Chapter Three
The Waker' Temple Of Shadows
The purple dragon Link and Zelph were riding came in to land atop of what could only be described as a large sink hole with one large path winding down to a temple at the bottom, this path was obstructed by a maze of thorns and was being guarded at several points by pig like creatures that marched back and forth, tripping each other up on occasion or attacking their own shadows.
As they heard a scared Korok' cry for help the purple dragon came to, grabbed them with it's tail and shot them several feet to a clearing within the maze, afoot of a watch tower. Link closed his eyes as he heard a horn blare and many, many pig like creatures charged at himself and Zelph and knocked them out cold.
A while later Link and Zelph came round in a small cell of thorn walls, there were three boxes and two barrels in there with them so it was a tight space.
"This could be tricky" Zelph said
Link frowned and then looked at Zelph wide eyed as a goblin with a spiked hammer came to the door of the cell,
"Oh...wow, that smell is...something else" Link said
Zelph couldn't help it, she laughed hard for a solid minute and the goblin shaking the cell walls and screeching was only making matters worse. Eventually it gave up and walked off.
Link tried to get up but it wasn't going to work so he ate a jelly heart, gave one to Zelph, then started to move the barrels and boxes about,
"What're you doing?" Zelph asked
Link pointed to a hole in the wall, that had been hidden until now,
"Wind Waker" He said
"We still need to get to the bottom" Zelph said
"Then we'll use these barrels, they're empty, those pigs beat up their own shadows, how smart can they really be?" Link said in question,
Zelph raised her eyebrows and the two of them crawled out of this small space. Then, somehow, without anyone knowing about it they took the whole back wall of the cell away and snuck out the two empty barrels.
They got the barrels and themselves down into a ditch that had a black leaf forest lying ahead. Link wasn't entirely sure how he was going to pull it off but he wanted to put two holes for eyes into each barrel so they could see where they were going.
"Where's the Goron hammer?" Zelph asked
"The Goron' have it, it's their hammer" Link told her,
As it turned out he didn't need to worry because about a foot into the black forest where several barrels, some with holes, some without, some rotten and some usable. Link and Zelph sifted through them until they found two they could use.
Barrels overhead they waddled to the top of the thorn maze path. It took them what seemed like an age to make any headway, every few seconds they had to stop when the pig like creatures got suspicious,
Finally Zelph managed to get herself into a position where she was able to take out the remaining pig like creatures with her impeccable archery skills.
The goblins at the top just glanced at the puffs of smoke that were once pig like creatures before going back to patrolling nothing at all.
Link was impressed.
They carefully removed the barrels and ran hand in hand, through the rest of the thorn maze path unhindered, right to the door of the temple at the bottom.
This was guarded by a stone creature, the shadow of which moved around freely,
"Uh, Link" Zelph said, noticing this,
The shadow noticed her and grabbed Zelph' foot, bringing her to the ground,
Link brought his sword down as though it were an axe, at the arm of this shadow. The shadow cried out in pain and the statue above lost it's arm.
The shadow darted into the statue and took control of it.
The statue now jumped down from it's sitting position in the alcove above the entrance to the temple and attacked Link and Zelph,
Zelph used her arrows to chip a piece out of the statue' remaining arm and now distracted by this it dropped the axe it had been swinging,
Link grabbed the axe while he had the chance and took out the statue' legs as Zelph ducked and dived out of harms way; two more swings and the statue was done.
Link dropped the axe and the door to the temple opened out for them. Beyond it was a long, sandstone staircase with ivy all up the walls either side,
Link and Zelph read a sign that said; Welcome to the Wind Waker' Shadow, before entering with trepidation.
At the bottom of the stairs Link and Zelph found a seemingly plain room, boxes everyhwere, some small, some large. A floating platform you couldn't walk around blocked them from the only door they could go through. There was one above on a high ledge but that was locked and at present they had no idea how they were going to get up to it anyway.
They couldn't go underneath the platform or above it as metal spikes shot out of them every five seconds, first below and then above,
At that moment Link' master sword glowed,
"Link! I may be of some help here, draw my stasis power to you so you can get across" Came a voice from the sword,
Link grinned and embedded the sword in the well kept grass beneath them. BOTW Link' ghost appeared before Link and then stepped back until they were one, then when the spikes appeared below he held out his hand and gold chains appeared around the platform, holting the entire mechanism and affording Link and Zelph the time they needed to get across to the door on the opposite side.
As the power subsided they winced at the sound of the spikes going up and ventured into the next room.
Link and Zelph found themselves on a low ceiling platform, they felt really oversized in this room. There was a massive gap between them and a platform opposite, above which was a cage, inside which was the terrfied Korok; Rown,
Link and Zelph got down on their fronts and piered over the edge of the platform, there was a second door lower down, on a ledge to the left and then down further still, a door on the right.
"Hey!" The Korok cried from up high,
Link and Zelph looked up,
"We're here to help, we're just not sure how we're getting over there!" Link called up
"Look to the left of you, on the wall, in the mouth of that stone goblin head is a switch, it'll move all these platforms around but be careful, some of them blow fire at you!" Rown called down,
Link nodded and used the hookshot to grab the switch and pulled back. With some warning the left wall became the floor and once they had righted themselves Link and Zelph got across to a movable platform a metre from them. The gap between that and the platform beneath the Korok cage was still too big though,
Link looked all around until he found another stone goblin head, had Zelph grab ahold of him and used the hookshook to pull the switch and move the platforms again,
Now he and Zelph were suspended and it was a very long way down; as they swung across the room Zelph screamed in fright. Her hands were now tingling. Link lowered them down to the ground and then looked around for another switch. He found one on the edge of the platform that would take them up to beneath the Korok cage.
Link used the hookshot to pull the switch and brought the platform down to their chest heights. Link and Zelph then climbed onto it before Link got down to his front, leaned over and pushed the switch in.
As he got up he quickly realised this was a big mistake. The platform wasn't going to stop, it got faster and faster the higher it went. Link had to make a snap decision and used stasis just past the platform beneath the Korok cage,
Link and Zelph jumped and watched the platform they had just been standing up shoot up to the ceiling then fall back down slowly,
"You nearly killed us" Zelph breathed
"There wasn't another switch" Link replied and with that and a shake of the head from Zelph they ventured through the door into the next room.
Beyond this door was a large empty space with a chest in the middle of it, a box and a canon ball. Link and Zelph didn't trust this at all. Link took some Kokiri pips out of his satchel and fired them into the middle of the room. Nothing happened. Zelph picked up a box and fired this into the middle, again nothing happened so Link grabbed the canon ball and rolled it towards the chest and just like that a big plant like creature revealed itself underfoot, it's petals snapped shut and tenticles wrapped around Link and Zelph' waists and fired them to opposite ends of the room.
"Link! Link! Can you her me!?" Came Zane' voice
"Yes I can hear you" Link called out in pain,
"I'm on my way to you with Dew' boomerang but you're going to have to face off with this minie without it"
"There's nothing minie about this thing!" Link called out, avoiding a whack from a tenticle,
Once he had the chance Link used stasis on the plant like creature and then scanned it for weak points,
"The tenticles grow back Link you need to find a way to destroy his petals" Came Zane' voice
"Ocorina of Time!" Zelph cried as the stasis faded and she and Link were picked up and fired across the room again,
"Shade! I need you!" Link cried before embedding the master sword in the ground beneath him,
A red gil appeared in the air, freezing time, Zelph and the plant like creature,
The gil sunk into Link' hand and Link slammed his hand on the ground with a cry, a golden light apeared around Zelph and a dome of fire formed around Link before travelling out across the room, setting the petals on fire.
Zelph gasped as she unfroze,
As the petals withered they saw an eye where the chest had been. Zelph fired four arrows into it before the petals came back but now they knew how to beat it, it was easy. They repeated the proccess twice more and the boss blew up into purple smoke.
Link and Zelph sighed with relief and ate their jelly hearts until their wounds disappeared, before turning around so see several bricks slide out of the walls at differing heights, all leading up to a new platform and a large door that up until now they couldn't hope to reach.
Very carefully Link and Zelph made their way up and through the door where they found themselves in the Korok Cage.
Rown was so overjoyed to be rescued that he jumped into Link' arms and shook. Link laughed and cuddled the poor little Korok,
"Why did they nab me? What did I do? Play out of tune?" He whimpered sadly,
"I'm afraid you and Aeolius' sister have been caught up in our mess, but you're safe now, we'll get you out of here" Link told him as he jumped down,
"Oh...Aeolius' sister is here? Cameo they call her...I wonder where she is? Here, take this as a thank you from me" Rown said before presenting Link with a folded Korok leaf,
"You'll be able to glide with that now" Zelph told Link
Link grinned and put it away in his satchel.
With some effort, after getting out of the Korok cage Link, Zelph and Rown made their way over to the door on the lower left, here they found a plague of rats, who tried to con them into buying things they didn't need, or things that would take health away if they used them, then attacked the three of them when they refused.
Link used the fire gil and they all blew up into puffs of purple smoke, which filled the room and stayed there to obstruct vision. Link and Zelph walked into each other and stood on the Korok a few times before Link remembered his Korok leaf,
He used this to blow the smoke away until the path was made clear to them. They were alarmed to find that where there had been two doors on entering this room there was now only one. They venutred through this door and followed a corridor of swinging platforms, right round to the room on the other side. Here they found more rats, Link tried to use the gil on these ones but they became four big rats with large red claws.
As soon as they turned and had Link, Zelph and Rown trapped Link embeded the sword into the ground at his feet,
"BOTW!" He yelled, then as the rats took a swipe for him he used stasis on the rat on his left and along with him had zelph duck so the other three hit the rat in stasis and took him out, "Ha! It worked!" Link exclaimed in shock,
They backed out from the only gap available and as the rats went to take a swipe again he put the one opposite in stasis. The two remaining rats hit the rat in stasis and took it out,
"I don't understand how we're getting away with that" Zelph said as Link put the second to last rat in stasis as they took a swipe for them,
Once the remaning rat had taken out the one in stasis Link put this one in stasis too and used his sword to create an unspide down triangle on it's back.
The rat exploded into purple smoke and the room flipped upside down, in fact the whole temple flipped upside down,
"Now we can get into the room we couldn't get into before, by the entrance to the temple" Link said after he, Rown and Zelph had landed, "Majoras Mask and as for your statement these rats can't see, they can however smell me so when I put the rat in stasis the scent of power from my Tri-Force piece and BOTW' Link was stronger on the rat than it was on me so they killed the rat"
Link and Zelph got back to the first room at the entrance of the temple, along with Rown and got access to the second to last room in the entire temple. In this room there were pillars just big enough for two, eyes on the ceiling that opened and shut and a bottomless pit below them.
On some of the pillars were switches that would unlock what Link referred to as the boss door.
Zelph realised that the pupils of each eye were shaped like arrows that changed directon with every blink.
"OK Rown, this is where you come in" Zelph said, "I need you to hover above the switches and tell me which way the arrow at the edge of the platform is pointing so I know when to shoot the eye and activate a whirlwind Link can used to reach the platform, have you got that?"
The Korok made a noise to say that he had understood and flew up and across to the first pillar,
"Zelda! The arrow on the switch doesn't match the arrow on the edge of the platform" He called
"So there's a path we have to follow round to it" Link summerised, "Fly around and work out the path" Link told him
Rown followed this instruction and didn't speak again until he had a path for Link,
"Zelda, you need an arrow facing up" He told her
Zelph nodded and used her bow and arrows to shoot an eye with the symbol she needed, this created a whirlwind and lit up the room a little. Link jumped with the Korok leaf at the ready, caught the whirlwind and used it to reach the pillar, where he dropped and activated the switch. One of the bars on the boss door slid away. Threre were three switches and five whirlwinds left now.
Once the last bar slid away from the boss door Rown flew back, sat on Zelda' shoulders and carried her to the boss door, where Link was waiting.
With a look of determination Link and Zelph slid the boss door to the side and step into the unknown. After a nervous second the little Korok ran in after them and the boss door slammed shut.
The shock of it caused him to give out a startled cry.
Link frowned at his surroundings until he saw Cameo in the centre in chains, crying. Link, overcome by the injustice ran towards her without thinking and became trapped. Three circular walls rose up, seperating Cameo from Link and Link from Zelph and Rown,
Link wasn't afraid now, he was mad, he had his sword at the ready even before the first cackle rang out around the room,
"Link, you love lawn fool, all it took was a cry of fear and dread to get you to come running"
Link cried out in anger and swiped his sword,
"I know that voice! Stop hiding you coward!"
There was a shriek of anger and from where Cameo had been the Bathilda shot up, flipped over Link and pushed him into the wall,
As he turned she ported,
"You're going to regret that Hero of Time" Came her now ghostly voice,
The walls started to spin and the battle was on. Link realised that there were eyes in the spinning walls,
"Link! I can't help you!" Zelph cried
"Don't worry! I know what I have to do...kind of!" Link replied.
First he concentrated on the wall seperating him from Cameo, and he waited for the eye. He tried using stasis on it but when he did this the eye shut tight. Link centred himself and slowed down time, all he could hear was the now slow rythmn of his heart, then when he was ready he jabbed his sword before him and took out the first eye, he then turned and took out the eye in the wall behind, then ducked as two giant flying caterpillers shot out from these spaces left behind.
These caterpillers dropped venom from their legs as they flew around the room. Zelph aimed her arrows for the soft spot on their behinds until one crashed and Link could slice part of the Tri-Force symbol on it. It screeched and flew off around the room again. They did this until both shrivelled and blew up into purple smoke.
The chains around Cameo were released and as Zelph and Rown ran over to her to heal her Link put his sword away.
He was about to join them when the ground rumbled beneath them,
"You got lucky Hero of Time...just so you know I'm not the only one close, who's out to hurt the Ruled line"
A crest dropped to the ground before a lit door appeared on the other side of the room. Through that door Link, Zelph, Cameo and Rown found themselves in a chamber within Hyrule Castle of Old Hyrule,
"Who does that crest belong to?" Zelph asked with worry
"I don't know" Link told her honestly but he was going to find out.