===== December 9, 2022 - Floor 3: Inside the Deku Tree =====
Link, Zelda and Paya took a moment to allow their eyes to adjust to the dimness of the dungeon. In the first chamber, which seemed to stretch all the way to the ceiling, they noticed a ladder, a vine-covered wall with what looked like a spider crawling on it, and an unlit brazier.
All of this surrounded a pit covered by a thick net of spiderwebs, which looked to have something shiny caught in the middle of it. Link and Zelda ignored it and made their way over to the ladder.
Paya, on the other hand... something about that shiny called to her like a beacon.
As a result, she got trapped in the webs.
"I seem to be stuck here," she said with more than a little trepidation. "Any assistance would be- wait, where are you going?"
"To clear this dungeon," Link replied as he climbed the ladder.
"You're leaving me here?"
"If you can scream, that means you can breathe," Zelda noted. "You'll be fine until we get back. Just don't struggle too much."
The two players walked up a ramp along the edge of the room until they reached another, larger vine-covered wall. Beyond that was a door covered in spiderwebs.
"So... many... spiderwebs..." Zelda said as she backed up closer to Link.
"Trust me when I say the webs aren't what I'm concerned about," Link whispered.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Obvi something made those webs, and I'd bet money we're gonna run into it at some point."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"It's supposed to get you to move your ass... there." Link pointed to the top of the wall of vines. "Looks like the only way is up. These vines are sturdy enough to climb, and there are no enemies on the wall."
"Fair enough... I don't have any better ideas."
They climbed as high as they could, dismounting on a ledge to their left and slaying a Deku Baba that dared stick its neck out. Behind it stood a ledge overlooking the webbed pit, while beyond it they saw another webbed doorway. This one had an unlit brazier behind it, until Link spotted and stepped on a nearby floor switch which lit not only the nearby brazier, but the two on levels below.
With the webbing now burned away, the pair entered the nearby doorway only to have iron bars slam shut behind them. They were now locked in a room on a small ledge with a floor switch and a burning brazier, another ledge on the far side of the room, and a third in a small alcove in the right wall.
All of which paled in importance to the dozens of wriggling orbs on the walls and ceiling.
"What the hell are those?" Zelda whispered, trying to contain how truly terrified she was.
"Hmm... let's get a closer look." Link used the Sheikah Slate's scope to zoom in on one of the squirming spheres and got a name: 'Gohma Egg.'
"Gohma Eggs... that doesn't help a whole lot."
"I wish they'd do something other than sit on the walls like that. They're creeping me out."
"All right, well... let's try this." Link took out his bow and aimed at an egg on the far side of the ceiling.
"Do you have any clue what's about to happen if you shoot that thing?"
Link let the arrow fly and barely got the word "nope" out before it struck its target, causing the creature inside it to hatch and fall to the ground. It was... well, Zelda described it simply as "an eye with two legs and a leaf on its head" called a Gohma Larva, and on top of whatever attacks it had, it also chirped.
It chirped at a low volume, yet loud enough to hatch every single other egg in the room.
Zelda nervously took a small step back towards the door. "Well, at least we're up on this ledge, and they can't get up here, right?"
"I don't know," Link said as he drew his shield and sword, "but I'm not waiting to find out!"
And with that, he leapt off the ledge and into the pit that was now swarming with Gohma Larvae.
What made you think that was a good idea? Zelda asked internally, drawing her sword and joining him in the fray.
The critters weren't exceptionally dangerous on their own; their only attack was a full-body lunge, which they telegraphed by turning their single eye from yellow to red before they pounced. They also could be taken out with a single hit from Zelda, and one or two hits from Link (direct stabs to the eye took them out instantly). The problem was their constant stream of sheer numbers, which made clearing the room feel a lot more draining that it really was. But eventually, clear it they did, spawning a treasure chest in the southern alcove.
The only problem was that said alcove was too high up to reach. Zelda ordered Link to stay down below while she climbed back up to the ledge they had entered from. She scanned the room and noticed two things in the floor. One was an unlit torch they had somehow ignored. But with no source of fire...
...except the burning brazier next to her...
She had an idea that she had seen work in other games before. She drew her bow and nocked and arrow, then held the arrowhead in the flame. Surprisingly, it caught fire and allowed her to shoot it at the torch in the center of the floor, spawning another chest on the ledge on the far side of the room.
Okay, that's one problem solved...
And a new one created. There were now two treasure chests in the room, and they couldn't figure out how to reach either of them, until Zelda noticed something odd about the grass. There seemed to be three circles cut into the grass, but how or by what, she couldn't fathom.
"Hey, Link?"
"Yeah?"
"Do me a favor: stand between that torch and that alcove, will you?"
"Okay, sure." Link shrugged and did as she asked, standing between the two objects she had pointed out, and in the middle of one of the grass circles. Zelda then stepped on the floor switch, producing three round platforms they could use to leap to the chests. As soon as they stopped moving, Link leapt to the alcove nearest him and retrieved a Dungeon Map from his chest. Zelda, meanwhile, sprinted and bounded to the far ledge and opened a chest containing a very peculiar item: "Sheikah Cypher: H." She had absolutely no idea what to make of that, so she decided not to dwell on it for the moment.
With this room finally clear, they returned to the main trunk. They descended to the second floor, which only had the single door covered in webs leading away from it. After shouting down to Paya to make sure she was all right - she was, just extremely exhausted so could they please make haste - they used another flaming arrow from the brazier across the floor to burn away the webbing and proceed onward.
Greeting them as they entered the next room were about a dozen Gohma Eggs and a massive Deku Baba, maybe fifteen feet tall with a head larger than either Link or Zelda. It lunged at them as they entered but came up just short by maybe a foot or two.
"Well, any ideas?" Link asked his companion.
"We gotta kill the Baba first," Zelda offered. "And we have to kill it from here. If those eggs hatch first, they're going to make our lives miserable."
"Yeah, I think... you're... wait a sec, I have another idea."
"What?"
"If we back up all the way to the corners, the Gohma Larvae can reach us, but-"
Zelda yelped as the Deku Baba snapped in their direction once more. "But the Baba can't. We can use our arrows to safely pick them off from a distance, then deal with the elephant in the room."
The two players took their places in the near left and right corners of the room, giving them a little more room to maneuver. Not much, thanks to how narrow the room was, but enough to put their plan into action. There was no coordination this time; they just started firing. A couple of the larvae got into sword range, but nothing they couldn't handle. After that, the giant Deku Baba was slain almost effortlessly, leaving Link and Zelda in an empty room with an eye switch over a barred door. Without even thinking, Zelda shot it right in the pupil, closing the eye and raising the bars.
"Good job," Link said with a light swat to her bottom. "Almost like you've done this before."
"Keep that up, and we might never make it out of here," she purred.
The next room had a pair of small platforms suspended in midair, which led to another ledge with another large treasure chest. The wall of said ledge was covered with vines home to spiders called Skullwalltulas according to Link's Sheikah Slate. He barely had time to register it before - thwip! thwip! thwip! - Zelda shot each and every single one. She was breathing heavy and had a crazed look in her eyes.
"Hey, you all right?"
"You know how much I fucking hate spiders."
"I... did not, actually. Lesson learned, I suppose."
"Yeah, you think?" She calmed herself down; after all, all the creepy-crawlies were dead now. "I'm all right... I'll wait here while you go grab that chest."
"Okay, I'll be right back." He backed up to the door to get a running start, then leapt to the first platform. Before he could make it to the second, the biggest, creepiest, crawliest monster they had encountered to this point made its sudden appearance, descending from the ceiling and knocking Link out of the air to the floor below.
"Are you all right?" Zelda called out in a panic.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just winded," Link groaned as he got back to his feet and stared his foe down. This particular monster, called a Skulltula, was a massive eight-legged monstrosity with an impervious carapace shaped like a skull. Arrows deflected harmlessly away from it, and any attempt to get close enough to strike it with his sword resulted in Link being knocked on his ass by the spider's spin attack.
Link was busy trying to figure out a plan of attack when the Skulltula suddenly started to recede to the ceiling, then fell flailing onto its back. He didn't hesitate to drive his sword into its squishy underbelly, causing it to explode in a shower of crystal shards. Zelda then drifted lazily through the air and landed next to him.
"How did you do that?" he asked incredulously.
"With this." She opened up her inventory, and in the 'Key Items' section was a new item: the Paraglider. "It lets you glide through the air, kind of like flying. Follow me." They climbed the vine wall to the ledge with the now empty chest.
"Cross your hands above your head," she instructed, and he complied. "Now, run off the ledge, and open your arms overhead. Tilt your hands down to glide forward, up to go backwards, and pull down left or right to move in that direction. Watch me." She crossed her hands above her head, ran off the ledge and opened her arms, causing a cloth device to appear over her head. She steered it with the handles she was now holding, and landed in the alcove they had entered the room from.
Huh... looks easy enough. All right, here we go! Link did the exact same thing Zelda had done, step-by-step, and was able to land himself next to her. "Wow... that's awesome. But, what happened to the spider?" he asked as they passed through the previous room.
"Oh, that's easy," she said with a smirk. "I cut its linkage thread while I was in the air."
"Huh... makes sense enough. Well, we've cleared the top three floors of this dungeon. Now all that's left is the basement."
"But there are no doors or stairs on the first floor, so how... are we..." She looked over the ledge, down to the web-covered pit.
"You got an idea?"
"Yup. Climb."
They climbed the large vine wall inside the main trunk back to the third floor, and found themselves on a ledge overlooking the pit. "Fire arrows aren't gonna burn away a web that big. But it looks like if we hit it with something heavy enough, from high enough, it might just break away." She equipped her full plate armor.
"Wait a sec... when you say something heavy enough... do you really mean, someone?"
She looked up at him with a guilty grin. "You catch on quick."
Link froze in terror. "No way, you caaaaaaaaaa-"
Turned out Zelda can, could, and did mean that, because she grabbed Link and leapt off the ledge, sending them both screaming and hurtling toward the center of the web!
The impact of their combined body weight stretched the web as far as it would go, leaving them breathless for the briefest moment - if it didn't break and they were stuck, they were stuck - and then the web broke away, dropping Link, Zelda, Paya, and whatever shiny thing had caught her eye into a short pool in the basement.
Link was the first to surface. "Zelda! Paya! You guys okay?"
Zelda made her way to a knee-deep platform and changed back into her Royal Armor. "I'm fine."
Paya swam to where Zelda and now Link were standing. "I'm okay as well."
"See? I told you you'd be fine," Zelda winked.
"Before we continue, there is something I must find," Paya said.
"The thing you saw in the spiderweb?" Link replied. "I didn't get a good look at it, but it was shiny which means it's more than likely made of metal. And if it's made of metal..." He pulled out his Sheikah Slate and scanned the pool with its Magnesis Rune. "There's something right there." He fired the magnet beam at a bright pink spot in the slate's field of view. It latched on, and he pulled the object toward him. It was an ornate staff with a bright red orb at one end. He picked it up and it vanished into his inventory, and a pop-up appeared in its place:
You found the Magic Rod!
A Sheikah relic that summons fire. It attacks over a wide area, so it's perfect for bringing the heat on large groups of enemies.
A message then popped up in his inbox:
Sender: System
As you travel, you may come across weapons and items that don't fit your fighting style. However, if you hold onto them, you may find that a potential ally finds them useful.
A potential ally...
"Paya?"
"Yes, Link?"
"When you found us at your grandmother's house, you said you and your sister were scouting that bokoblin camp we wiped out before you got separated, right?"
"Yes. As far as I could tell, she ran into the Kokiri Forest. Why? You don't think she tried to hide somewhere in the Deku Tree?"
"I think," he said with more than a slight scowl, "the sooner we clear this dungeon, the better."
There was a floor switch on the platform nearest the trio. Stepping on it lit a brazier on a platform across the water. Zelda used it to light a fire arrow and burn away a wall of webbing to reveal another floor switch, which spawned a treasure chest on the platform with the first switch. Link doubled back to open it and recieved a few thousand Col. Another eye switch and barred doors kept the party from the next room, but only momentarily.
The next room contained a decent number of enemies they had already fought, along with several Deku Scrubs that spat rock-like projectiles at the party. Approaching them caused them to hide in their bushy bases, but Link figured out that reflecting the rocks back at the Scrubs caused them to run around in panic for a few brief moments, leaving them wide open to sword attacks. Once the room was clear, the door behind them unbarred, but the door in front remained gated shut. There were two unlit torches in the room, one on either side of the door, but again no source of flame in the room.
"Hmm... stay here, I have an idea," Zelda said as she ran back to the previous room. She returned a moment later with a flaming arrow drawn and was able to fire it at one of the torches just before it extinguished. She then used the one torch to light the other, opening the way forward.
The next room had a floor switch colored blue instead of the typical gold and an unlit brazier on their side, a Skulltula on the far side blocking the exit door, a pool of water between the two, and across the pool was a spinning bar of spikes.
"First things first, we need to light those torches. Zelda, if you would do the honors?"
"Right." Zelda stepped on the floor switch to light the brazier, but as she stepped off, the flame went out before she could light an arrow. Link stood on it in her place. "It's a pressure switch. It'll only activate if there's weight on it. Go ahead."
"Huh... neat." She lit an arrow on fire and was able to successfully light one torch, but it went out before she could light the other one. She tried several times, but she could not get both torches to burn at the same time.
Link watched as Zelda threw her bow to the floor in frustration and sat down in a huff. Paya looked over the room, while Link knelt down behind Zelda and wrapped his arms around her. Suddenly she sprang up and began looking frantically about the room, finally locking eyes on the Sheikah warrior. "Paya, stand on that switch and stay there!"
"...As you command." She did as she was told, her weight keeping the brazier alight.
"All right... now Link, get your bow ready and aim at the torch on the right." Zelda had a clear sense of excitement to her voice, which made absolutely no sense to Paya. But Link seemed to be perfectly fine with following her commands.
...Or was he?
Was it just her imagination, or was Link moving slightly faster than Zelda could speak? As she and Link aimed their arrows across the room, it dawned on Paya.
Link had already figured the puzzle out; he just needed to get Zelda back in focus.
They let their arrows fly, and they both struck at the same time, keeping both torches lit and opening the door on the far side. Link saw fit to shoot one more arrow, severing the Skulltula's ceiling thread and knocking it to the ground. He also propped up a Cryonis pillar on the far side of the pool, which they then used to climb out and onto the far ledge. They decided to ignore the spider for now, as it had flipped onto its belly and was scurrying around menacingly if not slowly, so running past it and through the door was easy enough.
The next room was small, simple, and swarming with enemies. Deku Scrubs, Gohma Larvae, even annoying bats called Keese in numbers too large to count. So, the players did what they did best: wade in and slay out. It took some effort, and both players took a modest amount of damage, but eventually they triumphed and were able to press on through the room. The room they entered had a few enemies (which they dispatched easily enough), four unlit braziers surrounded by a floor switch, and two exits covered in spiderwebs. Once again, Paya held the switch down while Link and Zelda used flaming arrows to burn away the webs.
"Two rooms, huh... which way do we go first?" Zelda thought out loud.
"Let me pull up the map... okay, here we are... we should take that door first," Link said, pointing toward the northeast exit. "It's a standalone room, leading right back here."
"A prudent decision," Paya consented, and the group entered yet another room occupied by a giant Deku Baba and several Gohma Eggs. The simliar scenario was suited to the similar approach, except this time they had the advantage of a third sword at work, and thus the room was cleared extremely quickly. After the last enemy fell, another treasure chest spawned, this one containing "Sheikah Cypher: P."
As they backtracked through the room with the braziers to the exit they hadn't used yet, Link tried to get Zelda's insight on the Sheikah Cyphers, but unfortunately she was as lost as he was. "Maybe we can research them in the Necluda Library once we're finished in here."
"Good idea."
The party came out on a ledge in the room they had initially landed in. The only thing on their side of the room was another large pit.
A large pit that, as far as Link and Zelda could see, was swarming with hundreds of Skullwalltulas and Gohma Larvae.
"No way," Zelda said, shrinking back in fear. "I am not climbing down there!"
"Yeah, not gonna argue that," Link said pensively. "Wait a sec... we don't have to climb at all." He took a couple steps back.
It took Zelda the briefest of moments to realize what he was doing. He was right; they weren't going to climb down that pit at all; they were going to glide.
Using the Paragliders they found in the upper level of the dungeon, they glid smoothly down the pit, staying well clear of the walls so as not to agitate the enemies residing on it. Eventually the pit opened up into a massive lake-like room, with three Deku Scrubs taking up residence on the shoreline in front of a barred door. They swam to the shore as Paya did a swan dive into the lake behind them. Link and Zelda looked at each other.
"We could have just done that, you know."
"We could have, but we couldn't see what was at the bottom of that pit at the time."
"Fair enough."
As they approached the far left edge of the shore, all three Deku Scrubs started firing non-stop. Link stunned the first Scrub, but instead of hopping around the room like its species usually did, it just froze in place and starting making a really weird noise, like it was crying for help. "That's weird," Link pointed out. "Let's take care of the other two."
They took care of the other two, moving across the shoreline. As Link stunned the third Scrub, they heard a buzzing sound and all three retreated, only to resurface moments later. "Back to the water!" Zelda shouted. Link followed, and all three party members swam a safe distance away from shore.
"Got an idea?" Link asked Zelda.
"Yeah, I do. We obviously have to stun all three of those things at once, right? But, what if we have to hit them in a certain order?"
"Great," Link groaned. "And how do we go about finding what that order is?"
"Hmm..." Zelda focused on the shore, the gears in her head clearly turning. "I got it! There's good news and bad news. The bad news is, we have to guess the order."
"Awesome," Link groaned. "What's the good news?"
"The good news, presuming the combination stays the same, is that there are only six possible combinations. And even better, you've already used one, left-center-right."
"That is good news. What do you suggest I do next?"
"Hmm... left-right-center?"
"Sounds good to me." He swam back to the shore and defeated the Scrubs left-right-center, and they all disappeared and the bars disappeared from the door. "Wow... I can't believe that actually worked."
"Of course it did... it was my idea, after all," Zelda giggled.
Link smiled at her. "Yeah, it was. And it was a good one."
The party healed up one final time before entering the boss chamber.