After my miraculous recovery, Zelda and I went back to the main open room and used the key we had found to open the door by the stairs. Unfortunately, the lock clamped down on the key when it unlocked, and there was no way we were going to be able to get the key out without breaking it.
"Sure would have been convenient if we could have just used the same key on all the locks," I muttered as we descended the flight of stairs that were behind the door.
At the bottom of these steps, we found another door like the one we had just come through but unlocked. The landing spilled out into another massive room, clearly a lower section of the space above. A brief look around showed three doors in the walls, one locked, one covered in vines, and the third unlocked.
"Guess we try the unlocked one first?" Zelda muttered. "Must be another key around here somewhere for the locked door." I grunted in acknowledgement and we went through the door, took a sharp right, went down the corridor, and emerged in a large room that sloped down steadily. Water poured down from three spots in the ceiling and filled the room like a swimming pool. Only difference was this water was dark and nasty looking.
"Up for a swim?" I said jovially. I think Zelda actually went a little green at the thought. "Not much we can do in here, want to try to keep going down?"
"Sure. As long as we don't have to go in…that," Zelda said with a shudder as she pointed to the mucky water.
We went back to the large room and continued down the central spiral staircase. It made two full revolutions before spitting us out in front of a positively massive door. And if that wasn't enough of a deterrent, there was a large, menacing lock on the door that practically screamed 'keep out.'
"Well," I said. "Guess we're not getting through that." Zelda rolled her eyes.
"Really? What tipped you off, genius? The fact that the door probably weighs as much as a dump truck or the enormous spiky lock on it?"
"Actually, it was the big 'stay out' sign." Zelda punched me in the arm, but it was totally worth it to see her looking around utterly confused for a second.
We both tramped back up the stairs to find ourselves in the same central room we were just in. "Well, what do we do now?" Zelda huffed, sounding rather defeated. She must be getting a bit tired. She hadn't does as much physical training as I had, and that magic heart crystal thing had really done wonders for my stamina. "There must be something we can do, but all the doors are either locked or covered in invincible vines. All we've got is a generally damp underground sewer system crawling with evil demon spiders and slime balls, which are also invincible."
"Hey," I said, grabbing Zelda's shoulder. "We'll figure this out. Whoever set this place up wouldn't make it so it was impossible. It was clearly set up to be challenging, so we just have to figure out what the twist is. It's like a big puzzle." Suddenly Zelda's eyes brightened.
"Wait, that room with all the water in it. The water was coming from the ceiling, but the pool wasn't overflowing. I bet if we can stop the water, it will drain out. But where is it coming from…?" Zelda trailed off, probably analyzing the problem from fourteen different angles. I was busy trying to figure out how this whole place was set up. I was more a visual thinker. I managed to put together a decent mental map of this place in my head when I realized something.
"Zelda." She stopped her pacing and quiet muttering and looked at me. "That room with the drain in it upstairs; I think it's right above the room with the water in it. That's probably where the water is coming from." Revitalized we ran back up to the first floor. We were quickly back in the room where the spiders had ambushed us. Sure enough, the massive drain in the floor seemed to lead down to the room below it. "So now just to find a way to stop the water…" My eyes trailed to the three channels of water flowing into the drain. That was when I noticed the pipes in the wall and a small valve attached to one of them. I figured it was worth a shot and twisted the valve. Fortunately, it wasn't rusted over too much and was relatively easy to twist. Sure enough, one of the water flows slowed and eventually stopped.
"I guess we just have to find the other two valves and shut them off," Zelda said. Luckily that wasn't to hard, just a matter of finding the sources of the water streams. One of them was in the hallway we had to take to get to the room. The other one was a little trickier, as it was in the hallway we had taken to the room with the key and the slimes in it. When both of them were shut off, we hurried back down to the water-filled room.
Zelda had been exactly right. Without the water flow, the pool had emptied leaving only clumps of questionable gunk and a chest like the ones we had seen before. Touching as little of the soaked chest as I could, I opened it up to find another key. "Only one thing to do with this," I said, and Zelda nodded. We went back to the center room and unlocked the other door. As soon as we went through it, I could tell we were in trouble. The small room we were in was filled with spiderwebs. Not cobwebs, mind you. Those are little strands of spider silk that get caught on your face. No, these were massive webs that said this place had had a spider problem for a long, long time.
Through the tangled mess, we could see another door, thankfully without a lock on it. We cut through the webs and lifted the door up stepping into a dim room. As soon as the door fell closed behind us, I heard the shrill sound of metal sliding against stone. We looked back to the door was covered in a thick grate that was definitely not going to let us out without a hell of a fight. Fortunately, before we had to stumble around in the dark, a series of what looked like torches ignited around the room, giving us plenty of light. Unfortunately, that light showed us exactly what we were dealing with. Which, to be fair, did explain the webs that were everywhere in the room.
There was a skulltula in the room. However, this one wasn't like the ones we had seen before. This one was the size of a small bus. Eight wicked sharp legs extended from its bulbous body, which was decaled with a massive, terrifying looking skull. At least eight eyes adorned it face and fangs the size of my sword hung down from its slavering mouth. The thing chittered slightly, likely stunned from the sudden light. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for it to realize that there was a prime source of food standing in shock right in front of it in the form of a hero and goddess in the making. I only barely managed to shove Zelda aside before jumping and kicking my boot into one of its eyes. It screeched in pain, giving me enough time to see Zelda had gotten stuck in one of the massive webs when I shoved her.
"Don't move around, you'll just tangle yourself worse or attract its attention," I yelled to the repulsed, borderline catatonic girl. "Let me kill it and then I'll cut you down." Zelda meekly nodded her head and I refocused on the behemoth in front of me, which had shaken off its pain and was looking torepay in full.
Honestly, I don't remember much of the fight. It was a mess of black blood, dripping fangs, sword flashes, swinging legs, and dodging. Lots of dodging. Luckily, this beast had the same weak point as its smaller counterpart I had fought earlier: its abdomen didn't have the same carapace the rest of it had. It took longer, but I finally managed to deal enough internal damage to the spider to get it to stop moving. With one final jump and thrust, I jammed my sword into a weak point in the monster's neck, thoroughly killing it.
Suitably tired after fighting the equivalent of a large truck, I made my way over to where Zelda was still trapped in the creature's webs. As soon as I cut her down, she threw her arms around me and hugged me tight. Through a combination of exhaustion and surprise, I didn't even care that she was still largely covered in webs and getting them all over me too.
"Thank Nayru, Din, and Farore you're all right." I just relaxed into her fierce embrace, too tired to really do anything but stand there. I was just glad I made it out of the fight with only a few scratches and scrapes, instead of, you know, a hole in my chest or getting turned into mulch.
Zelda slowly pulled herself together, seeming to realize that I was dead tired and we were both covered in spider webs. We detangled ourselves as best we could, with liberal use of my sword. Once we were free of each other, we noticed there was a chest along one of the walls in the room, much bigger than any of the other ones we had seen. Another few minutes of work and we were able to pry the chest open.
Inside was something much more fitting of a treasure chest. An exquisitely decorated rod sat inside. At about two and a half feet long, it was too short to be a staff. Intricate carvings ran up and down the length of the rod, leaving it decorated but not overburdened with detail. On the top, there was a glowing sphere that looked a lot like a Fire's Ember, only the 'ember' inside looked a lot more like a small fire burning instead.
"What do you think this is?" I asked Zelda.
"I don't know," she said quietly, seemingly entranced by the contained flame. "But if this place was set up intentionally, then it must be important."
"I suppose so," I said as I grabbed the rod. As I pulled it from the chest, I felt a peculiar tingling in my hand and chest. Kind of like when your arm goes all tingly. Hoping to get rid of the feeling, I waved my arm around a little, swinging the rod at the same time. Small sparks burst from the Fire's Ember on the end and crackled lightly on the air. Zelda and I looked at the sparks in surprise as they popped and spit before going out.
"What in Nayru's name was that?" I asked. I waved the rod around, trying to get it to replicate the sparks, with no luck.
"Here, let me try," Zelda said, taking it from me before I hit her in the head. She tried the same thing, again with no luck. She reluctantly handed the stick back to me.
"Did you feel that when you grabbed it?" She looked confused. "A weird tingling in your hand?" Zelda shook her head, looking dismayed and frustrated.
"Lot of good I am. No weapon, getting caught in webs, useless. I couldn't help but feel angry at Zelda's assessment of herself.
"You're not useless Zelda. You helped me with the water puzzle and you're incredibly smart. You just haven't gotten a chance to show that off." I was getting more and more angry the more I thought about Zelda thinking she was useless. As I spoke, her eyes were getting bigger and bigger. I was about to keep going when she interrupted.
"Link, look," she said, pointing to my hand still clutching the rod we found. I looked down to see the head shooting off small sparks. As I stared in surprise, the sparks started to stop. I managed to bring them back with a little focus on my anger. The head burst with color and flame. I waved it at the remaining webs and an arc of fire washed over them. A quick jab sent a fireball flying forward to slam into the wall and splash out.
"I guess anger is the key to making it work," I wondered. Zelda grabbed the rod out of my hand and tried to replicate my feat. After a minute of nothing happening, she dropped her arm and pushed the rod back into my hands. As she walked past me towards the door, I heard her mutter 'Can't even do magic. Some goddess," before hauling the door open herself and striding out, letting it slam down behind her.
It cut me more than any blade.
I tentatively walked after the downtrodden girl back to the large central room. I wanted to give her space if she needed it, but didn't want to leave her open to attack. We were still in a dangerous underground labyrinth.
I found Zelda standing in the central room looking at the wall of vines covering the third door on this floor. I was trying to figure out a way to cheer her up when she spoke up.
"I bet we can burn these. They can't grow back if they're ash." I could hear some venom in her voice, but I figured directed at the vine wall was better than directed at me. Raising the Fire Rod (seemed like an apt name), I found I could summon up the flame just by focusing. It took a little more out of me, something I hadn't noticed while I was testing it out. Must have been the excitement and leftover adrenaline. I thrust the charges rod towards the bramble.
Sure enough, the branches burst into flames and crackled away. It wasn't two minutes before the only thing left was ash, leaving the path to the door clear. We went through to find another small-ish room. As soon as the door slammed shut, another grate dropped down, trapping us inside. We looked around for a puzzle or something when more of the slimes from earlier dropped from the ceiling. Fortunately, they focused on merging together instead of eating us, so we had a second or two to realize we were screwed.
"Great, how are we found to get out of this? I cut these things apart and they just squish back together," I said as we strafed around the now bigger blobs, trying to stay as far away as possible.
"Well, we have a magic fire stick now, try that. Not like we have a lot of options," Zelda said from beside me. I focused on the fire and sent a small burst out towards the massive pile of slime.
As soon as the fireball hit, the slimes burst apart, shooting off in a couple directions. As luck would have it, one of them hit the wall right next to us and immediately jumped towards us. Acting on instinct, I swing the Rod around and blasted the slime in the air. A concentrated stream of flame made the blob melt away just before it hit me. We waited for a second to see if it would reform. When it didn't, I swung the rod to target the other blobs, which were slowly making their way back towards each other.
"I guess we figured out how to kill them," I said cheerily as I incinerated another slime. I could hear Zelda chuckling behind me as I finished off the last slime blob. Unfortunately, killing all the blobs had taken a considerable amount of energy, and as soon as I cut off the flame I had to drop to a knee to keep from falling over entirely. I waved Zelda off. It was nice that she was concerned, but I didn't need to be doted on all the time.
As I crouched there, I hear a shimmering noise from my right. Against the wall, another small chest was fading into view. "Neat trick. Wish I could magically disappear." I pushed myself back to my feet. I seemed to be able to recover quickly, I just had to take a minute.
Z elda opened the chest and gave the contents a weird look. She pulled out what looked like a purple crystal of some sort. "Do you know what this is, Link?" she asked. I didn't know, but her tone indicated she certainly did and was excited about it. "It's an actual rupee, like they used before we switched to paper currency. You can still find these, but they're pretty rare at this point. Kind of like a two-rupee bill. This thing must have been here for ages." I moved to stand beside her.
"Well, the massive spider infestation certainly would suggest you're right." I reached over her shoulder to heft the gem. It was surprisingly light for the size of it. "Is it still worth anything?" Zelda shrugged.
"Sure, we'd just have to take it to a bank probably. I doubt a lot of people would accept it as payment."
"Sweet," I stuck it in one of my pockets. "Now we know how to kill these slimes and we're fifty bucks richer. Oh, and we have a magic fire stick." I paused as I realized something. "And with said magic stick, we can get through that other mess of branches upstairs." The two of us hurried back up the central staircase and torched the other vine wall. The room on the other side of the door had a few more skulltulas, but, as luck would have it, they really didn't like fire either. With one swing of the Fire Rod, they all caught fire and practically disintegrated on the spot.
A door on the right led to a small room with another rupee chest, a deep red twenty this time. The other hall led through a small winding corridor full of sharp turns. Of course, it was full of spiders and slimes as well, and because of the close quarters, I couldn't really use the Fire Rod without torching myself. As I found out.
Thankfully, the passageway didn't go for too long before opening up into a small alcove with an enormous chest in it. Adorned with spikes and skulls, I had a bad feeling about what was inside. This time, I was proven wrong, as all that was in the chest was a similarly adorned key, much larger than the other keys we had found so far.
"Must go to the enormous door in the basement," I mused, and Zelda agreed. We cautiously made our way back through the narrow passageway and back down the dozens of stairs before stopping in front of the ominous door. "Here goes nothing," I said before sliding the large key into place. One mighty twist later, the lock unlatched and sunk into the door, which then rose up into the ceiling, leaving only darkness in front of us. I summoned up a small flame on the end of the Fire Rod, hoping to pierce the darkness even slightly. Almost immediately, a strong gust of wind pushed out of the unsealed room, causing the flame to gutter and flicker. After a moment, the wind stopped, and the darkness loomed in front of us. After a brief look, we stepped forward and heard the door slide closed behind us.
So, hey guys...been a few days...sorry 'bout that. Truth is, I've been at work. Like, a lot. Days off have been few and far between, and there's been anime and movies to watch. Not even good movies either. Had a sudden craving for the Transformers movies. The occasional incoherence of what happens in those can be really funny.
Anyway, second half of the dungeoning here. To everyone wondering if there was still going to be relationshipping during the dungeons, I hope this has cleared that up for you. Things are moving steadily apace.
On to the reviewings! Nightwing, you're welcome. I love to have some dialogue with you guys. Is it wrong that I enjoy that I've pinpointed the exact monster that freaks you out a bit? Probably. I actually thought of putting a little warning at the beginning about the spiders, but decided against it. Sorry 'bout that. Maya, YES! DEATH! Wait, no, repress your psychosis, Aro. Bad Aro. If you want something really good for killing indiscriminately, I'd look at the new Doom game that came out in 2016. If you have a machine that can run it well, I highly recommend it. Virtual shotguns are fun. Careful with that husband of yours. Sand Seal, please see below, you get something special. Imnotraven, not sure how to abbreviate your name, so we're going with the whole thing. Thanks for the good word. I'll get the sketches and stuff up eventually, I realized I'll have to be careful with how I do that so I avoid spoilers. But I'll get them up at some point.
So, Sand Seal. What do I say to you? Let's try, 'Holy shit man.' First, the seal puns. I acknowledge them. You did them. Let's move on. Glad you like the story. I've noticed that a lot of stories will ignore the dungeons too. A bit of a shame, but I understand why they do it. I don't really like writing them, and they take a lot of effort to put together. But they're essential, so here they stay. Yes, a villain will appear, but not for a while yet. Got to let the mystery lurk around for a while. I love writing the comments at the end, so I'm glad you enjoy them. That applies to everyone else reading this too. You're all great. Also, you're not the only one who makes their family think their crazy... Goddess power...I can't talk about right now. And don't worry, this story will continue, no matter what. I have put too much work into this thing to leave it dead in the water.
Woo, that was a good bit of text. For those of you who don't know (likely most of you), a sand seal left a long-ass review for me, so I decided to respond in kind. I am willing to do this again, so if you leave a nice big review, you too can have a massive response instead of just a few sentences. Just something to keep in mind.
Since this isn't long enough yet, quick note on disclaimers. I've been reading another story recently, and they always say at the top that they are, surprisingly enough, not Nintendo and don't own Zelda. Surprising, I know. I wonder at the need for such statements, since this is, you know, a fanfiction website. Fanfiction. Fiction, by fans. Should be self explanatory.
There, now this is long enough. Next chapter, BOSS BATTLE. Gonna be good, I hope it's not boring, I tried hard. Hope you enjoyed this massive note, I've got things to do. What things you ask? Enthusiastic walks through the woods. If you get it, let me know. Cheers.
-Aro