Chapter 19: Palace of Darkness Part 1
Link ran down the fields of the savannah not even bothering to fight any monsters that were milling about as he continued to speed off towards the grounds of the Palace of Darkness to find the antidote for a poison that had afflicted his friends.
"No time to waste on these pests, my friends are more important," grumbled Link to himself.
Sweat dripped down the Hylian's head as he continued to run east, indeed the power of the Pegasus Boots were making the trip faster for him. After a few minutes of running, Link eventually found himself looking at the grounds to the Palace of Darkness and it was swarming with monsters. A Cyclops monster began to chuck bombs at Link upon seeing him, but Link just dashed past the Bombclops and started to rush forward towards the entrance to the large dungeon. As Link weaved his way through more of the bomb toting beasts, he eventually came to the entrance of the dungeon only to find it sealed shut, Link let out an exasperated sigh.
"This is just great, how am I supposed to open the entrance?" grumbled Link to himself.
At that moment, the sounds of a monkey became audible and a little blue haired monkey leapt down from the roof of the palace and scampered around Link a few times before stopping in front of him.
"Uki, you want Kiki to open the entrance to palace, uki!" spoke the monkey. Link was taken aback at first that the primate was able to speak to him.
"Uh, yeah, if you can I'd greatly appreciate it," replied Link.
"Ok uki! But first you have to pay me 100 rupees, then I'll open the door, uki!" exclaimed Kiki.
Link sighed but knowing that time was of the essence quickly threw five red rupees at the simian making the monkey do a back flip of joy.
"Thank you much kind man uki! Now Kiki will open the palace for you uki!" said Kiki as he leapt back up onto the palace and pushed a hidden switch that was on one of the gargoyle statues adorning the outside of the dungeon. The door slowly swung open allowing Link to finally enter its interior.
"Thank you much! Now I must be off!" called out Link to Kiki as he promptly ran inside the Palace of Darkness.
As Link entered the palace, he saw three different branching paths. As he entered the center door, he saw that the next door was locked. Since Link didn't have a key yet, he decided to backtrack and take the path to the left of the entrance. A Helmasaur charged at Link who deftly dodged the charge and then stripped it of its armor with his Clawshot before disposing of the little beast. Link ran down the staircase afterwards and saw a couple of statues starting spitting energy balls at him, Link dodged the energy and began to survey the room for anything of particular interest, lifting up one of the skulls littered about the room, he saw a switch and stepped on it revealing a treasure chest. Upon opening it, he saw that it contained a small key.
"Good, now to continue on," said Link to himself as he left the room.
Link then headed back through the center room and used his key on the locked door allowing Link to go further into the dungeon. Upon entering the next room he found himself being charged at by a couple of turtle monsters that had black shells with red spots on it. As Link tried to strike them with his sword, the monsters just shrugged off his attack.
"Argh, these Turtle Shells are a pain," grumbled Link as he just ran past them and a few Bari that somehow were floating around outside of a body of water. Again, another branching path made its presence known to Link, he took the left path again but as he walked across he noticed that the ground was cracked.
"Hmm, it sounds crazy, but it might lead me to something good," pondered Link as he laid a bomb down on the cracked ground and let it blow a hole on the bridge. Link then leapt down the hole and found himself in a pit with another treasure chest. When Link opened it he found himself pocketing another key. However, after opening the chest, four skeletons with swords leapt down and started attacking him.
"Stalfos, these boneheads are definitely a pain," groaned Link as he flipped away from a few slash attempts from the skeletal warriors. A Stalfos nailed Link in the back with his shield making him stagger forward. Link quickly parried another sword strike from one of the Stalfos with his own sword. Another Stalfos swung at Link and hit, the Hylian grunted from the hit but flipped back again to give himself some breathing room and equipped his bow and attached some bombs to his arrows. As a Stalfos leapt at Link, he fired off a bomb arrow sending the skeleton up in a puff of smoke. The other three Stalfos shambled over to Link and all three swung their swords at the Hylian who dodged two but was hit by the third. Link quickly retaliated with a Spin Attack making the Stalfos fall to the ground. Link fired another Bomb Arrow at the skeletons disposing of them all in one shot. Link saw a glowing blue tile on the ground a few feet away from him ran over to it.
"I wonder what will happen if I step on this," said Link as he walked onto the tile. All of a sudden he found himself in another room with a flaming skull head flying around the room.
"That Bubble shouldn't be too difficult to handle," pondered Link.
As the Bubble flew over to Link, he raised his shield up and the flames around the Bubble dissipated leaving the skull hopping about and Link quickly struck it down with a couple of slashes with his sword. After surveying the room and seeing nothing of interest in there, Link saw another glowing blue tile and stepped on it. He came to another room with two Bubbles flying about. On one end of the room was a staircase leading up, the other end showed a cracked wall.
"I'll take my chances with the cracked wall," thought Link to himself as he took out another bomb and laid it down by the wall. Once the explosive detonated, Link went through the opening the bomb provided him. In the room he saw about three Bari floating about in a narrow hallway. Link quickly donned the Clawshot and ripped the cores out of them making them explode. As he got to the other end of the hallway, he saw an area with another cracked hall and hastily took out another bomb and as it exploded he went through that opening where he saw a room filled with conveyer belts that had steel spike traps zooming about the room and a few more Bari floating around.
"Can't waste time with these ones," said Link as he used the power of the Pegasus Boots to dash across the conveyer belts making sure to avoid the electric jellyfish and all the spike traps that were zooming about the room. Going through the door on the other side, Link found a room with a treasure chest in the middle and three Bari floating around it. After quickly killing all three jellyfish, Link opened the chest and found the map to the dungeon. Seeing two cracked wall areas on opposing sides of the room, Link took out his bombs and blew a hole in both sides of the area. On the right was an area with fairies, Link took out a bottled and quickly nabbed one of the fairies. On the left end was a chest with a small key. Seeing no other way to go, Link wound up backtracking until he found himself back in the center room near the entrance of the dungeon.
This time, Link took the right side of the branching path avoiding the Bari and Turtle Shells in the room. He found himself in another room with a group of blue and red shelled beetle monsters roaming around. As Link tried to strike them with his sword, he did damage but wound up bouncing a great distance backwards and almost falling into a pit.
"I have to be careful in dealing with Hardhat Beetles," grumbled Link.
Link continued to fight them off trying to stay at the center of the room so he wouldn't fall into the pit; eventually he was able to knock the resilient insects into the pit himself making him breathe a sigh of relief. A treasure chest materialized near Link and as he opened it, he found the compass.
"At least I'm making progress, but where is that antidote? Zelda and the others need it," groaned Link as he continued on his journey through the palace. Link then went through a room to the north of him after unlocking the door. As he stepped on the bridge leading to the other end, he saw it begin to crumble behind him as well as a couple of Helmasaurs in front of him charging at him.
"Oh for the love of Nayru!" exclaimed Link as he used the Pegasus Boots to quickly dash across ignoring the Helmasaurs and got across safely just as the bridge finished collapsing.
"Phew, that was too close for comfort," said Link as he looked behind him as the bridge finished collapsing.
Unbeknownst to Link, a sharp kick hit the Hylian hero in the back and sent him staggering forward and plunging right into the abyss.
"Good night sweetheart," said a feminine sounding voice as Link fell down the pit. As Link hit the ground, he groaned in pain for a little bit before eventually standing himself up.
"Ugh, who did that, I'll probably find out soon once I figure out how to get out of here," said Link to himself as he picked his sword up off the ground.
"It's dark in here, I get the feeling I'm not alone either," added Link. Right as he was done talking, a loud roar was heard and set of torches lit themselves. Crashing down into the pit area was a large green scaled dragon creature with what appeared to be a unicorn's horn on his forehead. It glared at Link and roared menacingly yet again.
"Aquamentus!" exclaimed Link as he saw the beast.
Aquamentus fired a series of three energy balls from its horned and aimed them all at Link who rolled out of the way of the energy globes before running up to the dragon and slashing at it with his sword which seemed to have no effect. Aquamentus whipped its tail at Link sending him flying back into the wall. Link got back up right as Aquamentus charged at Link and quickly dove out of the way. Link tried firing an arrow at Aquamentus but to no avail, the monster whirled about and started firing his energy balls at Link again.
"What is this thing's weak point?" pondered Link as he dodged another set of energy balls and tried throwing a bomb at him only to be whipped again by the dragon's tail. Aquamentus then shot some more energy orbs at Link who ducked under the attack and as Aquamentus charged at Link again, he rolled out of the way and Aquamentus crashed into a wall, unfazed, the dragon turned to face Link again who leapt into the air and slashed at his head but still no effect.
"If not the head, then what?" thought Link as Aquamentus knocked him back with an energy ball yet again. As Aquamentus tried to tackle Link again, Link desperately shot an arrow at the horn. Right then Aquamentus stopped and howled out in pain.
"That's it, the horn!" exclaimed Link as he leapt up at Aquamentus and struck the horn with his sword causing even more pain to the dragon. In desperation, a pair of wings from Aquamentus' back and flew into the air and tried to fly down and tackle Link that way, Link rolled out of the way of the dragon's dive and leapt onto Aquamentus' back. Aquamentus bucked wildly trying to throw Link off of him; Link gripped tightly to the dragon with one hand and began to hack away at its horn with his other. Aquamentus soon crashed to the ground and Link delivered one more strike to the horn making it explode. Link then leapt off of Aquamentus and the dragon let out another loud painful roar as he soon exploded into a puff of smoke and was gone from the pit.
"Phew, that was tough, I've forgotten how it is to face these things solo," said Link to himself as he saw a treasure chest materialize in the room. Link opened it and saw a silver headed hammer laying the chest.
"All right, I got the Megaton Hammer!" exclaimed Link.
Seeing a large boulder blocking his path out of the pit Link decided to put his new hammer to use and swung it forcefully at the boulder shattering it and clearing a path for him.
"Now to get back to business, for Zelda, Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, and Alex need me to find this antidote fast," said Link to himself as he ran out of the pit and continued his trek through the Palace of Darkness.
Author's Note: Another chapter in the books, how do like that, going old school by bringing in the first dungeon boss from the original Legend of Zelda. Also who do think it was that kicked Link into the pit where Aquamentus was? You'll find out next chapter as I finish up Link's exploration of the Palace of Darkness. Until then though, please read and review.