A/N: Yes, just like in Twilight Fox, I'm forgoing the collectibles such as Heart Pieces and Gold Skulltulas. The various items normally obtained from the House of Skulltula will be found in different ways.
Also, the pouch he finds in this chapter is my answer for how he'll end up carrying around the usual half-ton of tools every Hero needs.
Whatever I might have expected to see inside the Great Deku Tree, the place was definitely different from. There were ledges and walkways that were just extensions of the tree, some even having grown their own layer of bark. Plants and vines were dotted about, including a few Deku Babas, and even a few flickering torches – torches, inside a tree?!
But what surprised me most were the spider webs dotted around, one even covering a massive hole in the floor. These webs didn't just cover large areas, they were large themselves – it was as if I'd been shrunk down to the spider's size.
The inside reached up a long ways, hardly surprising given the sheer size of the Great Deku Tree. There were more spider webs in the upper reaches along with large spider-like things at certain openings along it, and smaller cousins of them along some of the areas choked in vines.
"A few directions would have been nice," I muttered. "Even a hint about where to start..."
"Maybe that web in the floor," Navi suggested. "It might burn away and let us get down."
"I'm not going to try and light a fire here, Navi. Can you imagine what the Kokiri would do if they saw the Great Deku Tree on fire?"
"Well how else are you going to get through?"
I looked up to the top of this hollow thoughtfully. While there were creatures in the gaps, if I could jump off-
Why was I even considering that? There was no one around that would notice if I cheated a little.
"Keep this between us," I told Navi, then with a gesture – not really necessary, but it's a habit I got into – I wrapped my mind around the air, took it up a ways, then threw it downwards like a concussive blast of air.
The web bowed down as the sudden wind impacted it, but it was after all just air. The web held together, springing back up after it had passed without even one string snapping.
"Well it was worth a try," I shrugged. "I guess I'm not gonna get through this that easily."
"So now what?"
"We go up, of course. I hope there's a soft landing below that web, because I'm going to have to dive down on to it with enough force to break it."
"There's a ladder over there, and you could probably climb those vines," Navi pointed out.
"Who needs ladders when you can do this?" I asked slyly, simply levitating up instead.
I followed that particular ledge around to a second set of vines, which had several of the smaller spider-things on them. I briefly entertained the idea of blasting them off with my mind the same way I'd tried to deal with the web, but what would be the point? If I really wanted to pass them I'd just fly right past them.
There was also another large chest at the base of the vines that, like the one for the sword, was completely empty except for a rolled up bit of parchment.
"Looks like a map," Navi supplied after I'd unrolled it.
"You don't say," I breathed, not meaning for her to hear me. The map showed, once I recalled enough Hylian to understand the letters on it, two floors above ground and another two below. It showed connections to a handful of side rooms, but not much else.
Once I'd memorised it I tucked it into my tunic and moved on past the spiders, following a bridge – had the Kokiri built these? - to a door.
"You know Navi, he never ceases to amaze me. Hollow inside, bridges, ladders and even doors. You'd never expect to find these things in a tree."
"Watch out, Silver," Navi warned as we went through. "That's a Deku Scrub in the floor there."
"It's just a little flower," I protested, more concerned with the bars that had just covered the door behind me. In being distracted by that, I heard the sound of something being spat out, then something hit my leg.
When I looked back, there was nothing there. Just the flower on the floor. This time I watched it though and saw the Deku Scrub pop out of the flower and spit a nut at me. Without thinking, I smacked the nut back at it mentally.
It gave a strange kind of screech, hopping all the way out of the flower. It looked like a bit of animated wood with orange eyes and a round mouth to spit the nuts from.
"Chase it, Silver – if it gets back into the Deku Flower, you'll have to do that again!"
The Deku Scrub had other ideas though, having heard this. It fled immediately, burrowing into a small gap in the wall that I'd never squeeze through myself. The bars over the door behind raised, as did the ones on the door opposite.
"That's it?" I asked. "That's all I had to do? Chase it off to unlock the doors? How does that even work?"
"How should I know? Just remember to listen to me next time I warn you about something."
"Yeah, don't think I'm gonna make that mistake again," I replied, rubbing at my leg where the nut had caught it.
On the other side of the second door was a larger room, this time with a wooden box floating somehow over a crevasse. It wasn't a very deep crevasse, but it was enough that had the box not been there, I'd have had to drop down and climb the vines on the far wall to reach the far ledge. Of course, that figured without me, but after my lack of success with the web I'd decided maybe I shouldn't rely on that.
Out of curiosity I deliberately dropped down to look at the box from below. Nothing supporting it. It was a hollow wooden box, hanging in mid-air.
"Something wrong?" Navi asked.
"It's impossible," I told her. "That shouldn't be just floating there like that."
"Maybe it's magic," she suggested.
"Oh, come on. There's no such thing as magic."
"Don't bet on that," she told me, but didn't say any more.
I floated myself up to the chest, opening it to find a slingshot and a bag of tiny seeds to shoot out of it.
"How convenient. Now I can-"
"Shoot those Skulltulas off the vines and get up safely!" Navi finished.
"I wish you wouldn't do that."
"Do what?"
"Nevermind. Skulltulas, you called them? They look like spiders to me."
"Hey, who's the expert on Hyrule here?"
Can't argue with that. She might not exactly be an expert, but she sure knew more than I did.
Rather than float back over again, I decided to see how stable the box was, jumping easily on to it, then back to the ledge by the door. The box shuddered under my weight, then after I jumped off again it fell to the floor below and shattered.
I'll save you the tedious trip back to the vines I'd seen earlier. The flower the Deku Scrub had been using had gone, as had the gap it had fled into, interestingly. Aside from that observation there was nothing all that different though.
I suppose I could have floated up past the Skulltulas – now that I knew what they were – and ignored them, but there was one on the vines right in the gap I needed to get through, and unless I dealt with it I'd have a hard time squeezing through. The three Skulltulas on the wall gave me some target practise with the Slingshot, at least.
The map had shown a room up on the top level of the Deku Tree. I'd originally planned to just make my way to the top, get the giant spiders – Big Skulltulas, after Navi identified them for me – and jump down onto the web, but I have a methodical kind of approach that can't help but check these little side rooms just in case there's something I'd kick myself for missing.
So just for completeness, I went ahead into that side room. Bars covered the door afterwards, locking me in again.
There was a lit torch lighting up the room along with an unlit one beside it, a raised stone with a moon symbol on it, and a large, lowered area with several suspicious circles in it. A Big Skulltula barred the way to a small alcove in one wall, while on the far ledge there was yet another big chest.
"I'd say use the switch," Navi said, floating over to the stone. "But I don't think you'll need it."
"Can't hurt to find out what it does anyway," I shrugged, stepping on to it. The circles in the floor raised up into platforms that allowed for easy passage to either the alcove or the chest. Navi had been right, I didn't exactly need it, but there's no reason not to do things the proper way instead. No sense in wearing my mind out on trivial things.
This time the chest contained not one but two things. One was a compass that did not appear to point north, the other a small pouch similar to the seed bag I'd gotten with the Slingshot, but with nothing in.
I couldn't see any use for the compass, so put it into the pouch. It didn't even change shape slightly. Experimentally I reached into the pouch, trying to find the sides – and found none. It was as if there was more space on the inside than there was on the outside.
"Well that's useful. A bag with more space than it looks like it should have."
"Good for storing things in then, so you don't get weighed down."
"You really think I'm going to find that much in here?" I asked, taking out the map and stowing it in the pouch too. Again it made no reaction, even though the roll of parchment was clearly taller than the bag.
"Who knows? The Great Deku Tree said you've got a long journey ahead of you, so maybe this is just the first step on that?"
The little fairy is more perceptive than she knew.
While we'd been talking the switch by the door had un-switched itself, rising back out of the floor as the circle platforms shrank back down again. Not a permanent thing, but hardly more than an inconvenience.
The Big Skulltula dropped down to block the path to the alcove, even though without the platforms – or some convenient levitation – I couldn't reach them anyway. For the first time I drew my sword to use on it, only to find it just bounced off.
"Wait until it turns around to show it's exposed belly," Navi advised. "It's not protected like the tough front is."
Sure enough I waited, and it obligingly turned around, practically asking to be stabbed. Two stabs and it fell to the ground, writhed, then vanished in an odd blue smoke. If this wasn't the magic Navi had mentioned, it was definitely something very strange.
After I'd gotten over seeing that oddity I floated up to the alcove and opened the chest for some rupees. What were they doing in here, and what was I going to do with them? I didn't need anything from the Kokiri shop.
"Now what?" I wondered aloud. "There's nothing else here, so how am I meant to unlock the door again?"
"Maybe if you lit the torch?" Navi suggested. "It's not going to set anything else on fire, so I don't think we have to worry."
"What with?"
"Can't you just..." she left it hanging.
"Not me. That's Blaze's trick. If I had a stick or something..."
"That's it! Look down there, by those vines – isn't that a Deku Baba?"
"Yeah, but-"
"When you kill them their stems stiffen into a stick! Just cut it close to the base and it'll be perfect!"
Easier said than done. I was expecting this Deku Baba to be like the ones I'd seen before, harmless things that just shot up out of the ground.
This one however was not so harmless. As I got close it shot up, but the stem bent as the blue bud tracked me, snapping warningly. I stabbed it in the 'mouth', making it snap back upwards, the stem straightening. I took that as my chance to cut it off at the stem, making a low slice.
The bud on the top vanished into the same odd flame the Skulltula had, leaving the stem behind as a stiff stick.
"I did warn you some of them fight back," Navi told me.
"You could have told me that was one of them."
"Well it's not my fault there's no way to tell. What do you want me to do, go up to it and ask if it's going to bite you?"
"Very funny, Navi," I sighed, lighting the stick from the main torch then relighting the other one with it. Once the bars retracted in response to the newly lit up torch, I carefully extinguished the stick by making a slight breeze in the air. Since only a bit of the tip had been burnt away, it too was stashed in the strange pouch I'd found.
With that side room handled and the knowledge of how to handle the Big Skulltulas, I found the nearest of them at this topmost part of the tree, waited for it to present the vulnerable belly, then stabbed it again to finish it off. It dropped onto the narrow, bark covered ledge just outside the webs but quickly fell off, vanishing before it hit the web far below. Somehow, it looked like even further to drop from here at the top than it had at the bottom.
"I really hope there's a soft landing down there," I muttered. "I don't suppose you'd like to fly on down and have a look through, see if you can see anything down there?"
"You're not afraid, are you? This is meant to be a test of your courage, remember?"
"A test is all well and good Navi, but I'd like to make sure no one's going to have to come in and scrape me off the floor."
"Oh, stop worrying and just jump already. You'll be fine."
Some help there. There was nothing else for it, I was going to have to make a leap of faith. The inside of the Deku Tree rushed past in a rush of air, slowed slightly as I hit the soft web. It bent like it had under the force of my will earlier, but with my weight on it, it snapped and I fell the last distance into a pool of water.
"I know I look human, but it's gonna take me ages to get this outta my fur," I complained.
"You wanted a soft landing, didn't you?" Navi said smugly. "Looks like you should be more careful what you wish for."
I chose not to answer that, pulling myself up into a shallower area to look around. The water here flowed through in a kind of underground river, passing through a metal grate in one wall. The walls here were more earth than wood, the wood probably being the roots of the Great Deku Tree.
Had I actually been the Hylian boy I looked like, one half of the room would have been completely inaccessible to me. There was no way a boy like that would be able to find a way to climb up that ledge with the water right in front of it.
What such a boy could have reached though included a small ledge beside the grate which held an unlit torch, a chest and another moon switch, and a lower one with a Deku Baba on and a door behind some more webbing.
I decided since this was meant to be a test, I wasn't going to skip whatever was beyond that door. Alright, so there was no one else around to see anything out of the ordinary I did, but I looked like a boy, so I was going to do it as if I was. Mostly. I can be stubbornly ridiculous at times.
Since there was hardly any way for me to fall on the webs like I had the last one, that left me with only the option of burning them away. Thankfully the walls around it were earthen, so I wouldn't be putting the Great Deku Tree at too much risk. The question was, where was I going to get fire from without reaching over to the other side of the room?
The only thing I could really do was to step on the switch, which solved my problem by lighting the torch. I picked some more rupees from the chest nearby, then took out the stick, lit it and then with a light nudge took a running leap not only over the water, but also the startled Deku Baba to land right in front of the webs. The Deku Baba snapped irritably at me as if to complain about how easily I'd evaded it.
In an impulsive fit of childishness I stuck out my tongue at it while I waited for the webs to burn away, despite knowing it wouldn't do any good. I turned out to be wrong as the Deku Baba drew back at that, then returned the favour with its own plant-like tongue.
Another Deku Scrub awaited me on the other side of the door. This time I was ready for it, quickly taking the shield off my back to block the nut it spat at me, then I chased it down.
"Awh!" I it complained when it realised I had it. "Not again."
"Again – you're the same one I saw before?"
"I thought you wouldn't recognise me. You Hylians never can tell us apart."
"Why did you do it in the first place?"
"It's what I had to do. Please forgive me – I'll tell you something if you'll let me go!"
I found I had no real wish to kill it unnecessarily, so let it go ahead and tell me.
"Up ahead, you'll meet my three brothers," it told me. "You'll never get past them unless you punish them in the right order. You have to hit the second one, then the third, then the first. Remember it like this – Twenty-three is number one!"
Then without stopping to let me ask what it meant, it ran off again into another small crack.
"Corny," Navi noted. "But useful."
"Not for getting out of here though," I added, pointing at the other door in the room, which of course had bars over it.
"Hit the eye-switch above it. Probably best to use your slingshot; I don't think you could trigger it any other way."
"You know, I thought I'd be able to use my powers to make this easier," I told her, picking out a seed and taking aim. "But so far I've only used them for convenience. Doing things I could do normally, but would take longer to do."
"Is that really a bad thing?" Navi asked as the door unlocked. "Maybe you shouldn't rely on it all the time."
"It could come in useful sometimes though – like now."
The room we'd come into had a pool of water in it supplied by several underwater grates. A platform went back and forth over it, only just making it under a rotating spiked log. There was another moon switch in the water, but since the door on the far side wasn't barred off, I didn't see any point to it. The Big Skulltula on the other side wouldn't be a problem, and if I didn't want to float up to the door there was a block I could push aside instead.
I focused momentarily to force the switch to activate as if someone had pushed it, just to find out what it did from the dry safety of the narrow land I stood on, only to find it caused the water level to lower just enough that if I laid low on the platform, I'd be able to make it through.
Naturally I ignored that and floated above the spiked log instead. I didn't trust it not to last long enough. Just as I'd expected, the Big Skulltula was as dumb as all the others, presenting its belly as if asking to be killed, then I shoved the stone block into position. No, not with my mind, not at first, anyway. After I'd lost my footing a few times just trying to push it aside I gave up, braced myself against a wall and pushed with my mind instead. The boots I'd been given were sturdy, well-made boots, but on the floor here they had very little grip.
Beyond the door was – no prizes for guessing this one – another room. A small, domed room that had three torches, two unlit, a Deku Baba and a barred door. Since the door behind me also became barred it was fairly obvious what I needed to do. Rather than re-using the previous stick again, I got a new one from this Deku Baba to light the torches, then like the last one extinguished it and stowed it in the pouch.
The next room, if I recalled the map correctly, had a tunnel that would lead to the other side of the room I'd fallen into. As I entered there was a Big Skulltula facing away from me that hadn't noticed me. Two shots from the slingshot defeated it easily.
I should have looked up as I took in the rest of the room. A few torches, a Deku Baba and a dead-end alcove that had a cracked up wall at the end. If I'd had something explosive I'd be able to find out what lay beyond, but since there was nothing on the map I ignored it.
So I headed into the room taking everything in, then as I headed for the narrow tunnel something thumped to the floor behind me.
"Silver, watch out – that's a Gohma spawn!" Navi warned me, helpfully identifying it for me.
"A dead one maybe," I said, jabbing at the little critter's single eye as it turned red, then a second stab finished it. Swords might be meant for slashing, but this short blade was better for stabbing attacks.
Two more thumped down then. I swiftly stuck each of them in the eye too, quickly heading after one to finish it off while the other scrabbled around on its back, having jerked back reflexively and fallen over. I finished it off by leaping at it with the sword aimed down – a move I later taught Tails in the form of the Ending Blow.
It didn't take long to burn away the web that blocked my path through the tunnel. Navi decided to hide in the green cap I'd been given when I squeezed through there, something she often did when she decided she wasn't needed. I guess it gave her a place to rest rather than flying around all the time.
I brushed the dirt off my knees – well, my Hylian ones at least – as I surveyed the room. It was, as I thought, the one I'd dropped into, but this time I was on the other side. There was another spider web covering an opening in the floor here, and this time not enough room above to fall down on to it.
A handy nearby block was shoved down off this raised area to create a shortcut back here if I ever came back, then I took out one of the two sticks I had. The torches on the side of the room were too high to reach conveniently, and I didn't feel like running to the torch I'd used before and back, so I cheated again, levitating the stick up to a nearby torch then using it to set light to the web. As usual, I extinguished it afterwards.
Below was another pool of water. I decided getting wet once was more than enough so I floated down to the room below instead. Beyond the pool was a strip of land and a huge door, with three tell-tale flowers set in the floor that no doubt hid Deku Scrubs. I sent my mind searching an found, yes, three plant-like energies in those exact same places. I felt Navi do the same, though not as easily as I did.
"Could these be the three that Deku Scrub were talking about?" she asked me quietly.
"Probably," I answered, taking the shield in hand again. As I settled on dry land, the three Deku Scrubs all popped up at the same time, and even spat the nuts at the same time.
I brushed aside the two nuts from the left and right ones, reasoning that they had to be the first and third ones. The second one I reflected back, making that Deku Scrub pop fully out of the flower with a squeak, then I repeated for the third one. This time Navi stopped the nut the first fired at me, though not too well. Rather than just pushing it aside, she caused it to explode in a bright flash instead.
Fortunately the nut I'd reflected had hit the third Deku Scrub, so the detonation only caught the remaining one. Once the afterglares of that flash had subsided I found two of the three had vanished, the last one – or more accurately, the first one – was waiting for me.
"How did you know our secret?" it demanded.
"Oh, a Deku Scrub back up above told us," I answered. "I think he said he you were his brothers."
"Oh, bother!" it said petulantly. "It's so annoying I'm going to reveal the secret to defeating Queen Gohma to you!" Okay. I don't even pretend to know how that works, but who am I to argue? As Tails noticed, sometimes the coincidences are very suspicious.
Anyway, the Deku Scrub told me that to administer a coup de grace to this Queen Gohma I should only strike her with my sword if she was stunned, then it fled.
"Who's Queen Gohma?" I wondered. "Navi?"
"I couldn't say," she replied. "Except that she's probably related to the Gohma Spawn somehow."
"Sounds likely. I wonder what she's like?"
Navi didn't answer. The massive door opened strangely easily, but after it closed behind me with a heavy thud it wouldn't open again.
I was now in a massive vaulted cavern that had very little in the way of light and a low fog that came up to my knees with a slight chill. Scrabbling sounds came from above me somewhere, but in the gloom there was no way to tell what.
Once more I sent my mind searching. If there was something there, I'd sense it. When I found the tell-tale energy the scrabbling stopped and I lost contact with the mind, then the whatever-it-was dropped to the floor in front of me.
It was a massive version of the Gohma Spawn – this was undoubtedly Queen Gohma. Unlike the spawn it looked like she was armoured, her only vulnerable point being her eye.
She reared back to give a rasping screech, which I paid little attention to except to ignore the slight fear that settled in and to take out the slingshot. Queen Gohma, for all her massive size, fell stunned to the floor at a simple seed shot into her eye.
That left her open for me to attack, leaping quickly across the intervening space to start slashing and stabbing away until the great eyelid crashed closed and Queen Gohma turned and ran. I followed until she started scaling the walls again, then I backed off instead. The idea of floating up to meet here for some reason never occurred to me.
Queen Gohma wandered around on the ceiling, visible now as my eyes grew used to the darkness. I waited, putting another seed in the slingshot and taking aim for where her closed eye was. When she reopened her eye I let it loose, guiding it with my mind to make sure it struck true.
Stunned, she dropped back down to the ground again. I chanced things and repeated the trick I'd used on the Gohma Spawn earlier – the Ending Blow – hoping it would finish her off, and it did. She reared back again, rasping and spasming apparently uncontrollably, then she fell to the ground and like the Big Skulltulas and almost all the other enemies I'd defeated so far, burned away in that same strange smoke, leaving behind a glowing blue circle.
It hadn't been the hardest battle, but in times to come I'd wish the later boss room battles were as easy as Queen Gohma had been.