As Link leaves the Goddess Statue, he encounters a woman standing at the top of the stairs and shouting in a loud voice for her daughter Kukiel. She Link if he’s seen her, and the options are “No” and “Who?” Disappointed with this answer, she asks Link to help find her. She says Kukiel’s been seen with a person with a scary face, or possibly a monster. Link agrees to look, and the woman goes back to shouting for her daughter, which would probably not be the most effective way to find her even if she weren’t kidnapped, but you do what you can, yeah?
Over in the southeast corner of the area, Link finds a woman who’s heard the rumors about Kukiel and the monster, and asks Link what he thinks. For her part, she doesn’t believe there are monsters on Skyloft, but Link’s belief reminds her about the old man at the Lumpy Pumpkin. (Then she tells Link he’d have to fly to get there. I’m surprised they didn’t leave that for Fi.) Conveniently, the Lumpy Pumpkin is where the Goddess Chest Link activated is, and has a gold rupee (300) for him. The waitress is outside looking at the pumpkins, and greets Link as “the brave knight who slayed [1] the chandelier.” Inside, the old man re-tells the story of seeing the monster (which he calls a demon), which is nice because I didn’t pay attention to all the details last time (bad me, you know better than that). The bartender doesn’t have anything new for Link, so it’s back to Skyloft.
The most important aspect of the old man’s story is he saw the demon at night, so it’s time to talk about Skyloft’s day/night cycle. It seems to be entirely controlled by Link sleeping in beds; he’s got his own at the Academy, but can sleep wherever he finds a handy bed to advance the time. (Even on Beedle’s airship, apparently. Also, hopefully, whatever musical instrument he gets will have a Sun’s Song/Song of Passing [2] so it’s a little less weird.) Link going to sleep has a silly animation of him taking off his sword and shield, then jumping and flopping on the bed, still in his armor and boots.
In the graveyard, Link uses a Skyward Strike on the grave nearest the tree to open the storage shed, as the old man said the demon had done [3]. Link goes in, and doesn’t close the door behind him, so he’s less polite than the demon. Down a narrow walkway, Link comes to a shack under the graveyard, and as he approaches, a girl screams. Link goes into the shack, and finds the demon – horns, bat wings, the whole deal [4][5]. He raises his arms and roars at Link, but when Link goes to attack, he cowers and asks Link to not hurt him.
His name is Batreaux, and he knows things look bad, but he and Kukiel “were just playing the scream-as-loud-as-you-can game” since there’s usually no one around to hear. He may be a monster, but he only wants to be friends with the people of Skyloft, not terrorize them [6]. Kukiel is the one person who hasn’t reacted to him with terror; she’s unharmed and seems to enjoy the time she’s spent with him, but agrees to go home to let her mother know she’s okay. Batreaux explains a story of his people: when humans make each other happy, they create Gratitude Crystals, and enough of these crystals could turn him into a human. And since Link seems to not be afraid of him, plus hopefully the sort to make more of these crystals, Batreaux asks him to gather them for him. He suggests they might come as rewards for completing sidequests, or even just be lying about the world, and promises to reward Link for his help. So, this is a combination of Spirit Tracks’ Force Gems and Ocarina of Time’s Gold Skulltulas/Twilight Princess’ Poe Souls.
Next: Time to start collecting, then.
[1] “Slayed” instead of “slew” sounds weird to me. Weird enough to merit a footnote, not so outright wrong as to earn a [sic].
[2] The Song of Time is okay, too, if that’s what they want to do.
[3] Well, minus the Skyward Strike bit, which may have been a bit overkill. Worked, though.
[4] He’s wearing a robe, so I can’t tell if he has cloven hooves or not.
[5] Actually looks more like a devil than a demon.
[6] At first the way he spoke reminded me of the vampire missionaries story, but talking to him more, he seems genuine… and, worst-case scenario, there’s a boss fight at the end of the collection sidequest.
