Link paid approximately zero attention to the rest of the pictures on the walls, making a beeline to the treasure chests resting in the midpoint of the platform, which seemed to circle right back to the beginning along the opposite wall. At least that meant their choice of which stairs to take had been more or less irrelevant and they could just complete the circle and go back down instead of going back to the beginning and climbing up another set of stairs. Less exciting, but better time-wise.
"Oh, that's a good find!" Sidon's voice said behind him, and then his footsteps followed after Link. Hah, he was more interested in treasure than the pictures as well, it seemed.
There were four chests total, each a different colour: orange, yellow, gray, and green. The orange chest had a padlock on it, the others looked unlocked.
Link was quivering in anticipation.
"I suppose we'll have to leave the orange one as it is, but how about we start with the green one?" Sidon suggested, sounding just as eager as Link felt like.
Psh, as if they'd leave the orange one untouched just because it was locked. Link was game to leave it for the last though, because it probably had the best treasure and he was all about saving the best for the last.
He walked over to the green chest and opened it – being in the dry cave had kept the hinges from rusting, which was rarely the case with the chests Link had found outdoors during his adventures, making this one delightfully easy to work with.
What was inside was… large leaves. Unwilling to believe that to be all there was to it, Link picked up the topmost one and examined it closer, which revealed that it was a typical Minish tunic instead of just a leaf. Underneath it was a red cloth cap and a pair of brown, poofy pants.
"Looks like spare clothes", Sidon said rather unnecessarily. "You could change out of your wet clothes and leave them on top of the chest to dry for the next person to find."
Now that was a good idea! Link's current set of clothes were the Minish fashion Threaderi had made for him way back in Stable Town, and they were a little bit worse for wear anyway. He could leave it behind now that he had a replacement for it.
Actually, had he thought things through he could have just changed into his old travel clothes and left the Minish wear here anyway, but hey, one can't always think of everything. He had only considered the fact that he couldn't put his wet clothes into his backpack without everything growing mold afterwards, which had pretty much made his brain conclude that he couldn't change clothes. His usual sets were enchanted and he wouldn't willingly part with them; the Minish set was not, so it was all the same to him if he left them behind and replaced them.
Without further ado, Link changed into the newly found clothes, laid his old ones to dry on top of the now empty green chest, and then moved on to the yellow one.
The moment he opened it, the smell of musty earth invaded his nostrils. Looking inside, he saw a haphazard pile of mulch.
Why was there a pile of plain mulch inside of the chest? Was it somehow special to warrant being kept safe like that? Was it magical?
Link and Sidon examined the stuff and tried to puzzle the mystery out together, but neither could see anything special about it. It was simply a pile of mulch, like one would expect to find in a… compost…
Oh.
"I think this chest used to have food in it", Link said, and closed the lid. "It'd fit the theme with the spare clothes."
"Ohh, I see!" Sidon said, snapping his fingers. "The scent must have eventually attracted insects, who made short work of the food. Link, you're a marvelous detective!"
Link grinned at his compliment happy boyfriend, not about to disabuse him of the notion of his superior detective skills, and moved on to the gray chest.
They were met with a metallic scent, and a pile of tools. They rummaged the pile together and found a screwdriver, a hammer, a bunch of screws and nails, a mallet, spare squares of some kind of metal, and then a few tools neither could name, some very tiny. Link had seen a few very similar items in Purah and Robbie's workshops. He might have seen a couple in Slateri's house too, although he had paid them no mind at the time.
"I think these are Guardian building or fixing tools", Link said, and then explained his reasoning, which boiled down to the connection between the old Sheikah tech and the pictures of the Guardians all over the walls in this room.
Presumably this place was meant for the Minish mechanic or mechanics who worked on the Guardians, who may or may not have also been Minish Champions. Or they could have only helped the Sheikah build the Guardians from the inside and the machines were not, in fact, manually ridable.
He wondered if any Minish currently alive had the answers, or if all of the information was buried in history like anything regarding the Guardians was in the big people world. Out of the people Link knew of, Histori might have some knowledge, and Slateri was another option. Another possibility was that there could exist a family who used to have this job and still passed on the information from generation to generation like the Slateri family, even though they obviously hadn't visited this place in recent times.
Sidon looked like he was itching to write their findings down, and Link felt vaguely bad about the missing journal.
Time to move on, he supposed. He turned to the last unopened chest, the orange one, and gave the padlock a look. It wasn't rusty, which was always helpful in the case of opening padlocks without a key, but it looked generally pretty flimsy.
It'd be a piece of cake.
He unsheathed his sword and swung it sharply at the padlock, destroying the obstacle with very little effort. He wouldn't recommend chipping a normal sword by striking metal with it, no matter how flimsy, but the magical Master Sword took very little damage and would repair itself over time.
Sidon exclaimed in surprise – and possibly shock – at Link's blatant disrespect for both locks and fine weapons. Or Link assumed that to be the case anyway.
As far as he knew this place had been abandoned for years, decades, centuries, perhaps even millenia. Finders keepers, and nobody was likely to have the key anyway.
He sheathed his sword again and knelt down to open the chest, heedless of Sidon's sputtering.
Inside was an orange rod. It looked similar to the Minish ice rod that one of the Vaatians had attacked them with in the Hero Museum.
A fire rod, maybe? Although the Wizzrobe rods were mostly red, not orange, and had fire motifs on them. This one was just an orange stick with a bulbous end to shoot from, just like the ice rod had been a blue stick with the same shape.
"What is that?" Sidon asked. Link shrugged.
"Potentially a fire rod, but it doesn't look the same as the ones I've seen", Link explained. He stood up and walked near to the edge of the platform, and then he swished the rod up and down, aiming at the floor below them.
Nothing happened. Just like with the Minish ice rod.
"May I try?" Sidon asked after a few more tries. Link handed him the rod, and then watched him fail to make it work.
"I had hoped it'd work if I tried to do the same concentration I did at the Magic Academy", Sidon said, and examined the rod. "I figured all magic- Oh look, Link!"
There was text near the bottom of the shaft, several short sentences. There was a chance they were the instructions on how to use the item, but… they were in Minish, like every writing in this size.
"If we can get someone to read this for us, you could use this", Sidon said enthusiastically.
Link accepted the rod back with a nod. Yes, that sounded like a sensible plan. They didn't know if the knowledge on how to use rods like this was common or not, so having a backup plan in the writing was reassuring.
For now though, Link placed the rod in his backpack. It would have been nice to use it to stay warm and dry for the rest of their journey through the Misty Woods – if it was actually a fire rod – but clearly that was too much to ask for.
"Did you want to look at the pictures some more or should we get going?" he asked.
"Oh, I'll take a few more photos!"
Well, Link could rest his feet while he waited.
It didn't take long for Sidon to be done with his documentation, and then the two of them had to make a tough decision: picking a doorway to leave through, because there turned out to be two.
One way out was the doorway Link's kinstone had revealed. The pro of going out of that one was them having some idea where they were, and Sidon probably being able to trace their steps back to their safe, Festari enforced path, map or not.
The other way out was on the opposite side of the room. It was clearly a functional door, but chances were it was well hidden if one looked at the tree trunk from the outside – after all, surely this place would have been looted long before their arrival if the way in was obvious. The pro of using that one was that they'd have a far smaller chance of running into the Vaatians again on that side of the tree, because if they were still looking for the two of them they'd potentially find tracks on only one side of the tree and have no need to scout the other side further. Even if they did, they would conclude there are no tracks there and focus on the more promising side.
Basically, they could risk running into the enemy again by selecting their previous route in, or risk getting lost by selecting an unfamiliar path.
"We could let the wind direct us", Link said, eyes on the new door. "The route may not be as direct as our original one, maybe, but surely it can't be too bad either, since this seems like an important place to the Minish of the past. Important places aren't usually far off the main roads."
Except for the Springs of Courage, Power and Wisdom. Link assumed they were hard to reach on purpose, however, to test their visitors.
"Maybe", Sidon said, eyeing the way they came from. "I do suppose that's safer."
He was clearly hesitating, so Link waited and let him make up his mind. The last decision he had pushed for had led them into an ambush, so he didn't want to push this one too.
He should trust Sidon to think of anything he hadn't considered himself and point out any flaws he found to him. This time he would listen better.
Eventually, Sidon turned his eyes away from the first door's direction and looked at the second one, straightening his already perfect posture. "I do think you're right. We were outnumbered and at a disadvantage with the Vaatians, so it's in our best interest to avoid them at all cost until we have reinforcements from the city ahead. Let's venture forth."
Link tapped his boyfriend's arm, gestured for him to lean down, and gave him a kiss.
Time to face the forest again with the best spirits they could muster, and with a choice made as a team.