A/N: In response to the guest review: Sonc and Phantom Hourglass is unplanned, but is a possibility. If I do decide to put Sonic through that one too, it'll be done in the same was Silver's stories were covered - one story for Wind Waker, a second separate one for Phantom.

Up beyond the squashed Bokoblin was another encampment of his friends, who in true Bokoblin stupidity had managed to completely ignore the sight of their friend being hit and dropping his rock on himself. They still attacked though, and one by one I started making the region a slightly better place. It probably raised the local average intelligence, at least.

One of them had positioned himself at the top of a kind of wooden watchtower, blowing on a horn for all he was worth, not that it made any difference. Behind the watchtower was a gap in the rock, and beyond that, the way ahead. A few well-placed blows on the side of the tower broke it's anchors to the ground and tipped it over, dumping the Bokoblin on the other side where it remains, either stunned or playing dead. I finished it off, just to make sure.

At the end of a path was a small pool of water, which naturally had plant-life growing around it. Some vines hard started to colonize a nearby wall, but they'd have taken years to grow to the size that I'd have been able to climb up the rock face. They did provide the indication that maybe I could go that way, and the rock was of a kind I could climb, so I did it my way instead. And punched a Lava ChuChu so hard it flew off the back of the narrow path at the top and hurtled back down toward my original landing point.

That path circled round as it gained height, passing the same gap the watchtower had been beside only higher up, where it then met another steep, ashen slope. With two more wooden frames sticking out of them, one of which had another luckless guard Bokoblin. Who I also sent tumbling to his doom.

Another Bokoblin waited further up, who also had a rock above his head, and unlike the previous one he wasn't afraid to throw it at me. He was a poor aim, but not so bad I didn't have to move to avoid the rocks to get a clear shot, and the I missed twice before I finally got him.

He had been stood up on another wooden frame higher up, though when I paused there for a breather I found that where the ash stopped and the rock started again, there were three more of them. They also tried aiming their rocks for me, except when their three rocks collided and bounced off each other to pass harmlessly on either side of me, each of them blamed the other two, starting a short and ugly fight. I took advantage of that to close in on them, finishing off the survivor before he even realised I was there.

Don't you just love Bokoblins?

Finally, getting past them and climbing one more ledge got me to the front of what was almost certainly the Earth Temple, the imposing red façade accented in gold. Like the Forest Temple, time had worn away at it, taking the edge off it's grandeur, but enough of it remained to get an idea of what it had been like.

Two Mogmas were digging in the dirt not far from the door where a column had once been, the shattered pieces now arranged away from their dig site. Neither of them had noticed me, having been faced away and apparently so engrossed in their digging they hadn't even noticed the demise of the Bokoblins.

"I'm sure they buried it around here somewhere," one told the other. "But I just can't find it. Yo, Ledd, this is the place, right?"

That identified them for me – these were the two I'd met just after arrival.

"It's gotta be," Ledd insisted. "They busted up the lock of the door and hid the pieces here, and I'm telling you one of them is buried right here!"

"You sure they didn't take all the pieces with them? They took that strange blonde girl too. Probably that one that Knuckles was looking for too."

I stayed quiet. As long as they didn't realise I was there, they might carry on saying useful things. The lock to the door needed to be fixed, there were five pieces, someone had been here and that someone had taken Zelda with them.

"I'm sure they buried it right here. Then all we gotta do is dig it up, get the other pieces and we can loot the place! I can smell the riches already!"

"Can you also smell the monsters in there?" I asked, breaking my silence. "That's the Earth Temple. If it's anything like another Temple I went to, it'll be protected, and made so that not just any old Joe can get through."

The two shared a look, then the other Mogma whispered something to Ledd.

"Say, you ain't as dumb as you look," Ledd said. He nodded, then the two vanished.

"Master Knuckles, I have come to conclusions regarding the Mogma conversation we have just observed," Fi informed me. "I have calculated that there is a ninety-five percent probability that the missing pieces of the lock are made from the same materials as the remains, and having detected similar deposits in your travel through this region I have undertaken the liberty of singling these readings out. I will now be able to direct you to these readings in the same manner I may direct you to Zelda."

I waited for her to finish, wondering if she actually needed to stop to breathe at all, then when she'd done so I replied, "I'm sure I can find them on my own, but feel free to help, Fi. If I look like I'm about to miss something, just tell me."

"In that case Master, I believe you will find the first piece behind the large stone to your left, where the ground shows signs of being disturbed. I will continue to direct your attention to the remaining pieces as you collect them."

Fi's information proved to be correct, netting me the first piece immediately. Not far from where they'd been digging, but far enough away that they'd never have found it there.

Just after starting my search for them, I found another Goddess cube that was hidden behind some rocks, blown up by tossing a bomb into a nearby air jet. I could probably have lobbed it hard enough to get up there, but watching a bomb float and bob in the current as it tried to fall looked better, and saved me the effort.

The second piece was somewhere around a second watchtower, which lay at the bottom of a different ash slope to the one I'd last climbed up. I slid down the slope and repeated what I'd done last time, tearing it free of the ground and tipping it over. My own sense for treasure coupled with Fi's verifying, persistent tugs from the sword practically confirmed that it lay underneath the tower. I'd suspected as much, no one puts a watch tower in a place like that one and then leaves it unmanned.

Piece number three was hidden behind a rockfall I hadn't spotted before, and even if I had it was in an inconvenient place – half-way up the second ash slope, far enough away from the wood frames that with the effort of climbing the slope, I'd never have been able to do anything – even if there had been bombs nearby. Bomb flowers grew in abundance up here around the Temple entrance though, but there were only so many, and they weren't quick to re-grow.

Fi, with her handy ability with numbers, took one look at the situation after I called for her advice and started immediately computing the trajectory of my throw, giving me precise details on where to aim, how high, and how hard I should through. I may not have been able to reach the levels of precision she gave me, but the first bomb did get close enough to remove the rocks, so at least she got me close enough to what I needed. A bit of earth that hadn't been put back right marked the spot clearly, and left me with only two pieces left.

Pieces four and five were not so local, however. In searching around I came across another concealed Bokoblin encampment not far from the Earth Temple's doors, and another horn-blowing Bokoblin atop another watch tower. Like the last such encampment, I just worked through them until I could safely tip over the tower to cross the lava flow behind.

Fi quickly caught my attention before I crossed, pointing out another Goddess Cube that had been concealed down a slope on this side. By the time I got to there, the wooden watchtower was already ablaze because of the lava, so I quickly made my way over before I ended up having to try to jump the gap.

On the other side was a broad cavern, occasionally supported by natural stone pillars, and occasionally hiding a few short-lived Fire Keese and Lava ChuChus. It opened out at the end to a chasm, which also had partly-covered stones on either side, and the suggestion that like the place I'd seen the figure who told me of Zelda, there was a bridge waiting to be brought forth.

The surrounding rocks, along with a few helpfully vine-covered areas, allowed me to climb around one end of this chasm where a natural archway over the gap below had formed, taking a rather roundabout route to go the short distance across the gap. Once there, just through an artificial archway into another cavern, there was a brass switch proud of the floor, which once stepped on caused the bridge to extend.

This side of the bridge had a clear, if slightly worn, pathway leading down into an area where the rocks glowed red. Fi even warned me that there were remarkably high temperatures ahead, and that I would likely catch fire just trying to get through. She then told me she would go on ahead to find, plan out and confirm my best route, and to wait for her return.

She was, I quickly learned, tied to the sword. As she went through the hotter area, the Goddess Sword also started to heat up. I felt the heat even through the scabbard on my back, and had to take it out to stop it becoming uncomfortable.

When she returned she directed me down one tunnel, very recently used by lava, that directed me back out on to an ash slope, then into an air jet that carried me up to a stone spire. From there, I could see the ash slope ahead split into two, and again Fi went ahead to determine the correct route – the right, as it happened.

Where it stopped, there were two more air jets, these ones intermittent. Fi informed me that this was the best direction to take, and that I would have to judge my timing very carefully. I gave the area a look over, then ignored her, climbed the nearby rock, then glided over them instead, landing on top of another mostly flat stone spire, where I dug up the fourth part.

I didn't have much choice but to follow the ash slopes further down, though I glided a lot of the way to avoid landing in the lava, in the process finding another Goddess Cube that I'd have missed if I hadn't already been in the air, or hadn't taken a different route.

Fi continued to direct me as we passed over an area not far from where we'd been earlier on, taking me to an ash slope that terminated at lava. And she also told me that the last reading was beyond that lava.

After looking about a bit to find a way to lower the lava, I found a small hole that let the lava escape, but slowly, and was reminded of the bone bridge earlier, and what had happened there. A nearby bomb flower expanded the hole to let more lava flow through, gradually lowering the lava and leaving behind cracking, cooling rocks. Once they cooled to the point of being safe to cross, I took another bomb to a revealed rockfall that also blocked my way, revealing the last and only partly concealed piece of the key, reassembled to make a kind of star shape, with each of the points having a small key-like addition.

Now all I had to do was make the long trek all the way back up the mountain to the Temple doors.