A/N: Final exams I'm destined to fail. Major history project. Major vocabulary test. Major major English project. Two plus two plus two plus two equals can I have time to freaking breathe? There's like, TWO weeks of school left and they're shoving all this crap at us? Seriously now? /rant

Woodfall Temple exploration time—yay! I'm going to say right here, right now: there will be some architectural changes to the temple, since humans can't dive into Deku flowers and fly and the stuff that's kinda needed to get through the place. And maybe I'll have Odolwa show up. Maybe. If I find a way for Zelda and co. to beat him without a sword.


Chapter Eight: The Goods

Now that it's clear there's a giant spider lurking somewhere and anywhere near us, I'm kind of paranoid. Or extremely; I can't stop shaking. The idea of being hunted down and having my insides sucked out slowly and painfully by a cow-sized bug keeps shoving every other thought from my mind so that I have no choice but to worry. But there are worse things in the world, things that only seem to happen to everyone else.

Like Lulu, for example.

"I'm going to kill you!" she screams at no one in particular. I don't know why she's mad at us, but I guess everyone thinks irrationally when they're pissed. I peek over the ledge at her. She got stuck on the web while scaling the ledge barefoot, so close to the top and yet too far for anyone to reach her. It looks like she's going to have to leave her hoodie behind unless she can get it off the web without ripping it.

"Who?" Mikau asks, sitting by the door. I notice just now that I'm on the only one standing up. Not that it matters, but I don't like feeling left out so I sit down. The ground is hard, cold, and damp. I stand back up, shuddering. Good thing Darmani passed our shoes back to us as soon as we got up, him being the first one. I really don't need grimy socks at a time like this.

"All of you," Lulu continues, "it's all your fault—shit. Help me!"

"You were the last one to climb," Romani says, annoyed yet smug that she can annoy the hell out of her and Lulu can't do anything about it. "You got yourself stuck."

"I didn't know it was this strong!"

"Too bad. You're going to die there unless you take off the hoodie." It would be so easy; all she has to do is unzip it.

"No! It's freezing in here."

"Do you want to be cold or eaten?" Romani's tone is lazy and uncaring. She's totally milking this, and Lulu's probably going to bitch about it as soon as she gets free. Romani continues, "Cold? Or eaten? Chilly, or devoured? A little uncomfortable, or an agonizingly slow death?"

Lulu screams hysterically. "Fuck you!"

Romani shrugs, "Whatever," and opens the door, as if she's going to go ahead all by herself with Death looming about. "Stay there. Have fun. Enjoy. I'll miss you." She goes through the door without a single glance back, her dark red ponytail swishing about as she walks. Surprisingly, Zelda, Mikau, and Aveil follow her, all carrying whatever they originally brought.

I glare at Mikau. I'm not really one to go out of my way to help people, but this is his sister. Surely he isn't just going to walk away? Mikau shrugs when he notices me. "She'll come to her senses." And the three of them are swallowed by the darkness of the next room. She'll come to her senses? Whatever. I can't believe he won't help his own sister.

Not that I'm exactly tripping over my own feet to help her.

Darmani, Link and I fidget uncomfortably while Lulu continues to curse us for her predicament. Who's to help her when she's too far away? Do we leave? Stay and do nothing?

Lulu's hand suddenly appears over the edge, gripping the ground for dear life. I actually jump a bit in surprise, and she pulls the rest of herself over the edge. "Finally!" she groans, collapsing on the disgusting ground that imprinted a wet spot on my butt a while ago. "I never want to climb anything again," she mumbles.

Link is staring at her with surprise. "How'd you save the hoodie?" he asks, gesturing at her whole body. He's right, Lulu's still wearing her hoodie like nothing happened to it. Although, there's a bit of web stuck to the right sleeve. The idiot girl forgot to push her sleeves up before she climbed.

"Chewed through the web," Lulu whispers miserably. The poor dear now knows what silky spider poop tastes like. "The most disgusting shit ever. But I saved my warmth." She curls herself into a ball and relishes in her body heat.

"Yeah, yeah, that's nice," I say impatiently, stomping over to the door. "Can we please catch up with the losers? I'd rather not get lost in here and die."

Darmani laughs. "I think the others have to worry more about death than we do. We have the tent."

"And the food," Link adds, also laughing.

"I have a map," Lulu's voice comes from somewhere within the lump of fluffy fabric. The map will only be useful if we get out of here with our head still connected to our bodies, but it's nice to know.

"And I have two sleeping bags," I say. "We can share if we need to." Not happening. Darmani's almost too big for one sleeping bag, and one of us is a girl. Problems!

I stick my head through the door. "Hear that, Zel? We've got the goods." My voice echoes: "Got the goods... God the goods... Goods..."


"We've got the goods... Got the goods... Got the goods... Goods..."

"What was that?" Mikau whispers as he trembles against me. I've never had to comfort a boy before. I've never even heard of it happening. Just this once, I guess, since Mikau's a special cookie. I even let him get away with the whispering, since something could be stalking us at this very second.

I rub his back soothingly. "Just Sheik and his goods. Probably not as good as our goods." I roll my eyes, referring to the key Aveil refuses to let go of. Aveil and Romani snicker. "Maybe they got Lulu."

"Maybe they did," Romani huffs bitterly, like Lulu is a type of fatal disease. She immediately changes the subject to something more interesting. "Where do you think we are?"

Aveil taps her chin, deep in thought. She looks around the room, perusing every crack in every wall, every ripple of water below us, every dust particle floating through the air. She does this for a full minute and some seconds, humming all the while. She even taps her foot and twirls the key around in her hands. We're starting to get impatient when she suddenly thrusts her finger in the air, 'eureka!' style, and says proudly, "I belive we're in Woodfall Temple."

We take turns smacking her while she giggles uncontrollably. Stupid acting.

I really don't know where we are, but that's expected, considering I don't know anything about Termina. The room we first walked into was big, slightly bigger than the first one. There were actually two Deku Babas in the room, and I almost had a freaking heart attack seeing them because we had to walk by both, but they were dead. Freshly dead too, since plants normally wither away to nothing quickly when they die. Freaky. The bottom floor was covered in water, but too deep to wade across. I mean, we could have waded, but then we'd be wandering around an already damp temple in soaking wet clothes. No thank you. Besides, there were perfectly acceptable bridges over the water leading to two different doors. I was uncomfortable at first, because each bridge was connected by what looked like giant lily pads with teeth. Built so that anything unfortunate enough to blindly step on it is immediately chewed and devoured in the matter of seconds. After coaxing Mikau into touching it, it didn't take long to realize that it wasn't alive alive. In the middle of the room was a giant wooden flower. Odd, but I passed it off as a shrine of sorts, probably the center of the temple or something deep and important like that.

There were two doors, one on the left side of the room and one on the right. The one on the left was locked, so we took the right. I was the last one to cross the bridge, and I smugly stomped on the lily pads in revenge for their Deku Baba cousin scaring the hell out of me.

Then we came into another room exactly like the Wooden Flower room, sans Wooden Flower. Two more doors in that room: we had picked the one straight ahead, but there was nothing interesting in it. Wait, a lie. There was a treasure chest in there, but it had already been opened. Bummer. I'm really in the mood for some treasure.

So we headed for the other door, which was up a long, stone staircase. One that would have been useful in the first damn room. Seriously. In this room, however, we got lucky. Another treasure chest was smack in the middle of the otherwise bare room, and it was much bigger and nicer looking than the last one. A struggle ensued as to who got to open it. Mikau was the first to back down, claiming the treasure would be cursed. Aveil actually socked Romani in the stomach and pounced onto the chest while Romani gasped and wheezed and cursed her to the bitchiest ring of hell. I gave up after Aveil threatened to do the same to me.

She opened the chest and we crowded around her to gaze upon our new toy: a key. A giant key. My first thought was, Pffft, how boring. But then I noticed the colorful jewel on the end of the key and squealed. We all squealed. Mikau squealed like he did it all the time. Nobody questioned his non-manly squealing, we were too busy squealing with glee and delight and cash.

Now we're all caught up to the present. Romani is still hitting Aveil. "Tell us where we are. Tell us where we are. Tell us where we are."

Aveil keeps giggling, apparently thinking her acting is funny. "I already told you, dummy. We're in Woodf—"

"Shut up," Romani growls. "If you're not going to be useful..." she trails off and heads for the door. "Let's see if we can't find those other people we came here with."

"You mean our friends?" Mikau asks, eyebrows raised.

"Yes. Our friends and your sister, whom you left behind to be devoured." Mikau blushes and shuts his mouth. "I want to rub that key in their faces."

"I'll be doing the rubbing around here," Aveil says, greedily clutching the key and running through the door before Romani. She and Mikau scramble after her, apparently not wanting to be the last ones in the room.

I have to jog to catch up to them. "Wait! Do you even know the way out of here?" The last thing I need is to get lost in this place, especially with our enigmatic stalker hanging around. (Excuse the pun.)

"No," is the simultaneous reply.


Link latches onto my arm since I'm the closest to him, and given the circumstances I don't really mind. It's so dark in here that it doesn't make a difference if my eyes are open or not. "Why are we even in here? It's too dark."

"Because that other door by the big flower was locked," Lulu's voice comes from somewhere in front of me. "There has to be another one in here, unless we missed something..."

"No," Darmani says from behind, "I didn't see anywhere else to go. This is definitely the only way through."

"So you're saying that the others already came through here?" I ask. If they jump out and scream "BOO!" at us I think I might actually pass out. The darkness is starting to make me a little queasy. "How?"

Link lets go of my arm. "Maybe the didn't. The spider could've gotten them." Darmani lets out a gasp, and mutters, "Next time you want to hold hands, warn me." Guess Link decided he wants a tougher latching buddy. Link continues, "Can't spiders see in the dark? Or feel the vibrations in the ground and stuff? Then it would actually have better eyesight than us."

"Shut up," Lulu says, though I can tell that she's scared too. We haven't seen the spider since the first room, and it could be hiding anywhere. Who knows, maybe Zelda really is dead and is being pooped out as we speak. In this room, we're pretty much big fat walking targets screaming, "I hate life. Eat me!"

Lulu squeaks and there's the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. Dumb child must have tripped. My intention is to keep walking and ignore her entirely, but then my foot kicks something big and squishy and definitely in my way—Lulu—and I trip too. My life sucks because I don't have the luxury of just landing on the ground, oh no, not me. On the way down I get to bust my chin on a wooden something. Whatever it is, I hate it immediately.

Darmani, and Link since he's glued to him, has the sense to stop and ponder the sound of his friends falling. "Hey, what's going on? Did you two slip?"

Lulu groans. "Yeah. Felt like I stepped on ash."

"I think I have splinters in my chin!" I shriek. Could this get any more painful? Lulu laughs and I hear her standing up.

"You'll have to deal with them until we get out," she says, failing to keep the smile out of her voice. I hear her walking—her foot slowly nudges me in the stomach, to make sure she doesn't repeat my stupid mistake. She goes around me and stops. "Oh shit, treasure! Way to hurt yourself with a treasure chest, Sheik."

Treasure? I found it first. It's mine.

I jump up, feeling my way around to the front. Next to me, Lulu tries to open it, but I shove her hands away, hissing, "I touched it first," and opening it myself. There's a bright flash of light, in which I'm able to see the inside of the chest.

Nothing.

"Damn it!" I kick at the chest and the lid snaps shut. Just what I need. Fake safety hazard treasure.

"This room is filled with Boes," Lulu randomly says. I raise an eyebrow at her but remember that she can't see, so I say, "Say what?"

"Boes," she says, annoyed. "I could see them when that light came on. I guess I stepped on one when I fell." She adds, "I hope I didn't kill it."

"I don't care," I say, my arms stretched outward so I don't bump into Lulu again. "Boes aren't going to help us get out of here. Be useful and find the exit."

I can't hear anything, but I'm assuming that they're looking around for the door. At least, they'd better be. Stumbling around blindly in a small, dark room is annoying as hell. Where's that flash of light when you need it?

I finally find something; a wall. Or a very large stone block. Now all I have to do is feel along the wall to find the door or passage or whatever...I move more to the right. Although it could be to the left, but whatever. If I don't find anything, I'll go the other way. I keep going until I bump into something.

"Who's this?" it whispers, and hands suddenly start feeling me up. The person gasps and the hands are snatched back before I have a chance to slap them away. "Sheik, you feel like a damn skeleton. Eat something." Without the whispering, I can tell it's Lulu.

Gross.

I'm not even going to try to retort, so I just keep feeling the wall, moving a couple of feet every now and then until I bump into something else. This one feels much less alive. I reach out with my right hand and I can feel more wood. Wood is something I'm not too happy with right now, so I ignore it and keep going until I feel two long, straight cracks in the wall spaced apart just so. The door—finally.

"Jackpot!" I say triumphantly. I hook my fingers underneath a large crack in the door and lift. Even though I'm not very strong, the door slides up easily like the sides are buttered. The room is immediately filled with sweet, sweet light and I can see that Lulu was right. The Boes in the room scuttle and scatter for the cover of darkness.

Darmani and Link are the first ones to step out, followed by Lulu and I. As soon as I see the new room we're in, hatred flows through me. My face flushes and I clench my teeth and my hands form fists on their very own and I growl, "What keeps happening to the fucking floors?" Because the room is made up of literally three platforms, a long ways apart and all connected by thin, yet sturdy-looking, pieces of wood. Wood, wood, wood. I think I'll kill myself with a piece of wood, just so that the wood can have the last laugh.

Darmani grunts, "Who cares. Least we can get across." He doesn't say anything else, he just walks straight ahead to the first beam. Link follows, glancing nervously at the seemingly never-ending pit beneath us. Lulu starts to walk, but I snatch her arm and say as sweetly as I can, "Would you mind helping me get these splinters out? I think pus is starting to ooze."


"How is this possible?" Romani wails at the door leading back to the first room. On it is a big, shiny lock, wrapped around the door by chains that don't look easily breakable. "Where did this stupid thing come from? I'm getting sick of the mystery and the randomness and where the hell are the others? There are only two doors in this room and the other one is locked just like this one except the door we went through is open so we should've run into them but where?" She slumps to the ground and clutches at her head, mumbling some more.

Mikau shifts from one foot to the other, keeping his eyes away from the door. "Will the key work?" he asks, but when Aveil holds it up to the door it's obvious that it won't. The key is huge compared to the lock.

Aveil pockets the key—well, not literally. She stuffs it into the sleeping bag she's carrying. "It's not like we need to go into that room anyway. We should go look for the guys. If we hurry, we can rescue them from the big bad hellbug."

Romani doesn't move from her head-clutching position. "And how do you propose we do that?"

"By going through that door down there, by the dead flower."

Romani shoots up and stares at the door in shock and wonder, her eyes bugging out of her head. "What! No, I don't think so." She sprints down the path and stops in front of the door. The way she's standing makes it look like the door is some long lost treasure that she refuses to believe is actually there. "This was definitely locked not ten minutes ago.I refuse to go through this...this trick!"

"Well, it's our only choice," Mikau says, flinching slightly when Romani glares at him. "That other door is locked too." Romani peers over his shoulder at the door we just came through. Even from here we can see that it is indeed locked, shiny chains and all. Romani throws her hands in the air and sort of barks.

"Will the magic ever end?" She turns on her heel and stomps towards the door, roughly yanking it open.


Link rolls his eyes and tries again. "Just inch your way towards us. If you stay there, you're not going to make it." Lulu was the last one to cross the beams. She chickened out on the third one because she almost fell, and is now hugging it since it's her temporary lifeline. She refuses to move and it's starting to get annoying. "Hurry up. Or we'll leave you."

"Hurry up or we'll leave you," Lulu mimics in a nasally high voice, and looks at Link like he's a walking blob of diarrhea. "Give me a second." She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths before scooching forward a little bit. Then a little more. It looks like she isn't breathing. She keeps going until she has to take in a breath. After more deep breaths and squeezing her eyes shut, she shimmies forward until she's about two feet away from us. She exhales and doesn't open her eyes. "How much further?"

"For gods' sake!" Darmani growls, bending over to grab Lulu by her neck and hauling her to the end. She yelps but is silenced when Darmani carelessly tosses her to the ground. "We'll never get out of here if you keep acting like a baby."


One by one we run as fast as we can through the door leading back to the wooden flower room, and as soon as Mikau flies past me I slam the door shut. It takes a while but eventually the adrenaline sprinting through my veins slows and dulls completely, leaving me to collapse on the ground breathless and very much afraid. I'm joined by Mikau and Romani, but Aveil is standing tall and strong, smiling at us.

"Wasn't that exciting?" she says eagerly. "I think my life actually flashed before my eyes. We should do it again."

"No," Romani groans from the ground. "Let's just stay here and starve." Aveil shrugs and joins us on the floor.

The room we had walked in seemed safe at first. The door in their was locked so we went up the stairs next to it, where there was a passageway leading to somewhere; maybe out. But the entrance was covered in a giant spider web, which we all gawked at for maybe six minutes since it's hard to ignore a skeleton when one is smack in the middle of said web. One of us screamed and we all fled soon after.

"Do you think it's actually in there?" Mikau asks breathlessly. I shrug as much as I can while lying on the floor. Mikau becomes my least favorite person when he says, "That skeleton didn't look too old."

We all whine for him to please stop talking, and in silence we just sit there, out of breath, hungry, and scared. Not just hungry, but starving. Have we eaten since we came in here? I honestly don't remember, and that can't be a good thing since we haven't been in here all that long.

"Hey!" comes a voice I haven't heard in a while: Link. The tiredness we were just feeling flees the scene and we all stand up, looking for him and possibly the others. "Up here," he calls again, and we see him. He's standing on another ledge above the door we came through.

I swear I've never been so happy to see someone I haven't seen in what feels like forever. It has nothing to do with the fact that Link is carrying a bag filled with delicious delectable food. His charming smile and spazzy waving and eagerness to see us is all I need to be happy. The food is just a bonus.

"Food!—Uh, I mean, hi Link!" Oops. I rush across the bridges to the other side. Screw Romani and Aveil and Mikau and that pretty key. I said hi to him, so I can drop the politeness. "Food! Starving. Now, please."

"Come up here and get it," Sheik says, his head appearing over the edge. I glare at the jerk and stick my tongue out. "Here, climb this and you can stuff your face all you want." He lowers one of the sleeping bags down and it's just enough that I can jump up and hold onto it while Darmani hoists me up, since Sheik is too dainty for something like that.

One by one we're all pulled up and there's a mushy, friendship-hug worthy reunion—ha, false. I zone in on Link for the food and start to move towards him. Sheik suddenly butts in and mimics my hunched movements. "I get first dibs," he says out of the corner of his mouth. We slowly back Link into a corner; he's attempting to protect the food with his body, looking determined to face the both of us and come out on top. But I can sense the fear. His fear. His fear that he'll lose, and the shame of failing at his only duty.

I sneak a look at Sheik.

He sneaks a look back.

We both lunge for the goods.


A/N: If you're wondering why locks are magically appearing and disappearing on doors or why spiderwebs show up in front of halls after half the characters wandered into the same hallway: the temple is magic and the spider has a plan. That's why.

So like I said, work work work. School is pissing me off even more than it should be allowed to. Since I'll be leaving early for summer fun, I have to reschedule my final exams, and that's just more work for me. The reason I decided to wait until now to update is because I'll be busy for the next couple of weeks with projects and studying and procrastinating on the studying.

I really need a stress ball, or one of those squeeze-doll things that make a funny noise and push out small spaghetti-whatevers when squished.

Sorry if this chapter is balls, and for the lack of Skulltula/Odolwa/escapement. Next chapter, pinky swear.