Chapter 12: Trial by Fire
He backtracked into the main chamber, into the lock he fit the key, which was similar but not quite the same as the Forest Temple keys—the ends of the key, that made it function at all, were arranged differently, spaced differently. It meant that there would be no way to use the keys of one dungeon in another. He had wondered.
He opened the right-hand door to a vast room, with a lava floor, and several doors around the walls. A wood-slat bridge led the way to a door facing him, on the opposite side of the room. A blue block with the same rays around the sun design he had seen on the Door of Time stood, as if for storage, on a shelf above a door to his left, while a cave-in provided some manner of passage to the right. Fire keese flew overhead, and platforms floated in predetermined paths in the lava. He took the time to study them, noticing the way they provided passage to the doors to left and right, which couldn't be reached otherwise, unless by wading through the lava. Link knew that his heat-resistant tunic couldn't be that powerful.
Link headed to the cave-in first, pondering the block that resembled the Door of Time. He knew what to do about the cave-in, fishing out a bomb, and setting it within the mound of rubble, staring around to make sure no fire keese ambushed him as he waited for the bomb to detonate. The keese did not notice him until the bomb exploded, reducing the landslide to pebbles, revealing a short corridor leading to a handled door. He opened the door, walking into a corridor of dark brown stones similar to the one he remembered near the boss's lair in the Dodongo's Cavern. Another step-on switch stood in front of a cage made of green-enameled iron bars, with thin bars forming the framework of the door to the cage. He stepped onto the switch, and the door rolled aside, and the goron within, perhaps hearing the sound, stood up, looking over at Link.
"You rescued me, didn't you?" the goron asked. "Let me tell you something. Those diamond switches that you see sometimes? They're vulnerable to impact—you can slice them with a sword, hit them with an arrow, or even use the goron's special crop to trigger them! I'm going back home. I hope to see you there!"
The goron marched out of his cell, over to the door, moving at what seemed to be the fastest pace a goron could manage whilst still standing on two legs. Link noticed the small chest that had been hidden by the goron's body, and walked over to it, kicking it open to find another small key. He thought he was noticing a trend here. Just how many gorons lived in Goron City? How many keys could he expect to find? Where were the dungeon map, and the compass?
He shook his head, returning to what seemed to be the central nexus of the Fire Temple. He watched the platforms speed across the lava, timing his jump across the gap well to avoid falling in, and let the platform carry him back to the bridge. He jumped off, and took another lava boat over to the door below the block.
He peered up above him, to the overhanging ledge that he knew had a block sitting on it, and, for want of a better plan, pulled out the Ocarina of Time. He trusted Navi enough to let her keep an eye out for the fire keese.
He played the Song of Time, and a pillar of blue light shone down on the block, and then on a point right in front of Link. The block shimmered into being directly in front of him. He climbed up onto it, thence onto the ledge, where a big treasure chest awaited him, standing right in front of a handled door.
He opened the treasure chest, reaching down into it to withdraw the dungeon map. He glanced over it, frowning when he saw that this room had a single storey, and one door leading from the spot where he judged that he stood. He opened the door to find another corridor identical in appearance to the one he had just been in, with another step-on switch, another small chest, and another goron behind the bars of another green cage. He stepped onto the switch, and the goron stood up, and he walked over to the entrance.
"You saved me! Thank you! Let me tell you something as thanks! Hidden throughout this temple, there are certain walls that are actually fakes…they'll make a hollow sound if you hit them with your sword! You can use this to find hidden passages! I hope that helps!"
Link stood aside, as the goron trundled out the door to the handled door Link had entered by. He waited until the goron was gone before kicking open the small chest, and pulling out the small key.
He went back out, following the goron, unsurprised to find that the goron was out of sight, doubtless already having left the temple. Gorons usually traveled by rolling, didn't they? He was sure that the gorons had rolled across the lava, stopping only to open the door into the entrance chamber, and rolled back out to the entrance. They must move at a truly impressive speed, to have already left the room far behind before Link could backtrack to this central chamber.
He jumped down off the cliff, and paused to consider the block barring the way to the door he had seen from the entrance to this huge chamber. He pulled out the Ocarina of Time again, and played the Song of Time. The same beam of light carried the block back to above him, leaving the way to the second door open.
He reached for the doorknob, and the door seemed to fall off its hinges, slamming down on him, knocking him flat into the ledge, crushing him, and then peeling itself back up, reaffixing itself to the wall. He could see that nothing was marked as lying behind the (fake) door, and frowned. A trap?
"Oh no!" Navi shrieked. "Are you alright, Link? I've never seen anything like this, before…. I don't think it's a real door…it's some manner of trap. I think it's weaker than the real doors…it looks as if you could blow it up with a bomb. I don't think it will attack unless you come close, though. We should keep on the lookout for these."
Link nodded, backing away from the door warily. He took a moment to pull out his bottle of Lonlon Milk, now almost empty, and drained the rest of it, feeling it restore his strength, as he gave a relieved sigh. Navi was still frowning in concern, but she landed on his shoulder once more, and he walked around the narrow ledge running along that part of the room until he came to the door he'd originally entered through, turning to cross the bridge. He ran for it, expecting for a fire keese to swoop down on him. He'd had quite enough of this room.
Beyond was another short corridor, with a door without a handle at the far side.
He told it to open, and emerged on the far side to a room that he could tell at a glance was a maze. It was in how narrow the passages that he could see were.
He stood in one, which ran in a horizontal line to either side of him. The ceiling was much lower near the end of the left-hand and right-hand extremities of the path he stood on. A loud rumbling, the crunching of something heavy on stone, could be heard approaching. Navi glanced at Link, who was paling at the thought of navigating the maze when he could hear an unknown foe approaching. Straining his ears, he also heard a strange, squelching sound coming from…above him?
Navi flew into the air, calling down advice to him.
"I'll be your guide through these corridors! They're filled with boulders; watch out! Boulders such as these always follow predetermined paths, and, if you know— Watch out! Run as fast as you can down the right-hand path! Hurry!"
Link saw the boulder speeding towards him as he passed by the fork he'd seen to the right of the entrance. He'd stepped straight ahead into the alcove instead of turning the corner onto the path the boulder had run along. It seemed Navi had been correct in her assessment that the ceiling in these alcoves was too low for the boulders. He could take a moment to try to ease up, slightly.
He saw a step-on switch lying before him. He stepped on it, and heard a door sliding aside, somewhere nearby. He couldn't tell where, but assumed that, as the switch didn't deactivate when he stepped off, he'd encounter the opening somewhere later.
He followed Navi's distant directions as he made his cautious way around the room, pausing to speak to the goron who had been freed when he'd stepped on that switch, and to collect the small key in the chest hidden in the goron's cell.
As thanks, he received a warning (too late!) about the door-traps, and the knowledge that, as Navi had said, they were vulnerable to bombs. Anything that would break a rock, would break them.
Still, the goron meant well, and Link was not inclined to be resentful. He just nodded his thanks, hoping that the goron wouldn't be harmed by the boulder…but, well, gorons lived in Death Mountain. He still remembered the flaming rocks falling from the sky. Gorons must be well-suited to such threats, better suited than he.
He shook off his thoughts, and resumed his more-or-less counter-clockwise trek around the edges of the room. Far too often, he heard the sound of boulders rolling past, nearby, or would be urged to run by Navi, who was tracking the paths of at least four different ones.
At last, he came to another door, under a lower roof. Navi had already told him that these roofs were too low for the boulders to roll through them, meaning that he was safe.
He pulled out the dungeon map, and thought about the route he'd taken around the room. The paths were not marked on the map, and he didn't have the compass to tell him just where he, or anything else important, was. He could only guess. But, he thought that there was a real door located about where he stood.
He nodded to himself, and slowly reached for the door, ready to jump out of its reach if it decided to try to crush him. Navi fluttered down, hovering right in front of it, as if daring it to try to hit her first.
When nothing happened, he slowly reached for the knob. Still nothing.
He threw open the door, to find himself on a ledge separated from another room walled off on all sides by a chain-link fence. A small door in the chain-link fence provided a way into that room, via a beam of wood stretched across it. As he walked across the bridge, he saw a gout of flame shoot into the air from under the ground on the far side, putting him in mind of the flame pillars he had…seen…in Dragon Roost Cavern. He frowned at it, puzzling the thing over, but decided that there was no better plan he could make, yet, but to climb the fence.
He climbed the chain link fence. There was a chain-link roof covering part of it, to left and right, with keese perched on top of it. They were asleep, and not yet aware of his presence. He pulled out the hookshot, aiming carefully, and fired the hook of the weapon at each of them, one by one. It seemed a worthwhile observation that, not only were keese vulnerable to the hookshot, but they also didn't awaken when their comrades dissipated in a burst of blue flame. Regardless of proximity.
Then, with the last blue flames dying down, he took a better look around the room, first noticing the block with the symbol of the Goron's Ruby on it. It was precariously perched, and the pillar of flame shot past right in front of it. It was sturdy, and heavy, but Link could still push it. He pushed it off the ledge upon which he stood, and noticed how it covered the depression in the floor. Link leapt off the ledge, onto the block, and waited.
Navi nodded to him, landing on his shoulder once more, seconds before the ground rumbled beneath his feet, and the gout of flame shot the pillar into the air, lifting him into another room. He hastened to step off the block, into another room with another chain-link fence.
Unlike in the other rooms, this one had walls and floors made of green bricks. The bricks were larger, and squarer, than the orangey bricks of the rest of the temple, making this room conspicuous. He saw the block lying atop a cliff he thought he could reach by climbing up the ledge to his left, and jumping across the gap. He could see a diamond switch standing nearby, but couldn't tell what effect it might have. Perhaps, if he came closer?
As he approached the left-hand series of terraced ledges, he noticed the squelching sound, and saw what he originally mistook for moving torches. Navi glowed yellow, flying over to one with a sigh.
"They're torch slugs. They're rather ordinary monsters, except that they're filled with magical energy. They have no particular defences. Just destroy them before they jump onto you. Those torches on their backs are real; they might not hurt a torch slug, but they'll burn you! Your tunic is fire-resistant, not fireproof!"
Link approached the first torch slug, which began to bunch itself up. He'd seen plenty of monsters do that during the Wind Waker's adventures on the Great Sea. It meant that they were about to spring. He slashed at the slug, and the fire died, revealed what seemed to be a pile of ashes. He sliced repeatedly at the slug, until it lit with blue flames, shriveled, and died. It left behind a huge magic vial, and Link understood what Navi meant when she had said that they were filled with magical energy. But, he shrugged, left the vial where it was, in case he needed it later, and it would remain behind, and then jumped up the second ledge, stabbing repeatedly at the torch slug, poking it full of holes until it burst into flames, collapsing in on itself.
He looked across the gap, and saw a ring of fire rising high up the wall, as if climbing the chain-link fence. He could see that there was a ledge of some sort at the top of the chain-link fence, and suspected that he'd have to climb it. Somehow.
He needed to get to that ledge, but there was no readily available path. The diamond switch stood on the same ledge as the block, but the chain-link fence began around the sharp corner of that ledge. He'd have to somehow jump off the ledge, and grab onto the rungs of the fence hidden around the corner. That seemed implausible.
Of course, that block had to serve some purpose. He looked back down at the floor between the two ledges, the one on which he now stood, and the one with switch and block. Nothing. There was, however an indentation in the floor in front of the ledge-corner. He nodded to himself, leapt across the gap, pushed the block over the side, and then leapt back off the ledge to push the block into the indentation.
Then, he walked over to the diamond switch, hitting it with the Master Sword. The interior glowed with a red light, that swiftly softened into yellow, and then, even more swiftly, turned clear again.
Link hit the switch again, jumped off the ledge to the floor, climbed onto the block, and began to climb the wire mesh to the ledge above the switch. He heard it return to its original state, with a loud click. He continued climbing, pulling himself onto the ledge, and edging carefully past the ring of flames. He dropped a bomb over the edge of the cliff, and returned to stand before the ring of flames. The bomb exploded, the switch tripped, the fires died down. Link climbed the fence as swiftly as he could. At the top of the wall, he found another ledge, and a handleless door. The switch deactivated with its little noise, and fire sprang up, barring the way.
There was a short passage beyond that, and then he was on the upper floor of the room with the boulders in it. He recognised it at once. There was a torch slug waiting on a ledge before him, across a gap he knew he could jump. This slug didn't seem to recognise his existence.
He looked around the room, scanning the walls, until his eyes settled on a cage of green-enameled metal bars, across the room from him. Also, according to the dungeon map, which he withdrew out of the hopes that he could at least discern something by using it, unlike the map in the Forest Temple, there was a door set into that ledge on the far side of the room. He might not know which cardinal direction that was, but he'd only been in two rooms of the second floor, so he could orient himself very well.
He aimed the hookshot at the torch slug barring the way to both cage and door, and saw a path of high walls leading to a switch to his left. He leapt onto the wall the instant the torch slug's fire went out, rolling to his feet, and drawing the Master Sword, impaling it and hacking at it until it burst into blue flames and died.
"Link…there's something odd about this floor…I think it might have been filled in with a layer of bricks…I think I can hear a goron down below!" Navi said, hovering near an odd, darker patch of bricks. If he scrutinised, he could see a thin line of light outlining something in a square. He pulled out a bomb, broke the fuse cap, and set it carefully down on the floor, jumping back across the gap he'd just crossed. There was no passage leading down on the map, but that didn't necessarily mean that there wasn't one at all.
Sure enough, when the bomb detonated, it revealed a ladder leading down into parts unknown. Link glanced at Navi. Navi sighed, gave a curt nod, and flew down into the unknown bottom story.
"It's very far down," she said, after a few seconds. "I think this is floor 1B. It's safe down here as far as I can tell…except for that likelike against the far wall. I think it might be resting on the switch…. The goron himself seems to be muttering to himself, and not to notice me."
Link swung himself over the railing, and began to climb down into the pit.
Navi was wrong, for once.
As he rounded a corner, he found that the red bricks abruptly gave way to green. A strange, squishy-looking monster jiggled in place on the far side of the room. He could hear the distinctive throaty mutters of a goron. But, that was all he had time to tell, before a green brick dislodged itself as a slab of stone from the floor, and hurled itself at him.
He reacted without thinking, cutting through it with the Master Sword, but another was already rising from the floor, and a thrif, and a fourth. Navi hovered around them, uncertain, as Link glanced over at her, pulling the shield off his back to try to block the attack.
"What?" Navi demanded. "Some sort of trap made of flying floor tiles? I've never seen the like before…I'm so sorry, Link! Judging by the way they're throwing themselves at your corner, they can sense where you are, and are trying to hit you, specifically…I guess the only thing you can do is defend yourself."
Meanwhile, Link continued to change the angle of his shield, raising and lowering as well as tilting it, to block as many of the tiles as he could. At least they broke when attacked, or crushed against his shield.
Eventually, the barrage of masonry stopped.
It was true. It was indisputable, now. Rocks themselves had it out for Link. Now, they were even coming to life to hurtle themselves at him, in a self-destructive, sacrificial attempt at defeating him.
He raised his head, and noticed that the wiggling, sandy-coloured monster on the far side of the room was no longer on its slightly elevated floor, a step up from the rest. It had fallen off, and was continuing to wriggle towards him. When Navi trusted that the floor wasn't going to resume its assault, she rushed over to the mystery monster. Presumably, if Navi didn't know about the malevolent tiles, this monster before him was a likelike.
"These are likelikes! You have to be very, very careful, Link. They eat special equipment, such as tunics and shields! The kokiri tunic is filled with all manner of protections; I don't think the monster can eat it; but if it eats you, it'll swallow your clothes and shield! Stay well away from it, if you can, or wear the kokiri tunic! Try to defeat it before it can swallow you!"
Link tensed at Navi's panic. From her description, he suspected that this was the sort of monster that he couldn't risk using the hookshot on. Instead, he withdrew the faerie bow, with its accompanying quiver of arrows, taking careful aim at the likelike. He could feel Navi's disapproval from here, but he stepped back, drawing the bow, sighting, letting fly. He hit. He watched as the thing flailed, folding over on itself revealing to him the small hole of a mouth, stretching out towards him. There were no eyes, or other facial features. There was just that wrinkly gap in the centre.
He suspected that an arrow in the mouth would not deter the monster in the slightest. He waited for another opening before firing another arrow, and another.
At last, the monster pooled in on itself, bursting into flames.
He could see the step-on switch on the far side. He rushed across the room, and Navi flew to meet him. As he ran, he passed the goron, still muttering to himself in his cage. Link nodded to himself, but then stepped onto the switch near the wall, and the barred grille of a door rolled aside.
Link walked over to the open entrance, to speak with the goron formerly imprisoned within, and to retrieve the small key he was certain accompanied it.
"Are you releasing me? Am I free to go?" the goron asked. "I will tell you something for saving me. The legendary hammer of the hero of the gorons is said to be hidden somewhere in this temple…but it's so heavy, I think a little guy like you would need two hands to lift it! When you swing it, it has many of the same effects as bomb flowers. You can even break down false walls, and those fake doors lying around the temple! Please wait for me to climb out of here before you climb out, yourself!"
Without saying anything more, he walked over to the fence by which Link had entered, leaving Link with a moment's indecision as to whether he ought to watch the strange spectacle of a goron climbing a wall, or to retrieve the small key he was certain was still inside the cell.
At length, duty won out, and he entered the cell, kicking open the chest to reveal another small key. Link wished that he'd used Farore's Wind, in the maze of ledges above him. It would cut a lot of the time, at the very least. He resolved to do that as soon as he had pulled himself out, and had the space to.
He watched the goron climb, until it pulled itself out of the hole, and vanished from sight.
Link then set to climbing out of the hole himself.
He jumped onto a narrow ledge heading towards the switch he had seen before, and then jumped to another, and then onto a square brick pillar, where the switch waited, exactly long and wide and square enough to cover the area of a single brick. He stepped onto it, and heard the gate open across the room. He leapt across another ledge or two, until he stood in the wide-open cell. Not just the door, but an entire wall-section had retreated into the wall.
"You rescued me! I'm forever in your debt…. Let me know if there's ever anything I can do to help you. In the meantime…I should tell you…the goron tunic is heat-resistant, and flame-resistant, but you can still catch fire, especially if one of those fire keese crash into you. If you catch fire, you can roll to put it out, or even cut through it. In the meantime…I really do need to be getting home. Thank you!"
The goron walked over the ledge, landing on the floor below with a great thud. Link turned away to kick open the small treasure chest and pull out a small key.
He had far too many keys, and far too few locked doors. It was almost a relief to find that the room at the far end of the upper level of the boulder maze was locked, and so was the door at the far side of the room beyond. He took a moment to pause before the locked door, Throwing his hands into the air, gathering the green energy, and drawing his hands down to himself, invoking Farore's assistance, leaving behind a ball of green light that then vanished. He could afford the loss of magic, now.
He threw open the door, and left the room filled with running boulders, into a room with a cross made of two narrow stone bridges leading across the room, to a locked door with an eye-switch over it, and a barred off door to the right.
He withdrew the bow, aiming one of his few arrows at the eye-switch, assuming that its effect would be to raise the bars on the door to his right. He hit the switch from the entrance in a single shot, and, sure enough, the bars rose.
He slowly made his way over the stone bridges, glad that he had used Farore's Wind to create a warp point in the previous room. If he fell off into the chasm towards the lava far below, he could warp back before he hit the ground, which he assumed was hidden somewhere amidst the lava, far below. He walked to the previously barred door, glad that the bars did not fall back down; these eye-switches were of the sort that remained in one position until switched. The eye was now closed; the bars were now raised. If he hit the eye again, it would open, and the bars would drop.
Beyond, he found himself in a tiny enclosure with a single treasure chest—but it was a big treasure chest. He twisted the clasp, and flung the chest open, reaching inside to pull out the compass. Well, this dungeon seemed rather ordinary and regular.
He peered around the room, noticing the red bubbles shooting across the room in a trail of fire. (Navi whispered their name to him, and he found himself again comparing a monster with its equivalent on the Great Sea. This one was more dangerous.) He saw the series of platforms, including several dangling down from the ceiling, leading across the room. There were a series of ledges on the far side, all of those familiar red bricks. There was also a locked door.
He shrugged, but couldn't help contemplating how to reach that door on the far side of the room. Perhaps he'd enter the room through that other door, later on.
He returned to the room with the narrow stone bridges, crossing to the door under the eye-switch. He twisted the key, opened the door beyond, and found himself on a ledge of red bricks, with a floating metal platform directly before him. A familiar path started before him, before curving out of sight. He took a deep breath, and leapt onto the metal platform. He heard an odd whooshing noise, and turned to look behind him, where a wall of flames erupted, and began to move around the room, as if following him. It was a wall fully as broad as the room itself. He couldn't avoid it if it caught up to him, and so he ran, jumping up onto the metal platforms that dangled from the ceiling, and from the pillar sticking up out of the lava, both.
He made it to the far side, and the familiar door. He unlocked it, and twisted the handle to find himself in a very busy room. There were spinning towers spewing flames from each side of their base (a block with mouths carved into it). There were fire keese, patrolling the heights. There was a strange, tall column blocking his way to the other side of the narrow space of floor between the door through which he entered, and another set into the wall in front of him. He couldn't see what lay atop the pillar, nor guess how to get up the ledge to that door.
To his left and right were several posts sticking up at regular intervals, in a way that made him suspicious. He crept toward one, and sprang back as a wall of flames connected it to another of the posts. Then, the fires died down, again.
He'd seen a similar puzzle before. On the Great Sea. But, the memory of the experience would not come clear, and his attention was divided, even before Navi flew towards the floor around the mysterious pillar standing between him and the door, claiming that she could hear something (a goron), below.
How to get across? Move with great caution, waiting for those walls of flame to spring up. There would be a path formed by gaps in the invisible maze, but they could not be discerned save for by trial and error. This was not a maze that Navi could guide him through.
He picked a meandering path through the many walls of fire to the left of the entrance, at last sidling along the wall, around one of the columns that spewed flame in four directions at once, and then picking his way past the last few posts, to a door set into the wall. He noticed that it had a handle, but wasn't sure that he could give himself enough space to prevent a bomb from exploding and harming himself. He looked at the dungeon map, nodded, and reached for the handle. The door opened. There was another door to the right. He wasn't sure that he could even make it to that door, and he was almost certain that it was a fake, regardless.
He shrugged, opening the door and stepping into a short corridor with a goron inside. There was no recognisable way to free him, until Navi, who was flying around the room, looking, noticed that there were two ledges to left and right, and he was standing in the narrow passage between. Hidden on the cliffs next to him, between which he stood, she told him that there was a switch, and another of those strange-looking stone blocks.
He pulled out the Ocarina of Time once more. He didn't think it would hurt to play the song, and see what happened with the block, this time.
What happened was that the block shimmered into existence next to him, providing a way up onto the ledge. Now, he had to consider what he ought to do. He climbed onto the block, and thence, onto the ledge not above a goron cage. There was a door set into the wall. It had a handle, which aroused his suspicion. He crept toward it, pulling out the Dungeon Map. It was difficult to tell, but the room he was in was marked with three exits, and this might be one.
He reached for the handle, waiting and ready, but it didn't attack. He pulled open the door, and peered out into the room he'd just come from. He was on the ledge facing the door he'd originally entered that room through, of course. From here, he could see that there was a protruding blocky pillar sticking out of the small enclosure set into the chain-link fence. He returned back into the corridor, jumping across the ledge to stand on the step-on switch. Nothing happened.
"I think it's a bit rusty," said Navi, fluttering down to examine it more closely. Link could see the rust, too, coating the whole thing, making it recalcitrant, unmovable. If there were nothing else that he could do, he would have to continue out the door he originally was going to go through, before Navi had flown up to see what lay above.
He remembered that the map showed that this corridor connected to the same room through all three doors. This door led to the northern side of the room. He was, therefore, unsurprised to recognise the area that lay before him, filled with spinning statues breathing a constant stream of fire in two directions, and posts arranged into an invisible maze. This would require caution and patience. He could not afford to be hasty.
He would have to be hasty. There was a switch lying at one part of the maze. He stepped onto the switch, and the wall of flames barricading off the far side of the maze died down, revealing a door set into the wall (one with a handle), sitting in the middle of a redbrick wall. He had barely made it around the second bend when the switch popped back up, and the wall of flames reignited, once more blocking his way.
He stared up at the keese flying overhead, realising just how perilous this particular task was. Alright, then. Lure the keese in, kill them, find the path to the wall of flames from the switch, memorise it, step on the switch, and run down the safe path. Make sure of what the path was several times, make sure it was memorised, because, if he failed, he'd be incinerated. Then, there were the fire keese, who could also set him alight.
He pulled out the bow, sighted, with Navi frowning, but saying nothing. He shot at the first keese, hit it, and its body, covered in blue flames now, was consumed before it could reach the ground. Good enough. The other keese were too far away to be much trouble. There was no sense luring them over here.
He counted fenceposts, realised that that would be insufficient in remembering the right path, when they all looked identical, and set about instead remembering how many steps it took, the way the room looked, how far away landmarks were, how far the wall of fire, how far the door.
He walked back and forth repeatedly, setting the path in his mind, increasing his speed, decreasing his speed, trying to find a means of memorising that would work. He nodded to himself, ran over to the switch, ran on it, and began to run along the by-now familiar path. He reminded himself that the priority was not setting himself on fire. He could always return to step on the switch again, unless he were too injured, or dead.
He made it, and a second later, the wall of flames sprang up again at his back.
A new thought occurred to him, now for the first time: How was he going to return? He frowned, shaking his head. He posed the question to Navi, who looked thoughtful.
"The temple will provide a way for you to get where you need to go. But, if all else fails, and you need to beat a hasty retreat, remember that you cast Farore's Wind in the room across the chasm. It would be a bit difficult to return here, but you could do it…all the same, you probably should have used it back there."
She frowned, folded her arms, and flapped her wings with such vim that she rose and fell in the air by a foot or so with every flap. "Not that I fault you. You had other concerns. I just wish that I'd thought of it."
She gave him a sheepish smile, and fluttered over to land on his shoulder. Link ran over to the door, and reached for it.
It fell on him, of course. He knew that there was a door marked on this part of a map, and knew that the maze he'd just run had to lead somewhere important. But, this was a dungeon, and it never did to let down your guard in a dungeon.
He couldn't push the weight of the door off him—it slammed down with the force of a hammer, knocked him over with crushing force, and then swiftly retreated, waiting for him to come too close.
He slowly brought himself to his knees, well aware that he'd taken more than superficial damage. Perhaps, he'd need to drink the medicine of life that he'd bought from the apothecary at Kakariko Village. (They called it 'medicine of life', and not 'red potion', which Link stored away for further analysis in the corners of his thoughts.) He pulled out the milk, instead, took a drink, and felt his muscles and bones mending themselves. That settled it. There was something magical about this milk.
When he felt strong enough to stand, he pushed himself to his feet. Navi fluttered in the air near his shoulder. Apparently, having a heavy iron door fall on her didn't hurt her as much as it did Link. Or, perhaps, at all.
He frowned at the door, considering it, and remembered what the goron he'd rescued had said. He pulled out a bomb, backing away from the door, and threw it at the heavy iron.
The real doors were probably of iron. Link had no idea what this one was made of, to break the way it did, falling to the ground in sharp, jagged shards of metal. The wall around it crumbled into a pile of dust, revealing that it had been one of the false walls that another goron had spoken of.
Link frowned. He'd been very careless there, hadn't he? He hadn't been testing the walls of the temple to see if they were false, and he hadn't been ready for the false door. Why couldn't these temples be straightforward?
Navi cocked her head, eyebrows furrowed in evident concern. He sighed, walking over to the (handled) door at the far end of the alcove. He slowly reached for it, having learnt his lesson. He was ready to jump back out of reach at a moment's notice.
His hand found the doorknob, and he pulled open the door. Beyond was a room with a fire that reminded him of the ones he'd seen in the Dodongo's Cavern covering a square podium. There was a door to the right, leading to a corridor leading who-knew-where, but it was barred.
As was the door he'd just entered through. Of course. Here came the miniboss.
A black ball of coal with red eyes and a red mouth gave a deep, eerie laugh full of menace as it leapt into the fire, emerging as a figure made of thin flames forming arms and legs, hair and a chest. It had become a humanoid figure, with the black ball forming its head. What could he do against such a foe?
"Navi?" he asked, as she flew off to hover near the head. Her area of focus was a clue on its own, although he could have guessed that the black head was the crucial self of the monster. Link kept it in sight as he chased it around the makeshift arena—the square red-bricked room.
"It's called a 'flare dancer'," she said. "You need to find a way to isolate the head from those flames. I don't know how, though. It's made of fire, or it surrounds itself with fire, so bombs won't work, and those arrows would just burn up. Other than that, what do you have? The Ocarina of Time…I don't think you could play that and keep your distance and guard up at the same time…The Master Sword… its reach isn't long enough. I don't know how you'd use the shield against it, either…I think you'll have to use the hookshot, somehow."
Link stared at the black ball that was the creature's head, and withdrew the hookshot, aiming for it. The hookshot could draw the strangest things closer. It might work. He'd be pulling the head from the flames.
He stopped, aiming the hookshot at the head, he twisted the knob of the hookshot, sending out the chain. It latched into the smooth hard rock, and pulled it out of the heart of the flame body. The flames dispersed. He sent away the hookshot, and drew the Master Sword, lashing out at the monster as it tried to hop away on tiny red legs. He hadn't noticed those before.
Eventually, it threw caution to the winds, and leapt into the column of flame, with a deep, menacing laugh. It emerged as a figure much the same as the previous one, only blue. Did that signify something? Would it turn green next, and then yellow?
Link nodded to himself, readier for the fight now that he had a plan, as Navi hovered near the head. He suspected that she couldn't help him to aim the hookshot—it wasn't a true projectile weapon—and considered asking her why she was flying over near the head, if not to help him aim. Perhaps she wasn't sure, herself, and was exerting her best efforts to help his aim. Perhaps, it was a projectile weapon.
He dragged the black head out of the flames, and it squealed as it landed at Link's feet. He sent away the hookshot back to its shelf in his inventory, and drew the Master Sword, hacking indiscriminately at it. It didn't seem to have any particularly vulnerable areas.
But again, the moment it gained enough distance from Link, it leapt into the flames. Sure enough, it emerged as the same humanoid figure, only now made of green flames, not red or blue. That was all of the goddesses three accounted for.
Link sheathed the Master Sword for the second time, withdrawing the hookshot, and taking aim. Perhaps, the change of colour was a sign that it was growing weaker.
He took careful aim, glad of his archery practice, and dragged the miniboss from its protective shield of flames for the final time, sending the hookshot away even as the flare dancer landed at his feet. He drew the Master Sword, striking it several times before it began to swell, blinking red.
Link rolled away from it, and watched as it swelled until it exploded. When it had, the bars blocking both doors rose, and the flames died down around the central platform. Now, he could see that a thin seam ran along the base of the platform, as if it weren't integrated with the rest of the room's layout. He pulled out the dungeon map, noticing the marker for stairs proudly displayed in the room he stood in. It was another lift, if less visible than the one in the Forest Temple.
Well, first things first, there didn't seem to be any other doors or stairs in the only room of 3F, and that seemed to be the most probable destination. He climbed onto the platform, and let it carry him up into the room of 3F.
He arrived in a circular room with two paths, one broad and of tall platforms he would have to leap up and fall down between, the other of narrower, shallower steps, ringing the edge of the room, leading up to a broad, open area with a ring of fire standing in the centre. A series of steep drops provided a swift return to the door through which he had just entered. Two fire keese flew overhead.
Somewhere, there was doubltess a hidden switch of some sort, to quench the flames, which must be hiding something important. A glance at the dungeon map confirmed that there was a treasure chest somewhere nearby.
He could hear the rolling crunch of a boulder somewhere nearby, but the boulder itself was hidden from sight until he climbed the first tall ledge, next to which began the narrow flight of steps.
There was a step-on switch located on this lowest step, and the flight of steps that ran along the rim of the room began to the right, doubtless intended as a barrier between the boulder's pit and the abyss.
Somewhere far below, Link could see the bright orange of lava. He thought he saw two moving pinpricks of moving orange, as well. He'd never survive such a fall, but the existence of the flight of steps as a plausible route up suggested that that step-on switch operated under a time limit. He sighed, pulling out the bow to remove at least one distraction— the two fire keese fluttering aimlessly about overhead.
He hit the nearer of the two on his first try, but it took three shots to defeat the other keese. At length, however, only the danger of falling to his death provided an obstacle to his ascent. He climbed up each individual ledge, first, replenishing what supplies he could by breaking the jars standing near the walls, as he made his way to the pillar of flames. Sure enough, close to, he could make out the distinctive arch of the lid of a big treasure chest. He nodded to himself, as Navi supervised, frowning to herself. He knew that she was trying to find some way to be useful, and felt a twinge of conscience for not seeking her help aiming the bow.
He climbed back down via the narrow flight of steps, pausing occasionally to track the progress of the boulder running next to him, but too far below him to be any threat unless he fall. It rolled back and forth, from one end of the pit to the other.
As soon as it was possible, he climbed onto the large step with the switch sticking out of it. He stepped on the switch, stood aside, and waited. Far too soon, the switch began to make a strange, ticking noise, and to glow. Both stopped when the switch deactivated and the ring of flames returned.
He stepped on the switch again, the flames once more retracted, and Link leapt onto the ring lining the wall where the steeper, narrower path up around the circle began. He ran up the narrow flight of steps, even where the path grew so narrow that only one foot could fit on the barrier wall at a time.
Navi fluttered after him, as if he were moving too quickly, and she was having a difficult time of catching him up. He sensed that, in other circumstances, she would chastise him for recklessness, but it was readily apparent that he didn't have the liberty of time to take a safer route. As he neared the end, he leapt onto the broad flat expanse containing the chest, barely giving himself time to recover from the sudden impact before running for the treasure chest, twisting the clasp, flinging up the lid, and reaching inside to pull out what lay within.
Which was too heavy to be removed that easily. He rearranged his grip on the long stone rod that formed the handle, and grabbed hold with both hands, heaving the Megaton Hammer out, and staggering away from the chest. He couldn't have moved any faster, no matter the urgency. It was just too heavy. And, of course it was—gorons were strong and tough. He sighed, staggering around the expanse, trying to accustom himself to the great weight. He didn't notice that the ring of flames never returned to guarding the now-empty chest.
He sent the hammer away, and bent over, hands clutching his knees, as he gasped for breath. Running with the Megaton Hammer would not be possible. If he were in a situation where speed was important, he would have to wait until the last moment to bring out the hammer.
He nodded to himself at his plan, and then turned to glance up at Navi, hovering in the air. She seemed to be considering whether or not to scold him, or make some other comment. But, she just crossed her arms, and then fluttered down to land on his shoulders.
"That heavy, huh? You know, you'll end up using that hammer when we have to face Volvagia. I hope you're planning a strategy, because I can't think of how you could wield it in combat. It'd slow you down too much…."
He straightened up, peering around the circle ringing the abyss. He headed for the shorter, steeper path back down to the door through which he'd entered.
His next stop, logically speaking, was the unopened door in the miniboss's chamber. Then, he'd use Farore's Wind to return to his warp point, and return to the rusty switch. It was possible that the Megaton Hammer would exert enough pressure to trip the switch, despite the rust. There was also the stone pillar to consider. He glanced over at Navi, cocked his head, nodded slowly.
"If I take it out at the last moment, that should enable me to use it without slowing me down," he explained. "It's the best I can think of to do. Unless I find something that will let me lift and carry heavy weights. I don't think I could train myself to lift such a weight, especially in such a short time frame."
Navi sighed. It wasn't the most ideal solution, but what else could be done?
Link leapt from tall stone step to tall stone step. Despite how many of the shorter cliffs there had been leading up to the treasure chest, there were only four leading back down. In one of them was a cage with a goron in it. Although the switch he had flipped earlier must have opened the door, the goron was still resolutely curled, as if certain that the door would slam shut again. Link felt a twinge of conscience at this; he was the one who had tested the switch before making his run up the steps.
"Hey! It's alright! You can leave now! That door isn't closing again!"
He gave the goron a small smile, stepping into the cell, standing in the door so that, if it closed again, he would be blocking it with his body. "Are you injured? Can you stand?"
"Are you releasing me?" asked the goron. "You saved me! But please, there are still others in cages throughout the temple…please rescue them, too! Let me tell you something…when the legendary hero who defeated Volvagia sealed the dragon's bones away, he barred the path to Volvagia's tomb by preventing non-gorons from entering that room. I think he threw the pillar high into the air. Who knows where it landed, though!"
The goron trudged over to a frowning Link, already puzzling through this information, and Link absently stepped aside, approaching the small chest left behind. It contained yet another small key, of course. He was starting to wonder if there weren't more small keys than locked doors. Even according to his dungeon map, he was running low on unexplored rooms.
He thought about the matter, as he returned back to the room of the miniboss. He pulled out the dungeon map, analysing it on his ride down. According to the map, there were two other doors hidden somewhere in the entry chamber, leading to a series of other rooms. But he'd seen no sign of other doors. Then again, he kept forgetting to whack the walls with the sword, to see if there were hidden doors. He'd stick to doing that in rooms with doors marked on the map, he decided, unless matters seemed to call for a change in plans.
There were only two doors marked in the miniboss's lair, but there were three paths associated with it. This temple, while more comprehensible than the Forest Temple, which he suspected he would never truly understand, was still far from straightforward. He needed to remember several things at once—the false doors, the hidden passages beyond fake walls, and secret lifts connecting rooms that otherwise couldn't be accessed. The temple was beginning to feel as if it held more secrets than the incomprehensible Forest Temple. If each temple he passed through grew progressively more complicated…!
There was no reason to think that, of course. The order in which he confronted each dungeon was arbitrary. But, he still remembered Navi's explanation of the nature of dungeons—how places acquired minds of their own as time passed. These temples were old, and their minds were shrewd, and bound into Ganondorf's plans. Or, perhaps, just curst, and trying to work around them.
He approached the other door, ordered it to open, and stepped through into a corridor that seemed completely ordinary, save for a block sticking out of the middle of the floor at random, the fire keese aimlessly patrolling the room, and the locked door on the far side. But… according to the map, this room contained a means of accessing a lower floor, and a door leading further into this one. He could see the latter, but the former remained hidden from sight. The stairs were located in roughly the same area of the room as the door. Well, he might as well head for the door he could see, first.
He glanced at the protruding stone block sticking out of the floor thoughtfully as he passed, before pulling out the bow, taking careful aim at the keese, one of which was swooping down at him.
With the two keese defeated, he approached the door set into the wall. This one had no handle, so he stood a wary distance away, and put a hand to his hip. "Open," he told it, and it obliged, rising up, revealing one of those corridors with cracked dirt for walls that he'd seen several times here, before.
At the end of a winding corridor was a cell with another goron in it. There was a step-on switch located in front of the cell. Link approached it, noticed the rust, and swung the Megaton Hammer down. It cut straight through the rust, slamming the switch into place, and the door rolled past.
"You came to rescue me!" cried the goron, in a higher-pitched voice. "Thank you! I don't have anything to offer you, except I think there's a key in the chest, here! Good luck, hero!"
The goron wasted no time in walking carefully past Link, until it came to the entry door. Link heard the goron tell it to open, and then the goron stepped through, and he was alone in the chamber.
He approached the chest, took out yet another small key, and turned back around, following the goron he'd just freed.
In the chamber with the hidden staircase, he set out for the protruding stone block, summoning the Megaton Hammer into his hands, and swinging it down at the top face of the block, which sank into the floor. Slabs of rock, each three feet long, and as wide as the corridor itself (with a small ledge on all sides allowing access to the far door), sank down in measured increments before it. In a minute, a flight of makeshift steps led down to a hidden, lower door.
This one led to a short corridor with another goron hidden behind the walls of a cage. On the other side, the goron stood up, with a guttural groan, as if in pain, as Link approached.
"Big Brother Link, is that you? Big Brother Darunia must have sent you to rescue us. Thank you for saving me! I'm sure a hero like you had no trouble finding the legendary artefact of our race, the Megaton Hammer. It can do many things, include break down those false doors you see everywhere, and the thin false walls. But, don't forget it's also useful for pounding things in! Well, I'll be off! Thank you, again!"
The goron trundled back through into the flight of steps, but Link walked past the cage wall, eyes set upon the blue treasure chest lying there. At the other side of the hall was a door, making this the first room that a goron should rightly have been able to escape.
He shrugged, flipping up the lid, and withdrawing the key, which was identical to the one he'd found in the Forest Temple, with its head with curved horns, except that its eyes were red. Red for the Fire Temple, perhaps. Still, it was clear that this was the boss key for this temple.
Now, he bit his lip. He had to save the other gorons, he knew; he'd promised Darunia that he would. At the same time, he knew that Darunia needed the Megaton Hammer, needed Link's help. He turned to Navi, a silent plea in his expression, and a silent question.
"We promised Darunia that we'd free the gorons," Navi said, hands on her hips, her tone one full of reproach.
"Well, yes," Link said. He conceded this point easily; he'd just been thinking the same thing, himself. But… "If Volvagia is slain, the gorons can wait for a short time. Darunia, on the other hand, is in immediate danger, without the Megaton Hammer to help him. He needs us most, now. The gorons can wait."
"And, what will he say when he learns that you didn't free the rest of his people, first? What if Volvagia kills you? Then, who will free the remaining gorons? I know it's hard; I'm worried about him, too. But, you did promise that you'd free the gorons. And, how were you planning on reaching the boss's lair, anyway?"
Link's shoulders slumped, as he frowned. He didn't know. There had to be some way to create a path to the boss's lair, didn't there?
"Darunia will be alright, Link," Navi said, her tone gentler, now. "He's a goron, who are naturally pretty resilient…and we know he's made of even stronger stuff. Remember how he dropped down over the cliff in front of the Dodongo's Cavern, and stood up, as if it were no distance at all? And, gorons are naturally impervious to fire, a dragon's primary weapon. He can wait for us. He'd never forgive us if we put his safety above that of his people. Come on, Link, let's keep going!"
Link sighed, but straightened up, nodding. He'd just have to hurry through this place as fast as he could, and hope that Darunia would be alright, as Navi had said.
Link stood in the entrance to the Fire Temple, his face set in a puzzled frown. He'd knocked the pillar down to rest in the frame that had lain unfilled at the antechamber to the boss's lair; he'd made the perilous trek through a room filled with boulders; he'd found a hidden chamber with another likelike, and another goron, which he'd only guessed existed because Navi had claimed that she could hear gorons down below the path the pillar had taken.
He'd chanced the climb down into the pit, arriving at a wire mesh floor leading to a door leading to another room filled with green tiles. He'd managed to free the goron, defeat the likelike without losing his equipment, and then follow a series of hidden passages that led back to the main chamber. He'd used as many keys as he'd found, for once. He'd freed several more gorons, and emerged back into the entrance hall.
Naturally, the path he'd entered through wasn't marked on the map—or perhaps was hidden amongst the complicated sketches, or was in a room off to the side that he'd entered before, on a slightly different height. There were, however, two doors marked on the map, and he couldn't decipher where they were supposed to be. They seemed to be set into the middle of the room—somewhere in the wall supporting the upper floor of the room—the wall on the same level as the bottom steps of the staircase. The only thing there, however, was a series of towering stone blocks, stacked one atop another, and far too heavy for him to budge.
The doors had to be hidden there. He considered asking Navi to look behind them, to see if she saw a door, but frowned at himself for the thought. He knew it was true. Why did he need confirmation?
He folded his arms, staring the statues down. They remained unresponsive, which was hardly surprising. At length, he walked right up to the one on the left, arms still folded. "Open", he told it, and then groaned when the face in the topmost block opened wide, and then wider, until it stretched to the ground, forming a hole that he could walk through with room to spare. Clearly, this passage had been made for a goron, but it was still not the most comfortable experience, willingly walking into the gaping mouth. He glanced back at Navi, who shook her head, slowly, in exasperation.
He walked through the mouth, which closed back up behind him, leaving him with a solid wall at his back.
There was a door on the far side of the room, locked, and with bars in front of the lock. There was also a podium covered in flames. He sighed, realising what this meant, withdrawing the hookshot as the flare dancer leapt from the heart of the flames, burning bright orange. Was it too much to ask, that a dungeon have only one miniboss? Out of the five dungeons he'd been in (in this time?), one of them, only, had had only a single miniboss. This was the third dungeon to have two minibosses. He missed the simplicity.
He pulled the flare dancer out of its protective body of flames, whacking it hard with the Megaton Hammer, regretting it when it jumped back into the pillar of flames before he could get in a second blow, laughing as it emerged, still burning with bright orange flames. Squashing this thing was not the best move, then. Link nodded to himself, noting this fact, and withdrew the hookshot, aiming at the miniboss, aiming to follow its movement, judging when it was close enough to pull from its protective body.
He hacked away at it repeatedly with the Master Sword, instead, until it managed to gain enough ground to leap into the flames again. When it emerged scant seconds later, with that terrible laugh, it was burning with blue flames, as had the other, and Link sighed in relief. Well, at least this was the same.
He returned the hookshot to his hands, aiming carefully, drawing the head out of the flames, whacking away at it, until it once again avoided the sword blow, seeming to anticipate his move, and leapt into the fire.
When it emerged, it was green, flickering a bit, as it spun around, right foot braced against its left knee, cackling, hair spitting sparks. It was quite an intimidating creature, when shielded by those flames. Without them, it was pathetic, with those stumpy little feet, and round bomb-shaped body.
He pulled it out of the flames again, then hacked away at it until it began to flash, and swell, signaling that it was about to explode.
He noticed the instant that the bars on the doors rose, and the flames died down, freeing him to examine the platform. It showed no sign of being a lift, but he stepped on, regardless, giving it a second to carry him to the upper level, before he went to the locked door, opened it, and headed deeper into the dungeon once more.