Welcome back to Wind of Time! The sages of Light and Forest have been awakened, and the next stop is the Temple of Fire! What will happen as the two heroes make their way up Death Mountain? Read now to find out.
Chapter 6
To Feed a Warning Tool
After Saria awakened as the Sage of Forest, the curse of the woods was lifted, and the Deku Tree Sprout was able to grow. Our jobs were done here, so Link, Navi and I left the forest and headed back into the Hyrule Field. Link's horse, Epona, was still grazing at the entrance. Link mounted her, and prepared to ride off. He offered me to ride the wild girl as well, but I told him it would not be necessary. I could keep pace with anything.
Link was initially skeptical about my claim, so I dashed off and did 20 laps around Hyrule Field. All in less than 20 minutes. Navi was amazed at how fast I was, but Link had gotten to the point where very little surprised him. Confident that my ridiculously high speed can be useful in the future, we headed off towards Death Mountain. The place was an active volcano, and the only civilized creatures that still lived on that thing were the Gorons. I was starting to find it creepy that I knew so much about some place I've never been to, but the "Walking-Hyrule-Encyclopedia" thing was a side effect of Sheik's translation spell, so I really can't help it much. I needed to be able to hold up a conversation with the natives, so that I wouldn't be running around the place looking like an idiot. We finally reached Kakariko Village, and walked into the only other safe haven left in Hyrule.
Meanwhile, back in my world, Silver had come across an unexpected snag in preparing the gateway to Hyrule. I still don't know how, but no one noticed that the Chaos Emeralds were missing until that moment, when Silver was unable to find them. The energy of one of the Emeralds was a vital key to the gate, as it severed as the anchor to my world. He could compensate this by using the Master Emerald instead, but Knuckles was unwilling to let it happen. As the guardian of the Emerald, he felt he could not let Silver use it for this kind of ritual. His excuse at the time was that using a stronger anchor force might have forced to only remain in Hyrule for a shorter amount of time, but he later confessed that he was worried that the transportation ritual might somehow harm the Master Emerald. Silver was determined to go through with the Hyrule search, but since he was forced to use the Master Emerald instead of the normal Chaos Emerald, he needed Knuckles' cooperation to perform the ritual. Eventually, he would convince Knuckles to comply.
After speaking with the natives, Link and I began the hike up an active volcano searching for living rock creatures that can possibly point us towards the very person who is destined to become an immortal sage of fire. Wow, my life is messed up. (A/N: cookies to the one who can figure out where this little joke originates from.) There were boulders strewn haphazardly around the path, but they weren't really hindering any progress that much. It was not long before we reached the Goron Village. Unfortunately, the place was practically a ghost town. There was only one Goron present, rolling around in absolute panic.
"You can't fool me! You work for Ganondorf, don't you! You'll never take me alive!" the Goron screamed at us. It was obvious that the Gerudo tyrant had attacked this mountain-side metropolis and captured almost every Goron alive. I wondered why he would do that? Did he plan to kill them as a warning to any other race that tried to oppose him? With Link and I already going out of our way to overthrow him, it seemed likely that the guy was planning to minimize resistance as much as possible. Link was eventually able to calm the kid down, and the poor Goron explained the situation. As I had suspected, Ganondorf had captured all of the Gorons, and plans to feed them to some dragon he resurrected as a warning to those who would stand up to him. The kid gave us heatproof gear, and we entered the mountain crater using a shortcut he told us about.
At the bottom of the crater was the Fire Temple. And waiting for us at the entrance was Sheik. I wondered how he could handle the intense heat. He wasted no time in teaching the Bolero of Fire, then vanished in an instant. I noted how Sheik seemed so reluctant to hang around. It was always "Provide useful information then run" with him. What could he be hiding? And just who is he? I shook off the thoughts and proceeded to follow Link into the Fire Temple. What Sheik hides is none of my business. He'll tell us everything when the time is right, I'm sure of it.
After a deep decent into the Temple, Link came across Darunia, the Goron Chief. He told Link and I go save the Gorons being held captive in the Temple, and dropped a useful hint about some hammer that can allow us to defeat Volvagia. I suggested that we split up to cover more ground. Link searched for the hammer while I lokked for the captured Gorons.
As I was running around the temple, my mind drifted to my friends. I had no idea of Silver's gate ritual at the time, and wondered if any of them were doing okay. When I did return home, would I still be speaking Hyrulean? I remembered how Silver had looked surprised when I threatened Egg-head in that language, and I started to wonder; is he able to understand it? Has he been here before? Well, worrying about it now won't solve anything, so I should just do what I can to restore the peace here. I freed the last Goron and went to meet up with Link in the Chamber where we saw Darunia. After much preparation, we went through the door in the back to confront Volvagia.
The Goron-eating dragon reared its ugly head at as and flew into a hole in the ground. One of them started bubbling and the vile creature emerged from it. Link quickly ponded it with the hammer, chipping away some of its procreative scales. I ax-kicked the exposed spot before the demon regrouped and fled down. After repeating this several times, the fiendish creature was down for good. Darunia was able to awaken as a Sage, and added his power to Link's using the Fire Medallion. He presented me with the red Chaos Emerald, and we were sent back to the entrance of the fire temple.
"So, what now?" I asked as we walked away form Death Mountain.
"We should probably head for Zora's Domain." The hero responded. "I've been feeling a chilly wind blowing from Zora's River, and I wonder if it has anything to do with some evil curse Ganondorf placed on them." He sounded highly concerned, but I was completely reluctant to get overly involved in this part. I just knew that I would be seeing a lot of the vile, liquid deathtrap for a while.
What do you think? Sorry about the short Volvagia part. Boss Battles are clearly not going to be my strong point in this format. Anyway, review or suffer his wrath.