III. The Forest Temple
From Rauru James and Nairoo traveled East. They moved quickly but James got several opportunities to gain skill with his sword and practice shooting things with the sling shot. His bag of Deku nuts was more than full by the time they reached their camping spot for the night. James was actually beginning to wonder if they were going to sleep at all, or if night even happened in Hyrule. But soon the light began to fade and darkness crept over the land.
"We must stop here for the night, young Link," Nairoo said.
"Nairoo, why do you call me Link? My name is James."
"You are Link to all of Hyrule. 'James' has no meaning here."
James pondered this while he settled down on the ground. Nairoo waved her hands and said some gibberish and a fire sprung from nowhere. The warmth spread around the campsite immediately.
"The fire will keep you warm and ward off monsters for the night," Nairoo said.
"Thank you. How did you do that?"
"Magic, of course," the fairy responded.
She settled down on a bit of log nearby and her wings folded underneath her. James realized he hadn't seen her not flying since morning when he'd first come to Hyrule. She had flown everywhere. Her wings must be extremely tired. Of course, it was entirely possible that fairies didn't get tired.
"You must be very tired," he said.
"Somewhat," Nairoo answered. "I don't use magic often, and making a fire takes a lot out of me. I need to rest."
At that, the fairy laid down on the log with her arms folded under her head like pillow and said nothing more. James could see her breathing level off and hit that regular pattern he knew as sleep. He turned over and looked up at the sky. A hundred million bright specks stared back at him through the canopy of space and he realized he had never seen this many stars in real life. Assuming this is real life, he thought. The world he lived in had so much light everywhere. He had never noticed how much light there was in his world. But here he could see nothing but blackness and those tiny points of light. It was a clear night and fairly comfortable.
James opened his pack and pulled out a few of the strips of dried meat he'd bought in Rauru and the water. He drank deeply of the water and nibbled on the meat. Despite a long day of walking and other adventures, he found that his appetite was almost nonexistent. After draining his water skin, he put the remaining meat back in his pack and set the water skin next to him so he's remember to fill it in the morning.
He began to settle in and drift off to sleep. He thought for a moment about how sleeping on the ground was different from a bed. He missed his pillow, but the mossy undergrowth provided a surprising softness under him. He was afraid he'd get cold later on, as morning approached, but made a conscious effort not to dwell on that now. Now he was going to enjoy the end of a very long day and reflect on what was happening to him. Now was his moment to truly give thought to the fact that he, for all appearances, had been transported to a magical world and entrusted with a very serious challenge.
Who am I to be called to this, he thought. He considered Nairoo's declaration that he had passed the tests embedded in various video games. Yet, how own experience thus far had proven to him that the video game operated under very different rules from the real world. Octorok's and Moblin's weren't vanquished quite as easily in this world as they were on the screen of his Wii at home. Aiming a sling shot was much easier in the confines of his living room than in the real world as well. He was mentally swinging his sword at a red Octorok when sleep claimed him.
The sun hit James's face much earlier than he would have liked. At home, he was used to sleeping as long as his parents would let him. But here, out in the open, the same wonder he had felt at the clear night sky turned to something closer to despair as the morning light seared his eyes. He put his arm over his eyes and tried to block out the light.
"I am not used to getting up this early, Nairoo," he said.
He heard no answer. Figuring that the fairy was somehow still asleep, he uncovered his eyes and sat up. He looked over to the log that Nairoo had slept on, but saw that the fairy was not there. He looked around the clearing, noting that the fire had burned out and was now just smoldering ashes.
"Nairoo!" he called out loudly. "Where are you?"
Still he got no answer.
James stood up and looked around the further area around the clearing, beginning to get a little concerned that the fairy was no longer around. He saw something in the dirt closer to the path they had been traveling yesterday. He walked over to the disturbance and his heart sank. It was a map with a short note drawn in the dirt. The note read: Link, follow the map. I will rejoin you when I can. You can do this. Good luck.
What had happened? Why had Nairoo left him? How was he supposed to complete this journey now? James sat down in the dirt near the map. For the first time since Nairoo brought him to Hyrule, James feared that he might not go home. Nairoo was the way he had come and he assumed she was his way home as well. Without the fairy, how would he get home?
James sat in the dirt for some time, feeling abandoned by the fairy. He picked up bits of rock and tossed them aside. He snapped the few twigs he found nearby. Then it occurred to him that the fairy would not have left him unless she had some dire reason. He also considered that after the day they had spent together yesterday, surely he could follow her map and find his way to the Forest Temple, where she would surely be waiting on him. This is probably some kind of test, to see if I'm really hero material, he thought. I'll prove to her that I'm worthy of the Master Sword.
He turned and studied the map she had drawn for him. The map seemed simple at first, but became more complicated as he looked at it. Initially, Nairoo was telling him to continue east until he got to the Kokiri Forest. Once in the Korkiri Forest, he would need to find his way into the Lost Woods, and there were some diagrams that showed him how he might do this. But the map she left for navigating the Lost Woods was extremely complicated. It was a veritable maze of twists and turns and a wrong turn looked as if he might have to start all over again. James also began to wonder why she would draw him a map of the Lost Woods if she intended to meet him there. Maybe she won't meet back up with me until I get to the Forest Temple, he thought. He began wishing he had some way to take the map with him. Why did she draw it in the dirt instead of leaving him a paper map? In the game there was always a paper map for each dungeon or temple structure and usually one for the overworld as well.
James conceded that there was no way to make an overworld map accessible in the real world. Not unless you somehow had a picture of it you could reference anytime you wanted to.
"That's it," he said excitedly.
James dug his hand deep into his jeans pocket and brought out a small metallic rectangular object – his iPhone. He touched the circular button on the face and it sprang to life, showing the same crest of Hyrule that gilded the front of the shield he carried. The juxtaposition of the electronic iPhone and the medieval sword and shield were not lost on James as he quickly took some pictures of the map Nairoo had left behind. He was quite surprised that the device functioned here, but was just a little too thankful of the fact to complain.
After taking the pictures, he flipped over to the Photo application to view them and see if they came out allright. The last thing he wanted was to get several miles down the path and find that the images were not visible to him. He checked them carefully; zooming and moving around until he was satisfied that he'd be able to see what he needed when he was away from the campsite.
James checked his pockets once more, but did not find the next thing his mind jumped to that would have been exciting to find: his headphones. Thoughts of traipsing through the land of Hyrule with American music blaring into his ears fled his mind as he put the iPhone back in his pocket to conserve battery life. It's probably for the best, he thought, I'd never hear monsters if I had music playing. I'd get killed in a heartbeat.
That brought a thought to James's mind that he hadn't considered before. What happened if he died here? This surely wasn't like a video game, where he just started over. He wondered about how it would look back home, on the other side – as Nairoo said. He had no way of knowing what would happen to him over there, or what over there was like right now anyway. Was his Mom looking around for him? Did she even know he was gone? He'd been walking out of Frankie's Fun Park when Nairoo had shown up and transported him to Hyrule. He'd gotten so caught up in the adventure of this that he'd completely forgotten the practical questions of how all this worked. Now that Nairoo was gone – maybe forever – he had no way of knowing the answers.
After worrying about it for a few minutes, James realized that he was not getting any closer to the Lost Woods, the Forest Temple, or the Chalice of Orin by sulking around his campsite. He had no way to know what time it was in this world, or even if they told time like he did, but he imagined a good chunk of his day had been spent puttering about worrying about himself, Nairoo, and pretty much anything else except Princess Zelda, who was under a spell only he could break. He had to get moving or else she might run out of time.
He packed up what little he needed to, while chewing on some more dried meat. He found a small spring nearby and filled his water skin twice. The first time he drank it instantly, so he had to refill it for the road. After making sure the campsite was cleaned up – his Dad always said to leave a campsite better than you found it – he turned east and headed in that direction.
James's trek east was fairly calm. He had to deal with a few Octoroks and Moblins, and he noticed that they were a little more difficult to dispatch than previous ones he had met back west. He also ran across a creature he hadn't seen much of yet, the Tektite. It was a spidery looking creature with one giant eye that jumped around. James focused on using the slingshot to kill them, which was pretty effective, but he did have to resort to close quarters fighting with the sword on occasion. By the time he reached the Kokiri Forest, he had plenty of Deku nuts (despite using several to kill mnonsters) and was up to 150 rupees.
The forest loomed upon him as he approached the dense underbrush. The relative sameness of the path he'd been traveling was replaced by small trees that got larger and larger until James realized he was in the forest. He stopped and sat down a while, calling for Nairoo in case she was nearby. Shen she didn't reply, he decided to press forward to the temple if he could find it. He pulled his iPhone from his pocket and focused on this section of Nairoo's map. He had limited his views of the map as much as possible, but he could see his battery indicator dropping quickly each time he looked at the device. He would probably only have three or four more opportunities to look at the map before his iPhone went dead.
He wanted to study it pretty well this time so he didn't have to pull it out so often when he got into the woods. The path looked pretty complicated, but he thought he could figure it out. There was a series of turns he had to make at the proper junctures or else he'd get lost for sure. If he was reading Nairoo's map correctly – where was she – it looked as if he needed to go through something – maybe a tunnel – to get through to the Sacred Forest Meadow beyond.
James entered the forest under the assumption that Nairoo would meet him at the temple, if she could. He looked around at the rich variety of plant life growing in the forest. Not only were there trees of great height, but there were small shrubs and mosses as well. Dead wood and dried leaves littered the ground as the natural course of life had worked its way through this dense expanse of forest. James had no idea of the kind of trees that existed in this forest. He didn't really even know many of the kinds of trees that existed in his own yard, though he'd heard his Papa talking about Dogwoods and Poplars from time to time. After walking for a bit, he came to the first turn, according to the map, which seemed to be at a fork in the path, where he turned to the right.
Just past the fork he passed a dead tree truck that he would have sworn looked like the open mouth of some creature crying for help. He tried to shut the though from his mind, knowing that if he gave in to such conclusions, he would never make his way through the forest. He also noticed a red capped mushroom on the ground, the first fungus he'd seen in the woods. The sight actually made him a little hungry and thirsty – though the thought of eating a mushroom made him gag a little – so he stopped briefly to take a drink from his water skin and pulled out the last strip of dried meat. He hoped his journey was nearing completion or that he would find another merchant, because he didn't see himself killing and cooking some rabbit for dinner tonight.
He continued on, keeping a lookout for the next landmark he'd seen on the map – two dead trees with a sapling growing between them. As he made his way around the edge of a tree that had fallen, partially blocking the path, he saw them. He also saw a skeleton walking about, brandishing a long sword. Stalfos, he thought, remembering them from the games. This was the first of them he'd seen on his real life trek through Hyrule though.
He knew he'd have to deal with the Stalfos if he wanted to continue on his path. He carefully – and quietly, drew his sword and set his shield. He'd need cunning to dispatch the undead warrior around the bend and had no clue how it would react to an attack. He figured there was only one way to find out.
James stepped from behind the tree he was hiding behind and tried to sneak up on the shuffling skeleton. However, a wrong step on a fallen branch made a sharp crack and the Stalfos turned to face him. Here we go, James thought. Resigning himself to a frontal assault, he set his shield in front of his left side, holding his sword with his right hand. He remembered the ready position from his mixed martial arts class back home and assumed that position. It had been successful for most of his close encounters in Hyrule and he saw no reason to change that up now.
The Stalfos also brought its sword up, but made no reasoned attempt to prepare for battle. Makes sense seeing there is no brain in there, James thought. The skeleton charged straight away, practically swinging the sword from the first foot fall. James parried to the side and struck with his own sword, being careful to protect his right arm with his shield. The sound of steel on bone was not pleasant, but it did dig into the creature's right femur, breaking some of it away but doing little else. James though maybe he should aim for more of a jointed area next time.
The Stalfos turned around and charged again as soon as James regained his own position. The sheer stupidity of the monster was as likely to be its downfall as any force James could level at the thing. James made good on the rushed attack and brought his sword down upon the joint at the monster's right shoulder. The Master Sword cut right through the cartilage there and the arm fell away, taking the monster's weapon with it. James almost laughed at the way the arm holding the sword jittered around on the ground, as though it could still do harm.
The rest of the Stalfos remained equally determined to continue the fight. Right arm missing and all, it spun around and tried to tackle James. The thought of hand to hand combat with the skeleton was not something James wanted to imagine and he took every step he could to ensure it did not become a reality. A well-placed strike to the neck of the Stalfos severed the heard from the rest of the skeleton and the being dissolved in a shower of dust like every other monster he'd fought in Hyrule. To his chagrin, no rupee compensation was left on the ground though.
"I'd like to think I earned a little something for all that," James said to the empty forest.
Nevertheless, he moved to the two dead trees with the small sapling growing between them. After having survived the ordeal of fighting the Stalfos, he wasn't sure he remembered which direction he was supposed to turn here. He risked a glance at the map on his iPhone and found that a left turn was required.
A little further down the path, he ran across a monster that was typically only seen in dungeons, which game him reason to think he might be getting close to the temple. A short grey colored blob slid off of a nearby stump and began a slow, sickly series of movements to bring it closer to James. A Zol, he thought, trying to remember the name. His Dad always just called them blobs, but then his Dad never really cared much for the exact names of things in games. He always said he knew how to kill it and didn't need to know the name if it for that. James knew the crusty, gelatinous, blob-looking creature was a Zol. He had encountered them in various Zelda games before and knew – more-or-less instinctively – how to dispatch them. He did not wait for the thing to inch closer, as they usually inched along and then made a unprecedented jump, but stabbed at it with his sword immediately. The sword sliced right into and through the skin of the thing and split it right down the middle.
The Zol did not evaporate into dust, as other creatures did, but continued on in two halves. James remembered then that the Zol would split into two Gels if attacked, unless the weapon was strong enough. The smaller monsters continued the pattern of making small, sluggish moves. Then one of them made the dreaded leap. James was able to bring his shield up to block the majority of his body from the attack, but his leg was exposed. He didn't have time to make any kind of a parry or counterattack at once, but instead felt the gooey, gelatinous skin of the Gel burn into his pants. He fell backwards onto the ground and tried to roll and get up. His leg hurt too badly and the pain was shooting through the rest of his body now.
After a moment, the pain receded and he was able to strike with the sword. Two strikes, one for each Gel, was enough to make them turn to dust. There were a few Deku nuts and about 5 rupees worth of gems on the ground underneath them. James sat up, panting and hurting from the attack. He was surprised that the violent Stalfos had been such an easy enemy, while the slow-moving and dumb Zol had proven more damaging to him. Must not have been taking the thing seriously enough, James thought. It was a mistake he resolved not to make again.
Most of his body still hurt from the Gel attack. Before he tried to get up, he reached into his satchel and pulled out his vial of red potion. He'd taken one additional sip since first purchasing it at Rauru and drinking some there. Half the bottle still remained. His pain now was worse than the other two times put together, so he hoped he would have enough. He pulled the stopper from the bottle and drank half of the remaining liquid. He waited a minute or two, hoping the effect would be swift. He did notice a change in his pain level, but the locus of the pain – in his leg – remained. He waited a little bit longer, with no change. Finally he resigned himself to drinking the rest of the red potion.
"I just hope I don't need this again," he said as he drained the bottle.
He carefully returned the stopper to the bottle and put the empty bottle back in his bag as he felt the pain decrease and disappear altogether. He was able to get up. He looked around and saw no more enemies. He returned the sword to the scabbard on his back and got his bearings on where he was and what he was doing. Again, fighting has made him lose track of where he was in the forest. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the iPhone to look at the map again. As he turned it on, a translucent battery showed up, with just a little bit of red coloring in it, showing his battery was low. He hoped he wouldn't have to use this device any more, but the closer he got to the temple, the more frequent his encounters with monsters was becoming.
The map reminded him he was looking for a stream or a creek. He would follow it until it ended where he would make a final left turn. He turned off the iPhone and slipped it back in his pocket. He returned to the path and followed it for several more feet. He found one or two smaller monsters on the path but he decided to use the sling shot and Deku nuts to dispatch them rather than attempt the close encounter method. He eliminated another Zol while searching for the water.
As he passed a large tree full of branches, he heard the bubbling of running water and knew he was getting close. He moved on a little bit further and saw the source of the sound. A small brook came from a rocky outcropping and ran alongside the path as far as James could follow with his eyes. As he approached he saw some strange plants lining the brook as well. Unlike the other plant life in the forest, these had purplish leaves near the ground and a pod like bulb that was colored orange rising from the bed of leaves. The coloring was what made them distinct and also made James pause and be a little more cautious as he approached them.
His caution was well warranted. When he was about five steps away from the edge of the brook, one of them opened a little. James stopped short and waited to see what would happen next. He reached for his sword and held his shield ready. A red tentacle shot out of the pod and stretched toward him. He pulled his shield into the path and felt the appendage strike the shield. Then he felt the shield begin to pull away from him and he realized the plant was pulling the shield back toward it. He shifted his weight and sliced with his sword across the front of the shield. The sword cut right through the fleshy tentacle and the remaining part slunk backward to the plant. He examined the shield and saw that the part still stuck to the shield was drying and turning brown very quickly. Within moments, the dried tip crumbled into dust and fell away.
James put the sword away and pulled out the slingshot. A test shot at the open plant monster proved successful as it evaporated into dust. He took another shot at one that hadn't opened yet and it turned to dust as well. From there, he pre-emptively shot at all the strange plants growing along the brook. This action resulted in just a few rupees, but no additional Deku nuts.
"I'm going to run out of Deku nuts like this," James said to no one in particular.
In all he shot at and killed about fifteen of the dangerous plants. When he was done, he looked in the small bag and found that he only had about ten Deku nuts remaining. As he thought about it, it seemed this was a complete reversal from the games he was used to playing. He was nearing – he hoped – the end of his adventure and was running out of supplies rather than overflowing in supplies like typically happened in the game.
He found the small pool where the brook ended and saw that the path forked here. He remembered from the map that a left turn was required. Holding his sword ready in case of other surprises, he turned left and followed the path a bit further.
A little further on there was a dead tree blocking the path. It was hollow though, and James assumed this was the barrier that had to be crossed; he had to crawl through the dead tree to whatever was on the other side. This was not something he relished the thought of doing. He even resisted cleaning at home when it meant he'd be in a tight, dark, or otherwise unpleasant place.
He remembered the one time his Dad had gone under the house through a crawl space door to see if he could find the source of a leak. James had not wanted to go in but his Dad had made him come partially in to hold a light for him. The idea that there might be spiders or other insects inside the hollow log made James cringe a little. He looked around a little and saw no other way of getting over the barrier than going through it.
He resigned himself to going through the hollow log and got down on his hands and knees. The darkness enveloped him quickly as he crawled inside the tree and moved forward. Looking ahead, he could see the light of the other side. It seemed a mile away, but he was sure that was his mind playing tricks on him. In reality it took less than a minute to crawl through and come out the other side.
He stood up on the other side and brushed off. He looked around at the clearing and marveled as his eyes settled on the object of this portion of his journey – the Forest Temple. It stood at the far end of the clearing and was made of stone. The façade appeared to be two stories from the ground and had trees growing all around it. Vines grew around six large pillars holding up an entablature blazoned with stone leaves carved into the face. Moss grew upon all the steps. The structure looked as though it had been undisturbed for decades. There was no door that James could see, only an opening behind the pillars.
He was here. He had found the Forest Temple.