Inside the forest temple, Link found himself in a narrow, dark corridor, with a faint light at the end. He heard two keese fly down at him, though a quick swipe with his sword made short work of them. As he walked, he heard the sound of his feet splashing in puddles, although it was too dark to see them, and he wanted to save the oil in his lantern just in case he ran into a place where there was no light for him to run towards.

After some walking, he entered a large room with torches on either side of the archway over his head. Pillars with various animal faces stood on either side of the path, at the end of which he saw a platform and a circular piece of wood with a curious symbol on it. To his left, he noticed a series of vines on the wall, with two spiders crawling idly along them. 'Ugh. They're just like the one that was climbing on the ladder at my house.' Thankfully two shots from the slingshot made quick work of the spiders, allowing Link to climb up the vines. On the platform at the end of the vines was a small wooden chest, inside which was a yellow Rupee. With a careful jump and roll, he nimbly made it onto the floor of the temple.

Noticing that one of the pillars had a pot on it, he shook the pillar until the pot fell down and broke into tiny shards of clay, leaving only a blue Rupee that Link eagerly slid into his wallet. Another of the plant monsters slithered up from the ground only to fall to his sword, and as he turned back to continue forward he realized that there was a monkey trapped in a cage with a purple monster standing guard next to it. With a slash, the purple monster became another target for Link to practice the ending blow on, and with a spinning attack he freed the monkey from the cage.

Link was startled to realize it was the same monkey Talo had gotten captured with. He smirked. 'Silly monkey, you seem to have a habit of getting yourself stuck in cages.' Once the monkey realized Link wasn't attacking her, she jumped in celebration of her new freedom and climbed up the vines to the platform with the door. Link grimaced as he noticed these vines also had spiders crawling around them, which were again swiftly dealt with by his slingshot. Midna appeared from Link's shadow as he was kicking the spiders' corpses to the side.

"Hey! That's the monkey that stole your lantern!" Link rolled his eyes. 'She didn't steal it, Midna. She was just showing me how to get through the mist safely.'

"Doesn't it look like she's beckoning you?" Link nodded. 'Indeed it does. Probably because she is.'

"Aren't you the popular one?" Midna giggled, disappearing back into Link's shadow, and Link began climbing up the vines. As he reached the top, the monkey ran up the stairs and began beckoning him again, then ran to the door when Link reached the top of the stairs. He paused, taking a moment to drink in the details of the wooden panel and the carvings around it.

The symbol of the panel itself was a striking red, seemingly carved into the door and then filled with some kind of red paint. It was a simple spiral with two tails, with one tail curling upwards while the other slanted off to the bottom right. Around the panel were ornate carvings of vines, and a carving of some kind of creature that he hadn't seen before. Standing on either side of the panel were more pillars, with different patterns carved into them, as well as two more torches. His curiosity thoroughly piqued, Link had to force himself to focus. 'Midna wants me to retrieve something from here for her, which is probably the dark power that Faron mentioned, and on top of that there might be a clue here as to what happened to the kids. Focus, Link.'

The monkey simply stared expectantly up at Link as he walked closer to the wooden panel with the strange red spiral. Up close, Link realized that it wasn't just that the symbol had been carved in and then filled with paint. Rather, the symbol had been carved out of the panel, and then a different piece of wood that was painted red had been placed in the carving. He reached out to touch the panel, more out of curiosity than anything else. It was then that he noticed that some parts of the panel were less coarse than the rest of the panel. He pressed against the panel, and was surprised to feel it move slightly. He felt the bottom of the panel bump into some gap in the floor. All at once he realized what the panel was: it was a door. 'That must be why she's waiting here in front of it. Though.. Why couldn't she have opened it herself?' He huffed. 'Would've saved me the trouble of looking pretty silly.' He wasn't sure why he was concerned about how he looked. After all, who was there to judge him? Midna, and a monkey?

After more poking and prodding at the door, he realized that he could leverage a slight groove in the wood to push it open. However, he was not prepared for just how heavy the door would be. He grunted as he strained against the door, eventually sliding it into a gap in the walls. He and the monkey slipped through the door, and behind them the door slid closed. He winced. 'All the doors in this temple are like that.. Aren't they.' A quick glance around the room he was now in certainly suggested so.

He stood on what almost looked like the porch of a house, with stairs that led down to a path and to the raised platform in the center of the room, which had its own set of stairs. All the way on the other side of the room was another one of the heavy doors, prompting Link to swear under his breath.

"Hylia's sakes…" His voice was quiet, dry with misuse. But after being trapped for a day, perhaps longer, as a wolf whose only ways of vocalizing were barks, growls, and whines.. He relished being able to speak again. He stretched his arms, then massaged the already-aching upper muscles. In a way, it was almost comical. He had hardly a problem wrestling a runaway goat to the ground, but a particularly heavy chest or door had his arms complaining about being sore.

Once his arms were sufficiently calmed down, he walked down the stairs- only to very strongly resist the sudden desire to leap back screaming. 'THAT… is one big spider.' The small ones were bad enough, but even from a distance Link could tell that this particular spider was easily as big as him, maybe even larger. The pattern on its back didn't help with Link's unease, as it almost resembled a skull from a distance. 'I'm.. going to have to walk over there at some point.. aren't I..' The monkey seemed unfazed about the spider, perhaps because it was far enough away that it wasn't attacking them.

Link shivered as he imagined the spider crawling along the walls - or, even worse, towards him. His breathing became heavier, labored, and to his horror the spider had dropped down onto the raised platform rather than hanging on its invisible thread. His skin crawled as he saw its angled legs holding its massive body up. In that moment, he wasn't Link, the young man who saved Talo and who helped the light spirit Faron regain its light. In that moment, he wasn't Link, the hero chosen by the gods. In that moment, he was Link, a small child cowering in fear from a spider.

Suddenly the spider began crawling towards Link and the monkey, its pointed legs nimbly scuttling down the steps, its sharp mandibles twitching as if already preparing to sink its fangs into his flesh and drain him of his blood. He reached for his sword, his hand shaking like the rest of his body. His hand was moving too slowly, the shuffling of the spider's legs now audible as it menacingly drew nearer and nearer. The spider was even larger up close, easily the size of Epona. It reared back onto its back legs, its front legs splayed out into the air and its mandibles twitching again. Then, suddenly, it lunged at him, and its fangs sank into his shoulder, making him yelp in pain. Still, he couldn't will himself to raise his sword, only able to watch as the spider attacked him again and again. The monkey was screeching, his shoulder throbbed in pain from each bite from the spider, and he began to feel weaker and weaker. 'I… I'm going to die..' Link gritted his teeth from the pain. 'I don't… I don't want to die..' The spider reared back once more for a final strike, and Link couldn't even close his eyes as the spider's face came ever closer.

Suddenly, the burning sensation on his hand came back., and the sword was swinging through the air the next instant. He felt the sword slice through the spider's body, cutting it cleanly in half right in front of his eyes. The spider fell dead, its legs curling up. Link breathed a sigh of relief as the warmth on his hand slowly subsided. He still felt weak, panting, still standing near the spider's corpse. Then he remembered the potions in his pouch. He pulled one out, removed the cork, and drank the contents of the entire bottle. Its taste was somewhat reminiscent of an herbal tea that Bo and Ilia were rather fond of. Within moments, his weakness subsided. He sighed. 'That… was close.'

Finally, he made his way up the stairs onto the central platform. Looking up, he noticed a chest and several pots hanging in the air, held up by threads of a spider's web. He aimed a couple of slingshot shots at the threads, but they simply stuck to the thread. The pots themselves, however, shattered into small pieces that landed on the ground, rewarding him with two blue Rupees.

It was then that he noticed the four torches on the central platform. Out of curiosity, he lit the torches. Once all four were lit, suddenly a platform raised into the air, giving him a bridge across to the door. The monkey ran across the platform, beckoning him forward. Link, however, glanced to his left and right, realizing that there were two more doors on either side, though they didn't have a platform he could walk across, only ropes on either side that hung down from the ceiling. He turned and followed the monkey up to the door, but stopped when he noticed another of the heavy blue chests next to the doorway. 'Might as well see what's in here.' With a grunt, he slowly lifted the lid of the chest, praying that it wouldn't make his arms quite so sore.

Inside the chest was a small map, with the same spiral design as the doors had. Tracing his finger along the drawings of the rooms, he realized that the shape of one of the rooms was similar to that of the room he was currently in. 'This must be a map of the temple. That's handy.' He studied the different rooms depicted on the map. 'So, if this is where we are now… This big room in the middle must be where she wants me to go.' He folded the map and slid it into one of the pouches on his waist.

The door swung open to reveal a ravine with a rickety wooden bridge across it, as well as platforms that spun whenever the wind picked up. Link frowned. 'That bridge sure looks safe…' The monkey darted across the bridge, only to stop when another, larger monkey appeared. The larger monkey had a sinister, almost maniacal, expression on its face, and it suddenly held up what looked to be a boomerang. The smaller monkey jumped and fled back onto the ledge with Link just as the larger monkey threw the boomerang, which severed some of the ropes holding the bridge up. The larger monkey cackled dementedly, before turning and running back to wherever it had come from. The smaller monkey let out a sigh of visible relief, running back to the door and beckoning Link over. Midna appeared from Link's shadow, giggling.

"Oh! What's going on?! Has there been a monkey fight?!" Link pondered what had just happened. 'She mentioned something about her boss going crazy.. Maybe that was her boss?'

"Oh no! Now we can't go any farther. We might as well go back." Link nodded. 'There must be another way to get across to where that crazy boomerang monkey ran off to.'

"I don't know what's going on, but it seems like she wants to take you somewhere, so maybe you should just follow her." Link nodded again, opening the door once more. The monkey ran back to the central platform, beckoning Link over. She ran to the right, jumping and beckoning Link over. As soon as he stepped closer, she leapt up and began hanging down from the rope that dangled between two wooden posts, beckoning Link once more. Link blinked in surprise. 'Does.. does she want me to jump and grab onto her?'

As the monkey grabbed onto his hands, she began swinging him back and forth. In an instant, Link realized what her intentions were, and carefully timed a jump that landed him on the other side. He continued through the door, and the monkey jumped across to follow him through the doorway.

To his right, down a small corridor, Link noticed a strange insect of some kind standing on legs as thin as twigs. He decided to instead walk down the left path, burning a spider web as he walked. He found himself in a room with a shallow lake, and multiple wooden platforms scattered between ledges. The monkey ran up the stairs to the nearest platform, beckoning him over, and so he followed, carefully jumping across the small platforms. To his surprise, the monkey didn't beckon him over to the door in front of him, but instead began shaking in fear on the wooden platform to his left - and it didn't take him long to figure out why. Nearby, dangling from the ceiling, was another of the large spiders. A shiver ran down Link's spine as he remembered the one that had nearly killed him.

Seeing that the spider still dangled from its thread, he got an idea. He took out his slingshot, shooting directly at the thread. This time, the pellet easily shredded through the spider's thread, sending it falling onto the wooden platform near the one the monkey stood on. The spider, dazed, fell into the water, and Link stifled a laugh.

"Hah. Stupid spider." The monkey began beckoning him over, and he leapt from one wooden platform to the next. He smirked as he looked down into the water, at the spider helplessly trying to climb back up, to no avail. "Not so scary now, are you?"

He frowned as he realized that the door the monkey was beckoning him over to was locked, chains crossing over it multiple times. 'Hm.. No, I don't think I have a key on me that fits that lock..' He shook his head, and the monkey stared at him curiously. He leapt back across the wooden platforms, to the door that the monkey had completely ignored, the monkey now curiously following along behind him. Link pulled out the map, tracing his finger along the rooms once more. 'Let's see… we're here now.. This door leads into that big room from before, though obviously a different part.' As soon as he opened the door, the monkey stepped back.

Link found himself on a ledge, with one of the spinning bridges in front of him, leading across to a platform with another door. He waited for the bridge to spin around so that he could step onto it, and then quickly ran across and into the next room.

This room had another of the spinning bridges, but it never spun, as no wind came in from outside. There were, however, another large chest and three small clay pots. Opening the chest, Link found a small key, and he grinned. 'This should unlock that door.' Then, with a spinning slash, he broke all three pots, though he was disappointed to only find a single green Rupee.

Again he ran across the spinning bridge and into the other room, where the monkey was still waiting for him. As soon as he started running towards the wooden platforms, she began following him again. With a soft click, the key unlocked the chains on the door, and Link was able to push it open. The monkey darted inside, to the monkey that sat in a cage atop a wooden pillar. As he walked across a rickety bridge, it broke behind him, leaving only another of the ropes. 'I guess I know how I'm getting back across once I save that monkey.'

Remembering the pots on top of the pillar in the very first room of the temple, he smirked. 'Just one second, I'll get you down from there.' He shook the pillar until the monkey's cage fell and broke, releasing the monkey. Just as the monkeys were about to celebrate, two of the purple monsters jumped down, though they were no match for Link's sword or for the finishing blow. The monkeys cheered and jumped, then ran up to the rope and beckoned Link over. This time the two monkeys spaced each other out across the rope, both beckoning Link across. With a couple of well-timed jumps, he easily made it across, which he could swear the two monkeys applauded him for.

Back in the room with the small lake, he looked to his right. A sturdier-looking bridge led to another platform, with some kind of large chest locked behind a gate, as well as four pillars that almost resembled the spinning bridges. With no other leads as to where to go, he instead left the room, stopping when he saw the insect down the large corridor again, still standing on its thin legs and staring at him and the two monkeys. From a safe distance, he fired a slingshot pellet at the insect, and to his surprise it collapsed into a ball and began hissing. Suddenly the insect exploded, shattering the wall behind it to reveal a small room. In the small room were four small pots, which Link sliced to reveal two blue Rupees, a green Rupee, and-

A strange Cucco-like creature, its head resembling an egg of some kind. The bizarre Cucco shook itself off, then turned to address Link.

"Phew. Out at last! Gracious… Once I got in there, I couldn't squeeze back out! You were a big help… Thanks!" Link could only stare at the creature. 'You're.. welcome..? I guess?

"I've been looking for something in here, you see. Gracious, yes! You must need something here, too. Shall we try working together for a while, fellow adventurer?" Link didn't even have the time to respond before the creature continued. "You may not think I look like much, but I can be quite helpful! I can even warp you out of here if you want to leave!" Link tilted his head to one side. 'What.. does that mean?'

"So don't think of me as a burden! Now let's get started!" The creature disappeared in a flurry of feathers, and Link was left standing, thoroughly confused. 'I..' He shook his head. 'I'm not even going to try to figure out whatever just happened.' He returned to the room with the torches and the central platform, and as with before a monkey helped him jump across, as well as with the other door, which he now realized had a spider web stretched across it. A swing of the lantern, and the spider web burned away, allowing him to walk through the door, which the monkeys did not follow him through.

This new room had eerie red versions of the plant monsters, almost looking like snakes. He thought he'd slain one, until its head came charging after him. Thankfully a slice of the sword was enough to finally defeat it. Suddenly he noticed a disturbing chewing noise coming from above him, though as he looked around he couldn't find the source.

As he climbed up the stairs, he noticed a strange monster that almost resembled a large flower, though he was certain it was the source of the chewing noises. 'Gross…' Continuing up the stairs to his left, he noticed three clay pots, which he found contained a green and a blue Rupee. He also found a set of vines leading up to a door, which also led to the large central room. Continuing through that room, however, he realized that there were not one but two of the spinning bridges, and to his dismay they were not in sync - when one allowed him to continue forward, the other was turned to the side. 'Guess I can't go through here.'

Back in the previous room, to the left of where the clay pots had been, there was a steep jump up to another platform. However, looking down, Link noticed another of the gross chewing flowers. He frowned. 'If I miss the jump..' He shivered as he imagined the death that would await him. Stepping back, he looked around the room, and noticed that there were more of the exploding bugs. An idea formed in his mind, as he looked back down at the chewing flower and realized it had what looked to be a mouth that constantly opened and closed, as if waiting for food to fall in.

After some trial and error, as well as some nervous dashes away from a bug that was about to explode, Link realized that the bugs exploded too quickly for him to bring it to that chewing flower. However, there was another near the hole the exploding bugs crawled out of, and that flower was easily blown up. He leapt across the gap, and found a rock on a ledge with two torches on either end. 'One of those exploding bugs might break this open.. But it'd explode before I could get it over here.' To his right, there was a large patch of vines on the side of a platform, with another door. 'Let's see what's up that way, then.'

His slingshot made short work of the two spiders that crawled along on the vines, and with a running jump he just barely caught the end of the vine patch. Once he reached the top, he realized that another of the exploding bugs had burrowed into the platform, allowing him to easily blow up the other chewing flower. He smirked, allowing himself a victory jump over the gap. However, when he realized that he couldn't jump back across, he sighed. 'Guess I'll have to get all the way back up again.' Turning to his right, he blinked as he noticed a large blue chest behind where the flower had been.

Inside the chest was another of the heart shaped gems. Like the first one he'd found, as soon as his hand touched the side of the gem it vanished. Shrugging, he made his way back up to the patch of vines, which he once again only just barely made his way onto. Link sighed as he reached the door. 'Let's see what's on the other side, then.'

In the middle of the room sat what looked like the chewing flowers, and on the other side of the room was a cage. Suddenly, something that looked similar to the snake-like plant monsters flew out from next to the chewing flower, grabbing something from the floor and dropping it into the chewing flower, which then closed its mouth. Then the snake-like head turned to face him, menacingly hovering in the air.

After dodging the lunges from the snake-like head and retaliating with sword swings, the snake-like head died, and the chewing flower opened its mouth again. It was then that Link noticed the exploding bugs sitting around the room. He smirked as he grabbed one and threw it into the chewing flower's mouth. It exploded, and then Link saw what it had eaten: a small key.

As he turned to open the cage, he realized that one of the monkeys was trapped inside, frantically and futilely shaking at the bars. 'Just a second, I'll get you outta there.' Like with the others, the monkey clapped and jumped when Link freed it, and then began following him around. He broke open the clay pots inside the now-open cage, only finding two green Rupees.

He made his way back to the room where the other two monkeys waited for him, and then he stopped to think while standing on the central platform. 'Three monkeys, now… I wonder..' He opened the door to the bridge that the crazy monkey had broken, but soon realized that three monkeys were not enough to make it across the ravine. He frowned, pulling out the map once more, tracing his fingers along all the rooms he recognized. 'There's only one on this side that I haven't been to so far..' Remembering the rock with the two torches, he sighed and put the map away again. 'Let's see if I can't break that rock open.'

After making his way back up to the rock, he stared at it for a time. 'The bug back there is too far away..' He glanced up at the vines along the wall. 'There's another one up there. If I throw it down here, maybe I could get it there in time?'

There was more trial and error, with some explosions narrowly avoided. But at last the rock was blown up, and Link grinned to himself as he climbed up to walk through the door. 'There's probably a monkey in this room too, if three wasn't enough to cross that ravine.'

The new room was darker than the rest. The wooden platform he stood on dropped off suddenly, startling him as he fell. Next to him on either side were two pillars, one with a pot on top (which had a blue Rupee inside) and one with a chest (which had a small key inside). As he went to cross the bridge, he noticed that one of the tiles began floating, with a pair of eyes peering up at him from beneath the tile. 'That's.. Odd.' He readied his sword and slowly walked forward. As soon as he came close, however, the creature ducked back down out of reach, and another, further creature poked its head out. He frowned, backing up so that the first creature was poking its head out again, and fired a couple of shots at it with the slingshot. Unfortunately, it was too quick, and ducked back down before the pellet could hit it. Link sighed. 'I guess I'll just have to be careful where I step, then.' He carefully dodged the tiles that had the creatures, only to find that some of the tiles on the other side also had the creatures underneath them as well.

Lighting two of the unlit torches on either side of him, he realized that a staircase had formed. He grimaced as he noticed another of the spiders dangling from the ceiling at the top of the staircase. 'I wonder if I can lure it into the water…' Swallowing a sudden lump in his throat, he slowly walked up the stairs, before stopping on the second step. 'I should probably knock it down from its thread before I get too close, so I can quickly run away once it starts chasing me.' From where he stood, the spider's back almost resembled an eerily grinning face, with two empty eye sockets rather than eyes. He shivered. 'Creepy…'

With a single shot, the spider was knocked from its web, and Link hurried down the stairs and into the water. However, when he looked back, the spider had not followed him. From where he was in the water, it was almost as if the spider had completely vanished. He swallowed another sudden lump in his throat. This time luck would not be on his side. Nervously he swam back onto the bridge, looking up to try and find the spider. Suddenly it crawled into view, and Link was torn between relief and fear. He didn't want to walk up to the spider to draw its attention. 'Maybe the slingshot will work..?' Unfortunately, the spider hardly seemed to register that Link had attacked it, aside from flinching in pain when the pellet struck it. After several pellets were fired at the spider, it became obvious that he wouldn't be able to shoot at it and kill it that way.

He climbed onto the first step, waiting for the spider to once again crawl into view. It didn't notice him, even as he stood shivering in sheer fear. The second step was the same story, as well as the third. But when he stepped onto the fourth step, suddenly the spider noticed him and began crawling after him. He, in a panicked sprint, fled back into the water, and as he swam away in a panic he heard the spider hiss in surprise. He turned around to see that one of the tile insects had launched it into the water on the other side of the bridge, stunning it as it hit a log that was floating in the water. Link sighed in relief. 'That should stop it for a bit.' As he climbed up the stairs again, he noticed a fourth monkey locked in another cage, screeching in a panic. Like with the third monkey, he unlocked the cage, earning more enthusiastic applause from the monkey. The clay pots behind where the monkey had been only had a yellow Rupee, though Link was happy just to have avoided the spider. He turned to leave with the monkey-

Only to realize that the spider had climbed out of the water and onto the platform at the end of the staircase. Fear sunk into his stomach. 'Now I don't have a choice. I.. I have to fight this thing.' He drew in a breath and then released it, closing his eyes as he drew his sword. 'You can do this, Link. You killed that first one. You have a sword. It. Doesn't.' He opened his eyes and climbed down the first three steps. The spider began angrily scuttling towards him, and as he got down from the stairs the spider had closed in. A wide swing across the spider sent it staggering backwards before again crawling at him. After two more wide swings, the spider crumpled into a ball, stunned and squirming. Without thinking, Link leapt into the air to perform a finishing blow, stabbing the spider clean through its head. Its legs flailed around him and he jumped back, expecting it to retaliate, but instead its legs curled up. Link released a breath he forgot he'd taken in. The spider was slain. His legs shaking, he brought the monkey to be reunited with the other three.

To his surprise, once one of the monkeys helped him onto the central platform, all four ran to the door that led to the broken bridge and began beckoning him over. 'I guess four is enough after all.' As he walked through the door, the four monkeys helped each other jump across the rope, spacing each other out so that Link could reach the next monkey. He drew in a breath and exhaled, before making a leap and allowing the first monkey to catch him.

He rolled as he made it across to the other side, allowing himself just the smallest of grins, before making his way up the stairs to the door. He wasn't sure what he was going to find on the other side. There was no indication on the map. But he had to press on anyways.