As I leave the cave I find myself in a large forest area. Most of the ground is covered in a purple fog. Since it seems to form a circle, the origin of this fog is probably right in the middle of it. Looking at the condition of the plants that come into contact with it, it´s safe to assume that this fog is something abnormal. Another oddity are the fog free spots strewn about that shouldn´t be possible. There the sunlight manages to break through the trees and due this observation it's reasonable to assume that the fog stays clear of light. To confirm this I approach the fog with my lantern and it indeed forms a small circle around me, roughly three meters in distance.

"Midna, are you safe from the poison while hiding in my shadow?" "Yes. And don´t bother asking, it would take too long to explain." "I know what hexes are." "It's shadow-magic, not hexes. Whatever that's supposed to be?" "Hexes are all forms of magic using the element of darkness." "Aha. Good for you." "Well as long as what you told me is true we can continue." "Just get going already!"

With the lantern fastened to my belt, broken blade in my right hand and hook in my left I march through the fog. The ground beneath my feet is covered with rotting brown grass. Even the flesh-eating plants aren´t spared from this fate. Since there are no signs of a fight I suppose the poison ended them.

I´m roughly fifty meter away from the centre of the fog when I hear something akin to slurping. I move carefully towards where the sound is coming from. The slurping is joined by rustling. After a while I can make out a faint silhouette of a man sized vase. Suddenly the rustling stops and only the slurping remains. I stop and stand completely still, not making the slightest sound and focusing my senses as best I can. Whatever it is, it´s possible it noticed me.

After a few seconds of nothing happening I decide to continue forward. As I walk I always make sure to be in a position to dodge to the side. The shape slowly gets clearer. The upper part consists of blood stained teeth that sit on top of a yellow knee-high plate. The lower half is brown and except for the upper part shaped like an orb. Since the teeth are surrounding the upper part like a crown and the creature expels the fog upwards, the mouth is there in the middle.

Behind this thing I see something else in the fog. It's an almost house-high pillar with a pot closed by lid on top of it. But as pot and lid separate and in doing so create the slurping sound from before, this thing shows itself to be another part of whatever this creature is.

I´m only five meter away when the second mouth moves out from the cover of the gas. The head is a red-violet coloured combination of a flesh-eating plant and a pelican beak. It´s decorated with yellow stripes and the pillar is in reality its neck, which is a thorn covered stem.

It positions itself over the first mouth and opens its jaws to drop a pile of corpses into the waiting mouth. The lips of the thing close immediately even though they were an arm's length apart before. The second maw opens a bit and seems to sniff the air. It is either going to notice me now or I get lucky and it fails to realize I´m here until it's already too late. Unfortunately it seems the first case has occurred since it turns towards me and lifts itself to its full height in a show of intimidation. Considering how high up the head is I guess its neck is at least four meter long.

Luckily I have the advantage in terms of reach. I reach for my crossbow, yet again. But this time something is different: The second maw, at which I was aiming, hides itself behind the round main body to get out of my line of sight. How is this possible? I suddenly realize my error: The bolt is still covered in the blood and secretion of its previous victims.

I circle around the main body to find the other mouth, when I hear the sound of wood cracking. Another ambush!? From my position I can see where the neck connects with the main body, but the maw itself can´t be seen through all this fog. The only hint I have at what it could be planning is the sound of cracking wood. Since it knows what my crossbow is, it´s quite possible that it is currently working on a counter, which is why I holster it and reach for my hook.

Shortly afterwards my suspicion is proven correct: The second mouth returns with a rotten tree trunk between its teeth. The trunk is thick enough to completely hide its head. It's holding the trunk upright for a vertical smash. The trunk itself isn´t hard to dodge, but the twigs at its end are close together and could turn into shrapnel when the tree impacts the ground. But there are fundamental laws in this world no one can ignore. One of those laws says that when an object moves in a circular motion, the greatest force is at the point furthest removed from the position around which the object circles.

Going by that logic, the least amount of force is at that position, as such I sprint directly towards the mouth. I duck under the trunk and roll so as not to lose momentum. At the same time I put distance between myself and the point of impact, where dirt and splinters are flying through the air. While it still tries to lift the trunk for another swing, I already positioned myself directly under it.

It´s too far up for me to reach it with my blade, so I throw my hook in the gap between its teeth and the trunk. Once it stuck I pull at the chain down. It tries to move its head up but the weight of the tree now works to my advantage. After a short tug-of-war it was eye level with me and I start stabbing my blade into the point where neck meets head. It trashes around in pain but is incapable to escape from me. That changes when it lets go of the trunk.

Now even the weight of my armor can´t prevent me from being lifted of the ground. Since I currently had no foothold I tried to climb up the chain to continue my attack. "Tree!" sounds Midnas warning. As I look around I see the tree she meant: The exact same tree I´m currently swinging towards to. So I slide down the chain and prepare myself for my impact with the ground. I put away my blade and cover my head with my arms. All the while I try to get the chain taut again. After a short moment I´m back in the air. That's when the middle of the chain collides with the tree and I start swinging around it.

I circle the tree once before I can hold onto it. I pull my katana, sheath included, from my belt and drive it through the chain link at the end and another one directly there where the chain started winding around the tree. Afterwards I fall towards the ground. As I roll on the ground I can hear and see the mouth´s futile tries to free itself from the chain. But the only thing it manages is to drive the hook further into its flesh while my katana keeps the chain in place. Try as much as you want: A sheath of hardened magnet stone won´t break so easily. With my broken blade in my right I sprint towards the maw to finally put it down.

But to get to the place where I had already injured it I first had to get up. So I jump up and grab a hold of the chain and pull myself up. Afterwards it´s only a few steps and a jump and I am close enough to reach for its neck. The mouth didn´t make it hard for me either, as it permanently keeps the chain taut with its pulling. I use my free limbs to latch on to its neck and start attacking the injured spot with the blade in my right. It trashes like its life depends on it – which it does – but my grip on its neck doesn´t loosen and gravity won´t help it this time either.

It throws its head left and right, up and down in an attempt to get rid of me. But in the end the battle ends with me slashing through the last bit of its neck. I fall together with the severed head towards the ground and soften my impact by rolling forward. While the severed head starts rotting, the neck still continues to twitch, like it didn´t want to accept what just happened. The main mouth on the other hand opens as wide as it can and releases even more fog than before. Quite futile since I still have my lantern.

The first thing I do is to recover my katana and the chain, hook included. Then, with my blade in hand, I stalk closer towards the main body. Three meter away I discover one of its roots on the ground, which I immediately stab with my blade. Out of the wound comes a purple liquid that erodes the already rotten ground to the point were only dry earth remains. That means if I continue with this tactic, a good part of this forest will be turned into a wasteland. Instead I try something different: I pour a bit of oil over the poisonous substance and light it with my lantern on fire.

The result is surprising: The fire consumes the poison like its dry straw. After a short while the fire fizzles out rather quickly and only a puddle of water is left. "Interesting idea with the fire, but next time you try something like this you should remember that you could just as easily start a forest fire." I turn my head to look her in the eye. "This part of the forest is so rotten that the fire wouldn´t have spread very far even without the water. While we´re on the subject…" I look back to the puddle on the ground: "This is the first time that I see water being corrupted by darkness." "Heh. You humans all think that everything you don´t understand is dark magic, instead of trying to figure out what´s really going on." "Then please enlighten me." "You aren´t completely wrong with the darkness part, this being was corrupted by darkness. But the poison is not. It´s simply a side effect caused by the creature changing."

"A darkness that can change a being completely. That sounds familiar.", is my answer to her explanation, even if I know it's not quite the same. "Don´t you dare to compare is filthy darkness with the true twilight." Her face contorts with hatred: "It's merely the product of this power hungry para…" She covers her mouth out of to stop herself, but by then it's already too late. Out of those few words I can conclude a few things: 1. Midna truly feels only hate for this Usurper, which means the possibility of her being a spy is practically inexistent. 2. The thing motivating the Usurper is the desire for more power and that makes it quite possibly that he is looking for this dark power as well. 3. Her definition of darkness is different than mine, because for me, darkness is the corrupted dark. "Control your emotions. Unchecked emotions can cause trouble." She bites her lips: "I know."

I resume my walk towards the main body, while putting a bit of oil into my mouth. As I arrive in front of it I pour half of the oil in my bottle into its mouth while making sure to cover its lips as well. It groans as though it wouldn´t like the taste of oil. I put my bottle away and lift my lantern in front of my face. I spit the oil in my mouth through the flame of the lantern which causes a stream of fire. This fire-stream hits the oil covered lips whom ignite the rest of the oil inside the body. It screams in despair at its painful end, but it gave me no choice. It took precautions to stay alive longer, and as such it has to suffer longer.

Thanks to the fire, the fog in the air dissolves and I can finally see things further away again. After a quick look around I find my target: A bridge leading to the temple. I can´t see the place in front of the bridge since my view is blocked by hills and trees, but to my right I can make out a path that could lead to the bridge, if it makes a turn to the left. A last look to the second mouth still lying on the ground to make sure it won´t come after me like those other plants from before reveals that it´s still not even twitching. With that I make my way towards the dirt path and leave this rotting forest behind me.

I didn´t really think that I would need so much text for a battle against a plant with two mouths. At first I intented to put in an additional battle.

Whatever, I can deal with creating a miniboss. Could be worse.

Again I want to ask my readers if some of you are well versed in the Zelda-universe so I can get a deeper insight when it comes to the triforce and its bearers.

Another thing I want to tell you is that after each chapter, I will revisit an old one to purge it from possible contradictions. Doesn´t need to be big a small purge will be mostly enough.

To the next tip: The blood of fools who don´t know their place.