A/N: This chapter was kind of harder for me to write, as I have lost interest in this story a bit. I wrote this chapter for those of you who really enjoy this story, and have followed. Thank you for following this story, it really helps. In return for all the follows, I plan to keep writing this story until I can't anymore. As long as you keep enjoying it, I'll keep writing it. I skipped through a few rooms, and because I did, I'll probably end up skipping to the boss eventually. These dungeons are hard to write, but I tried hard. Enjoy!
"Gah! That smell is still here." Link said, covering his nose, "Even in human form."
Older Link covered his nose as well as he tried to comment, "Yeah, let's just hurry and get out of here." The two approached the purple fog that set in the middle of the forest.
"Wait, I think I have an idea," Link claimed, rummaging through his pouch. He eventually pulled out the Deku Leaf given to him by Cyclos. "Let's see what this does."
Older Link looked on in wonder, "What's the purpose of the over-sized leaf." He questioned.
"It's a Deku Leaf, given to me by Cyclos before I was sent here." Link gripped the stem with both hands and rose the leaf above his head before slamming it back down to the ground, creating a huge blast of air that clears a good chunk of the purple fog.
Quickly the fog returned to it's original position. "Well, that didn't really help, but that was useful, though it didn't clear it for long enough for us to pass." The older Link's eyes widened at the thought of an idea, "Let me try something." He rummaged through his pouch for his lantern, then realized something.
"It's not there," Midna interjected, manifesting from Link's shadow once again, "I stored quite a bit of stuff for you. Don't you think keeping a lantern in your pouch is dangerous?" Midna giggled before snapping her fingers, spawning the lantern in the air, causing older Link to react fast enough to catch it. She blinked back to older Link's shadow.
He swung his lantern at the fog, clearing away a big circle that they could pass through. Suddenly a monkey jumped down from wherever he was, and snatched the lantern with a stick he was carrying, before proceeding to swing it around in a big circle, clearing away a lot of the fog, and continuing to do that until the Links followed him. This kept up until they got to where they need to be, killing a few Keese and Babas along the way. The monkey dropped the lantern, and followed through the path.
Older Link picked up the now empty lantern, "That monkey used up all the oil." He cried, before getting his bottle of oil and refilling the lantern. "Oh well, let's just go."
After exiting the path, they made their way through, coming across a shop, ran by a bird. It was a basic small shop, nothing really special. It sold what seemed like Red Potion and oil, with a small box with a picture of a rupee crudely drawn on it next to everything. "Hey Link," Link said, "I think we might need some Red Potion." He thought about the comment and agreed, seeing the chance they might be hurt.
"Do you have any other bottles?" He inquired. Link shook his head in reply, "Alright, I'll fill my bottles." Reading the sign, they found that the potion cost 30 rupees, leaving older Link without enough rupees to pay. "I don't have enough for two bottles Link." He said.
The bird surprisingly responded, "Hey, just take two bottles and pay as much as you can. Just come back at some point to pay the rest."
With a look of confusion, older Link replied, "Ok that helps, we were about to head into the Forest Temple anyways."
"Well then, just fill up your bottles, and you can pay when you get back." The bird added. Older Link filled his bottles, and deposited all 50 of his rupees.
"I don't like to owe too much at once, I'll be back with 10 rupees." He claimed. The bird oddly nodded and let us go.
Inside the entrance of the Forest Temple, the air was warm and damp. It was basically inside a giant tree. There was a ledge in front of them with vines growing on it, possibly enough to climb on, with bugs of some sort crawling on it, and right at the foot of the ledge, set a caged monkey, the very same one that helped us through the fog. They ran over and freed the monkey, getting excitement for the bow-wearing animal in reward before it jumped up to the top of the ledge and waited. Link threw his boomerang hitting both of the bugs causing them to fall to the floor and disappear. Both Links climbed the vines, Link climbing faster and eventually reaching the top before the older Link as he was more agile and weighed less.
They opened the door and the monkey followed, as they approached the center. Climbing the stairs, they are met with a giant spider as far as Link knows. Really, now your basing a lot of knowledge individually? I should probably just tell them, nah. Midna said, breaking the wall. They started attacking the eight legged monster, before noticing they weren't doing anything to it. Link pulled out his hookshot and fired at the spider's shell, piercing it and effectively killing it as Link was pulled on top of it. The creature disappeared the same way the bugs did. Link noted the webs suspending a chest above, which he threw his boomerang at, cutting it down.
"Wow, you are handy to have around aren't you?" The older Link stated.
Link shrugged his shoulders in response, "I guess, though I am limited to the four items I have, soon I bet I won't be of much use with all the items you'll have taking into consideration I was sent to this world." They looked over to the doors on the sides.
"Don't suppose you have anything to help us get over there do you?" Older Link asked.
Link showed him his hook shot as he answered, "Not anything that can get us both to the doors, just this and it only takes me."
"Well then," Older Link said, "You go over there and through that door, and I'll figure out what I can do here. Take this with you." He handed Link the compass from the chest. Link took the compass and nodded before taking his hookshot and aiming at the post on the west platform. "Wait!" Older Link called, catching Link's attention. "I found something you might be interested in." Looking around Link discovered his voice was coming from below, so he followed it.
Older Link was in front of a chest, examining its contents. Link notice a familiar shape inside the chest, a heart, just like the one he picked up after defeating the monster in Dragonroost. Though there was another in there with slightly different characteristics than the one he recognized. It was still a heart shape, but had more of a rugged cut to the glass, like a gem, and a wood lining. Link also noticed that unlike the one he picked up, these were not completely filled with red, rather they had a small heart in the center. "I recognize these somewhat, it'd be best to pick them up." Link stated as he took the one he most recognized. The Heart disappeared into auras just like the last time, though it didn't seem to do much seeing as he wasn't really injured yet. With older Link already having taken his heart shaped container, he had a flashback of when he defeated that monster, and decide to go smash pots. Midna jumped out of older Link's shadow to see what Link was up to.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Midna asked, cringing from the sound of the first pot breaking. "Why?"
Link continued to break the pots until he broke them all, then decided to answer Midna, "I have this obsession with pots and breaking them." He took a look at the rupees he collected from the activity, "Especially when it rewards money." He put the rupees away in his wallet before stepping back up to the platform and hookshotting the post. He broke the pots next to the door, picking up the rupees before entering the room behind the door.
"What brought about your obsession with breaking pots?" Midna inquired.
Link answered her with his story of that one pot on Windfall. Midna stared, dumbfounded, "Really? That's childish." It didn't take long for Midna to realize her situation. "Oh shoot, did I really follow you this far? I might as well stick with you then." She retreated into Link's shadow as he continued on. There wasn't really that much to do, there was a path going left, and a path blocked on the right. Out of curiosity Link investigated the blocked path and found some sort of creature stand up as he approached. Surprised, he drew his sword and swung at it, cutting it. The creature fell as a bomb right in front of the rocks that blocked the path, blowing them up and revealing pots. Link threw his boomerang breaking all the pots, not finding anything other than a weird bird creature.
"Thank you for freeing me," The bird creature greeted, "I'm Oocoo, I can take you out of the dungeon if you want as thanks for helping take me with you." Link barely processed everything as when he tried to process one thing, Oocoo would move on to the next thing. After a while, he finally processed all of it and looked around for any rupees that may have came out of the pots. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots something blue, He snaps his head to it, and sure enough, a blue rupee lay right there on the ground. Link picked it and stuffed it in his wallet. He continued to head West according to the compass, cutting down a spider web that was in the way, and came across a huge room filled with water.
Resisting his urge for a swim, he jumped onto each platform, all leading up to a door. The two torches that set next to the door, nearly blinded him as he opened it and entered the room behind. The air in this room was less dank than anywhere else, possibly because of the large opening. Light shone through the opening, brightening up the room and mainly focusing on a caged monkey that set atop a totem pole. "Who treats animals like this?" Link asked himself, possibly asking Midna.
Midna manifested to answer, "I don't know, but it's horrible isn't it?"
Link all but nodded as he ran across the bridge, barely making it before it collapsed. As he stood in front of the pole, he realized he wasn't going to knock the cage down unless he could shake the pole somehow. Seeing as he wasn't strong enough to shake it with his hands, he knew that he had to roll in to it. He hated when he bonked while rolling, it gave him a bad headache afterwards. He backed up and started a run before rolling at the last second to get maximum force on the pole. The cage fell and broke as it hit the ground and Link dealing with his horrible headache. The celebration was interrupted as two nasty looking monsters dropped down from the opening above. They were short creatures with purple skin and had sticks for weapons.
"Well, at least there's no such thing as racism here, that description would be controversial otherwise." A male voice spoke from behind Link. He craned his neck to see who it was, and found a man, dressed all in black with a hood and a teardrop shaped crest on his belt. He grabbed something he had strapped to his belt and threw it, hitting both the creatures; obviously showing he grabbed two things, before running up to them and finishing them off. "I need to give you something but I figured why not help you take care of the Bokoblins first."
"So what did you want to give me?" Link inquired.
"An item from your world," The man answered, "It's a power bracelet, I figured you'd need it." The man handed Link a golden bracelet and disappeared in black squares.
Getting over that fact, Link proceeded up the stairs, the rescued monkey in tow, until he came to the broken bridge. He aimed his hookshot at the post and fired, zooming to the platform. The monkey just jumped and swung across the rope to get to him.
Soon after meeting up with Older Link and Midna returned to his shadow, they both encountered the baboon responsible for most of this. It had white fur, and was carrying a large, oddly-shaped boomerang. It jumped on top of the center Totem pole and started to taunt us. As we tried to knock it down, it jumped to another pole, eventually stopping to throw its boomerang, giving us the chance to knock him down. Older Link bonked the pole, getting up without any trouble, and Link rushed over to strike away at it. The baboon got back up and began to jump between them more. Link, having enough of it's games, got out his bow and fired one, well aimed arrow, hitting it right in the knee. It fell down and older Link rushed to use the opening, defeating the annoying primate. It jumped out an opening in the wall of the room, leaving behind the boomerang. "Thank you. I am the wind spirit that resides in this boomerang. Take me with you as thanks." The boomerang flew to older Link, who took it and stuffed it in his pouch. Link noticed a chest appear out of the corner of his eye, and glided over to it. Excited, he opened it to find boots. The boots were very heavy, and Link only managed to lift them with the help of the power bracelet. He put them in his pouch and continued on with older Link.
After hours of running, opening, climbing, jumping, and etc., the Links finally freed all the captured monkeys, and even found more heart pieces along the way. The monkeys formed a chain as they hung on each other starting from a rope above, eventually connecting all of the monkeys together, forming a big long chain.
The monkey chain started to swing, back and forth, until the swing flowed well. Older Link timed his jump, and swung to the boss door. Link on the other hand, used the hookshot to get to the other side. Link threw his boomerang, smashing all the pots in front of the door. All that fell out was hearts and 2 rupees. The door was huge, and was wrapped with large chains and a big lock holding all of them. Older Link unlocked the door and gestured for Link, as they both entered the bosses lair.
The room had a pool of purple liquid, and had two openings above on both left and right sides. Soon they were met with a huge plant monster. The baboon from earlier began to swing from the rope above, carrying a bomb. One of the monster's heads snapped at Link, who rolled out of the way and countered with a finishing stab. The monster didn't seem to be affected, and threw Link off with a quick jerk, before eating him as he came down. Though he wasn't eaten yet, he struggled to avoid it. Eventually, he was freed when a bomb from older Link destroyed the head, dropping Link.
Link struggled to make it to older Link to recover, as he was cut quite a bit. Eventually, with one last bomb to the core, the monster was defeated. Older Link had hardly been injured, where Link had cuts and bruises all over. Link finally realized what those heart containers and pieces do, they increase his endurance. He was able to fight for longer before he started running out of energy. The monster exploded into small black squares which formed a black stone fragment it seemed. Midna manifested to investigate, "The fused shadow. Thank you for your help, but there are still more out there, two more in fact, and we need them to defeat Zant." She explained, before using her hair to shoot an orange bolt of some kind that struck the floor, forming some sort of portal not once but twice. "When you're ready, step into the portals."
"Link, these containers increase your endurance, it'd be safe to grab them." Link stated. He walked over to the gold rimmed one, and picked it up. Just like last time, the heart container disappeared into white auras that surrounded him, and healed all of his injuries. Older Link, who was observing Link, picked up his, having the same thing happen to him. After Link smashed all the pots and ensured there were no rupees in them, he joined older Link and stepped on a portal. He began to disintegrate into black squares as he was warped out of the dungeon.
A/N: Can't wait for Lakebed Temple, whew that one's gonna be fun. Anyways, from here on I'll try to customize the temples but it'll take longer for me to get those chapters out.
