Chapter Twenty Six – Monsters in the well
I just received word from Sheik that Link is going to be the first person to go through the haunted shadow temple. Dampe has always been a great inventor, but to put his newest invention known as holograms all over the town and inside the temple was just amazing. I really wish I was able to visit the town to see what holograms were. As for now I'm just happy Link gets to relax before continuing on to the most dangerous part of his journey.
At the bottom of the well was a giant hold in the stone wall that led deep into a dark cave. He was getting a very uneasy feeling about going inside, but despite his fear he forced himself to keep going. The walls were disgusting and there were spider webs everywhere. He pulled out the master sword to cut the webs down to clear a path through, but after slicing through the webs for a few minutes he suddenly noticed a giant spider blocking his path ahead of him. Freezing in place he didn't know what to do. He needed to get by, but he didn't want to go anywhere near it.
Suddenly the spider quickly turned around and ran deeper into the cave and vanished into the darkness. Link slowly followed after it, and was surprised to see the path opened to a large underground chamber. As he looked around the room he noticed the giant spider had been killed somehow and was now covered in green flames. As Link drew closer to examine the spider he noticed a skull covered in green flames flying towards him.
Taking off as quickly as he could, he raced down the long corridor while looking for a place to hide. The giant skull was gaining on him and as he turned the corner it burst forward and just barely missed touching him. Link started running even faster, but the skull continued to be right on his tail. Just before it caught up to him he spotted a small hallway that seemed too small for the giant skull to fit through, so he dove around the corner just as the green flames flew by. He stood there gasping for air for a moment, and then noticed the door next to him. He didn't want to go back out and face the giant skull, so he went through the door and hoped the worst was behind him.
The moment he walked through the door bars dropped down and he was locked inside the room. A strong feeling of panic was sent through his entire body as he slowly returned his gaze back to the room to see what was now in store for him. The room was dimly lit by a single lantern at the far side of the room that had a torch leaning up against it. In the main area were two rows of coffins that lined the room, and in front of each of the coffins was an unlit lantern.
Deciding he needed more light in the room he went over and picked up the torch and used it to light one of the unlit lanterns. The lantern took the flame for a moment, but then quickly extinguished. Link relit the lantern multiple times with the same effect, then decided to try others. After testing them for a little while he realized each lantern seemed to have different durations of time the flame would stay lit, and the lantern that was the furthest from the door had the shortest amount of time to remain lit.
Using his top speed and best reflexes he began racing through the room lighting each of the torches. He kept managing to light all but one before the first would go out, so he would try again and again, but soon he was running out of energy and was starting to slow down. Finally after multiple tries he managed to get all of them lit, but the moment he did all the coffins burst open as all the lanterns went out all at the same time, including the torch he was holding, and he was left in complete darkness.
Suddenly there was a strange rustling sound coming from all the coffins. It seemed something was now moving in the room with him, and with how dark it was he was unable to know what kind of danger he was in. All he could do was stand in place and hope the light would somehow return, and the door would open so he could get out of there.
At that moment the lantern on the far side of the room came back to life, but only tiny flame reappeared, and the light was so dim it was impossible to see anything in the room. Holding onto his torch as tightly as possible he slowly and very quietly began moving towards the flame in hopes of lighting his torch once again. As he drew near he held his torch out with trembling hands, and continued to glance back over his shoulder into the darkness for fear of what he might find was in there with him.
The moment his torch was lit there was a sound from the opposite side of the room of metal sliding. He wasn't certain, but it sounded like the bars on the door had finally lifted back up. The room was still too dark to see anything, and the light emitting from his torch seemed much dimmer than it was when he was lighting all the torches in the room. With the light of the torch to help guide him through the room he began slowly moving back towards the exit, but he quickly stopped in his tracks as he noticed something moving in the darkness.
Without warning there was a loud high-pitched scream as a redead started moving towards him. The creature looked like a petrified corpse that was wearing a piece of wood as a mask. The redead was only a few feet away from him and seemed to be attracted by the light, so Link quickly put the flame out, and the moment he did the creature seemed to wonder away, but the sound of metal bars dropping down came from across the room as well. It seemed he needed to keep the light all the way across the room, and avoid the redead just to get out of that room. Fear was starting to take hold, but with all his strength he pushed forward and began returning to the lantern once again.
Once his torch was relit he slowly made his way back into the dark room. This time he tried to hide the light from the flame by covering it with his hand, but just before he made it to the door another redead appeared in his way and let out an ear piercing scream that made him drop the torch and cover his ears. The flame went out and the creature vanished into the darkness once again.
Returning to the lantern once again he was starting to become frustrated with the creatures. He just wanted to get out of there, so this time he decided to light the torch and run for the door as fast as possible. The redead didn't seem to move fast from what he could tell, so he knew there was a chance he could get to the door as long as they didn't get in his way.
The moment his torch was lit he took off as fast as he could towards the door. Each step he took echoed loud throughout the room. He wasn't sure if there were more than one redead in the room, but if there was, he was sure to have gained all of their attention now. As he approached the door he came to a complete stop as he noticed a group of redead blocking his path forward. He dropped the torch to the ground, but the flame didn't go out. The redead all turned to face him and began moving towards him as they let out horrifying screams.
Deciding he's had enough of this he ignored his fear and allowed his anger and frustration to take control. He drew the master sword and with a powerful swing of the sword he sliced through all the redead at once. Blood shot out from their midsection as they fell to the ground dead. With the situation safe once more he put the sword away and picked up the torch from the ground.
Feeling a lot better now that he could leave, he opened the door and returned to the previous room once again. At first he forgot why he went in there, but at that moment the skull that was covered in green flames flew by the hallway that led back to the main corridor. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to get anywhere with something like that flying around, but knowing he was the hero, he knew it was expected of him to face it head-on.
Peering around the corner it seemed clear for the moment, but just then the skull once again flew around the corner and charged down the corridor in his direction. Quickly ducking out of sight the skull once again flew by without noticing him. He leaned back out and spotted the skull as it rounded the next corner and vanished out of sight. It seemed the corridor made a large square and the skull was traveling in a circle as it patrolled the area.
Unsure where he needed to go next he was hesitant to leave the safety of the hallway. He figured his best option would be to follow behind the flaming skull and hoped it wouldn't turn around while he was following it. He moved as quickly as possible without making too much noise, but the skull seemed to fly much quicker than he was moving and was soon completely out of sight. He managed to make it to the corner where the skull turned down and continued down the corridor a little ways as the skull once again vanished as it turned the next corner at the far end of where he was. Looking down at the ground where he noticed some triangles painted on the stone floor. He started to examine them, but after a moment the skull reappeared from the hallway behind him and started racing towards him.
Without thinking his body started running before he could realize what was going on. By the time his mind caught up with him he was racing down the corridor with the giant skull flying right behind him. Suddenly the giant spider that had been killed when he entered the well appeared ahead of him. Its body was no longer on fire, but it was in his way, and his only option was to jump over it. As he leapt over it he thought he saw the edge of a strange block protruding from the spider's body, but was sure he was just seeing things. By focusing on the strange object he failed to jump high enough and ended up catching his foot on it. As he crashed towards the ground he managed to still land on his feet, but he was off balance and ended up tripping over his feet and stumbled head first into a wall. Throwing his hands out, he crashed towards the wall, but hit the ground instead. At first he thought he managed to land in front of the wall, but as he got up he noticed he was in a different room and wasn't sure how he got there. The room seemed to be completely walled in with no way out, so he moved back to the wall he was closest to and put his hands up to push against it, and to his surprised they went right through it as if it wasn't even there. He didn't understand why this was happening, but he was glad it did or the giant skull would have killed him.
Turning back around to look at the room he was now in, he quickly noticed two large wooden poles that were placed in the center of the room to look like an 'X'. There was a lot of blood under it, and it appeared to be used to torture people. As he moved closer for a better look he noticed something dropped from the ceiling and landed right behind him. With a quick glance back he was shocked to see a giant monstrous hand without a body standing itself up on its fingers, then turned itself towards him and prepared to attack.
Quickly drawing his sword he slashed at the hand, but before he was able to strike it the hand turned green and jumped into the air and made a fist. With amazing speed it punched Link with enormous force that sent him flying across the room. The master sword was sent flying out of his hand and landed right beneath the giant 'X'. He was about to go get it, but the hand was already attacking again. With quick reflexes he managed to roll out of the way just in time, but rolled right through another wall and out the other side to the corridor where the giant flaming skull was flying around. At that moment it appeared from around the corner and began racing towards him. Without another thought he dove back towards the wall he came from and landed back inside the room once again.
Getting back to his feet he noticed the giant hand wasn't there anymore. He didn't believe it just left, but it wasn't on any of the walls or the ceiling, so he moved over to where the master sword was and picked it up. As he turned to leave the giant hand reappeared behind him and attacked once again and sent him flying into the wooden 'X'. He fell to the ground right under it, but instead of landing on the ground he fell through it as if there wasn't anything there. He continued to fall deeper underground until he hit solid ground. He was sure the fall was going to kill him, but somehow he didn't get hurt at all.
Standing up he brushed the dirt off his clothes and looked around to see where he landed. It seemed he was in a cave deep under the chamber he just came from. He seemed to be at the end of a tunnel that didn't lead anywhere, so his only option was to see if there was a way out at the beginning of the tunnel.
As Link followed the only path he started to hear a high pitch noise from further up ahead. The noise continued to grow louder and louder the further he went until the tunnel opened to a large cavern. The noise was the sound of people screaming from a large underground lake that was glowing green and had a scary fog floating above it. Bodies were launching out of the water as they tried to pull themselves out of the water and onto a floating logs that created a path across the lake. Each time one of the people leapt out of the water they would let out a horrifying scream as they were dragged back down again from something in the water.
Around the edge of the lake were large numbers of redead that seemed to be standing guard to make sure no one was able to escape the water. On the other side of the lake was a ladder that appeared to go back up to the area of the well he fell from, but in order to get there he was either going to have to go all the way around the lake and pass very large groups of redead, or take his chances on the wooden planks that were floating in the water that all the people were trying to climb up onto. He knew if he went across the logs there was a chance they would grab him and pull him into the water with them, and if that were to happen he might be in the same mess they were in. After debating with himself for a moment he decided he needed to be a hero and try to rescue some of the people from the lake. He knew he would be putting himself in danger, but he wouldn't be able to call himself a true hero if he didn't at least try to save them.
Moving as quietly as possible to not draw the attention of the redead he made his way over to the closest floating log and realized they were flat planks he could easily walk on, but it wasn't very wide, so he had to balance on them very carefully as he made his way across. The plank were fixed to some poles sticking out of the water, so he didn't need to worry about it moving or shifting as he made his way across, but as he climbed onto them he looked down he noticed how high it was compared to the water below and instantly knew if he fell off, it would cause a lot of problems trying to get back out. Most of the people that were screaming from the water were closer to the middle of the lake, so he continued to balance along the path from one plank to the next until he was finally in the area they were jumping out from.
Suddenly one of the people leapt out from the water and tried to climb up. They were covered in the glowing green water, but as Link reached down to help the person a sudden chill was sent through his body as it quickly became apparent what he thought were people were actually redead that somehow got trapped in the water. Retracting his arm quickly he looked around frantically and noticed other redead in the water had noticed him and began moving towards him. Realizing he needed to get out of there fast he took off running towards the side with the ladder, but the path across was too narrow and wasn't in a straight line to safely run while trying to maintain his balance and avoid the redead that were jumping out at him. Slowing back down he was able to maintain his balance a lot better, but he constantly had to avoid being pulled in by all the redead around him.
The redead on the edges of the lake heard all the commotion and began moving towards the two points on the shore where you could get on or off the path across. He was now completely trapped with no safe path to take, and it seemed he would be pulled into the water and drowned, or he was going to be torn to shreds by the ones approaching from the shore. With no safe way out of that situation it seemed he was going to die.
With one final idea he decided to take out his sword and started chopping the parts of the plank he was on so it would break free from the others. He had to chase away a few of the redead that tried to jump up and grab him with his sword, but once they noticed he had a weapon they started to keep away from him a little more. With a large crash the plank landed in the water and started floating. He had to hold on tight as it started drifting through the water, and once he was floating away all the redead that were coming from shore stopped and watched him in confusion. The redead in the water started moving towards him again, but without a paddle he had no way to move the piece of wood he was on. Frantic for anything he started using the master sword as a paddle and began moving through the water. It wasn't working very well, but after a lot of struggling he finally managed to get far enough away from the middle of the lake and the redead stopped following him. The redead that were close by seemed to fear him using his sword on them and remained at a distance.
Once he reached the shore he quickly raced to the ladder before any of the redead could get over to him. It was a very tall ladder, but he was ready to get out of there, so he climbed up as fast as he could and was finally free of that horrible underground lake.
Back at the underground lake the actors that were playing redead took off their masks and began to talk to each other about what just happened with Link.
"Did you see how frightened that guy was?" an actor said laughing. "Do you think Dampe went overboard with how scary it was?"
"He was terrified." Another actor said with a grin. "But he shouldn't have had a weapon in here. Dampe set everything up so you wouldn't need weapons in here."
"I think we need to report this to Impa." A third actor said as he climbed out of the glowing water. "He's going to be heading for the well monster soon, and if he thought we were scary who knows what he'll do to those actors."