The entrance area of the Stone Tower Temple was strangely deserted, and without being able to mentally scan ahead and find the unseen, that made me edgy. Edgy and irritated isn't a very good combination, however.

I checked the area over through the Lens of Truth to see if I was missing anything, like a solution for reaching the ceiling, but found nothing. Both Ghirahim and Tael made a few remarks about this, but for the most part I ignored them – at least until I shot a bolt at a golden eye switch on a face like the one inside, but smaller. That caused a chest to appear on a platform, which in turn jutted out over a large depression in the floor.

I regarded the gap between me and it for the time, then as the chest was right on the edge I circled round to a better vantage and after only a few choice words used the Hookshot to reach it, netting me the first of the fifteen Stray Fairies.

Getting back was more of a challenge since I had nothing else to Hookshot on to, so I took a running leap and just barely made it, having to pull myself up.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen," Ghirahim chuckled. "Without your mind you're not nearly so dangerous, are you?"

"Shut up," I snapped. "Or I'll make a trip back to Snowhead and stick you in the lava for a while."

"As if I haven't heard that one before."

I didn't bother to dignify that with a response, then before I decided which way to go I changed back into a Zora, pulled on the Golden Gauntlets, and following them something I hadn't used since the place I'd found them – a nice pair of spiked metal bands that fit neatly over the Gauntlets, using the small gem embedded in them to hold them in place.

"I don't see the point," Tael confessed as I headed for the western door.

"To these?" I asked, bearing one now-spiked fist. "It's simple. I'm irritated, and these are going to be therapeutic. Any questions?"

"Seriously? That's you're reasoning? I don't think it'll make any difference, Silver."

"Wait and see," I replied.

Through the door were a series of narrow corridors, several of which ended in floor-switches that didn't stay down. In the course of exploring I found this area too was almost annoyingly deserted, but I did find a wall with a web of cracks over them.

Now ordinarily I'd simply blow up the wall, but since back in the Spirit Temple I'd shattered large rocks with this combination, I simply repeated the process and shattered it by hand instead.


"You're welcome," Knuckles said with a faint smile.

"I thought you were responsible for them," Silver said. "Why didn't you say anything before?"

"The time wasn't right. You should know all about that," he smirked.

"Oh, you're asking for it now!"

"Do you suppose we could wait until after you're done to start fighting?" Scourge complained.

"Right," Manic said, getting up with one hand already reaching for his sword. "I've had just about enough of your complaining. How many of me d'ya reckon you can take, grumpy-guts?"

Scourge spluttered for a few moments, but shrank back when Manic actually started to draw the sword.

"I love doing that to people," Manic murmured to Sonic as he sat back down.

"Never did take much to keep you happy," Sonic replied blandly.

"Moving on," Tails cut firmly over the response Manic almost gave. "Silver?"


Behind the remains of the wall I'd broken down were several large crates, along with a gold-bound chest on the ceiling, which I ignored for now. The crates were empty and thus not very heavy, but heavy enough that I could probably use any of them to trigger all but the Goron-only switch.

I didn't bother to move them myself. I simply created four shells, one for each except my Deku form. Being able to create a copy of my own form meant I never needed the crates at all, so for a bit more value I shattered the crates by hand before finding out that one of these corridors was no longer a dead end and let us out into yet another deserted area.

"This is starting to really bother me," I muttered. "Ghirahim, this is the Temple, isn't it?"

"Of course."

"Then why aren't there any monsters around?"

"I have no idea. However, that being said..." he trailed off. I waited, examining the area. In keeping with my new habit of ignoring places and objects that I'd have to somehow invert gravity for, I noticed only a locked door to one side, a set of stairs down on the other, and on the floor a patch of scrubby bushes and a cracked floor.

I punched the floor to shatter it down, letting sunlight stream down and a sudden wave of heat to stream up. Tael decided on his own to fly down and have a look.

"There's lava down there," he reported, his voice echoing up. "Some statues that may or may not be Armos statues. Some of those convenient pots for you. Can't see much else without going out of sight."

"Leave it then. I'll have a look when I go downstairs in a moment, once Ghirahim finally finishes his sentence."

"I was looking about," he said in an injured tone. "Or whatever you want to call it, anyway. I can't say for sure what caused the monsters to be defeated before you came here, but I'm picking up a strong sense of surprise. Something startled the monsters so badly it reached the point I can feel it."

"That doesn't bode well," I noted.

"Perhaps not. There's a touch here that's very much like yours."

"Mine?"

"That's what I said, Hero. Are you having trouble hearing too now? Must be all that Heroic personality squashing your brains out through your ears."

"Do you mind?" I demanded. Ghirahim didn't reply however.

I headed downstairs and started to see what Tael was talking about. The statues nearest the door didn't respond to my touch, making them ordinary statues, and reflecting the light on a sun block he'd neglected to tell me about made it vanish. There was a large pool of lava ahead, in which there were two more statues, and two more still further ahead in an alcove that wasn't under lava.

Due to the heat-resistant properties of the form, I went Goron and waded through the lava without any effect whatsoever, pausing to examine each of the statues. They did activate at my touch, but I found a good Goron punch shattered them.

The two statues opposite where I'd came in were also real Armos statues, and also went the same way. There'd been a chest beyond them, but in defeating all four of them another chest appeared in the lava which quickly burst into flames, the gold bindings already starting to glow. I quickly retrieved the small silver key from it before it melted, then went for the other one to get not one but two Dungeon Maps. One was labelled 'Sky-Up' and the other 'Sky-Down'. I examined both in detail and decided that – for the moment – I needed to pay attention to the first one, and that the second probably applied for all the ceiling stuff. I still wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to handle that, since I had no way of telling gravity to go up instead. It would probably solve the problem of the Moon falling though.

On my way out I changed back to my Zora form for the gauntlets and spikes again – I really wanted to smash up something that wasn't a wall with these – only to have Ghirahim tell me to stop and Hookshot up to a narrow platform where a chest let me snag the next Stray Fairy.

I used the key on the locked door back upstairs, passing into a room that was eminently suited for my present form with the water in it. I could immediately see another pointless Dexihand, and a Beamos statue behind some bars that was inaccessible due the sun block in the way. Due to various structures above there was no sunlight close enough to make it vanish.

I dived in and headed under the bridge spanning the middle of the room, the bars of which made it too inaccessible for now, and then leapt out of the water to pass the Dexihand and land on a platform with a chest that had another small key.

"That sense is here too," Ghirahim noted. "Something came through here and attacked. I can't get any idea of who, what or how. The memories are already fading, all I can get is the sense of surprise that was felt. And curiosity. Something was curious."

"Let me know if you come up with anything more helpful will you?" I replied.

"Whatever. There's a channel back in the water underneath that pathetic hand. The feelings I'm picking up go that way, and I don't think there's any other way you can go – except backwards, but that should be second nature to you Heroes."

"Those kind of remarks are starting to get old, Demon," I told him flatly, diving back in and taking the route. There was a floor switch in the ceiling, as strange at that sounds, but nothing else in the channel until I emerged in a large, water filled chamber. It seemed almost like a giant tank.

There were several Bio-Deku Babas and Skullfish here, but I easily swam through them and, to my relief, could still project the electric barrier to dispatch them. I also streaked past a collection of spike mines, the currents caused by my passing making them swing into each other and detonate. The floor switch that had been protected by them switched easily and created, of all things, a chest on the underside of a platform.

I checked about the room, finding only a few other things I couldn't use just yet like a sun switch underwater, so I headed up, surfaced and landed on another bridge, this one unbarred. There was a mirror ahead of all things, but it seemed different somehow, as it didn't reflect anything properly. Around the corner from it was another sun block.

Reflecting light from outside on to the mirror caused it to glow, but oddly not to reflect the light out – instead it seemed to suck it in. When I stopped reflecting light to it, the effect faded, then the mirror output light – as if it was some kind of light battery. After a time, that ran dry and it faded.

I charged it up again for a time, then dashed ahead while it still had light to reflect the light a second time and remove the block.

"There was a Real Bombchu here," Ghirahim said. "Something managed to get past the block somehow."

"Unless they come back, that means they'd either have to teleport like I do, or fly through that narrow gap that was above it."

"I could probably fly through it," Tael said. "Not sure why I'd want to though."

"You're still not sure why you wanted to come with me though," I told him, checking a large chest that was also concealed by it. Like the map chest, it had not one but two paper Compasses in, and it broke with tradition by not having a piece of Ghirahim in. It took a few moments to attach the Compasses to their correct maps, and interestingly I found that both maps mirrored each other – where there was a chest on one, there was on the other, and where I was shown on the Up map, I was also in the corresponding location for the Down one.

Since the maps also told me that the nearby door only led back into the entrance area, I went the other way and unlocked the door on the other side.

In the next room there was a stream of light already coming down from above, a series of six sun switches, three on either side of me, more of the light-battery mirrors, and a sun block. There were also a mass of black Boes, which I forced to ignore me simply by wearing adding the Stone mask to the various accessories I'd put on Mikau's form. I've often wondered what he might have thought about that.

Firstly I checked the sun switches, lighting them up only for them to burn away – except for the last one, which created a chest. Fortunately, unlike the Hyrule's Spirit Temple, the wrong switching didn't try to catch me out with some kind of trap.

Then since the chest was on my way anyway, I charged up the right mirror, then reflected the light on to the sun block, retrieving a Stray Fairy from the chest along the way. Behind the sun block was another chest, also containing a Stray Fairy, bringing my count so far up to four.

The other mirror allowed me to reflect light around the other side of the room, then a second mirror beyond that reflecting back the other way. The light from there to banish yet another sun block, defeat two Nejirons that must have been terribly surprised since the Stone mask effectively made me invisible, and head through the door.

I wished almost immediately that I'd had the benefit of my mind here. There was lava below, along with a large Goron-only switch down there, but ahead of me was a large air vent producing a nearly visible blast of upward air. The map and what I could see from here told me that I'd have to go Deku and fly through the room, and that wasn't so appealing. I'd done it before enough times to be a competent flier of course, but I never really did get comfortable being a Deku.

Before I did that though I climbed down the nearby ladder, went Goron and triggered the switch. Nothing appeared to happen.

I rolled through the lava, trying to find anything that was different, and it was only when I had made a complete U-shape to the other side of the room I found out what. A ring of fire that had been guarding a floor switch had faded. I knew it had faded because before I reached it, it had shot up again.

It took me several attempts to make it from the switch to the chest in time before I finally managed it, and the switch in turn appeared to do nothing. It remained switched however, so I assumed it had done something.

I headed back round and up, then with a sigh that to their credit neither Ghirahim or Tael said anything about, I turned back into a Deku and used the nearest flower to fly up into the air. The current blasting up gave me more lift, and I was able to turn aside to a small alcove where there was a collection of rupees and a chest giving me the fifth Stray Fairy. From there I continued to use following currents to fly over where I'd just been below, reaching the ledge at the far end where a chest contained the sixth Stray Fairy.

While I once again went to a form I could use the spikes in, Ghirahim must have been checking things out again, because before I touched the door he said, "You know that sense of surprise I've been picking up?"

"Not personally, no," I replied.

"Very funny, Hero. I've found the source. It's in the room ahead. I could be mistaken, but I'm fairly certain I can feel the presence of a Garo Master there – not like any Garo Robes you may have fought down in Ikana – and I suspect the two are embroiled in a battle with each other. It definitely feels very much like you normally do, at least when you have your mind, but it's very small. I'd say... almost Fairy-like."

It barely took me a moment to process that and make the connection. I ran for the door, heedless of whatever this Garo Master could be doing. I may have temporarily lost my mind, but the prospect of what came next banished all my irritation and concerns.