Chapter Twenty Nine – Hidden History Revealed

My scouts informed me about a situation that just happened in Kakariko Village. It seems two criminals managed to escape execution with the help of a third unknown assailant. These dangerous people managed to murder the richest family in the village and looted all their belongings. It turns out they used the most poisonous spider known in Hyrule, the skulltula.

The path into the temple was very dark, but after a moment it opened up to a larger room with a circular pattern in the bricks on the floor, and poles were sticking out of the ground with flaming skulls on top that encompassed the perimeter of the circle. In the middle of the circle was a strange pedestal that seemed to be pointing to one of the poles as if it were a clock, but there wasn't enough poles for it to match the hours in a day.

Suddenly he remembered he still had the lens of truth, so he took it out and used it to look around. It seemed only one of the poles had a skull with flames coming out of it, and all the others vanished when he looked at them through the lens. Moving the pedestal to point in the direction of the pole with the only skull on fire he waited a moment for something to happen, but nothing changed. Looking around the room he noticed there was a doorway on the far side of the room, but there was a deep hole that prevented him from getting across, and it was too far way for him to jump across, but even if he were to make it across he wouldn't be able to go anywhere since there were bars that prevented him from getting through.

Once again taking out the lens he continued looking around the room and noticed there was a door hidden behind a fake wall. Deciding to head through the door he found himself in a dimly lit room. The room he was now in seemed more like a cave than a temple since the walls were just dirt instead of stone. There also seemed to be bones sticking out of the dirt, and he could hear a strange whispering that seemed to be coming from them, but it was hard to make out what it was saying, so he just ignored it and kept going.

Continuing along the path he came to a treasure chest that was just sitting in the middle of a passageway. Using the lens again he realized there was a fake wall behind the treasure chest that was hiding another room. Link moved over to the treasure chest and opened it, and to his amazement he found some golden boots that had wings on them. He wasn't sure what they were for, but thought they looked amazing, so he put them on. Using the lens again he looked into the next room and realized there was another monster in there that had arms sticking out of the ground. He didn't want to deal with another one of those creatures, so he turned around and began heading back the way he came.

When he got back to the first room with the moving pedestal he realized he still didn't know where to go, and he didn't want to go back to deal with another one of those long arm monsters unless he had to. Pulling the lens back out again he noticed the skull on top of the pole had changed to a different location than before, so he pushed the pedestal once again to line up with the pole the skull was now on. After waiting for a moment he realized nothing was happening, so he pulled the lens back out and looked at the pole, and to his astonishment the skull was once again on a different pole. With a bit of frustration he once again pushed the pedestal to point to the correct pole, but once again nothing happened. Pulling out the lens once again he looked up at the poles to see where it must have moved to this time, but to his surprise the skull was gone and wasn't on any of the poles. Looking around the room he noticed it was now above the doorway that was barred off. He still didn't have a way to get across the giant gap and figured if he pointed the pedestal towards the door it might open and reveal a bridge he could use to cross.

With one final push, the pedestal was now pointing towards the doorway and the bars rose to allow him through, but he still needed to figure out how to get across. As he started to walk towards the large pit the floor under his feet dropped out to what appeared to be an endless void. Freezing in place from the thought of falling into such a deep hold, he suddenly realized he wasn't falling, but instead he was standing in midair as a faint glow emitted from the boots he was wearing.

After a moment the ground returned to its original position and the glow vanished from the shoes. He wasn't sure how the shoes kept him from falling, but he was glad he put them on. Moving over to the large gap between him and the doorway he placed one foot off the edge, and the boot instantly started glowing again and allowed him to cross over the void without falling down. As he approached the ledge where the door was the glow from the boots vanished and his feet lost the solid foundation he was walking on. As he began falling towards the darkness he quickly reached for the ledge and barely managed to grab it. As he pulled himself up he noticed the boots had fallen off his feet and into the endless void.

Hoping he wouldn't need the special boots again he turned to head through the doorway and down into a long dark corridor. The floor kept sloping further and further downward until he slipped from how steep and slick the floor was and ended up sliding uncontrollably deeper into the darkness. Suddenly lanterns started appearing along the walls, and then giant guillotine blades began drop down from the darkness above. The blades kept missing him as he slid by, but just barely. Giant spiders also began dropping from the darkness above, but he was moving too fast for them to get close.

The slide went on for a few minutes until it let out on a very narrow path that ended abruptly where a guillotine high above was set to drop down on the path. As he struggled to find a way to slow himself down before reaching the end of the path, he quickly realized his speed was too great and he ended up flying off the edge of the path just as the guillotine dropped and barely missed slicing him in two. He flew through the air and crashed onto another part of the path that seemed to be cut off from the part he just came from, but he was still moving too fast as he was once again heading towards another guillotine that was positioned at end of the path.

Moving his body around he managed to slow down a lot, but it wasn't enough to stop him from going over the edge. At that moment the guillotine dropped and hit the ground before he went through and prevented him from going over the edge, but the speed he was traveling at sent him crashing into the flat side of the blade hard. Though he was now in a lot of pain he was glad to no longer be sliding out of control. As he got back up he looked around the area and noticed how all the broken pieces of land seemed to form a slide, but at the end of each section was the guillotine that tried to slice you in half as you went through. The design seemed to be a very dangerous, but he figured it was probably to keep people out of there, or kill them for trying to break in. Link followed the path of the slide with his eyes to see where it would have brought him, and to his astonishment it lead to a giant void where it would just drop you into nothingness. At the end of the slide was a sign that seemed to be painted in blood that read: 'RUN'. Pulling out the lens of truth he looked at the void and noticed there were invisible platforms placed across the room. If he had the boots that allowed him to walk on air he would have had enough speed built up from the slide to run from one platform to the next, but without them he would have fallen into the darkness below.

Looking around he noticed a very small path that led away from the slide and towards another area of the temple. The path seemed to be very narrow and fractured in multiple places as it crossed over the dark void. He couldn't see where the path led since it vanished into a vail of darkness, but it seemed there was no other option than to take the dangerous path, as it appeared there was no other way out of there.

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to go that way, but with no other option available, he jumped over a small gap and almost lost his balance. Quickly dropping to a crouching position, he used his hands to help balance as he moved along the narrow path to avoid falling into the endless void. Once he felt more confident with his balance he stood back up and began following the long narrow path. Looking back he noticed he was moving in the opposite direction of where the slide was going to take him, and the further he moved away, the more of the path he was on disappeared behind him into darkness. As he continued to follow the path it quickly became darker, which made it much harder to balance on the path and a strange whispering was growing louder all around him.

When Link finally reached the end of the path he was standing at a large wall that had a giant hole busted out of it. The stones were really large and heavy, so whatever made the hole must have been really powerful. Once inside he found himself in a prison with cells lining the walls and torture equipment all over the place. Dried blood covered everything, and bones were piled up all over the place. The whispering seemed to be coming from all over the room, and as he drew closer to a pile of bones the words slowly became easier to understand.

"I know about the war." The voice whispered. "Hyrule's king has a dark secret."

Link tried hard to listen close to what was being said, but there were so many voices that began speaking at the same time. "Innocent blood was shed here." One of the voices said. "Hero of Hyrule united what the king destroyed." Another voice said. "Magic opened the Twilight gate." Yet another voice said. "The Twilight invaded Hyrule." A fourth voice whispered.

Link was unable to follow everything that was being said since the voices kept talking at the same time, so he moved to another pile of bones and heard it whisper to him as well. "I know the heroes of Hyrule." The voice whispered. This time Link tried to allow his mind to listen more to what was being said and not focus on who was talking. "Twilight traitor saved hero. Hero turned traitor. Hero sentenced to death. Innocent man used by king. Innocent man loves traitor. Love ripped away. Baby left abandoned in forest. Hero and traitor closed the gate. Traitor woman executed in Twilight. Hero and innocent man separated by king.

When the voices started repeating some of the same messages he moved over to a third pile of bones and tried to listen again. "I know the cursed child." The voice whispered. Once again he focused on listen to what was being said and not the voice that was saying it. "Hyrule's king eradicated knowledge of the past. Darkness released again. King obtained child of evil. Sealed darkness within her. Mind of daughter split. King searches to lift the curse. Three minds trapped in one. Innocent man searching for cure. Find the three golden triangles. Innocent man lost. Innocent tears from desert. Finish what has been started."

Link wasn't sure what to make of all the information the voices were saying to him, but he did find it interesting the bones were somehow able to whisper to him, but he quickly lost interest in what was being whispered and started looking around the room. There were so many things to see, but most of what was in there was covered in dried blood and guts, so he didn't touch anything. There were two doors on opposite sides of the room; both of them were very heavy steel doors, but one of the doors had drag marks from dried blood on the floor, and the other had claw marks scrapped deep into the metal.

Going over to the door that had the claw marks he found the door to be locked, so he moved to the other and found it was still slightly open. He was glad the door wasn't locked or he was going to have to walk back along that narrow path again. While he traveled down the long corridor he started noticing a lot of claw marks in the stone, and blood seemed to be splattered everywhere. At the end of the corridor he found himself in a large room full of redead standing completely still as if they were sleeping.

Holding his breath he wasn't sure if any of them saw him through their wooden masks, but none of them were moving towards him. With trembling legs he turned to head back the way he just came from as metal bars dropped down and blocked his way back. Slowly turning back around he quickly realized his only option was to head towards a door on the far side of the room. The redead seemed to be split into two groups, one on the left side of the room and the other on the right, and from where he was standing all the way across to the other door was a clear path with no redead in his way, but there was a strange treasure chest placed in the middle of the room. As quietly as possible he began moving across the room, and hoped none of them would attack him as he went by.

Without making a sound he managed to make it all the way to where the treasure chest was located, but he had no intention of opening it, and continued heading for the door as quietly as possible. Once he made it all the way to the other door he noticed a sign that said the key to the door was inside the treasure chest. With a sigh of frustration he turned and headed back to the treasure chest.

Upon reaching the chest he took a quick glace around to make sure none of the redead were waking up or moving towards him. Once he was sure he was safe, he opened the chest and looked inside. To his surprise it was completely empty, then without warning a loud high-pitched scream began to come from within the chest. "AHHHHH!" the loud voice screamed from the chest. Realizing there was nothing inside the chest he quickly shut it in hopes the screaming would stop, but it didn't work and the screaming continued to grow louder. Looking around the room he realized all the redead were now awake and looking in his direction.