Chapter Twenty Eight – Making friends in the graveyard
Once Link was back outside he felt much better, but he knew he still needed to figure out a way into the shadow temple. As he wondered through the town he heard the people talking about the shadow temple, but the only thing he could gather was there was an old way in through the graveyard, but it seemed the path was blocked off by a large fence at the top of a very high cliff where the entrance used to be located.
When he finally got to see it, it almost appeared to be a balcony instead of an entrance, but he was sure it was the only way into the temple. The graveyard was mostly empty, but there were a few kids playing, and two guys that had their hands tide up to poles next to a large platform. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he was more focused on trying to solve his own problem at the moment. While he was standing there he overheard the kids talking about becoming a hero.
"I can't wait until my mom lets me become the village hero. It sounds like so much fun!" the boy exclaimed excitedly.
"I want to do it too." The little girl said that was playing there with him.
"You can't do it because you're a girl." The boy said with a mean tone.
"I can too." The girl said angrily as she stomped her foot down. "Mom said I could, so there." The little girl stuck her tongue out at the boy and this made him angry.
"Well, I'm going to be a better hero that you!" the boy said in retaliation. "I even have my own sword. You don't have a sword, so you can't be a hero."
"You don't have a sword." The girl said as she put her hands on her hips. "That's just a stick you found on the ground."
The two kids kept arguing with each other until they began threatening to tell on each other, then took off out of the graveyard and back to town. Link was glad to see the kids wanted to become heroes like him, but he knew he couldn't leave such a dangerous job to kids. Turning back to the current problem he began trying to figure out a way up to the fence at the top of the cliff.
After a moment he noticed some ropes that were being used on the platform. They were hanging from a long wooden beam that was high above the platform, and the ends of the rope were tide into loops. They appeared to be long enough to reach where he needed them to go if he untied them from the beam and tied them together. The two men that were tied to the poles next to the platform watched Link carefully as he took down the ropes and began to tie the loose pieces together to make one long rope. He then went over to the cliff side and began trying to throw the rope up to the fence, but the rope was just too light to throw, and he wasn't strong enough to get it all the way to the top.
"Hey kid." One of the guys at the pole said. "It looks like you could use some help. How about you untie us and we'll help you get that rope up there for you?"
Link looked at them questionably since they were tied up.
"I know what it looks like kid, but we're innocent. The people in this town are claiming we're serial killers, but that's not true. They're going to hang us for crimes they can't prove."
Link thought about it for a moment and realized how ridiculous it sounded. Why would the town want to kill two people for being cereal killers? It didn't make sense to him how you could kill cereal, so it seemed obvious to him these guys were innocent, so he went over and used his sword to free them.
The guy that was doing all the talking picked up a rock and approached Link. As he loomed over with a strange smile on his face, he took the rope out of Link's hands and tied it to the rock; then launched it high in the air and made it so Link was now able to climb up to the shadow temple. As Link made his ascent, the two guys took off out of the graveyard. When Link made it to the top of the cliff he pulled the rope up to make sure none of the kids in town could follow him in. He didn't want to put their lives in danger.
As he was about to head into the cave that led to the entrance of the shadow temple he noticed some other guys come into the graveyard and seemed really angry.
"How did those guys escape?" The first guy said angrily. "I had them tided up so tight no one could've gotten free."
"Look here." The other guy said as he picked up the rope. "It seems there's a third killer helping these two. These ropes were cut free."
"We need to find them and make them pay for what they did to that family. The entire house is condemned due to all the skulltula's they stuck in there to kill the family. We are going to need to burn the entire house just to protect the rest of the town from this mess."
Link was already bored with listening to what they were saying and was heading into the cave without hearing what the captured men actually did. He was now more focused on saving the town than dealing with some crazy punishment for two guys being punished for killing cereal.
The room just outside the main door to the temple was a very large circular cavern with lanterns filling the entire room. In the center of the room was a circular stone platform with a symbol that looked like fire on it; and at the opposite side of the room was a large door that was sealed shut. It seemed he needed to find a way to light all the torches in order to open the door to the temple, but he didn't have anything to make fire with. Whiling trying to figure out how to solve the puzzle he suddenly remembered Malon's mom gave him a strange crystal while she was pretending to be a great fairy a long time ago. He wasn't sure why he held onto it for all these years, but he figured if it actually worked it would at least help him continue his mission.
Throwing the crystal into the middle of the platform it bounced off the stone slab and rolled away. It turned out to be a normal marble and nothing more. Feeling frustrated for believing it might have worked; he ignored the marble and looked around the room once again to see if there was anything that might be able to help him create some fire. On the far side of the room there was a torch propped up against the wall with some flint lying next to it. Placing the flint next to the torch he swung his sword at it and it instantly lit the torch. Using the torch to light the closest lanterns he quickly realized he wasn't going to have enough time to light them all before they would go out. Once again looking around the room he noticed a lantern that was lit high above the room, and it seemed to be surrounded by bomb flowers for decoration. Using the torch in his hand he threw it as hard as he could up towards the bomb flowers and it instantly exploded with a tremendous flame that engulfed the room. Link quickly drop to the ground to avoid getting hit by the flames, but was astonished it actually worked.
At first it looked like the plan worked, but when he got back up he noticed one of the lanterns on the far end of the room was still unlit. Racing over to where the torch landed, he quickly grabbed it and ran over to the unlit lantern, but as he got it to light another one went out on the completely opposite side from where he was at. Racing back across the room once again he lit the lantern, but this time multiple torches were starting to go out. With as much speed as he could gather he raced around the room relighting as many lanterns as he could, but each time he managed to light one, one or more would go out. With his energy quickly running out he needed to figure out another way to get all the torches lit at once, but he had no idea what to do, and by now most of the lanterns were out.
Finally Link had to give up and just accepted he wasn't going to be able to light them all. As he stood there watching the last few go out he began feeling defeated, and his goal of saving Hyrule was no longer possible. His eyes he fell to the ground in despair as he moved over to the platform in the middle of the room to sit down from exhaustion, and think about the situation he was now in. As he sat down he tried to figure out what he did wrong. Suddenly Link felt the platform shift beneath him as it dropped a few inches and instantly all the torches became lit and the large door opened to reveal the way into the temple.