Chapter 6: On Top of Death Mountain
It had taken a day to reach the Sacred Forest Meadow, and it took another day to extricate himself once more. On the way to the entrance, he met the skull kid a second time, and this time, thinking of the forest, a way to win the being's trust occurred to him. He stood there, on the shorter stump, watching the skull kid with only one eye opened, as he pulled out the faerie ocarina, and played Saria's Song, fingers flying as he surreptitiously watched the skull kid.
The skull kid nodded along to the music, and straightened up, flute still at its lips. Link sensed that it watched him in its turn. He broke off the last note, and focused his gaze on the forest spirit before him, who was leaning forwards in his direction.
"You know Saria's Song?" the skull kid asked, voice eager and excited. "Then, we should be friends. You're a kokiri, right?"
Link hesitated, but the being didn't seem to want an answer. "Here's some advice for you. There's a business scrub through that path, by the gossip stone beyond the bridge. If you want to carry more deku sticks, I'm sure he'd be willing to help you…for a price! But, hey…could you do me a favour? Do you think my face looks a bit plain? I've heard that somewhere, far away…there's a strange fellow who sells masks…I wonder if he'd have a mask that better suits me than this face…would you keep a lookout for me?"
This time, he seemed to want an answer. "…Sure," Link said. The skull kid nodded, and backflipped off the tall tree stump upon which he stood, disappearing as he did.
After that, Link had followed the skull kid's advice, paying forty rupees for an upgrade to his deku stick carrying capacity (and noticing the longer roll of cloth in his mental inventory), and had crept out of the Lost Woods, not wanting to come across any of his old friends just yet.
He'd made the long trek back to Hyrule Castle, stopping by the castle courtyard to inform Impa and Zelda of the gorons' crisis, and asking their advice. Impa once more urged him to take his time, and not rush into things; the gorons weren't truly in immediate danger of starvation. She was more disturbed by the tales of the return of dodongos to the Dodongo's Cavern.
Before he went to the courtyard, he'd made sure to return to the Happy Mask Salesman, who had received the guard's yellow rupee (and another yellow rupee, to pay for Zelda's mask—it was telling that the man had only raised a single eyebrow, and said nothing, at the double payment), and traded it for a white mask like a skull. It was called the skull mask, and that name made him think of the skull kid. Perhaps, that name meant that the skull kid would find it too ordinary, but Link wouldn't know until he tried. As promised, he'd shown the mask to Zelda, who'd sighed.
"What an exciting mask!" she'd said, hands clasped, and gaze fixed dead ahead. "I bet it would be exciting to sneak past the guards wearing that."
Link might have suggested that they find out, if not for Impa's stern gaze seeming to transfix him. Instead, he'd given his abbreviated report, and been on his way.
He'd pondered current events, as he made the trek back to Kakariko Village, and set up Death Mountain. He found himself contemplating what manner of calamity Ganondorf had visited upon the zoras—or if they were not themselves yet afflicted. Zora's Domain had reported that all was well in their weekly report, but time had passed since then. Perhaps, he ought to have followed the river, instead, and he'd have found some way around Darunia, and his lack of ability to carry bombs.
Or, perhaps he would need that ability to help the zoras, as it was seeming that he would need to do.
Link arrived back at Goron City at sunset. He entered the uppermost ring, passing the goron near the entrance, and timing his drop to the floor below so as to avoid the rolling goron, then dropping again, and a final time, to the very bottom of the Goron City cavern. In only a few minutes, he had returned to the shut door to Darunia's chambers, face set with determination. He heard Navi's attempts to stifle a giggle at his expression, and shook his head. Perhaps, his expression did not befit a child, but the kokiris were a strange race anyway; probably not even the real Link was actually a child.
He took out the faerie ocarina again, switched out the deku shield for the Hylian one, for greater effect, and played Zelda's Lullaby. If Darunia could see who it was playing the song, he wouldn't have opened the door the last time. (Did it open on its own…?) He was confident that it would open this time, too.
He entered the main room of Darunia's suites again, where the man still stood, scowl firmly in place, heat seeming to come off him as if from a fire. Link stayed out of arm's reach, still clutching the ocarina, as he stood on the rug near where Darunia stood, and brought the ocarina to his lips once more.
Saria's Song was truly a miraculous tune. Since he'd learnt it from Saria, his nightmares had not returned. He'd had a good, solid night's sleep even on the road to Hyrule Castle. Now, it worked its magic again.
As Darunia heard the familiar music, a sudden, broad smile spread across his face, and he started to dance, jumping from leg to leg, swinging his arms to and fro, and spinning. It was an impressive, alarming, and (Link silently admitted to himself) a bit amusing, too. As the goron danced, he called out things, such as, "What a hot beat! Yeah!" as he threw himself into the frenzied beat. This was a man who could immerse himself completely in a song. It was as if there was nothing else in the world but the music.
But, at last, Link came to the end of the song, and he broke off the final note, waiting for Darunia's breathing to be regulated, and that unusual frenetic energy to dwindle.
Darunia stood there, caught his breath, and straightened up once more. His posture was more relaxed, despite the burgeoning scowl.
"What a great song! It's amazing…something came over me, and I suddenly felt I had to dance like crazy…it's been too long since that happened! I'm Darunia, the leader of the gorons! Welcome to Goron City! Was there something you wanted from me?"
Link blinked, startled by just how drastic the change was between the goron's earlier behaviour, and how he acted now.
"I was sent here as a messenger by the Princess," he said, testing the waters first. When Darunia just waited for him to continue, continue he did. "I came here seeking after the Spiritual Stone of Fire."
"So, that's it," Darunia mused, hand rising to his chin to stroke it. "You're after the spiritual stone….
"The Spiritual Stone of Fire, also known as the 'Goron's Ruby', is our race's hidden treasure…. But, hold on! I'm not going to give it to you that easily! You say that you're the Royal Family's messenger, eh? Well, how about you help your allies out with their crisis?
"Tell you what. You go slay the monsters infesting the Dodongo's Cavern, so that we can once again forage for food in the cavern, and I'll give you the Spiritual Stone of Fire. That way, everyone will be happy! And…let's see…you'd swiftly find your way impeded in the cavern, without the ability to use bombs…in fact, you'd probably need a bomb to blast the cavern open.
"So take this! I'm not really giving you this in return for anything…call it a sign of my trust. This is an old Goron treasure…the Goron's Bracelet, If you wear this, even a little—even someone as scrawny as you could pick up a bomb flower, and even carry and toss it, too. Just be careful…humans don't have as thick of skins as goron do. You could seriously injure yourself."
As he spoke, a bracelet appeared in the goron leader's hands. It was composed of a solid gold band with broad spikes tapering down at regular intervals, pointing towards the wrist, The man held out the bracelet, and Link slowly took it from him, holding it up towards the torchlight. It seemed an ordinary bracelet, if a bit odd in its design…certainly not anything that would allow him to lift great weights, but both Darunia and the goron he had asked before agreed that this would allow him to lift bomb flowers. He snapped the bracelet over his left wrist, and felt a strange tingling, as an unfamiliar energy gathered in his wrist, and flowed through his body.
"Thank you," Link said, bowing to the goron leader. "I will do as you have asked."
He was fairly certain that, despite his words, Darunia half-expected him to leave, retreat back to the castle, or Kokiri Forest, and never return.
Instead, he climbed up to the landslide he had noticed before. Where better to test his new equipment's abilities than an already caved-in tunnel? He ignored the goron standing there listening to the music, after ensuring he was a safe distance away from the cave-in, picked up one of the bomb flowers, marveling at how light it now seemed, and set it down in about the same place it had been before.
He watched, backing up as the fuse burnt down, and it exploded, causing all the other bomb flowers, in their almost neat little row, to also detonate. As they exploded, they also demolished the rocks of the cave-in, leaving the passage clear of all but tiny pebbles of debris. Saria's Song rang through the tunnel, louder now than before, and Link walked through, slowly, as if someone had tied him up with string, and was now pulling on that string.
As he walked, "Saria's Song" abruptly grew louder, and he came into a familiar clearing. Looking behind him, he saw the same clearing, with its squared arch, that he had examined before, when he had made his way through the heart of the Lost Woods for the first time.
"You're back!" exclaimed the Lost Woods, as if Link couldn't figure that out himself. "Welcome home, kokiri child!"
While he was here, so close to the skull kid's stump, he decided that he might as well show the skull kid the new mask. Almost instinctively, he made his way through the tangled maze of the Lost Woods, arriving shortly thereafter at the skull kid's clearing. He secured the skull mask over his face, and climbed onto a shorter tree stump.
He wished he knew the skull kid's name. He wished that he knew whether the skull kid even had a name.
The skull kid soon appeared, playing on his flute, but he barely played a handful of notes before looking over and seeing Link.
"Wow! What a neat mask! Aren't you that kokiri kid?" He leapt off the stump, and walked toward Link, leaning over to examine the mask more closely. "Ooh! I really like the mask! Let me have it…it might make me look a little bit tougher…then maybe the others won't mock me as much. What do you say?"
Link glanced at Navi, who sat on his shoulder with an unreadable expression, arms crossed, but posture relaxed. Perhaps, her eyebrows were slightly drawn together.
Link pulled off the mask, and held it out. The skull kid took it from him, and handed over a yellow rupee in return. Well, alright. Very well, Link had paid twenty rupees for two Keaton masks; he had, despite a few rounds at the Shooting Gallery, over four hundred rupees. He could reimburse the Happy Mask Salesman, and move onto the next mask. He didn't harbour any bitterness towards the forest spirit. Money must be harder to come by, in the Lost Woods.
Link backtracked, then, returning to Goron City, sufficiently convinced that somehow, the Lost Woods bent reality out of shape to allow several days' travel to be condensed into a walk of less than a minute's length.
He walked through the arch, Saria's Song growing fainter as he did, until he passed a row of bomb flowers, all perched innocently before the erstwhile cave-in.
He climbed back out of Goron City in silence, reflecting upon this new knowledge. He could tell that Navi wasn't surprised by her lack of comments, but he himself hadn't been expecting instantaneous travel between the two towns.
He exited the city, heading for the overlook, and the only outdoor bomb flower he had yet seen. He plucked the bomb flower with great care, and peered over the railing of the overlook, down below, to the huge boulder stopping up the Dodongo's Cavern. He took careful aim, and then threw the bomb over the edge. It settled on a flat part of the top of the boulder, nestled snug in a crack in the rock.
Then, it violently exploded, sending huge chunks and shards of rocks everywhere, the force of the explosion even breaking a nearby wooden sign. Link hoped that gorons were as impervious as they thus far had seemed. He ran back into the open-air chamber leading to the entrance to Death Mountain, turned right, and began to race back down the mountain, running all out.
Running full tilt forced him to stop several times to catch his breath, but an hour later, he still made it to the entrance, now revealed. The goron next to the entrance was, naturally, unscathed and unfazed.
"So, it was you who blew up the boulder! Way to go! No one else has even been able to figure that out!" the goron said, grinning, and then curling back up into a ball. Did they do that normally, or were they only curling up to conserve energy, due to their hunger?
Link shrugged, feeling it would be worse than rude to ask, and nodded to the goron, before pushing past the remaining slabs of rock framing the entrance, cautiously stepping into the darkened chamber within.
"You know…this chamber looks mostly empty. A cave-in is blocking the way further into the cavern, and while those bomb flowers over there and there would make short work of it…here, with neither tektites nor stalchildren to worry about, you should get some rest while you can. It's about twenty hours now. You could still get a decent rest before sunrise, and I don't think that anything will attack you in this entry room."
Link nodded, and lay down on one of the ledges near a bomb flower, as if upon a bed. He was outside of the blast area, just in case.
He awoke at about noon. Navi had elected to let him sleep in, but now he was too hungry to keep sleeping. He quickly fixed a meal from what he had gathered on the way back to Kakariko Village (and bought at one of the stores in town). Then, he casually picked up a bomb flower, and hurled it at the blocked off wall. He'd cut the fuse a bit shorter than he had to, so that it would take less time for the bomb flower to explode.
As the smoke cleared, and the dust of the debris settled, he and Navi were able to see into the cavern proper for the first time.
Before them was a huge main chamber, with ledges to the left and right of a central platform, with a yellow stone statue standing in the centre of it, and looming high above it, a giant blue head, with two holes for eyes, and triangular ears reaching backwards, and a closed jaw. If it was from some formerly living creature, then that creature must have been as large as Kokiri Forest, Great Deku Tree's clearing included. Perhaps it was, instead, merely decorative. Link could hope; if there were one such enormous creature, after all, there might be more.
As he looked around the room, he walked absently forward, until Navi flew into his face. He was standing on an iron platform, a series of iron slats that provided a path leading up to one of three platforms rising and sinking to and from the floor.
"Link, watch out! There are lava pits down there; watch your step!" she cried. Link blinked, several times. He could see the red lines of molten rock seeping up in cracks of the pits far below. He wasn't sure that even the kokiri boots would save him from that sort of heat. He could almost feel it from here.
He smiled, and nodded at Navi, who flew over to the yellow statue in the centre of the room, halo turning yellow as she did. He blinked rapidly. This was an enemy?
"It's a beamos!" she called, and his eyes widened at the familiar name. Just whence came his knowledge of that name, anyway? "If it gets smoke in its eyes, it should stun it. It's made of stone, so it's vulnerable to bombs. Watch out for the beam of its eye!"
"They don't look anything like the ones I saw in the Tower of the Gods!" he protested, but sighed. He'd just have to avoid that beamos for now. But, their presence suggested that he'd be finding a bomb bag in this dungeon. That was definitely something. In the meantime, he looked to his left, saw a barred door, and a caved-in wall, and decided to head to the right.
Here, there was another beamos, but a readily available bomb flower. There was also a gossip stone hidden behind a caved in wall, a ledge too high for him to jump up, and another cave-in, just close enough for him to hit it with a bomb after he'd made the beamos explode. He entered this passage first, emerging into a surprisingly well-made tunnel, shored up with wooden beams and lined with the occasional jar. As he walked the corridor, green monsters with triangular heads similar to that over the central platform, with a lizard's angled legs, and a broad, triangular tail, appeared from the ground, scurrying towards him.
"Baby dodongos," said Navi, face and voice equally grim. "They don't have any armour yet, so they're light enough to tackle you. Don't let them jump on you, and watch out—they explode when they die, just as adults do. A quick slash of the sword should be enough to defeat them!"
Navi flew over to them anyway, not seeming to care when Link targeted the other first. He had a bad feeling about all of this, suddenly. What did it portend, that the skull hanging about the main platform resembled a dodongo's?
He decapitated the first dodongo, and then stabbed the other in the torso, rushing past each before they could explode, continuing further into the corridor.
He encountered three more of them, before a sudden step up. There was another platform of iron slats bound together with iron wire, a step-on switch, and two statues, one on either side of the edge of the platform. There was also a barred door, with the platform serving as a entryway.
He paused, looking at the nearer of the two statues, which was oval shaped, with a small plinth, all over grey, but carrying a red shield, and with two red horns protruding from what served for a head, with two red eyes carved into the surface…unless, of course, it wasn't a statue at all. By now, he'd learnt to be wary of anything monster-shaped, even if it didn't move. He remembered the strange statues in the Tower of the Gods, which had lain inert until he had brushed up against them, whereupon they had come to life.
"Do you suppose these are real statues?" he asked Navi, who frowned. Thankfully, she seemed to understand what he meant.
"Do you mean, are these armos knights? Well, there's really only one way to tell. You'd think, however, that these would be statues. That switch over there… step on it, and see if it stays pressed when you step off. Logically, if it doesn't, that at least one of these statues must be a real statue."
She flew over to hover by the nearer of the two, as Link did as he was bidden. Sure enough, the moment he stepped off the switch, it rose again, and the bars across the door shot back down. Resigned, he stood near the possible monster, and gingerly poked at the statue with his bare hand.
Navi stifled a giggle, and he frowned, despite the fact that he was sure that he did, in fact, look quite foolish. He waited for several seconds, and nothing happened. He stood behind the statue, and began to push it forwards, around the corner, to where the switch lay. It still hadn't moved when he reached the switch, so he considered this a victory.
After that, all he needed to do was climb up the iron balcony and approach the door. Easy enough. He noted that these doors were the type that slid upwards, and then shot down, just as in the Great Deku Tree.
On the other side of the door was a short corridor. He could hear the sound of flapping wings even before he noticed the bright red eyes in the dim light.
He could approach the keese, or he could try to hit them from a distance. He glanced at Navi, drew out the slingshot, and aimed on his own. Navi frowned, crossing her arms, but took his point, and stayed hovering near his shoulder. He took careful aim, and hit the first keese on the first try. That was definite progress! But, the second one took two tries, despite his careful aim. However, once they had burnt away in those blue flames, there was no other danger lurking in the small corridor.
On the other side, however, was a huge chamber, with an unknown number of high platforms, over a huge pit of lava seeping up amongst cracked rocks, as in the entrance. The platforms of rock made a makeshift path around the room, and to another door to his left, which was barred. As he entered, another set of bars cut off his retreat, blocking the door through which he had entered. On the far side of the room, several platforms away, two tall lizardmen stood upright, with red frills around their necks, and triangular swords. As he entered, they caught sight of him, and one came bounding over to him, hopping with ease from platform to platform. Link turned to Navi.
"These are pretty tough for a kid," she mused. "This must be the miniboss of this dungeon. They're called 'lizalfoi'. They always come in pairs; you never see just one. But they only attack one at a time. They're cowards, each trying to goad the other into fighting instead, hoping that they'll finish the enemy off. But, even when their partner is defeated, the remaining one will still come after you.
"Watch out! Use your shield, and wait for an opening where it lowers its guard!" she finished, flying to hover near the lizalfos's head. It didn't seem to notice. Link bent over, exposing the shield to the monster's attacks, turning to follow wherever Navi was currently flying. There was almost a sixth sense, that let him know just where she was.
As the monster drew back its arm to ready another downward slice, Link sprang up, and hacked away at the monster, which gave a pained cry, and leapt away, over to where he could now afford to look to see the second one waiting, on the other side of the room. They conferred for a while, while Link waited impatiently. But, Navi was probably right. The bars had slammed down across the door by which he had entered, after all. This was a miniboss, which meant that the only way forward was to defeat them. Still….
Here came the other lizalfos, at last. Link watched it and waited as it approached. Then, he dove under the cover of his shield, as per Navi's suggestion, popping up right after one of its blows to take advantage of the time it took for the swift lizardman to draw its arm back for another swing, and lashing out, scoring a deep diagonal cut across the lizalfos's torso. It screeched, bounding back to its fellow, as Link watched. This was truly an exercise in building patience.
Eventually, the second lizalfos convinced its friend to return for another go at Link. By now, the initial wound had mostly closed, but it gave Link something to aim for. For now, he hid himself again beneath the shield, positioning himself that the lizalfos should never strike his more vulnerable neck and head, waiting for the first blow to come. As the blow rebounded off the sturdy hylian shield, Link stood, slicing vertically across the monsters chest, and then following it up with a second slice. The lizalfos burst into blue flames, leaving behind a handful of rupees, as Link waited for the other lizalfos to decide to come over. It did not take as long, this time.
Rather than hide behind the shield, he jumped aside to avoid the monster's blow, and slashed across its chest in the opposite direction, cutting through the still unhealed flesh of his earlier blow. The second lizalfos, too, burst into blue flames, and disappeared, leaving behind the familiar red heart-shaped potions. Another point of commonality, here.
"You can't put those in your inventory," Navi said, as if reading his mind. "They're too small, and there's no space for them…but also, there's something about these natural potions, that just doesn't mix well with inventories. It's a curious thing. I've heard tales—you probably don't really want to hear them, though. Suffice it to say, you can't take these with you. I suppose we'll just leave them where they are."
Link considered asking what, precisely, she meant by saying that they mixed poorly with inventories, considered disobeying, but at last, chose to turn to the now unbarred door (bars were so much quieter in this world than on the Great Sea), and to approach it.
Beyond was a chamber of beautiful aqua blue stones, a winding path seemingly chiseled through it, although Link was sure that it was actually the work of goron teeth. Even from the entrance to the path, where he stood marveling at how the torchlight brought out the fire of the turquoise stones, he could feel the ground tremble slightly beneath his feet, and hear the sound of something heavy hitting the stone floor at regular intervals. He had the sense that he knew what he would encounter up ahead, even as he walked around the corner past the burning torch at the entrance, and first caught sight of the huge reptilian monster, on all fours, green, with its spiny ridge running up its back, and slit eyes, and long, triangular tail. It inhaled deeply, and Navi called out a warning, as Link ducked back behind the torch, around the corner.
It exhaled a stream of fire from its mouth, as Link watched, stunned. Well, that was an explanation of why the torch was still lit, perhaps.
"They're adult dodongos," Navi said. "I knew we'd be encountering them somewhere in here. You could try to feed them bombs—there's a bomb flower right here…but this is a huge tunnel. I think there are several of them here, across the corridor. There might not be bomb flowers there. You can injure them with a sword, too—their tails are their weak spots. Watch out. Remember that dodongos explode when slain."
She hovered, as if uncertain, heading first for the bomb flower sitting near the torch, as her halo burnt green, and then flying over, her light now yellow, to follow the nearest of the dodongos.
Link shrugged, picked up a bomb flower, and threw it into the creature's mouth, as it was inhaling. The monster actually somehow swallowed it—the bomb flowers seemed to be as large as its head—and tilted its head back, as the bomb flower exploded. It collapsed to the ground, blinking red as a warning. Link withdrew around the corner, and waited, watching as a new bomb flower grew up amongst the leaves of the old. The dodongo exploded, and Link pressed further down the path.
Sure enough, he soon encountered another dodongo, and this one was too far away to reach with a bomb flower. Instead, he drew the Kokiri Sword, and went for the tail. He stabbed towards the creature's torso through the vulnerable, less densely armoured scales of the tail, but was forced to withdraw as the dodongo swung around to face him, inhaling deeply. With that forewarning, he leapt to the side, towards the thing's tail, and attacked again.
The monster breathed out a steady stream of fire in the opposite direction as the one where Link was, and then whirled around. Link had to jump out of the way of the tail he was trying to attack, as it swept by him with a whoosh of air.
Finally, he sliced down through the tail, cutting it off.
The monster collapsed, blinking red, and Link ran past it, deeper into the tunnel, without bothering to watch it explode.
And, of course, here was a third dodongo, but now he thought he had the hang of it. It still took several tries to hack through the tail, but Link was able to jump aside of every attack, avoiding the heavy tail, and the fiery breath of the monster. When this last monster was defeated, Navi sank heavily to his shoulders.
"Well, I don't feel the ground shaking anymore; do you?" she said, sounding a bit worn. He glanced at her, but could see no overt signs of strain. Still….
"There are torches scattered throughout the corridor; did you notice? I think you'll have to light them to continue."
He glanced at Navi again, wondering if he ought to say something, but then willed a deku stick into his hand, backtracking until he found the torch next to the bomb flower. On his way, he paid attention, being sure to mark the location of each torch he passed. There were three in all.
On the other side of the blue-green passageway was a barred door, but the moment the final torch was lit, the bars retracted up into the ceiling, allowing Link to command the door to open.
On the other side, there was a small ledge, with a step-on switch that raised the bars on the far side of the room. And boy, was this room familiar. He was on the formerly unclimbable ledge near the beamos, near where he had blasted open a path filled with baby dodongos. He was back where he'd started. Not that he could complain…after all, he had accomplished something. He'd unbarred a door on the other side of the room! Good thing he'd started off on this side.
He jumped from moving platform to beamos platform to moving platform to far ledge. Now, he was to the left of the entrance to the Dodongo's Cavern.
Here, there was another, swiftly dispatched beamos, a caved-in wall, behind which he found another huge treasure chest (this one containing the dungeon map, hurrah!), and the formerly barred door. According to the dungeon map, the room beyond that unbarred door contained a means up to the second story of this dungeon.
On the other side of said door was a tall room, with what closely resembled a great flight of stone steps, with bomb flowers growing in almost straight lines all around the steps. That couldn't be natural, could it? But this was, as Navi reminded him when he asked her, a dungeon. This one could clearly think for itself, and was providing him with a way to reach the second storey.
Instead, he turned aside, to a walled-off small room before the lowest stair. That stair was too high for him to jump, anyway. He didn't know what to do, until Navi said.
"Wow, Link! Look at all of these bomb flowers. I wonder if there might be a way to set them all off at once—it looks as if these stairs would fall down, slightly, if they were shaken a bit."
Link blew up the walled-off path to the only other door on this lower floor, and walked into a room with three statues-or-armos-knights, a bomb flower, and a big treasure chest. The presence of the bomb flower made him sigh, suspecting as he did that the presence of such meant that at least one of the statues before him was an armos knight, (which swords had proven unable to cut on the Great Sea). Well, that, and the fact that bars shot down over the door as he walked through, blocking his escape.
He approached the central statue, cautiously poking at it, as Navi held her breath, and then squealed when the "statue" shook itself, coming to life with a low groan, and hopping after Link. Link in return calmly reached for the bomb flower in the corner, snapping the tendril attaching it to its parent plant, and turning to face the hopping armos knight. He threw the bomb at it, and the bomb exploded, sending the statue hopping around in circles to the other side of the room. At last, it exploded, and the bars over the only door rose. Link approached the treasure chest on the other side of the room. Reaching in, he was unsurprised to find the compass. According to the dungeon map and compass, the boss's lair was located in floor 1B, just below the one he was now on. How to get there, however, was not readily apparent.
He shrugged, returning to the room with the staircase. He plucked a bomb flower nearer its fuse, and waited for a shorter period of time for it to explode than usual as a result. He set it with care near the other bomb flowers, and withdrew, waiting anxiously for it to explode.
When it did, it set off the bomb flowers to either end. The ring of them exploded all around the staircase, which began to sink into the ground. When the dust and rubble settled, the lowest stair had sunken enough for him to climb up it, and the highest stair high enough that he could climb onto the wooden walkway running around the upper storey of the room. With a purpose in mind, he set to climbing those stairs.
At the top of the flight, he picked the counter-clockwise route around the room. On the opposite side of the wall, somewhere above the entrance to the room containing the compass, he found another door, and skulltulas scratching on vines growing in midair. Perhaps this, too, was the magic of dungeons.
He ignored the skulltulas for now, heading through that first door, into a room with two flaming keese ("It doesn't hurt them; these are fire keese! Destroy them before they fly into you!" Navi called) and four statues-or-armos-knights stationed at each of the four cardinal directions around a pillar. One of them stood right in front of a ladder leading up the pillar, and Link made sure to touch only this statue (for statue it was), moving it aside after taking out the keese with his slingshot. Stepping on the switch atop the pillar raised the bars on the door via which he had entered, and the other door, located to the left of this one.
On the other side of this door, he found himself at one side of a bridge of ropes and wooden slats, hanging suspended over what turned out to be the entrance to the main chamber of the Dodongo's Cavern. Fire keese patrolled the air, and Link gritted his teeth. They were too far away to worry about for now, but the things had the annoying habit of sneaking up on him and diving at him when he least expected it, and there were holes in the bridge. Not a good place for distraction.
He could see another bridge hanging right over the giant blue dodongo skull, with too-conveniently placed double gaps over the eyes. There was something to this.
He shrugged, dismissing it for now, and approached the door on the far side.
Beyond was a complicated room of narrow passageways below, and a series of protruding columns scattered throughout. They were too high for him to jump to them from the entrance ledge. There was a ladder leading down, but the narrow corridors made him cautious and wary. He couldn't see what lay ahead. Anything could be lurking in the narrow passageways.
With a sigh, Navi launched herself from his shoulder, flying high in the air to give him an idea of the dangers lying ahead.
"There are a couple of moving spike traps," she reported. "Each runs on a path parallel to your ledge. The first horizontal path is fine, but watch out for the spike trap moving across the second. It's the only one you'll have to worry about if you head straight across."
Link nodded, jumped down into the corridor, and waited for the spike trap to run past him before crossing the narrow corridor, running to the far side of the room, where he could see a block sticking out of a niche. A ladder above the block led to a walled off doorway, which the dungeon map told him led deeper into the dungeon.
Pulling the block away from its niche allowed him to climb onto a nearby column, which had a bomb flower growing on top of it. He plucked the flower, carefully aimed it, and threw it at the walled-off passageway.
He missed the first time, causing the bomb to explode harmlessly near another column. But the second time, the bomb caught on the ledge, and showered rubble all around the immediate area in its detonation. Link was too far away to have to worry about rubble.
He took the opportunity of his higher vantage to look around at his surroundings, watching the spike trap shoot back and forth behind him. There was little else to be seen from here, on account of the tall intermittent pillars blocking the left-hand side of the room from view. Oh, well.
He jumped to the ground, rolling to distribute the impact, and then jumped climbing up into the darkened passageway.
Through the short passage was a column-island rising from the floor, and then another ledge similar to the one upon which he stood, on the far side. It was hard to see on account of the square patch of flames licking at the air, rising up, sourceless, from that central island. Above the far ledge was an eyeswitch. Ah. They had returned.
He pulled out the slingshot, and took careful, deliberate aim. Despite the distortion caused by the heat of the flames, he still only took three hits to trip the eyeswitch. The flames died down and Link, uncertain as to how long the effect would last, wasted no time in jumping onto the no longer burning platform, and thence to the far ledge. As he ran into the corridor beyond, and was hacking at the jumping baby dodongos burrowing through the tunnel, he distantly heard the switch click back to its original state, and the flame flare back into existence. It had lasted longer than he had expected.
And, beyond that was another room of rock platforms hanging in the air, unsupported. To his surprise, far below, he could distinctly make out the room of the previous miniboss.
Yes, previous. The bars shooting down across the door informed him that he was going to have to fight another miniboss, here. And, to complete the comparison with the room below, there were another two lizalfos waiting for him here. Well, he was sure that he could make shorter work of these two. And, the door he wanted, the one out of this room, was on the next platform, to his left. It was so close!
But barred, of course. He had to wait for the lizalfoi, regardless. Here came the first one!
It was true. The lizalfoi were easier to defeat now that he knew the way that they tended to attack, and what their typical weaknesses were. He hid behind the shield, as he had before, emerging to lash out at the lizalfos of the moment, who backed off, and sent the other to fight him.
When at last, he lunged at the second lizalfos, causing it to disperse in blue fire, the bars on both doors rose, and, with a glance at the dungeon map to ensure that he wasn't missing anything important, he headed through the second door.
This led to a ledge, separated from the ledge and door of the other side of the room by two more of the burning pillars. Once again, there was an eyeswitch above the door before him. But, with two columns of flame, instead of one…would they both be tripped by the same switch?
There was only one way to find out. This time, it took only two tries to hit the eyeswitch. Perhaps, he was beginning to understand how to use the slingshot.
The flames died down on the platform directly in front of him, and Link, though hesitant, jumped onto the no-longer burning platform. Navi caught sight of something, glowing green as she flew to the left. In a hidden alcove was a second eyeswitch. It would have been bad if the first switch had reset before he'd found the second. He gave her a grateful smile, aiming for her where she flew near the switch. Now was not the time to take risks.
When he hit this second switch, the second pillar of flames died down, and he was able to reach the far ledge. Said ledge turned out to lead through a narrow corridor, leading back to a familiar room. He could hear the metallic scraping of moving spike traps. A glance at the dungeon map confirmed that, yes, this was the spike-trapped room. He was in the area he hadn't been able to see from the pillar that held the bomb flower.
He stood on another of the iron-slats-and-wire platforms, across a narrow gap from another such, which led to a short cliff backing up against the wall leading back, most likely, to the main chamber. There was an entire lower area below the iron platforms, but so far above the spike traps that he would have to make his way back up here by following the same path as before. It wasn't worth jumping down to take a look—not with no other way back up.
He leapt across the gap, noticing a treasure chest to the left of this other door. It was another of the huge treasure chests that he'd almost mastered retrieving things from without falling in. He climbed onto the higher corner, and opened the chest, balancing precariously on the rim, hooking his foot over the side and reaching in to pull out…a bag. It was about the size of his head, and full of something, and smelt of leather. It was a drawstring bag, similar to that which held deku seeds. He pulled it open to peer inside, and was unsurprised to see that it was somehow full of bombs.
"Hmm…made from a dodongo's stomach, I think. It looks big enough to hold twenty of the cured bombs."
Navi flew to the rim of the bag, peering inside, illuminating the contents with her glow. Now that Link thought about it, it was not as dim in here as it should be. Was it because of whatever caused him to be able to see through Navi's glow?
And, these bags…he'd had a bomb bag on the Great Sea, but it couldn't have been made of dodongo gut. He'd never even heard of the creatures before, and he'd read some of Sturgeon's bestiaries. Yet, somehow, despite his never encountering a goron, someone had discovered how to cure bomb flowers. What a sharp contrast, the whole process, from the growing of bomb flowers, to the storing of the cured bombs!
But, there was time to ask questions about that later. For now, he headed through the darkened tunnel, tripping over a step-on switch, hearing a strange, rattling noise as the moving pillar on his side of the main chamber slowly rose up to lie level with him, waiting a few seconds before slowly crawling back down. He was standing on some sort of iridescent, greenish rock. Before him was a placard with writing on it.
He ignored the moving pillar (and the rope bridge with the gaps in it), for now, to approach the placard.
"Giant dead dodongo
When it sees red
A new way to go
Will be open."
Navi read the words aloud to herself, before flying back to Link's shoulder.
"'When it sees red'," he repeated. "Well, that's all very straightforward."
Navi nodded her agreement, and then hastened to change the colour of her glow to yellow, as a fire keese dove at them. Link drew the Kokiri Sword, and sliced through it as it dove. A second one, he noticed, was flying further out, across the other side of the bridge. He'd have to pay close attention.
He'd switched the bomb bag to his right hand to use the sword, but he sheathed his sword, walking cautiously across the rope bridge, pulling out a bomb as he approached the first of two gaps that were, indeed, right over the dodongo skull's eyes. He broke the fuse cap, and let the bomb fall into the right eye of the (fake?) monster. Then, he backed up, getting a running start to jump across the first gap. He heard the bomb explode below him, and Navi's cry of victory, as he continued to the second hole, breaking another fuse cap off another bomb, and dropping the bomb into the second eye. He kept a wary eye on the approaching keese.
Soon, he was forced to switch out the bomb bag for his bullet bag and slingshot. He took careful aim at the second keese, but it took three shots to hit the thing. Navi stared reprovingly at him, but he couldn't help but try. It was the only way to improve.
Meanwhile, the jaw of the dodongo skull slowly lowered down to meet the central island where the beamos still spun in circles, waiting for a threat to shoot with the beam of its eye. Well, the moving platform seemed to connect these two floors now; might as well take advantage of that. Link backtracked, pulling out the dungeon map first to make sure he wasn't missing anything, but all that remained were a series of corridors and rooms that probably lay beyond the maw of the great skull.
A running jump brought him to the moving platform just as it was starting its descent, and he paused, taking a minute to catch his breath as the platform lowered. He leapt off as it neared the level of the central island, rolling onto the ground to take the shock of the impact from the landing, and ran around the beamos rather than engage it. He only had eighteen bombs, now, after all.
There was a door set into the back of the monster's jaw, so perhaps the entire skull was merely decorative, and not an actual skull. Especially since beyond was a square room, with two fire keese, and a hole in the ground, and a block lying just out of his reach atop a cliff in front of him. There was another ledge he could actually climb up to his right, and, according to the map, a series of tunnels, connected to a central corridor, connected the cliff on his right to the one on his left. Also, the compass informed him with the typical white skull that the boss was through that barred door to his left. Why were there no boss keys?
With an anxious glance up at the flaming keese flying high overhead, he jumped down into the main square, climbed the cliff to the right, and followed the path of drab brown rocks to the main corridor, which was…yet another maze. They were everywhere, all of a sudden.
Navi seemed to share his sentiments, because she huffed, flying into the air, glowing yellow as she found another keese. Link pulled out the slingshot, and followed Navi into the maze.
There were two keese in this room, and several blocks emblazoned with the three triangular rays atop the downward-pointing triangle that seemed to be some sort of goron insignia. These were graven into the brown rocks, and served as handholds as Link pushed and pulled the blocks to gain access to the final area of the maze, which was in a sunken-in recess. He had to pull a block to give him a place to stand whilst he pushed a second block into the recess, and then pull it to the other end, to the left, where he'd be able to climb up or push aside the final block barring his way to the tunnel that served for an exit to this room.
It was tedious, and time-consuming, but at last, he made it past the final block, and was in the tunnel heading for, as he now remembered, the block that he would have to push into that square-shaped hole in the first room beyond the dodongo's skull.
All in all, there were a lot of blocks. And he might have forgotten, briefly, about the keese milling about in the air. Navi called a "watch out!" in time for him to pull out the slingshot, aim, and hit the first keese on the first try, without Navi even assisting him! Definitely a victory for him.
There was still another keese flying above them somewhere, however. He took the opportunity afforded by the brief reprieve to push the block off the cliff, that he might now push and pull it into the hole.
When he came close enough, he took the time to peer into the hole to confirm that, yes, there was a step-on switch there. It almost certainly would behave the same way as the one he had encountered earlier in this same dungeon, however. And, since he'd brought the block here, he might as well make that assumption. He'd already done the work, and he had the sense that if it hadn't been necessary, the block wouldn't have existed at all. Perhaps, it was typical dungeon behaviour, to give intruders a fighting chance.
Of course, there was still the second keese to consider, as it swooped down on him. Once again, taking careful aim, he hit the keese on his first try. Grinning to himself, he pushed the block into the square hole, and turned, expectant, to the already rising bars leading to the boss's lair.
He approached the door, cheerfully ordered it to open, and walked through…into a room bare of all save for a bomb flower, and an odd-looking patch of floor in the centre, as if a hole had been filled in.
Bomb flower. Filled-in hole. The conclusion became more obvious the more he stared between the two. He put away the slingshot, and approached the bomb flower, plucking it and setting it down in the middle of the odd patch of discoloured soil. When the bomb flower exploded, it revealed a square hole over a subterranean cavern, itself square in shape, with bomb flowers in each corner, and a ring around a pit of lava bubbling up around black stones. That was as much as he could see from here. If the boss were anywhere, however, it must be down there.
And, it was probably vulnerable to bombs.
He leapt down into the hole, ignoring Navi's protests, and managed to land on his feet, despite the distance. He whirled around as he felt the ground shake, and the heavy stamp of feet behind him.
And there stood a giant, green lizard-like creature, a truly enormous dodongo. Its eyes were almost hidden in the pebbly skin, not that he could see them from this low down. It must be at least five times as tall as he—and that seemed a gross underestimation. Each of the claws of its feet was bigger than his head, and its body was half as long, stretched out, as one of the sides of this enormous room.
Link struggled to think if he'd ever fought something quite this big before. The Helmaroc King, he supposed, and Molgerra, but even Molgerra didn't have the sense of presence that this thing had. That presence, and the close quarters, made the dodongo seem even more enormous than it was.
It lifted back its mouth towards the hole above them both, with a great roar of challenge, and then lowered it to face him again.
"Uh…" Link said, uncertain how to finish that sentence. It was one thing to fight giant monsters as an adult, and another to try to fight them as a child. Navi flew over to hover near the monstrous thing's head, sighing into their mental connection.
"This must be the king of all dodongos. But, as with all the others, it's stupid enough to eat bombs. So feed it some bombs, and finish it off with your sword. And be quick about it, because you don't get to be that size by having slow reflexes!"
The monster braced itself, beginning to breathe in deep, and Link withdrew his bomb bag, quickly reaching in, snapping the fuse cap off one of the bombs, and throwing it into the wide-open mouth.
The bomb was a tiny speck in those jaws, but it noticed the presence of something-it-could-eat, and swallowed. A few tense seconds later, there was an explosion, and the dodongo crashed to the floor in a sprawl, head tilted to the side as the monster spasmed.
Link rushed forwards with the Kokiri Sword, stabbing it into the only part of the monster that he could reach. He lashed out only a couple of times before the head rose back up, which was his only warning before it curled into a ball (he hadn't seen dodongos do that before!) and try to roll over him. Instead, he let it roll past him, bounding off the corner of the room, and continuing to roll along the second wall. Link turned around and ran to engage it.
He waited until the heavy footfalls stopped their approach before plucking a bomb flower, and running toward the now wide-open maw. He threw it into the mouth of the great beast, and waited, never breaking his stride.
The head crashed down, again, as the monster lay sprawled in the corner. Link lashed out again with the sword, but the dodongo quickly recovered, climbing to its feet, and rolling into a ball, once more trying to bowl him over. Link came perilously close to the lava pit, trying to avoid the king dodongo.
He started running as soon as the monster passed by him, heading in the opposite direction from it, watching out of the corner of his eyes as it hit a wall, making a sharp turning around that corner, and continuing its roll until it came to a second comer, whereupon it straightened itself out, and began its approach with those thunderous, plodding footfalls.
Once again, now that he had the rhythm of how this battle would go, he waited for the signs that the monster was about to gather its breath to breathe fire before plucking the bomb flower and running forwards.
Again, he threw the bomb into the creature's mouth, again came the explosion, and the monster's collapse. Again, he lashed out at its skull. Again, he only had a few seconds to hack at it before it recovered, more sluggishly curling into a ball again, and then trying to bowl him over.
Again, he ran to meet it, by now almost calm. He gave a nod to Navi, who was doing an admirable job of following the thing. He'd lost track of her exact location in the midst of battle, but had faith in her. Faeries were, as she'd said herself, resilient. He was sure if she were in any danger, she'd let him know.
Finally, the dodongo stopped again, and Link backed up to the bomb flower. Again, he waited for the inhale to pluck the bomb flower, and to throw it into the wide-open jaws of the beast. Again, he approached the monster even whilst waiting for the bomb to detonate.
This time, when he hacked into the dodongo's giant skull, it felt as if he'd broken through, a sudden lack of resistance. It shook its head, before curling into a ball, and beginning to roll wildly about the cavern, as if trying to crush the pain itself with its body. Navi flew back to his shoulder, cocking her head, appraising the monster with her gaze, before nodding.
Unfortunately for it, it rolled right into the lava pit in the middle of the room. For all that their stomachs were used to hold bombs, and for all that dodongos could eat bombs, they were vulnerable to heat.
The molten rock began to suck the monster in, solidifying as it did, as if the monster were some sort of cooling force. The monster thrashed, its front paws and head reaching for the sky, and the cooling lava pulled it down.
A minute later, though emitting puffs of smoke, it was still, and had stopped quivering. The lava pit was safe to walk on, judging by the sudden appearance of a column of blue light. Ah, yes. The blue light again. Well, he'd assumed that there'd be one. How else would he escape this pit?
He stepped into the light, and let it carry him out of the Dodongo's Cavern. It set him down a short distance from the entrance. Nothing else was around—the nearest living creature other than he and Navi was a tektite further down the trail.
Outside, it was full light out. He rather suspected he'd been in there for a little over a day, all told, but wasn't quite sure. He had the sense that dungeons all on their own worked to distort time within them. He might have guessed that, all told, he'd been in there for eight or nine hours, which meant that the sun was too high up in the sky, as he'd begun at noon.
Any further thoughts about dungeons and the passage of time were forestalled as a shadow grew in size before him, with a loud whistling of wind. A huge boulder landed in front of him, knocking him flat, and his first thought was "Not again!" He'd fulfilled his part of the bargain, after all. Would Darunia even believe that he'd entered the cavern, fought a giant dodongo, and opened the cave, now that it was blocked again?
But, the rock wasn't nearly big enough to block the cavern, and when it unfolded itself, he swiftly realised that it was a goron. And, not just any goron. It was Darunia himself. He pulled himself to his feet, to show proper respect for a ruler, a bit unnerved by the broadness of Darunia's grin.
"Ah, well done, kid! It's me, Darunia! Thanks to you, we can once again eat the delicious rocks of the Dodongo's Cavern until out stomachs burst!"
He pounded Link enthusiastically on the shoulder, but no matter how much strength the goron's bracelet lent his body, he couldn't withstand the force of Darunia's enthusiasm, and was sent crashing to the ground once more. He was going to include that in his list of masonry close encounters. After all, gorons ate rocks, and Darunia was as tough as granite…ouch…. He didn't bother climbing back to his feet, regardless of propriety. Navi hovered by, looking concerned, with her mouth wide open and her eyebrows furrowed.
Darunia didn't seem to notice that he'd knocked Link over. But, his grin did diminish to a thoughtful frown, so maybe…. "What an amazing adventure. I think it would make an incredible story. I'll have to be the one to write it—with your help, of course…. But, I can't understand why the dodongos suddenly appeared in such great numbers as they did. It must be the work of that gerudo thief, Ganondorf. He said, 'Give me the Spiritual Stone. Only then will I open the cave for you.'" Darunia's scowl deepened. Then he smiled again, at Link, and offered him a hand up. Link hesitated, but decided that it would probably be rude not to take it, and no more dangerous than his previous encounters to take the risk. Darunia pulled him carefully to his feet.
"You, on the other hand," said the goron leader, beaming at Link. "You risked your life to save us! I like you, kid! You've got some spirit, huh? How's about you and I become Sworn Bothers? There's no ceremony involved or anything—just take this, and know that if you ever need help, you can come to Goron City and see me! (In fact, come by and see me for no reason at all; I insist!) What do you say?"
Link nodded, slowly. He didn't understand the concept at all, but it was obviously a prestigious position, seeing that the King of Hyrule himself held it. In this way, he'd have a much greater ability to help the gorons.
"Then, what's your name? I can't just keep calling you 'kid'! (Man, I was rude when we first met!)"
Link hesitated, again. "…Link. Link Sylvanus," he said, glancing at Navi, who, concern overcome, seemed to be working to smother a laugh.
His thought processes were cut short as Darunia lifted both hands over his head, and a glowing ball of bright red light formed in the gap between.
"Hold up your arms, like this! This is a sacred object!" cried Darunia. Link frowned in confusion. Something about this felt familiar, but….
Hmmm.
He did as he was told, raising his arms skyward, and the ball of red light hovered above his head, slowly turning into a translucent red stone in a golden frame, the stone rapidly gaining opacity. It had a triangular base, and three rays like sunbeams, or tongues of flame, rising from it. As in the goron symbol. His eyes widened in comprehension. This must be….
"As promised, the Goron's Ruby, the Spiritual Stone of Fire. Take it! May it help you on your quest. Come drop in on me sometime."
He probably meant that literally.
"Well, then, Brother. You'll need more power, to do what you need to do. Where the path up Death Mountain splits, and the right-hand fork leads to Goron City, the left hand slope leads further up the mountain. Beware of falling debris on your way. They call this 'Death Mountain' for a reason, after all. At the summit of Death Mountain, you'll meet a Great Faerie, who should be able to grant you new knowledge and skills. You should see her before you continue your quest!"
The solemnity of his tone took Link aback, but then the grin returned, and his voice seemed to be filled with suppressed mirth. "Alright, goron brothers and sisters! Let's see our Brother up the mountain!"
Two gorons dropped from the sky to either side of Darunia, arms outstretched.
Link stayed only long enough to hear the second of the two offer him a "big goron hug" before turning and running as fast as he could away. As he approached the bend which might lead him down to Kakariko Village, a third dropped down, blocking his escape. He had no choice but to head up the mountain!
He might have been the holder of the Triforce of Courage in his past life, but staying for a goron hug sounded more like suicide!
And thus, he fled.
He stopped running when he came to the rockfall blocking his way further up the slope he had unwittingly climbed, the start of the path to the summit.
He pulled out his bomb bag, and set a bomb at the rock blocking his way up the cliff. When it exploded, he climbed up the cliff, and then ran down the steep decline leading to a path that seemed to dead end in a steep rock wall. He hoped that it wasn't a real dead end, and it couldn't be, because, somehow, he had to make it to the summit.
Speaking of dead ends, he needed to go back to Hyrule Castle now he had bombs. And, while he was at it, he should check on Zelda, and get the newest mask….
First things first, making it to the "dead end", without being crushed or incinerated by these falling flaming boulders. He could do that. The hylian shield was a truly marvelous thing, after all.
It took several times longer to cross this stretch of road than it would have had debris not been almost constantly falling from the sky, only stopping now and then in its rain of rocks. This was the only time it was safe to move.
At length, however, he came to the wall, which was scored into at regular intervals, offering him a means to climb up the wall. An outcropping above provided shelter from the falling rocks (which were no longer falling; did Death Mountain have it in for him, or what?). This was good, as wall skulltulas clung to the sides of the rock's face.
He pulled out the slingshot, and took careful aim. Navi, glancing at him, settled on his shoulder, raising an eyebrow as she watched him.
It took a single shot to take down the nearest skulltula, but the second was further away, and at a difficult angle, at least where Link was standing.
Still, he managed to hit it the first time. But, he could still hear the scratching of another skulltula. He shrugged. The sun was setting, and he didn't like trying to watch for skulltulas with this little light, but, for the moment, there seemed to be no immediate threats. He turned to Navi, who shrugged, as well. She realised that there was a skulltula, but didn't think it posed a danger yet.
He reached into the holes of the rock face, and began to climb the dead end.
There were three outcroppings sticking out over the wall. When he reached the first of them, he stopped. Navi flared yellow, showing that she, too, had noticed the skulltula at last visible above the third and final outcropping. He nodded to himself, and pulled the slingshot back out, taking careful aim before letting fly. Yes, he had definitely mastered the slingshot. What would the owner of the Shooting Gallery in town do without his custom?
He smiled to himself as he passed by the second ledge, with its gossip stone ready to tell him the hour, and passed by the third ledge, continuing until he could at long last pull himself over the top of the wall.
Perhaps, Death Mountain didn't hate him, after all. There was no more rocky rain now that he had no shelter, after all, nor while he had been climbing. How fortuitous.
The first thing he noticed upon his arrival was the sign with a giant bird clinging to it. The second thing he noticed was a cracked wall sitting next to the bird. The rock around the crack looked discoloured, as if rocks had been brought from elsewhere to barricade off the doorway he was sure lay hidden beyond.
He turned to Kaepora Gaebora, silently begging the bird not to speak to him.
As if he would be that lucky.
In his typical style, Kaepora Gaebora gave a long-winded explanation of the very things that Link already knew—that this was the summit of Death Mountain, that a Great Faerie lived here, who would be able to grant him new skills—the only piece of new information was his description of the cloud around the volcano. Link had never noticed the cloud before, but, according to the owl, when the smoke ring was "normal", it was a sign that the sacred mountain was at peace. He didn't say how it would look if there were danger, but Link had to wonder just what qualified as "not-peaceful". Did the invasion of dodongos into the cavern named for them not count because they had once been indigenous, or something? He'd have noticed if the cloud around the mountain looked different, right?
He was not so desperate as to ask these questions of the long-winded owl, however. He let him fly off instead. Even though it was the middle of the night, and Kaepora Gaebora had made it clear that Link would be getting a ride down the mountain when he emerged from the fountain, whether he wanted it or not, Link still felt inclined to hurry up and have done with this.
He pulled out the bomb bag, now, and pulled out one of his comparatively few bombs. Thirty bombs had seemed few enough, on the Great Sea!
He broke the fuse cap, and set the bomb down in front of the crack in the wall, and then backed up to give it plenty of room to explode.
The hole in the volcano revealed a darkened tunnel boring through the mountain, a tunnel like a corridor in a castle, all grey brick and smooth. As he walked through the tunnel, he noticed the bricks give way to a sparkling blue lightshow, familiar from the fountains of the Great Sea, complete with packed snow floors. A path of red bricks led up to the fountain on the far side, with its triple triangles emblazoned in gold in the exact centre of a dais right in front of the springs. Two tall torches, with their vibrant orange flames, stood out against the midnight blue waterfall that was the walls.
There were no faeries here, that Link could see, but the Triforce was the insignia of the Royal Family of Hyrule. He willed the faerie ocarina into his hands, and moved to stand on the Triforce, climbing the two or three steps leading up to it, still taking in the splendour of the otherworldly fountain. It might have been located in a volcano, but it wasn't even warm. Navi poked him in the shoulder, as if to return his attention to the immediate concerns.
He set the ocarina to his lips and, with a strange feeling of déjà vu, began to play Zelda's Lullaby.
As he played, a figure spiraled up out of the ground in the centre of the fountain, growing larger as it rose into the air, revealing (Link blushed, turning his head to the side as Navi laughed) a huge woman with bright red hair held back by vines, with bright blue eyes, and calf-high boots, and ivy growing all over her body, serving as clothes. The woman laughed along with Navi, a warm, kindly laugh that nevertheless set him on edge as it reverberated around the fountain.
"Welcome, Link! I am the Great Faerie of Power. I can teach you a sword technique. I will give you the ability to use magic! And to you, Navi, I will increase the amount of magic you can use—then you won't tire as quickly." Navi perked up at this news, but Link was wondering what she meant by teaching him a new sword technique. He'd never heard of one that used magic—except the hurricane spin attack…and did the spin attack use it, too? Strangely, he couldn't recall. But, how would a Great Faerie the size of a house teach him how to wield a sword, anyway?
"All you need to do is focus and build up magical energy in your blade, then, swing it around in a circle. It's called the Spin Attack! Be careful, it obviously uses magic energy—but there's a second version, for master swordsmen, which doesn't. You have to rely on your body to remember how to mimic the sword technique without using magic. Try it now!"
He felt a strange sort of warmth fill him, magic coursing through his body, wilder and more powerful than that he had acquired during his previous quest. It flooded him with a strange, heady energy. He drew the Kokiri Sword, obedient, holding it out to the side as he focused energy into the blade, remembering how he had filled arrowheads with fire. To fuel the sword with pure magic, though…!
He felt the tension in his body as the sword filled with magic. He guided it in a horizontal slice, and the magic of the technique pulled his arm into the circle, guiding the rest of his body, adjusting his stance. The Great Faerie's magic, meanwhile, continued to fuel his body with magic and regular energy. He felt wide-awake, now, as if he hadn't just spent over thirty-six hours awake. He felt the injuries he had sustained in the Dodongo's Cavern, and the long trek up the mountain, begin to heal, and to fade.
"When battle has made you weary, please feel free to come back and see me!" the Great Faerie said, and he dared to look again as she corkscrewed into the ground, shrinking and vanishing.
These Great Faeries did not see fit to leave behind a retinue of faeries in their wake.
Navi was still laughing.
She was, in fact, laughing even when they emerged back into the night, with the moon high overhead. The owl, Kaepora Gaebora, seemed not to recognise her laughter, his attention fixed, as usual, upon Link.
"Well, well, it looks as if you've grown up a little from the Great Faerie's power! Not grown up as in grow older, that is, I mean, it looks as if the Great Faerie's power has made you stronger."
The owl gave a strange little throat-clearing noise which did not seem to fit an animal at all. "Well, I'm headed back down the mountain," he hurried on, perhaps to cover his earlier gaffe. "If you want a ride down the mountain, grab hold of my talons! Hoo hoo!"
Link held up a hand. "Were you planning on dropping me off at Kakariko Village? Because, I do appreciate that, but…I was wondering…if it wasn't too much trouble…" he looked down, scuffing his boots in the dust of the mountain summit. "Could you perhaps drop me off at the drawbridge of the castle, instead?"
He might not be willing to, when asked, but if he didn't ask, Link would never know whether or not the owl would have been wiling.
"The castle, eh? That's not that much further than the village. Well, grab ahold. I'll drop you off before the drawbridge. Watch out for stalchildren. Hoot hoot!"
And, with that, Link grabbed hold of the bird's legs, and Kaepora Gaebora grabbed onto his shoulders, and they flew down the mountain, towards the castle.