A new voice splits the air. "Aaah! Wha- Yaaa!"

With a whoosh of air, a cloth glider turns her free-fall into a slow descent. "Aaah! Fucking snake-thing!" 

The woman in winter-themed fur armor looks around as she glides.

Weird forest with large, well-spaced trees made out of assorted colored crystals, a guy in orange armor throwing apparently infinite exploding knives from... Somewhere... At crystal monsters as he bounces between large branches, a distant ceiling dotted with glowing crystals providing light...

Several levels of 'what????' go through her mind. But she's never been one to freeze up. She glides towards the guy.

He gets to a ledge where the crystal monsters can't reach him easily, and that's wide enough for her to land, and pushes himself back against the tree, panting and clearly injured. "Hey!" he calls as she gets close. "You here for the artifact or just sight-seeing?"

"What I am is pretty confused! I was fighting a - thing - and suddenly I was falling and now I'm here - don't recognize those monsters. I'm... Confused. By like eight different things."

She's panting, and puts her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

"Uh, I can handle these while you recover? And wow, monsters with teleports, hadn't heard of that - and yeah this's a new pocket that just opened up."

"Looks like they can't get up here?"

She pulls an artifact off her belt and pokes at it. It shows a screen full of blue-tinged static. "...Uh. I'm not any less confused. You don't even look Hylian?"

"I don't think they can easily, but some of them can climb a bit. And I haven't heard of that - faction? Country? Ethnic group?"

"Sssspecies? ...This should probably wait until we're not surrounded by monsters. You seem pretty good at killing monsters compared to most adventurers. Uh, hmm."

"Well, I'm going to keep going for the artifact at the center, but the dungeon should calm down when I get that, you know. Still, I can meet you outside?"

"I don't know. Man I don't know what's going on here but splitting up near a lot of monsters is usually kind of a bad idea and my slate isn't working or I'd just leave, but it's not working, so I'm kind of worried actually."

"Uh, I dunno what part you're lost at? You've got artifacts, so you're not, like, new-new?"

...She closes her eyes and clasps her hands in front of her.

"Oh Goddess Hylia, gentle and kind, hear my prayer. I humbly ask for, uh, guidance, because I'm pretty confused right now..."

He hasn't heard of Hylia but he doesn't know every religion out there, so he won't interrupt.

"Oh goddess Hylia..."

She pauses, withdraws a small white statuette from inventory with a blue flash, then prays for a minute or two more.

"...Apparently I'm not in Hyrule anymore but also I should tell you that I'm not dead? Are you dead?"

"Yeah? Have been for a while. This's one of the afterlives."

"I always wondered what those were like! Hylia told me nothing would be lost and not to worry about it when there's more important stuff to do. Nice to meet you, I'm Link! ...I think."

"Nice to meet you too! I haven't met someone new in a while! So you didn't die, you just - got thrown across worlds then or something?"

"Yeah, seems like that's what happened. Hylia says so and she's usually way less direct. It's pretty weird but hopefully things will be okay."

"Yeah! You want me to explain everything that's going on here? Might be safer to get the artifact first - that'll calm down the dungeon and stop competing teams coming after it - but I can like try to explain stuff."

"You're the local expert here. Anything I should make extra sure to kill or avoid killing? Any, like, etiquette I am horribly messing up?"

"Everyone and everything can come back from the dead - perk of being in an afterlife - so pretty much just don't be a dick about killing? Like, sticking around someone's body in case they pop back to it so you can kill them again is rude. I don't think you're messing anything up but the camping bodies thing is something new people sometimes do."

"Okay. I'm not sure what'll happen to me if I die. Though I did kind of die once already? Do these things have useful drops? How many potions can I afford to use?"

"We'd probably wanna track down one of the gods for death stuff yeah. They don't drop stuff usually, though the really powerful ones sometimes are carrying artifacts. We don't have potions so I don't know that last one."

"Monster parts and some wild plants and animals make potions when cooked. Guess I'm not getting new ones any time soon. No enchanted arrows either. Oh well. I feel like maybe we should show off to each other a bit so we know what to expect?"

"Fighting-wise? Sure. Might be good to take turns taking the lead, then, so we don't trip each other up."

"Well, team fighting when you don't know what your buddies can do doesn't usually go well at all and I'm not totally reckless so I more meant showing off some moves while we're still relatively safe up here."

"I guess? Some stuff's easier against opponents, though."

"Hey, I do remember knight school, sort of. They taught us that teamwork and knowledge is a big deal for fighting. Alright!"

She starts showing off. She's stronger and tougher and has better stamina than baseline. She has a few magic weapons that have fire, ice, or lightning effects. She has a bunch of different themed outfits, many with their own magic effect (she settles on the one that boosts climbing). The slate can do a lot of neat things, including creating throwable force bombs, briefly time-stopping objects or enemies, making ice, and moving metal things around. She'll revive able to stand and fight once every twelve hours and can create mighty upwinds to fly into the air with her glider three times before starting a six-hour recharge.

"...I don't want to use my magic arrows or potions unless I have to 'cause I don't think I can get more here but they're neat. And I guess the last thing is, it doesn't usually work out of combat, but if I dodge a blow just right or fire arrows in midair I speed way up for a few moments. And I can reflect projectiles off a shield if I do it just right too but that's really tricky. I think those last two are a hero thing not any kind of artifact?"

"Huh. We just have artifacts."

And he shows off: he can make himself lighter, so he doesn't fall as fast and so he's able to pull off his cool parkour fighting, and he has a pouch that creates ammunition - the exploding knives in this case - and armor that repairs itself and grants him immunity to fire, and he can create about two dozen clones, and when his clones are destroyed or spun back in he's healed, and he has a fan that controls wind (very little, but it's enough to knock lighter monsters around and give most fliers a hard time), and an artifact that gives him short bursts of strength but exhausts him, and boots that let him stick to things, and a message earring (only talks to other message earrings) and a disguise earring, which is mostly useful for like makeup effects but can be used to camouflage if he pays attention to what he's doing with it.

"The clone thing is awesome. I have to say, this is weird as all get out. No use standing still, though." She swaps to a lightning-themed spear. "You said you have to get to the center and grab the thingy? Lead the way, I'll keep up and help keep them clear."

"Yeah. Thanks."

He starts making his way through the quasi-maze - he's avoiding fights where he can, taking advantage of his acrobatics to keep away from those monsters stuck on the ground, but there's still plenty of things that can get to him.

She stabs things and throws force bombs and stabs things and time freezes monsters and runs and jumps and climbs after him and stabs things.

And they get to the middle of the maze - an enormous tree, hollowed out. The light inside is golden, and there's a circlet of gold and green leaves on a pedestal.

"I'm going to need to see if it'll accept me," Nereus says. "Can you watch my back while I commune with it? Might take a bit."

"Commune? Eh, sure, guard duty, explain later."

"Right."

And he turns to the circlet, apparently meditating on it.

A few monsters try to interrupt this.

She doesn't know these ones' attack patterns by heart, but she is pretty good at killing monsters.

They are very killable!

Nereus comes out of his trance, shortly, plucking the circlet from its place and putting it on his head.

The monsters all seem to immediately become pacified, slinking away.

"The treasure likes you? That how it works?"

"Basically! It's - more a thing about fit than like, I don't think they're intelligent in the way people and animals are. And the central artifact is the keystone of the entire pocket dimension."

"Cool. Uh, killing monsters is familiar ground but I don't know what to do next. I can't go looking for shrines, this isn't Hyrule."

"We can see if any of my artifacts work for you? And get you introduced to, like, towns and all that, maybe find the goddess of this world so she can help you out?"

"Sure. Goddess Hylia can still hear me if I use a figurine. Maybe they can talk to each other and fix stuff."

"That'd be really great! Our gods are pretty powerful locally - they do a lot of good, here."

"That's nice! Hylia does stuff, just, there's also Ganon. And I'm not really clear on how gods fight each other or what they can do, I just help the best I can."

"Yeah. I haven't ever heard of ours fighting each other..."

"Everyone says the Dark God Ganon is evil and thrives on hatred and malice. And, I mean, that's kind of the thing you say about your enemies, but Hylia grants adventurers strength and keeps the land fertile and tries really hard to make sure nobody gets sick and there's food to forage in the wild - and Ganon makes black goo that eats everything it touches, and monsters who are just barely smart enough to make a spiked club and kill people with it but not do art or tell stories or anything, and took over the army of Guardians to burn all of Hyrule a hundred years ago."

"Yeah. The living world sometimes had problems like that. The afterlife's nice, though. There's the Library, which is - basically an infinite place of creation and learning and knowledge? If you want a little section of world you can shape however you like, or if you want every book ever published, or if you want to stare at art or immerse yourself in memories of historical events people've shared, you go there. Then there's the Autumn, which's - peaceful and plentiful and nice, and it's a really good place for kids who died early to grow up, and no one there can get injured if they don't want to be, and there's a lot of - kind of friendly spirits? And here's the Battle. People can hurt you but if you die you respawn at a graveyard or at your body with all your stuff, and you can just decide to die at any time if you're trapped somewhere or just don't want to bother walking back to town, and magic's based around artifacts. It's pretty much a massive war game?"

"Possibly there're others but those are the three I've been to."

"Sounds nice."

"...Even if nobody needs the help I can see some knights wanting to keep fighting. Maybe even me. Others would want to go home, though. I don't really want to risk dying though. Nearly did that once already and it was a disaster."

"Yeah. Hopefully we'll find the local goddess fast - I can also put the word out that I'm looking."

"Hopefully! Heh. Be a bit awkward to have another goddess pray to Hylia. That's the only way I know how to talk to her, though, prayer."

"That'd be pretty weird, yeah. Though the gods might have different - channels I guess? For talking to each other."

"Who knows how gods work? Not me!"

"Not me either!"

She shakes her head slightly and stretches. 

"Where's the - exit? You lead the way, a big part of me is thinking 'go look around for monster drops and forage for stuff'. Where do you get food?"

"Exit's back the way we came. Food - we technically don't need to eat but a lot of people do it recreationally, and there's restaurants and stuff in the towns."

"Yeah, uh, I'm gonna eat on a regular basis. The Slate's handy for storing meals at least."

"I'll help get you enough food, too."

"People need food even in Hyrule. It'd be decently easy back home to get enough just wandering around gathering if there weren't monsters everywhere. I think. I might have a skewed view of things."

"Yeah, just, I dunno what's edible or poisonous or whatever."

"No sense worrying about it too much. Anything I can do to find the goddess faster? Does she listen to prayers?"

"Haven't known her to respond to prayers, but the others do so that might just be a thing with her usually ignoring people..."

"You're the one who knows their way around here..."

"Hmm. I hope my horse is okay."

"Hope so too. Dunno how we'd check on that, though..."

"I can't. Shouldn't worry about it. Hylian horses are pretty independent..."

"Yeah. Horses here are, too... Though horses here are also immortal."

"Hmmmm..." She singsongs a bit, and then sighs slightly, and then appears a spear from inventory and twirls it as they walk, apparently a nervous habit.

"Sorry it's such a walk to town... Might be able to find a ride type thing..."

"Ah- No need. But we could run if you don't mind."

"I don't! Have pretty limitless stamina."

So they run until get get to something interesting.

Which turns out to be a town - decently big to Link's eyes, apparently small to Nereus's. "Still," he says, "it'll have restaurants and stuff. Or a tavern if it's in like a fake medieval design..."

"I suppose nobody needs to farm, so everyone can be an innkeeper or a bookseller or whatever. Or a soldier. Ah, I might get dangerously nostalgic for my time in Triforce Keep!"

"Yeah - though we only kinda have a money economy? You can get food, shelter, mass produced books, all that pretty much free, only thing that needs trading is stuff like artifacts and art commissions and people's time. Some of the taverns have a kind of fake economy 'cause of the aesthetic, but you get the money for them from games, usually."

"That kind of makes sense. Princess Zelda tried to explain to me once about how money's not actually worth anything unless people think it is. Or something. If you don't need to buy food or a house... You don't need money?"

"Yeah. Point of money's to trade for scarce things, right? Like, we had money when I was alive, and there we had to work jobs and buy places to live and food and stuff, but here - it'd be kinda like asking people to buy air? When you've got a whole sky full of it."

Shrug. 

"I'm not really an economist though... Anyways, you wanna eat something particular?"

"Maybe lots of things, I don't know what's unique about this place's food yet! Gorons eat rocks but they have barbecue for tourists, Rito do amazing things with bread, Lurelin's thing was fish and spices..."

"I bet I can find a place doing local specials, then!"

"Don't want to get too distracted, though. I have to talk to your god sooner rather than later. You're my local guide, is all."

"Yeah; we should also be able to ask around about how to get her attention - especially at anywhere that attracts high level people."

"If I have to fight something big and dangerous to do this I'm going to be annoyed. I don't mind fighting important fights but when it's not necessary-"

"Dunno. I know people who're really good at fighting get her attention somehow? But there's gotta be other contact means - and I know people can get into the other realms too, and those have more interventionist gods..."

"Who would know, then? Or who would know who would know?"

"Don't know anyone exactly, but - people with powerful artifacts have probably gotten attention before, and restaurant owners tend to really like being gossipy and knowing everyone and everything. Probably talk to the restaurant owner first, then go looking for someone who looks - shiny, I guess? If that doesn't work out."

"Hah! My strategy back home when I was wondering what next was 'talk to someone who looks interesting or important'. I guess some things are universal."

"I guess some kinds of people are always in the middle of everything."

So they go find a popular-seeming restaurant or tavern.

Those are pretty easy to find, what with all the people! Nereus seems to be pretty gregarious, too, quickly getting roped into several conversations, feeling out who's got this or that divine attention getting accomplishment to boast of.

Link hangs back a bit. One-on-one she's fine... Not so much with big crowds.

Nereus, fortunately, seems to thrive in them, and soon enough is leading her back to a more quiet area so they can eat in peace.

"It's not that I can't talk to people I just don't like big groups of strangers all at once unless I have, something, I dunno, a clear role or task at hand?"

"Yeah, that's fine. I don't like eating around a ton of people, though."