due to the unrevealed words that Vitarra has whispered to her while they were separated from the others. But from that day on, she eyed the once-king of the Gerudos suspiciously...

An Unconquerable Spirit

Eight years have passed from that tour, and war has indeed broken out. Out of nowhere, a great horde of creatures long never seen on the surface world marched into the land of Hyrule and began attacking the many regions. Link has grown into a fine young man, and a captain in the Hyrulean army, alongside Imparu and Ganondorf. As the King has grown old and unable to lead the armies himself, Zelda has now become commander-in-chief of the united Hyrulean forces.

When Zelda desires to send Ganondorf with a force towards the eastern shores, she cannot locate him, and so assigns Link to go there instead. Finding Hyron Shoreline to be home to ancient ruins from a bygone age, he pursues some foes into the decrepit temple at the center of the ruins and discovers inscriptions relating to several prophecies of great importance. He reads about the legend of the Hero, who would be called whenever Hyrule's need was greatest, bearing the mark of a triangle on his left hand. As he is attacked by some fiends, one of them accidentally activates a mechanism within the temple, which causes the dusty machinery to spring to life and generates sparks of electricity. As if a fated moment, Link witnesses everything slow down around him, just as a few very important events happen...

First, Link feels a powerful energy swell within him, empowering him, but shaking him to the core.

Additionally, a golden light source materializes through the wall and spins around him, finally striking his left hand. There's no pain, but as he looks at it, it starts glowing, and a symbol appears - the symbol of a triangle of light.

And lastly, three tesla-like towers, equidistant of where he stands, arc lightning in an intense burst of light... and strike him. His vision gives out, and all he could see is white...

...Until he realizes, that his vision wasn't out of focus - He's just in a very white space... A timeless realm.

And before him materialized a being very familiar to him... a female Guide of Epochs, with a similar-looking green cap and green vest as his own. She welcomes the traveler to the world between times, amazed that he'd be back so soon. Link looked down at himself to discover that he was a disembodied spirit... the Spirit of the Hero, detached from time! The Guide deduces that the Hero didn't enter the Timeless Realm "naturally", but that something unusual had happened to trigger this event. The Guide then explains to the Hero that he can now jump to almost any point in time,, to any other incarnation of himself that he wants. The only problem is that as time becomes non-linear in that timeless white plane, he does not know how to latch on to any specific instance without causing history to change drastically, and so they have to find a location in that current age that is "anchored" in space, through which the Spirit of the Hero could access other points in time.

(For the rest of the game, you technically play as the Spirit of the Hero as he jumps between his different incarnations.)

The Hero returns to Link's life approximately three weeks before he left, before the dark army had invaded Hyrule. Upon awakening, Link rushes to tell the tale to Imparu, who at first believes him to be talking crazy. Turning to Ganondorf, he tells the young hero off similarly, but then is shown to be somewhat intrigued by his story. Taking his concerns to the princess, Zelda recounts to him the legends concerning the heroes of the ages, how a green-clad boy saved Hyrule time and time again. Upon hearing of the golden light and the triangle symbol, Zelda tells him in utmost confidence of the legend of the Triforce, a source of power that is said to be able to grant wishes to whomsoever lays hand upon it. When Zelda tells him that the location of the Triforce is tied to the Temple of Time somehow, Link's ears perk up at the word "time". With the princess's leave, Link travels south of Hyrule to the Temple of Time.

Upon arrival, Link begins to feel intense energy coming from the sealed doorway at the end of the main hallway that serves as a chapel. Placing his left hand upon the door, the symbol of the Triforce appears on his hand again, this time a light blue and not golden. Link's spirit is pulled once again into the Timeless Realm, and he meets the Guide of Epochs once again. The goddess recounts to Link the legend of the Triforce as they had experienced it in life, and tells him of a prophecy told to her by the Sheikah of the recent past: The Triforce in its entirety requires the three virtues of Courage, Wisdom, and Power to be in balance. If one were to access the Sacred Realm, where the Triforce resides, with his or her heart not in balance, then the Triforce would divide into three, and the would-be bearer would only receive that piece that best represents his or her ideals. The other two pieces would find residence in those who are chosen by deity to be their bearers, who also likely bear the matching qualities.

The Guide tells the Hero that she believes that at the moment he first entered the Timeless Realm, somebody had managed to access the Sacred Realm with his or her heart out of balance. The Hero, therefore, was chosen to be the bearer of the Triforce of Courage, and managed to bear an echo of that power when he traveled back through time. The Guide of Epochs realizes that he can lock on to this echo to find other instances of his incarnations.

First of all, they realize that the fact that someone opened the Door of Time and accessed the Sacred Realm had allowed them to even be in this situation, which presented a problem. The Spirit of the Hero and the Guide of Epochs agree that the best thing to do would be to find out who accessed the Sacred Realm and when, and the best way of doing that would be in hindsight - The Spirit of the Hero would travel to a future incarnation and obtain that information to stop him or her. The Guide laments that even though the Temple of Time is in a place that was "anchored" in space, she isn't sure which "direction" in time is "forward" and which one is backward. So, the Hero decides to take a gamble and jumps to another time period, leaving Link behind in his age.

Second Chances

...Or so he thought. Upon arrival in a different age, the disembodied Spirit of the Hero searches for the Triforce echo in that time period, passing by the ghostly wisps of other people, of walls and landscapes, etc. until he finds the soul with the ghostly-blue triangle mark on his hand. The Spirit merges with the body of his incarnation...

...And young Link awakens from his slumber, in his family's home near Hyrule Castle Town. The hero realizes that he ended up traveling to the wrong era, but finds himself unable to unbind himself from this body or this era, and so he finds himself in a bit of a quandary. Young Link decides to go to the Temple of Time, where the Spirit of the Hero would be able to escape this lock easier, but the very interaction has caused young Link's future to change slightly - as the Guide of Epochs subtly detects, and wonders if he hasn't messed up time by going in the wrong direction. Indeed, young Link then begins to treat everything as if it were a new future, criticizing himself for every "wrong step" he makes. This confusion eventually brings him back into the reality of his present when he gets himself into trouble with the soldiers at the marketplace in Castle Town.

Locations

In Hyrule

Regions of Hyrule

Region	Ancient Past	Recent Past	Present	Near Future	Far Future
Central Hyrule	Surface World	Hyrule Field	Hyrule Field	Hyrule Plains	Dark Hyrule
Hyrule Capital	Settlement of Crossroads	Hyrule Town	Hyrule Castle Town	Hyrule City	Dark Metropolis
Southern Hyrule	Faron Woods	Minish Woods	Faron Woods	Forest of Light	Blighted Forest
Southeastern Hyrule	North Faron Woods	Castor Wilds	Deku Swamp	Deku Swamp	Midoro Swamp
Northern Hyrule	Eldin Volcano	Mt. Crenel	Hebra Mountain	Hebra Mountain	Death Mountain
Northeastern Hyrule	Floria Falls	Veil Falls	Zora's Waterfall	Zora's Watergate	Watergate Sector
Southwestern Hyrule	Lake Floria	Lake Hylia	Lake Hylia	Lake Hylia	Toxic Lake
Western Hyrule	Lanayru Sea	Gerudo Desert	Gerudo Desert	Gerudo Desert	Parapa Desert
Eastern Hyrule	Eastern Coast	Great Palace Grounds	Eastern Ruins	Hyron Shoreline	Lost Coast
Northwestern Hyrule	Western Peaks	Snowpeak	Snowpeak	Snowpeak	Forbidden Zone
Under Hyrule	Fissure Cave			Subrosia	Under World
Above Hyrule	The Sky	Cloud Tops	Realm of the Heavens	Skyrule Plains	Black Clouds

Other locations

Timeless Realm

Sacred Realm