Before Dark and I moved on, I blew up – or down, since they fell down – two more wall statues, revealing a pattern behind them. The first, which had already been revealed, showed two blue symbols that resembled the ancient robots. The second showed three, and the last one, just one. They didn't do anything – they were just there.
While I was busy with that, Dark made use of the Gust Jar to make another platform move to a position we could board it, this time waiting for me instead of going ahead, though he was clearly impatient, by contrast to myself.
This one took us to the far north of the room, where a gate blocked our progress, a crate was shifted aside to allow us to use a ladder, a lever called over another platform, and Dark, still holding on to the Gust Jar, used that to take us across its route.
This route took us past three more statues in the walls, exactly opposite to the ones hiding the symbols on the other side. It wasn't clear whether the symbols marked which way to do them – whether it was correct as they were looked at, with the first one on the right, or mirroring them, with it on the left.
I guessed the latter, bombing the north-most one, opposite the single symbol. Which revealed a diamond switch instead, meaning that it hadn't matted which order I bombed them in at all, it was the order of the switches that mattered. Sure enough, the other two had switches behind.
Since there weren't really any decent rocks around, I just used some of the seeds for the slingshot to trigger them in order; left, right, middle. The exact mirroring of the symbols opposite. If it didn't work, I'd try the other way.
For once, this wasn't a mistake, and the gate opened to allow us to pass into a small chamber with two Armos statues. Well, we knew how to deal with those now, didn't we?
"Great," Dark muttered. "These things again."
"Masters, please examine these markings on the ground," Fi told us, appearing above them. The tiles on the ground were brighter for part of the room, edged in a pair of green tile lines that curved around.
"Well?" Dark demanded. "What about them?"
"I believe these lines mark the farthest extent to which these Armos sentries will pursue," Fi answered. "As long as you remain outside the marked areas, they will not attack you. As they overlap in this area," she said, moving to hover over an area covered by both lines. "It may be wise to avoid this area and challenge these sentries one at a time."
Dark muttered something again, this time not loud enough to be heard, then headed for the nearest Armos. Almost before it had activated he sent a blast of air at it with the Gust Jar, forcing it to open wide, then he just dropped the jar and stabbed with his sword, destroying the crystals on both sides easily. As if to make a point, he then tossed the Gust Jar to me and waited.
I let the other Armos come further away from the wall before turning the Gust Jar on it, and rather than bother with the sword, I just smashed the gems inside with a fist instead. It still worked, but it was also a mistake – I'd neglected to remember that Armos statues tend to explode when defeated, which this one did and promptly blasted me to the ground, much to Dark's amusement.
"I'm so glad I'm not a Hero," he told me, not even bothering to help me up. "I don't think I'd enjoy getting blown up so much. I'm happy to leave that business to you."
"One day I hope someone puts you in the middle of an explosion," I said flatly. "And I hope someone's there to treat you the same way you just did me."
"I'm not stupid enough to stand near an explosion if I can help it," he snorted. "Gonna get the chest in there?" he nodded to the second gate, which had opened with the defeat of the two Armos statues.
Inside this curiously white chest was a golden... thing. It had what looked like circuitry over its surfaces, and it looked manufactured. It looked like it might have once been a simple cross shape, but the creator had got bored and started adding more to it that jutted off at odd angles.
It was, obviously, the puzzle-key for the boss door, and it was also obvious that it was going to be a pain to get in the lock properly.
Back out in the rest of the room, defeating the Armos had also opened up another door, and while I'd retrieved the... the... whatever it was, the key I suppose, Dark had once again decided to go on ahead, pausing only to beat up another Beamos along the way.
The door took us back to that main room once again of course, and Dark immediately turned right to find a way up to the boss door. I let him, having already had my own idea this time. I instead turned left and climbed up a rather tall ladder to one of the highest points in the room. Then I simply leapt off and glided down and over to the boss door to wait for Dark.
Dark meanwhile activated another cart of unrefined Timeshift stones, which immediately started going along it's path. It's reach activated a nearby platform with the magnet-shaped thing on top, and since he still had the Gust Jar, he just used that to keep pace with the cart. I didn't realize why until I saw that the same blasts of air that had stopped me taking a short cut to this part of the room were now crosswinds that would otherwise have blown him off the platform and the path – and were now blocked by the cart.
"You took your time," I said calmly when he finally caught up. Dark just gave me a harsh look.
Ok, maybe I shouldn't have done that. But I couldn't resist. He'd been going on ahead the whole time, and to turn that back on him with a shortcut even he hadn't thought of was just too good to pass up.
He did help though – the Timeshift stones in the cart were still active, and they reached the Boss Door. The barrier that existed here in the present was not here in the past – maybe it was installed as a response to my opening the door in the past? After a few moments to figure out the lock and the puzzle-key, it was put into place and we headed through to face whatever our dear friend Ghirahim had decided to throw at us this time.
Behind the door we found a large room, not perhaps as big as the main room, but still big enough, and with a thick covering of sandy dust over the floor. Dark didn't comment on what the past looked like to him.
Ghirahim was nowhere to be seen. The doors slammed shut behind us, but still nothing happened. Neither Dark or I trusted this, both of us drawing our swords and edging warily into the room, heading in opposite directions around the perimeter.
Near the door, the sand started hissing, followed by a room-shaking rumble as it bulged up, moving to the centre of the room. Dark, only having a small patch of the present with him, could hear what was going on – but not see it. He could see where I was looking, but whatever was there, it wasn't in the past.
And then it burst out, sending a spray of stinging sand that almost completely concealed what emerged, and when I could see clearly again, there was a giant black scorpion there. With glowing eyes in its pincers, and a clearly toughened carapace, worn shiny by the sand.
And it was heading for Dark.
"The crystal – quickly!" I snapped. Dark vanished, just in time to avoid the pincer that had been aimed at him. I also drew attention to myself, and the scorpion rounded on me instead. The shifting sand, coupled with its heavy steps made keeping my footing tricky, especially while moving, but I kept back, letting it come toward me with those pincers raised.
The eye in one turned red as it was raised up, the other pincer opening. I made a swift strike for that, causing it to flinch back even as it aimed for me with the red-eye pincer, having to quickly move out the way before it caught me. Fi must have been watching, because as that pincer missed, Dark appeared and struck that eye, disappearing again just as quickly.
The scorpion's own eye, in the front of its body, was too protected to attack just yet, but I saw it blink as, for a moment, it saw double – by which time Dark had vanished again. There was no expression to go off, but surely that sudden attack had confused it!
But it had me in its sights still, and once again came tramping along for me. This time the other eye turned red, the pincer raised – and again it flinched back as I struck the other pincer's eye. This time however I didn't get clear in time, and it grabbed, caught me and held me in a crushing grip.
I wasn't going to take that lying down or held up! Its hold was restrictively tight and trying to get tighter, but I had some leeway. My sword slipped down and out when I deliberately let it go, only to be caught by Dark as he appeared below. The scorpion ignored him this time though, paying more attention to me.
Once the sword was out of my hands I did as much as I could to brace myself against the pincers and put my strength to good use, pushing outward. Steadily, grudgingly, to the accompaniment of a lot of grunting and heaving, and probably the astonishment of the scorpion, the pincers separated again, and the more they opened, the more leverage I had. It pushed back of course, but no one beats me in a contest of strength!
I kept pushing, wedging myself closer to that eye so I could push further and further – and something cracked loudly, right in front of me. The resistance that had been pushing back... vanished. So I let go, dropping down to the sand where Dark returned my sword, and watched. The scorpion tried to close the pincer, but couldn't.
"Neat trick," Dark remarked, then took advantage of the scorpion's distraction to dart around to one side, up a leg and across it's back, distracting it again and making the other pincer open up. I struck that one once, dropped my sword again and repeated, shoving it open until it too cracked and locked.
Dark meanwhile scrambled along the other arm and started assaulting the now defenceless first eye, while I carried on with the second one. Between us our attack caused the scorpion to start backwards, trying to get away from us, but with Dark actually on the arm, and me more than able to keep up, it wasn't having any luck. After a few more blows from our swords, both arms stiffened, then vanished in more indigo smoke.
This naturally did not sit well with the scorpion, which immediately attempted to bury itself.
Dark was quick to react. "Oh yeah? You think you can get away from us that easy? Try some of this!" And out came the Gust Jar, blasting the air at where the bulge in the sand was. I actually heard Fi directing him from his sword this time. He might not have been able to see all the present in this room, but she could certainly help him act as if he could!
I kept my sword ready and stayed near the bulge as Dark blasted sand away, uncovering the now enraged scorpion. It aimed first for Dark, but I quickly got in the way and stabbed at the remaining eye, now not so protected as it needed that one to see us properly. Again it started back from the blow, leaping back an astonishing distance for a beast of its size, and then burying itself again.
Dark was already on that, clearing sand once again even before he got back close to it. Several little beasties were uncovered too, but each one fell quickly to a single jab as I kept them off his back.
This time when it was forced into emerging, the scorpion tail darted forward, aimed at me. Now it was Dark's turn to drop what he was doing, leaving the Gust bellows on the floor as he shot in to attack the eye instead while I had to move clear, narrowly avoiding ending up flat on my face as the sand shifted underfoot, which would have been embarrassing, to say the least.
Each time Dark forced it to emerge it tried to attack us, either with the tail or by trying to ram us – but each time it was thwarted by an attack from the other of us. It really wasn't cut out for two attackers, and after only a few more repeats, it finally stiffened, sank down on the sand, then piece by piece, the tail, then the legs exploded into smoke, followed finally by the body.
A full red heart crystal appeared in the air, touching down lightly on the sand – which then started to drain away, making it even harder to stay upright as the entire room shook with it. Loud clanks and bangs in the distance suggested some ancient mechanism was at work to take it away.
And there, at the bottom of this now tall room, was another golden Triforce door. This time, I would not be told I was late.