Five
Barely three steps into the Temple of Lightning, Link was nearly incinerated.
As he followed his Goron companion Dar into the temple, the young warrior looked around. The first room of the ancient temple was long and wide, the ceiling stretching far overhead to vanish into blackness. Electricity crackled along a few places on the wall, occasionally arcing across the room to zap the opposite wall. As Link looked at the walls, mostly carved stone with metal rails running in seemingly random directions as if made by some kind of crazed spider, he noticed that the electricity ran along the metal rails, discharging at certain points to strike small circular metal plates also mounted in seemingly random places.
A moment's tingling on the back of his neck alerted Link to something dangerous nearby, and he felt a brief charge in the air before he realized he was standing on a circular metal plate. Suddenly, Dar stepped on the plate and shoved Link out of the way, taking the charge himself. A long purple-white bolt of energy erupted from the wall above to strike the thick rocky shell on Dar's back, snaking down to discharge into the metal plate. Link's head rang from the loud noise the discharge had made, and the first few words of something Dar said to him were drowned out.
"…you step, Little Brother. Your skin isn't tough enough to take a lightning strike like that." The Goron thumped his chest. "It's not even a tickle for me, but you should be more careful."
"No problem," Link replied, making sure he was standing on stone.
The temple was lit by occasional torches mounted on the wall, which Link suspected to be of the magical ever-burning variety. Otherwise, it was dim, and only occasional flashes of electricity provided illumination. The architecture was simple but elegant, scrollwork lining the bottom of the wall just above the floor and occasional jagged, lightning-like lines carved into the walls beneath the network of metal rails. It was not a particularly threatening place -aside from the danger of being electrocuted- and obviously whoever had built the temple had put quite a bit of effort into it. A sharp tang of ozone hung in the air, renewed with each crackle of electricity. The predominant color was gray, since the stone was not painted, and the metal rails were a dull silvery color and nonreflective. It felt old, and though the architecture was vaguely recognizable as Hylian, the style was lost in antiquity. The place felt like no one had set foot inside for a very long time, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years.
"I hope there's a map," Dar said, flexing his massive shoulders as he craned his head to look up. "This place is very big, Little Brother."
Link nodded in agreement. "We should move quickly. I have no idea where the Staff of Lightning is, so keep an eye out for clues."
Dar squinted at something and stomped off ahead, his heavy footsteps clanging off the metal plates on the floor whenever he stepped on one. He stopped at a section of wall about halfway down the long, wide entrance hall and waved Link over.
The Hero walked over to the Goron's side and peered at the carving the enormous rock-man pointed at, grinning.
"Something like this, Little Brother?" he asked, stepping aside to let Link get a better look.
The young warrior nodded, examining the carving. It depicted a long staff capped with a ball at one end and carved with multiple jagged lines resting on a low pedestal, some kind of vaguely humanoid figure standing in front of it, though Link couldn't tell if it was approaching the staff or guarding it. Was this a warning about the staff's guardian? If the Goddesses or their servants had hidden the Staff of Lightning away in this temple, they had almost certainly placed a number of protective measures in the way to thwart anyone who attempted to retrieve it. Anyone except a Hero, hopefully.
"Let's keep moving," Link said, indicating the door at the end of the hall. Dar nodded once and moved off, stopping in front of the relatively simple metal door.
A loud zap announced Dar's attempt to raise the door, his enormous hands wedged under the bottom "Ouch!" the Goron exclaimed, shaking his hand. "It's electrified, Little Brother!"
Dar gave the door an irritated kick, then yelped and grabbed his foot as it was zapped, also. Link resisted the urge to laugh, but a smile fought its way through anyway. Dar gave him a sheepish look, stepping back from the door.
"Not even a tickle, huh?" Link said amusedly.
Dar tapped his shoulder where the rocky shell on his back began. "Not on my back, anyway. My toes are a little more sensitive, I suppose."
Link nodded once, fighting a grin.
Turning back, he studied the door thoughtfully. There had to be some way to open it; a hidden switch, or perhaps something that disabled the charge. He pulled out his bow and tapped the door with it, leaning in for a closer look. Making sure not to touch the door or anything metal next to it, the young warrior examined the door in an attempt to discern how it was electrified.
Putting away his bow, Link pulled out one of his arrows and broke off the metal arrowhead, prodding the wooden end into the slight gap between the door and its frame. He searched for some kind of hidden release or catch, but found nothing. Frowning, Link absently rapped the fletching against the door, tapping out a tune old Ernst would play on his fiddle sometimes. He didn't notice at first, but when the end of his arrow failed to elicit a metallic clang on a few of his taps, the Hero examined the area more closely.
Outwardly, it didn't look any different than the rest of the door, a simple smooth panel of metal, and by tapping the door around it, Link discovered the place that was not metallic was small and roughly circular, about three inches in diameter. He poked it a few more times with the end of his arrow, wondering what it was, and finally he decided to risk touching it with his hand.
Link flexed his fingers once and reached out to touch the odd patch of door with his finger. Experimentally, he brushed the area next to it with his pinky and received a rather severe electric shock that numbed his finger. Link shook his hand and touched the odd patch again. It looked just like the rest of the door, but it didn't feel like metal. It felt more like stone, cold and rough beneath his fingers.
"What are you thinking, Little Brother?" Dar asked, leaning in to look closer at the door.
"This has to be something," Link said, fishing a piece of charcoal out of his pocket that he'd kept from his last fire. Carefully, he marked off the odd patch on the door with it.
Dar frowned, his breathing loud and deep next to Link's head as he thought. He poked the circled area with his finger, then did it again, harder. The only result was a low thump.
"I don't get it," the Goron said finally. "How is this supposed to help us open the door?"
Link held up his arrow and snapped it in half, handing one part to Dar. "See if you can find any more places like this," he said. "The solution must be simple, but I just don't see it."
For the next few minutes, the two of them tapped the door in random places with the pieces of the arrow, finding four more odd patches, which Link marked off with his charcoal.
After finding one last odd patch and marking it off, Link stepped back and looked at his markings. As he suspected, they formed a regular pattern, each about a foot from the other in a large oval that stretched from the top of the door to the bottom.
"So, what does this mean?" Dar asked.
Link did not answer at first, frowning to himself. An arc of electricity hit a metal plate on the floor behind him, and comprehension dawned as the top-most odd patch lit up briefly with a soft purple light. He looked at the series of circular metal plates on the floor, realizing that they formed the same pattern that was on the door.
"It's a puzzle," Link said, turning to look at the floor behind him. "I think that if we can do something to those metal plates, it'll let us through."
Dar laughed. "Good luck controlling lightning, Little Brother. It never strikes in the same place twice."
Link walked over to the array of metal plates on the floor, arranged in a large oval. As he watched, an arc of electricity curved off the wall and struck one of them. Quickly, he turned to look, and the corresponding spot he had marked on the door lit up for a second. As he looked back, he noticed a few tiny fingers of electricity crackle along a short length of metal railing connected to the plate before vanishing over the stone of the floor.
"If all six of these were connected, the charge would be carried through all of them, wouldn't it?" Link asked Dar.
The Goron shrugged. "Probably."
Link looked over at the wall, noticing for the first time that some of the metal rails spread out in a spider-web pattern were not connected to any others. Carefully, he grabbed one, about six feet long, and pulled it off the wall, one end of the long metal rod clanging off the stone as it dropped.
"I hate puzzles," he muttered to himself as he carried the rod over to the nearest metal plate.
Watching out for lightning, Link held the rod between the plate and the nearest one in the sequence. Again as he had suspected, it was the perfect length to connect them, and as he knelt, Link noticed a shallow groove in the stone floor in a straight line between the two plates.
"Hey," he said to Dar, holding up the length of pipe, "look for more of these, not connected to any of the other rails."
The Goron nodded and moved off to search the walls, humming to himself in his deep voice. Link knelt down and carefully laid the metal rod into the groove in the floor, fitting one end into a hole in one of the metal plates. When he laid the other end down, he was able to shift it into a corresponding hole in the other metal plate.
Dar quickly located several more rods, and, working together, they fit them into the grooves connecting the metal plates in the floor together. Dar ran over to the door when he was finished and waited next to it, watching for another arc of electricity.
When one finally came, leaping out from the wall to connect with one of the plates on the far left side of the hall, both of them eagerly looked to the door.
In rapid succession, the places Link had marked lit up with a soft purple light, and once they had all lit up, all of the lights blinked twice and stayed on, glowing softly behind Link's charcoal markings.
Dar tentatively prodded the door with his toe, and when nothing happened, he seized the bottom edge of the door and heaved it open, revealing a long, narrow hallway beyond decorated with more of the metal railing webbed over the walls. Link used a spare rod to prop the door open and the two of them set off down the hallway, hoping they didn't encounter many more puzzles of this kind further inside the temple.
--
--
Unfortunately, the temple was riddled with puzzles, and Link and Dar spent almost the entire rest of the day attempting to navigate the twisting corridors of the Temple of Lightning. Most of the temple appeared to be long, occasionally curving hallways, and whenever they encountered a larger room, the Hero and his Goron companion were required to solve a puzzle to leave it, which, with some of the more complicated ones, required an hour or more.
Most of the puzzles involved channeling the electricity that crackled along the ever-present metal webbing in some way, and by the time they were ready to rest, both Link and Dar had been shocked numerous times, though the Goron shrugged most of his off. Link had a few burns on his hands, and he treated these as best he could when they stopped for the day.
They were in the one bare chamber they had encountered so far, absent of any feature except the sole door that led back out into the larger chamber they had stopped in. Link was unsure what purpose the chamber served, but at that point, he really didn't care and was glad to find a place to sleep that was free from the constant crackle of electricity.
"I'll take the first watch, Little Brother," said Dar. He stomped off to sit next to the entrance, and Link tiredly pulled off his green tunic and shirt of chain-mail, rolling up the former to serve as a pillow.
He stretched out next to the pile of equipment he had taken off after unsheathing his sword and laying it next to him, quickly falling asleep.
--
--
Link moved down the long tunnel of stone, his sword in hand. The world around him was at times blurry and indistinct, and his footsteps echoed strangely. The tunnel was endless, stretching off into darkness in both directions, and he was unsure of which way to go. He knew he had to go somewhere, but the harder he thought about it, the more it slipped away.
A high-pitched scream of utter terror ripped through the tunnel, and the Hero raised his sword, sprinting at top speed for the source of the scream. Someone was in terrible danger, and he had to save them; he was the Hero, and it was his duty to help anyone who was in trouble.
The voice screamed again, sounding in pain this time. "Help me!" the voice pleaded, and Link's blood froze as he recognized it.
"Zelda?" he said aloud.
"Link!" the princess' disembodied voice said hopefully. "Help me! He's here, Link. He's here and he's hurting us!"
"I'm coming!" Link said, forcing his legs to increase speed as he ran for the source of Zelda's voice.
Another voice screamed in agony behind him, and Link stopped. He began to reverse direction, but another bone-chilling wail of fear and pain echoed down the tunnel from the other direction. He was torn, not knowing which way to go, and as both voices screamed again, he let out a frustrated shout.
"Help me!" one voice begged.
Link ran for it, but his feet moved very slowly, as if he were wearing boots made of lead. The faster he tried to run, the slower he moved.
"No! No, get away!" the other voice pleaded, full of terror.
Link tried to move, but to his horror, his feet actually began to sink into the stone floor. He strained with all his might to free his feet, but struggling only made him sink quicker, and soon he was knee-deep in the unyielding stone, unable to move.
"Help us!"
Link strained with superhuman effort, but all he succeeded in doing was sinking up to his chest in the stone.
"Help us!"
The Hero marshaled his strength and yelled with effort as he flexed his muscles and clawed his way up. The stone let him go briefly, and his heart soared with hope as he dashed a few steps along the tunnel, but something tripped him and he tumbled into another soft spot in the tunnel floor. In seconds, he had sunk in up to his neck, and the stone hardened around him, an oppressive crushing grip.
"Help us!"
A third voice laughed darkly, full of malevolent, sadistic amusement. Both voices wailed in heart-wrenching inarticulate pleas for help, but the dark voice only laughed louder, drowning them out. Link struggled violently, but the stone pulled him under, and as it closed over his head, he heard the dark voice cackling in triumph.
"Too late."
--
--
Link jolted awake, breathing heavily. He looked around the small, square chamber of gray stone for Dar, but the Goron was gone and the door was open. As Link calmed down, he heard heavy footsteps moving around outside and a deep voice humming.
Link stood and moved around a little, trying to shake off the nightmare. As he flexed his shoulders, he looked up at the bare stone ceiling.
What am I doing here? he thought to himself. I'm not a Hero. I'm a dishwasher in a tavern!
Two weeks ago, Link had been just another ordinary citizen of Hyrule, a young man trying to decide what to do with his life. His grandest dream of adventure was to fight in defense of his country in a far-off land, to spend a few years in the army before taking off on a journey to seek his fortune. He'd always admired the traveling adventurers who visited Ernst's tavern, men who lived by the sword and answered to no one but themselves, exploring exciting old ruins in search of priceless treasure.
Of course, there was another side to the adventurer life, as Ernst had explained one day when Link expressed a desire to take up the traveling life.
"Yes, traveling and fighting must be a lot of fun," Ernst said, a smile beneath his bushy gray beard. "So must sleeping out in the open with one eye open and one hand on your sword. It's weeks between settlements sometimes, so it must also be fun to chase down anything you can catch and kill it, hoping another animal doesn't beat you to it or choose you as its prey instead. And then there's storms. Supposing you can't find shelter and you have to sleep out in a rainstorm. You get sick, too bad, because you're all alone and your fellow traveling rogues sure as damn aren't going to help you out. They'll just wait 'til you die and go through your pockets for any bits of treasure you might have found."
Link half-smiled ironically to himself as he realized that he'd more or less taken up the life of a traveling adventurer anyway, only his purpose wasn't just to serve his own interests. His smile slowly faded as he thought about his purpose, his course in life. His life had changed forever at the moment he'd decided to tackle Princess Zelda out of the way of the Sorcerer's blast, and there was no going back now.
He looked down at the back of his left hand, at the dark triangular marking there, and he touched the bottom right triangle, the one that represented Courage, the fragment of the Triforce that resided within him. This marking, he thought, signified that his life was no longer his own; his responsibility was to keep the prince and princess safe, and until he destroyed the Sorcerer, he had no other objectives or priorities.
His sense of purpose renewed, Link moved off to put his equipment back on; he wouldn't be sleeping for the rest of the night, anyway, so he might as well start off again. The sooner he retrieved the Staff of Lightning, the sooner he could practice in its use so that he could stand up to the Sorcerer and destroy the assassin once and for all.
--
--
"Now what in the world are we supposed to do?" Link asked his Goron companion.
Dar shrugged his massive shoulders. "I don't know, Little Brother. I'm not even sure how to start."
After several more hours of walking along the endless narrow hallways and solving more puzzles in the wide, long halls, the two of them were confronted with yet another puzzle, in the form of one giant metal plate on the floor inscribed with lightning designs and no clear way to electrify it.
The walls of the rectangular chamber were covered with the web of metal rails, as usual, but none of them appeared to be removable. Electricity still crackled along the web, arcing overhead every few minutes, but it never curved down to strike the metal plate in the center of the room.
A cautious test by Dar proved that the exit to the room was indeed electrified, so they would have to solve this puzzle to open it.
Link walked around the perimeter of the large metal plate, about six feet in circumference, and examined it for any hint of some place where he was supposed to connect something. When he found nothing, he kicked the raised edge in frustration, eliciting a deep clang.
"Blasted puzzles," he muttered to himself. "This had better be worth it."
Dar chuckled, his deep voice echoing off of the high ceilings. "What if the staff isn't even here, Little Brother?"
Link laughed. "Don't even say that," he said, pointing at his friend. "I don't think I'll be able to deal with having spent two days in this place for nothing."
Dar laughed and kicked the metal plate, and to their surprise, it moved. Frowning thoughtfully, Dar kicked the plate again, and the edge he had kicked dipped slightly, while the opposite edge tilted up.
An idea struck Link, and he asked Dar to stomp on the edge of the plate as hard as he could. Next, the plate struck Link, as he had not correctly predicted how hard a Goron could stomp, and the edge of the plate leaped up faster than he expected and clipped him on the chin.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, stepping back as he rubbed his chin. Dar laughed uproariously, and this did not help to dull the pain.
Making sure to stay back, Link gestured for Dar to stomp on the plate again, and when the edge leaped up, Link caught it and held it up. As he had suspected, it sat in a hemispherical depression set into the floor, smooth and featureless. He looked left and right and discovered that the large metal plate was mounted to the edges of the depression, and would probably spin if he moved it fast enough. He tested the weight and frowned; this plate was probably too heavy for him to spin all the way around.
But luckily, he had a prodigiously strong Goron with him.
Link waved Dar over. "Spin this as hard as you can," he said, taking a step back as Dar grabbed the edge of the plate.
"You got it, Little Brother!" Dar boomed. Lifting the edge of the plate high over his head, the Goron pushed it down with incredible force, causing it to flip entirely over and keep going at a high rate of speed.
As Link watched, a dull purple light lit up on the door, and he sprinted for it before the plate could stop spinning. Dar ran with him, and together they heaved the door open. Link looked for something to prop the door open with, as they had done with all the rest of the doors, but he saw nothing. When Dar realized this, he grabbed hold of the bottom edge of the door and grunted with effort as he bent it, permanently wedging it open. Link shook his head and smiled; the door was solid metal, four inches thick.
--
--
After another two hours, it finally appeared that they'd reached the end. Ahead of them, at the far end of yet another long rectangular room, was a door which took up most of the wall it occupied, heavily inscribed with ominous-looking lightning patterns. Dar poked it with his toe, and it was not electrified, so he seized the bottom edge and heaved it open.
Link drew his sword and stepped inside, his shield held at the ready to deflect any booby traps. He heard Dar cracking his knuckles behind him, sounding like breaking rock.
Ahead of them was an enormous circular room mostly filled with a pool of deep water that took up all of the floor space except for a narrow strip of solid stone around the chamber's edge. Several rings of floating wooden rafts lined the pool, close enough together to step on. At the very center of the room sat an altar, on which rested a bluish-purple staff, about five feet long and capped at one end with a golden metal ball. As they drew closer, on the lookout for traps, Link saw that the staff was inscribed with jagged lightning patterns, and he knew it was what he had come here to seek.
When he was only a few steps away from laying hands on the Staff of Lightning, Link paused at a suspicious-sounding gurgle. He glanced behind him, but saw nothing but Dar and the walls of the chamber, decorated with lightning patterns.
When he turned back, an enormous purple tentacle had wrapped protectively around the altar, belonging to what had to be a gigantic creature.
Link scowled. "Figures."
Suddenly, a dozen more tentacles erupted from the pool and lashed out at them, sending water spraying in all directions. Link dove out of the way of a lashing tentacle, hissing a curse as it demolished the raft he had been standing on.
Dar punched a tentacle with enough force to demolish a boulder, sending it back beneath the water with a tremendous splash. He hopped to another raft, making it rock with the force of his landing, and yelped in surprise as three more tentacles smashed the raft he had been standing on into smithereens.
"The staff, Little Brother!" he bellowed, dodging another swing from a tentacle, this one tipped with a razor-sharp claw. The claw swept in closer, but Dar grabbed it where it met the tentacle and wrenched it off, resulting in a muffled howl from under the water and several large bubbles splashing to the surface. The injured tentacle thrashed, and Dar slashed with the claw to drive it away.
Link hopped from raft to raft, dodging tentacles when he could and slapping them away with his sword or shield when he could not. Another scythe-tipped appendage swept in and tried to cut Link's feet out from underneath him. He leaped over it, but another tentacle slapped him on the back and he tumbled forward into the water, fingers instinctively tightening around his weapons.
Underwater, Link saw only a blurry dark shape and a gargantuan orange eye, nearly as wide as he was tall. The eye narrowed and focused on the struggling Hero, and he swam away from it, heaving for breath as he broke the surface, trying to avoid the multitudinous writhing tentacles.
One clanged off his shield, its weapon a knobby growth that resembled a club, and Link slashed at it to drive it away, kicking furiously with his legs to stay afloat.
Another tentacle, ending in a set of three grasping appendages, swept for Link, but a huge hand grabbed it and tied it in a knot with another of the flailing tentacles. Dar's fiercely snarling face appeared between the storm of appendages, and as he hurled the knot aside, he reached out with a gigantic hand to pluck Link from the water, droplets streaming from the young warrior's hair and clothes.
Link wiped his wet hair out of his eyes and turned to Dar. "Thanks!" he said, ducking under another club-tentacle, which Dar punched away from himself.
Without warning, Dar grabbed hold of Link's collar and belt and hurled the Hero at the altar in the center of the pool. Link yelled in surprise and grunted when he landed on the altar, his sword clattering against the stone as he dropped it. Luckily, it stayed on the edge of the tiny stone island, but unluckily, the Staff of Lightning did not, and dropped into the water with a splash.
Link hissed a more vicious curse as he grabbed his sword and sheathed it, securing his shield on his back next. Sucking in a deep breath, Link dove into the water. He forced his eyes to open and looked around for the staff. It was metal, so it would probably sink quickly, and with all these tentacles thrashing around, he had to move fast or it was gone.
The water made things blurry, and sound was distorted, making it hard for him to keep his bearings. Already, his lungs were burning, but he couldn't see the staff and was quickly growing frustrated.
There! He suddenly spied a glint of gold color caught in some kind of plant growing up the side of the stone pillar supporting the altar. Link gave a powerful kick and flew through the water, bubbles streaming from his mouth as he released the breath he had been holding. He forced down the reflex to draw in another, and once he finally seized the Staff of Lightning in his hand, he kicked for the surface.
Something held him back, and he realized that the staff was caught in the weeds covering the stone pillar. Shouting underwater would be difficult, so Link let the staff go and stroked for the surface, where he let loose with his most virulent curse yet upon surfacing and sucking in a deep breath. A tentacle snaked over to investigate the disturbance, but Dar was there to swat it away.
"Do you have it, Little Brother?" Dar said, hopping to the closest surviving raft.
Link shook his head, wiping water out of his eyes. As Dar beat away more tentacles with powerful swings from his fists, Link heaved in another deep breath and dove, thinking to himself that now he at least knew where the staff was.
A gargantuan orange eye met him once he opened his eyes underwater, followed by a set of teeth longer than he was tall and as thick around as Dar. Link frantically swam away from the teeth, kicking for the pillar. The creature's enormous head followed him, and once he had grabbed the staff again he was forced to jump out of the way as a huge set of jaws snapped closed on the pillar, shaking it.
The Staff of Lightning pulled free of the weeds finally, and Link kicked for the surface, his skin crawling as he felt a huge presence just behind him.
As he surfaced, Link was silently grateful that Dar had seen the enormous shadow following the young warrior, for as soon as he broke the water's surface to take a breath, a giant hand grabbed his collar and yanked him out of the way.
With an ear-splitting howl, the creature surfaced and sent huge waves crashing to the outer edges of the pool. Dar kept a firm grip on Link with one arm and an even firmer grip on their raft with the other, and the swell of the wave pushed them to the outer edge of the pool.
As they scrambled for the next raft closer to the edge of the room, Link looked back at the monster, but all he saw were eyes and teeth, and he quickly returned his attention to getting away from it.
Dar grabbed Link around the waist and tossed him to the edge of the pool, where he landed with a wet clank on the narrow ring of stone that encircled the chamber. "Use the staff, Little Brother!" the Goron bellowed, leaping the last few feet to land beside the young warrior.
Half a dozen thrashing tentacles followed them, and Dar shouted fiercely as he smashed them away, using a fragment of one of the rafts as a club. Link busied himself with trying to discharge the Staff of Lightning. There were no buttons or other means of activating it that he saw, only inscribed lines of lightning.
A sudden thought occurred to Link as an image of Majacen popped into his head for no apparent reason. Magic! That was it! He concentrated fiercely on the staff in his hands, and was rewarded when a jagged purple-white lance of lightning erupted from the golden metal ball at the tip, leaping out to strike the chamber wall on the far side. The deafeningly loud blast of thunder that followed it disoriented Link for a moment, but luckily it had done the same for the creature, and the tentacles paused for a few moments as if stunned.
Dar slapped Link on the back, grinning, and this nearly sent the Hero into the water again, but he managed to keep his feet. The grin slowly vanished from the Goron's face, and he wordlessly pointed to the pool.
Link turned back to see the tentacles stirring again, and suddenly more than a dozen of them leaped out of the water at the two adventurers. Almost by reflex, Link discharged the Staff of Lightning again, but he missed the creature entirely and hit the water's surface instead. The thunder nearly knocked Link off his feet, sending stars in front of his eyes, but far more damage was inflicted on the creature. All the energy of the lightning strike had been channeled into the water, electrifying it briefly, and the creature howled under the water.
"That's it!" Link crowed, whipping the staff down into the pool with a splash.
Holding the golden ball underwater, he let loose another blast of lightning, as powerful as he could manage. Electricity crackled over everything in the pool, and sparks erupted from any appendage of the creature not under the surface. Another howl resonated through the chamber, and without pausing, Link sent more lightning into the pool. A few of the tentacles actually erupted with flame before withdrawing beneath the water's surface, and Link took the opportunity to dodge the reflexive writhing of the tentacles closest to him and dash for the door.
Dar followed close behind, and the Goron halted his stride only long enough to heave the door open and shove Link through before actually picking the Hero up and sprinting with him through the room beyond and a good deal of the hallway past it.
When Dar finally set him down, Link sagged against the wall, breathing heavily. A final howl echoed through the hall from the direction of the creature's room, and then all fell silent.
Link grinned tiredly at his friend, and Dar pumped both arms in the air and let out a triumphant bellow that competed with the creature's howling for sheer volume.
The Hero turned his new weapon over in his hands, examining the intricate lightning patterns, and he grinned to himself at the thought of how much power this was capable of unleashing. When he mastered this, the Sorcerer had no chance against him.
He reached over to slap Dar's rocky shoulder. "Let's get out of here," he said.
The Goron laughed. "No argument here, Little Brother."
--
--
Author's Note: In case you don't have it on alert, I posted a short story written by Seldavia in 'Missing Pieces' yesterday. I recommend that you have finished reading 'The Fourth Piece' first, though, since it has a couple spoilers for the end. In other news, I have also posted a Star Wars oneshot, so go check that out if you're interested. The next chapter of this story is already partially written, so it should be out soon. Thanks for reading!