Hey guys!

Well, I think I'm getting tired of one of my cats. He urinated on my RWBY jacket, my Swag Bag from RTX last year, and most recently, one of my shoes. All in the same month. *sigh* One of the joys of owning an animal, I suppose...

On the bright side, anyone see the the season 13 premiere for Red Vs. Blue? My mouth was open, I was so impressed with the quality of the animation. Even season 10 didn't look that good. Also, kudos to Miles Luna for his amazing directing of the Chorus Trilogy.

I don't own Legend of Zelda. Enjoy!

Deepwood Shrine

Armed with a new tool for exploring the dungeon, Link exited the room where he fought the Madderpillar. He thought about backtracking to the room where he received the compass to get that blocked chest, but when he mentioned it to Ezlo, the hat responded, "The Gust Jar may be a useful tool, but it won't suck up water. A better way to go would be the barrel room. I remember there being a web blocking off a way to go."

Link checked the map, and saw that the barrel room was south of his position. He quickly made his way there, and climbed into the barrel, spying the web that Ezlo mentioned. He summoned the Gust Jar from his bag and vaccuumed up the web, revealing a hole going into the basement of the dungeon.

"Looks pretty deep," said Link, leaning over the hole after putting the Gust Jar away. "Can you see anything?"

"No, I can't, lad," said Ezlo, who was also looking over the side. However, he leaned a bit too much, and Link felt his balance shift too far over the hole. Ezlo managed to say, "Oh look, gravity works," before they both fell in the hole, landing in a small puddle.

"Ow…" groaned Link as he stood back up. He looked at his clothes and sighed. "And I just dried them out, too." He looked around and saw a lilypad floating nearby. "What the heck is that thing doin' there?"

"Well, since you can't swim, my guess is that it can be used to travel around on," answered Ezlo. "Use the Gust Jar to bring it here, and let's hop on!"

Link did so, and Ezlo directed him on how to use the Gust Jar to propel them while on the lilypad. Before they exited off the ledge they were on, Link spotted a locked door to the north. "Hey Ezlo, remember that chest I couldn't get into earlier?"

"Yeah, why?" asked Ezlo. The hat donned a look of understanding. "Ooohhh, that means we can use this to get the contents of that chest!"

Link nodded. "Exactly." He took out the map and pointed out the room with the chest. "And according to the map, it's not far from here."

The boy put the map away and used the Gust Jar to get to the room, dodging Pestos and bringing down a grate blocking access to the lilypad. He found the chest, which proved Link's suspicions and contained a Small Key, and went back to the locked door. He opened it, and saw a large blue chest in the middle of the room. However, the route to get there going to be tricky. Water surrounded it, and Link would have to use his dubious skills of mushroom launching to reach the chest.

"Take your time, lad," soothed Ezlo, hearing Link's gulp of nervousness. "That chest isn't going anywhere. Neither is Zelda, for that matter."

Link reached up and slapped the hat's beak. "Ow! Okay, too soon."

The boy steeled himself, the used the first of four mushrooms to launch himself north. Looking east, he saw the second mushroom just out of reach. Fortunately, Link remember the Gust Jar, and he was able to use it to grab the mushroom and launch himself over to the next patch of land. He repeated this process two more times, and was able to do a stylish front flip for the last one.

Link opened the chest, and got a large key out of it. This key was very different from the previous keys he came across earlier. This one was gold, and there was an eye on the handle, with two horns protruding on the side. Overall, it had a pretty sinister feel to it, and Link said so to Ezlo.

"That's a Big Key, m'boy. That opens doors where a dungeon's Boss lurks. Seeing this means that Element is within our grasp!"

"What do you mean by Boss?" asked Link as he put the key in his bag.

"As you can probably imagine, the Boss is the leader of the dungeon. Why it's called that is particular, I do not know, but usually, the Boss is a monster that's more tougher than the others found in the dungeon."

Behind Link, a spot on the floor started glowing a deep red. "Oh, look! A portal! This will take us back to the dungeon entrance."

Link eyed the portal dubiously. "Will it hurt me?"

Ezlo laughed. "Of course not! They're perfectly harmless, and can be quite useful. Go on, walk on it!"

The boy stepped on the panel, and he saw a bright flash. He closed his eyes to shield them from the light. When he opened them, he saw that he was at the entrance to the Deepwood Shrine, just like Ezlo said would happen. "Whoa. That's an experience," he said woozily.

"Still, it's pretty convenient, isn't it?" Link couldn't help but agree with Ezlo on that one. "No one knows how these portals were made. Some have tried, but they ended up in some dark dimension, and no one's heard from them since."

Link looked around the room and spotted the two staircases that were blocked off by webs he saw when he first came in. He walked up to the staircase on the left and shouted, "Gust Jar!" The unique pottery flew out of his bag and into his waiting hands. He sucked up the web and walked up the stairs.

"Huh. It's a dead end," observed Ezlo. "I think the way to go is through the other staircase. Still, it's not a total loss. That chest over there might contain something useful."

Link pushed a block and opened the chest, which contained 20 rupees. Slightly richer, the boy went back to the entrance and sucked up the web from the staircase on the right. He walked into the second floor once again, this time getting a better look at the room. There was a pool of water surrounding a mushroom, so Link used the Gust Jar to launch himself over to the west side of the room, then made his way down to launch himself north.

In front of the boy was a very large door. The most prominent feature of it was a large lock with chains going to all four corners. It had an aura of malice, like pure evil was beyond it. Link brought the key out and unlocked the door, causing the lock to fall off and the chains to fall to the sides.

"Well, this is it, lad. The Earth Element is beyond this door. Are you ready?" asked Ezlo.

Link gulped. "No, but I'm sure gonna act like I am." As the boy crossed the threshold, he had another one of those "What the hell am I doing?!" moments.

Outside the temple, all was quiet in the forest. However, a small puddle of green goo gathered up in front of the temple entrance. The goo quickly condensed, and gained two yellow googly eyes and a creepy smile. The green Chu sensed prey in the small building, so it jumped to the center and seeped into ground.

It's time had come.

As Link entered, the door slammed shut behind him. Sensing his nervousness, Ezlo said, "Relax, boy. I have faith that you can do this."

"Thanks, but where in Din's name is the monster?" asked Link. Indeed, the room was bare, and didn't really have anything of interest.

A large drop of slime dripped from the ceiling, followed by another. "Is it raining outside?" wondered Link, a small pit of fear building in his chest. A short deluge of slime rained down, then tapered off. After what seemed like an eternity, a large blob of slime dropped, but stayed together. When it hit the floor, Link felt it shake, and felt himself shaking when he saw two googly eyes on the slime.

"That's a Chu, boy!" cried Ezlo as the monster crawled towards them.

"A Chu?!" shouted Link.

"This is no time to be sneezing, boy!"

Despite the situation, Link managed to sweatdrop. "I said, 'a Chu', not, 'achoo'!"

"Well, sorry, but they sound the same!"

The Big Green Chu, seeing it was having no luck trying to catch the boy on foot, jumped up. Link saw the shadow and rolled out of the way. He noticed that there was always a certain amount of slime on the base used to keep the creature upright, so he decided to try something.

"Gust Jar!" he shouted, grabbing the pottery as it leapt out of his bag. "I hope this thing is bottomless!" Link pointed the open end towards the Chu and pulled the triggers. The Gust Jar started sucking up the slime like a modern vacuum. Pretty soon, only a third of the slime pile remained, and the Chu suddenly had a bloated look. It started teetering side to side, leaning to the right or the left.

After a few seconds, the main body of the Chu fell, almost reaching Link and Ezlo. Link took his sword out and started to cut and slice the creature. "This was so much easier when I was bigger!"

"Less complaining, more running! It's getting back up!" shouted Ezlo. The Chu diverted some its slime from its upper body into the base, allowing it to stand back up. The monster jumped at Link again, almost crushing him. He summoned the Gust Jar and vacuumed up more of the green goo. The Chu became top-heavy again, and Link turned to run, only he was backed up against a corner. He tried to run past, but he tripped, and the Chu collapsed on an exposed leg.

"AAAHHHH!" Link cried out in pain. He took out his sword and swung at the monster, but was only able to cut into it a little bit. When the Chu stood back up and regenerated its base, Link limped as far away as he could.

"How bad is it, lad?" asked Ezlo in concern.

"Well, I don't think it's broken, but it doesn't make it hurt any less," Link grunted in pain. He took out the Gust Jar again, an angry fire in his eyes. "That's it, this thing's goin' down."

He repeated the process of sucking up the goo at the base, rolling out of the way when the Chu jumped at him. When the base was small enough, he stood a good distance away, and the Chu collapsed right in front of him. Link took out his sword, but he didn't stab the main body.

He stabbed it in the eye.

The monster writhed in pain, eyes spinning like crazy. Several small explosions came from the Chu, then a final large one.

Link sighed with relief as a bright light shone from an unknown source. A large stone descended from the ceiling, taking the form of three purple teardrops fused together. "Congratulations, my boy! We've found the Earth Element!"

The boy gently took the Element and placed it in his bag. "I couldn't have done it without you, Ezlo."

"Now, let's go back to village to give them the good news. Also, they should help you with your leg."

"I don't really feel like walking down those stairs," Link said worriedly.

Ezlo grinned. "Not to worry, lad. A portal to the entrance should appear any minute now." On cue, a square on the ground glowed a dark green. "There we go."

As Link limped to the portal, he couldn't help but ask, "Ezlo, how do you know so much about the Minish?"

Ezlo didn't answer right away, which surprised Link. "I'm afraid I can't tell you that quite yet. Let's just say you'll know what you need when you need to know it."

"Well why's that? Never mind. You will tell me eventually, right?"

"Oh, don't worry, I will. Just not right now."

Link nodded. "Very well. Just tell me whenever you're ready." He stepped on the portal and vanished, leaving the shrine empty and silent.

One element down, three to go.

I imagine that even Hylian scientists would try to replicate the portal magic that's found in dungeons. However, the realm that they reached instead was the Twilit Realm. At least, that's what I was going for.

Okay, some news regarding this story: I'll probably (try to) upload a chapter for this story every other week, and do the same with my RWBY/Sonic story. Hope you guys don't mind. In other words, next week is when I'll resume Rose Red, Hedgehog Blue.

Thanks for reading, and please leave a review telling me how I did! Ciao!