He found himself standing in a room of almost all metal, save for the wooden crates against the wall and the carpet near where he had landed. Even the walls and the floor under his feet were made of metal - old, almost rusted metal that had stains and dust in odd places. To his right was a counter that made it clear this building was a store of some kind. Strangely, the counter had a thick metal grate across most of it, with the one hole in the grate boarded up. The air smelled different, Link realized. It almost reminded him of standing too close to a fire.

A note on the wall caught his attention. "FLAMMABLE! Lanterns strictly prohibited!" As if to emphasize the point, the note also had a drawing of a small lantern that had then been crossed out. 'So whatever bombs are, they must have to do with fire in some way...' He pondered this as he walked up the metal staircase, noticing more of the notes.

The upper loft almost looked like a person's living area, with both a bed and a desk as well as a dresser. A ladder led up and out of the building. Glass bottles and tubes sat on the desk, seemingly empty but reeking of the same odor as the air downstairs. Wooden shelves lined the walls, some empty and some almost displaying objects.

As he neared the dresser, he could hear the scuttling and scraping of a shadow insect. 'How did it get back there? And how am I going to get it out of there?' He stared at the dresser for a few moments, perhaps hoping the insect would happen to crawl out from behind the dresser if only he were patient enough. For a moment, it reminded him of Sera's cat trying to catch a fish by staring into the water. 'I can't fish it out from behind the dresser.. Maybe I can scare it into flying out?' He leapt at the wall, hitting it with his shoulder rather than his muzzle. The notes on the wall fluttered from the impact, and the dresser shook slightly, but the insect stubbornly refused to leave its hiding spot. However, the dresser shaking gave Link a new idea.

He leapt again, this time hitting the dresser with his shoulder. To his satisfaction, the dresser fell to the floor, making the metal grating rattle as the insect angrily flew out from behind where the dresser had been. The insect only had the chance to angrily hiss at him once before it was dead with its brethren and the stolen light reclaimed. He jumped onto the fallen dresser, then onto the shelf next to it, and finally onto the platform the ladder led to. 'Let's see what's outside.'

As it turned out, what was outside was a wooden deck overlooking the rest of the village, with a haphazard wooden railing that had been destroyed in one section. Link, for a moment, felt his heart drop to his stomach at the realization of how high up the balcony was. However, he shook his head and forced himself to continue. A bit of the roof was angled, leading to a set of stairs that connected the flat top of the roof to the naturally flat part of the cliff the store was built into. A winding path climbed up the side of the cliff, with another building to his left in the distance and a stone tower at the end of the winding path.

He was about to follow the path when his senses brought his attention to a shadow insect scurrying into the building to his left. 'Might as well go deal with that one first, since I know where it is.' As he walked closer, he noticed a circular shape on a sign at the top of the building, one that was similar to the shape on the sign that had read "BOMBS". 'Is that what a bomb looks like?'

In front of the building was a small wooden sign that read "DANGER! Keep out!" His hackles raised slightly as he noticed that it was signed by Barnes. 'So this building must belong to him too. Well, unfortunately for Barnes, the only way for this village to go back to normal is for me to go in and kill that insect.' A convenient hole in the side of the building, likely the entrance the insect used, allowed Link to follow it inside.

He found himself in what appeared to be a large shed, with several pots, barrels, and strange circular objects on the floor and resting on shelves. He blinked as he realized that the circular objects vaguely resembled the shapes on the signs. 'Those must be bombs.' Some were carefully stored in wooden boxes, others were simply resting on the shelves. Almost every surface in the building had one of the "lanterns strictly prohibited" notes on it, though curiously Link realized there was an old furnace in the back corner that looked somewhat like the one that was in the inn. It even had a pile of unlit wood inside. 'And of course, that insect is probably inside that furnace, so I'll have to smoke it out like I did the other one.'

In the corner near where Link had come in, next to a ladder, there was a broken lantern with a small flame flickering from it. A stick had conveniently fallen out of the pile inside the furnace, which Link grabbed in his mouth and delicately bent down to place in the fire. With the stick now on fire, he ran back to the furnace and lit the wood inside. 'Now to wait for the insect to get smoked out.. Wait.' All too late, he suddenly realized that unlike the furnace in the inn, this furnace had no hole in the top for the insect to fly out of, meaning that the only way it could escape was to fly through the fire. 'Hylia's sakes I'm an idiot..'

Right then, two panicked and burning insects flew out of the furnace and directly into one of the wooden shelves, which immediately roared into a rapidly spreading blaze. The insects didn't stop there, instead flying in a flaming panic into almost every wooden surface in the building. Midna gasped.

"Huh?! What did you do?!" Link whined. 'I know, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking..' Midna's tone was panicked as she flew off of his back and disappeared from the burning room. "Sorry, but as romantic as this is, I'm not going to stay here with you. I'm getting out!" Link whined as he saw her disappear. 'Wait, Midna! Don't leave me in here!' He paused as what she had said fully sank in. 'Hold on.. romantic?' Suddenly there was a loud explosion, and Link narrowly dodged a burst of flame. 'Woah! Was that one of the bombs?!' He shook his head to clear the faint ringing in his ears, idly noticing a still-burning insect flying around the building in a panic.

"HEY!" Midna's voice, coming from outside the building, was even more panicked. "If you don't hurry up and get out…" Her voice trailed off, almost sounding sorrowful by the end, before continuing in the same panicked tone. "Ooh, I can't even say it! Just hurry up and get out of there!" Just then, a hissing sound erupted from what Link assumed was the other bombs. He scrambled forward and into the hole he'd used to enter the now-burning shack, running some distance away once he was out of the hole. As he ran, a series of loud explosions came from the building behind him, until suddenly a massive explosion that shook the ground under his feet and brought back the ringing in his ears. He turned around just in time to see splintered wooden boards flying in all directions from the building.

As the fire and smoke cleared, the only remaining part of the building that he could see was the stone foundation and the wood from the doorframe. He blinked as suddenly three orbs of light appeared from the rubble. 'Three? But I only saw two bugs in there...'

"Hmm... I don't suppose there's any nicer way to hunt these things, huh?" He realized Midna was on his back again, and allowed himself a relieved sigh. "Well, you had to sacrifice someone's house to get the spirit's light back... but that's how the cookie crumbles, right?" With that, Midna was on his back once more. He looked down towards where Barnes was still hiding with Renado and the children, unsure of how to feel about how everything played out. After a few moments of contemplation, he turned and cautiously walked over to the destroyed building.

Pieces of rubble sat on the ground near the building's remains as well as where the inside of the building had been only a few moments ago. Warmth still emanated from the rubble and the broken foundation, though thankfully he was able to avoid stepping on the wooden beams that still smoldered where they landed. Hopping up onto what remained of the foundation, he collected the orbs of light and made his way to the winding path up to the top of the cliff.

As he neared the top, another of the unsettling trumpeting bird-monsters flew down at him with its claws outstretched. He ducked away from its claws and jumped up to attack it as it flew over him, the monster letting out another trumpeting call as his teeth sank into what should have been its flesh. It threw him to the ground, thankfully a short distance, before again swooping down with outstretched claws. Link growled as the bird monster drew nearer, before he jumped up and bit it again. This time the monster fell to the ground and dissipated into more of the black particles that faded into the air. He turned and continued up the path, finding himself in front of the stone building. Like with Barnes' building, he could see a large hole in its side, which he crawled through.

He found himself in a room with multiple wooden boxes and clay pots, and a ladder in the center of the room leading to a higher level of the building. He could faintly hear another of the insects scuttling around, in the far corner of the room near the clay pots. To his surprise, when he leapt at the clay pots, the insect flew out of one of them as it shattered. He chased it around the room until finally he was able to catch it and reclaim the light it had stolen.

He glanced around the room for a time, to see if there were anything else he needed to do. Some kind of tattered poster hung on the wall near the door, though Link couldn't quite tell what it was or what it said. When he was confident that there wasn't anything else in the room, he left through the hole in the side. 'Good thing this building isn't going up in flames too...'

Back outside, he stood on the wooden platform jutting out from the cliff face, looking down at the rest of the village. At Eldin's spring, at the building the children were still hiding in, at the disappointingly empty hot spring, and, looking up, at the mountains in the distance that were only barely visible through the haze of twilight. Down and to his left, he noticed a pathway leaving the village. Like the path he had taken to enter, it was gated off. As he turned his gaze to look in another direction, he stopped when he noticed a cave nearby the other gated-off pathway. 'Huh. Where does that lead to?' With no other ideas or leads as to where he could find more insects, he walked down the winding cliff path, back through Barnes' bomb shop, and towards the cave he'd seen from the top of the cliff.

Rock pillars stood on either end of the surprisingly large cave, with a wooden sign by one of them. As he drew nearer, he realized it was pointing to different places in the local area. The gated-off path led to Hyrule Field, the sign called the central road a "Thoroughfare", and through the cave was

'Death... Mountain? That sounds... safe.' He glanced through the cave, trying to see what could even be up ahead. However, all he could see was a series of rock walls. He sighed. 'Knowing my luck, there's probably insects up there too.' Reluctantly, he began walking up the path.

Eventually, he found himself standing in front of a cliff face with a metal grating hanging over the wooden beams that clung to the cliff. Some rocks to the side created a series of jumping platforms, and Link could faintly see a spirit sitting at the edge of the cliff face.

"Looks like the path's impassable... but I can get you up it if you want to go." Link walked onto the slanted rock to his left, and at the end Midna floated up to the tall rock in front of him. With her help, he landed a short distance away from the lone spirit. As with the others, he used his senses to see what the spirit would say.

To his surprise, he was greeted with an image of a tall yellow creature of some kind. It had white underwear on, as well as two ankle braces. At the top of its head, where Link would have otherwise expected there to be hair, instead there seemed to almost be a clump of rocks. 'What..' He walked closer to the strange spirit. It had a deep, distinctly male voice.

"Ugh... Why do I have to stand guard... The ladder is destroyed, so it is not like any humans will come up..." The creature's face became angry, unnerving Link. "And what is with the elders? If we have a problem the humans can help with, we should ask. It is better than suffering for the sake of pride." Link tilted his head. 'A problem the humans can help with?' After hesitating for a moment, he continued forward, passing some scattered large rocks on the ground.

As he continued through the winding path through the cliffs, another of the eerie shadow monsters he'd seen in the castle's dungeons shuffled into view, and then a second. Without the water and harsh darkness of the dungeon, now he could see the creatures' tentacles that extended from all over its body, and the small red markings on the front of its body. The two leapt at him, and as he dodged them he noticed that he had also dodged a hidden third creature. With Midna's help, the three were destroyed and dissipated into small black particles.

Continuing up the path, he noticed small bare bushes to the side. As he rounded the corner, another of the shadow bats flew down at him, which he dodged and then counterattacked. Shaking himself off, he noticed another cliff face with wooden beams and metal grates attached to it, as well as metal platforms stacked up next to the cliff. Another shadow bat, which was originally flying haphazard circles around the area, flew down to attack him as he walked closer to the platforms, though it was only able to harass him for a little bit before it too disappeared into black particles like its brethren. He climbed up the platforms and onto the top of the cliff face, continuing up the path to see a series of towering rock walls. As he neared the top of the path, he noticed a series of holes in the rock floor that looked as if something came bursting out of the rock. Nearing one of them, he heard the sound of wind rushing up and out of the hole, which he noticed felt rather warm.

He continued forward through the air vents, noticing a strange pillar in the distance. There was a hole in its center, and as he neared it he could hear a high pitched whining sound from the pillar. He also faintly smelled one of the insects nearby, which his senses confirmed was scuttling around one of the air vents. He leapt at the insect, wincing again at the taste, and allowing the light to be recollected. The insect dealt with, he jumped up to stand next to the pillar. It was covered in strange markings, the hole seeming to be part of the central marking that almost resembled an eye with a tear coming from it. With a start, he realized that the whining sound was a melody of some kind, one that repeated as he kept listening. Something called him to sit and close his eyes as he continued listening, his mind focusing on the simple melody. After some time, the desire to mimic it stirred in his chest, and he found himself howling the melody.

His vision faded to white, and when it returned he found himself standing in a strange place. Midna was no longer on his back, and his body almost felt weightless. A thin blue mist covered much of the area in front of him, with a large forest in the distance and a strange monument with what looked like five pillars off to the left. The moon, behind the forest, was impossibly larger than Link had ever seen it, bathing all he could see in its soft light. Far in the distance, over the forest, he could faintly see a floating platform with a small golden figure standing on it. 'Is that...?' Somehow, staring in that direction and focusing his vision confirmed it for him: it was the golden wolf he'd seen at the forest temple. The same feeling from before told him to sit, and to howl the melody once more. To his surprise, the golden wolf in the distance began howling the melody with him. When it was done, he found that he felt oddly calm, calmer than he had since before leaving Ordon.

"Let teachings of old pass to you..." The voice of the golden wolf, the spirit who taught him the finishing blow, echoed across the strange landscape. "Take sword in hand and find me..." The golden wolf leapt down from the platform and disappeared into the forest, leaving Link alone in the unfamiliar world of mist. Then his vision faded to white again, and he awoke to find himself laying in the dirt. He stood, shaking himself off. Midna appeared in front of him.

"What was THAT all about? You howled at that rock, and then you just passed out!" He wasn't sure he could explain it to her, much less explain anything while he was still a wolf. 'He jumped down into the forest... I guess when I get the chance I'll have to see if I can find him there.' Midna, likely seeing that he wasn't going to answer her question, shrugged and as if by habit roughly landed on his back. He braced himself for the dull pain of his ankle protesting, but was surprised when it was gone. Remembering the feeling of calm after he howled the melody with the golden wolf, he wondered if that had anything to do with it.

As he passed the pillar, he realized it was no longer echoing the melody. He continued up the path, stopping when he was greeted with a hissing air vent in front of him. 'With how quickly it's coming out of there, and how warm the air felt, I don't want to try walking through that.' As the thought went through his mind, the hissing slowly stopped, and he ran past the vent to continue up the path. He dodged several other vents until he came to what almost looked like a natural staircase, leading to something like a small canyon. Metal beams supported various cliffs, and at the center was a tower made of both rocks and metal sheets and grates. In the distance, one of the eerie bird monsters flew overhead, though it thankfully didn't see Link. However, glancing down at the almost-canyon floor, he saw four of the shadow beasts. He stretched before he jumped down the rocks to the floor. As soon as he neared the shadow beasts, the same red fence appeared, and the nearest shadow beast suddenly noticed him and began running towards him. He attacked it until its body fell still. Then he surveyed the area.

Interestingly, one of the shadow beasts had been almost completely walled in with the red fences. 'Looks like the king of the twilight is on to what I've learned.' Slipping into the solitary beast's enclosure, he attacked it as well. 'Now I can just deal with the other two.' He ran over, and with Midna's help the last two shadow beasts fell still. As with the others, they exploded into green particles that flew into the sky to create another portal, and the red fence dissipated.

He looked around, noticing a series of flat rocks against one wall nearby a cliff face supported by metal beams, as well as a small alcove in the opposite wall with a makeshift ladder leading up to it. He huffed as he noticed an air vent near the top of the cliff face. 'Looks like I'll have to be careful with the timing.' He was about to step onto the rocks when he faintly heard the scuttling of another insect. His senses showed him that it was crawling along the metal beams on the cliff face. It was quickly dealt with, and with Midna's help he was on top of the small cliff.

At the top of the cliff was another spirit. It was another of the strange creatures. This time he was able to see that the rocky formations on the top of his head continued along his back and arms. He also noticed markings along his arms, chest, and stomach.

"Why do I have to stand guard at a dead end at the bottom of a cliff like this... Wait a second! Have they tucked me out of the way because they think I am useless?" Link winced at the anger in the creature's voice. "I do not like being made an outcast on the fringes like this... If I see anyone suspicious, I am going to show my strength. Yes, I will send the trespasser flying!" Link huffed. 'Good to know... Is this why they call this place Death Mountain?' He walked along the raised path, carefully avoiding the hissing air from the vents, until he was greeted by another cliff face supported by metal beams with a sloping piece of rock wall opposite it. 'I can probably use that to jump up with Midna's help- oh." As the thought crossed his mind, he heard the hissing of air and noticed another of the vents right in front of where he would have to jump from.

Suddenly rocks began raining from the sky and exploding where they hit. He was grateful that none hit him, though as soon as he had climbed up to the point he would jump from he could hear the warped trumpeting of another bird-monster behind him. He attacked it and sent it reeling backwards before it caught itself. As it angrily flew at him, he shivered as he noticed the petal-like pieces of its face flapping up and down. He shook his head and leapt at the monster with his teeth bared, his fangs sinking into its chest. He only stopped when he felt the monster go limp, backing away as it faded into black particles.

He was grateful that the wall segment he was climbing on was wide enough that he had plenty of room to readjust how he stood while waiting for the air vent to stop hissing. Once the hissing stopped, he barked for Midna's help, and she floated up to the cliff top so he could jump up after her. As he jumped, a loud whine echoed from above where he had been, and he turned around just in time to notice a large flaming rock crash down into the wall, by some miracle not making the wall explode into small pieces.

He turned around again, sighing when the only things he could notice amongst the sea of rock walls were two wooden boxes and yet another of the bird-monsters. As he walked forward, he noticed that to his left the cliff top continued, and to his right was what looked like a hot spring in another almost-canyon. A spirit stood on the far end of the cliff top, likely watching over the hot spring. Link grimaced as he noticed more of the small monsters squirming across the ground of the spring.

Walking towards the spirit, he was surprised to see that in fact the spirit was staring further down the path towards the hissing air vents. He noticed that the rocks on the creature's back were larger than the rocks elsewhere.

"Psssh! Hot! Another fumarole... And once again, it is in the worst possible place!" Link tilted his head. 'Fumarole? Is that what those air vents are called?' The creature sighed. "I suppose this path is impassable now..." Behind the creature, Link could hear that unlike the other "fumaroles", the ones behind the creature were continually hissing out air. He sighed as the creature continued speaking to himself.

"If I were to go down that way... I would get knocked back in an instant, I am sure of it!" The creature raised up a hand to his face, and his voice became thoughtful. "If my legs were as strong as the elders' legs, I might be able to stomp my way down there..." Link tilted his head in the opposite direction, curiously imagining what the creature meant by stronger legs. After a moment, he looked down at the spring. He grimaced as he noticed that there was no easy path down to the ground - it was a sheer drop. Remembering the injury he'd sustained in the cellar, he winced. Midna evidently noticed his hesitation, floating up from his back to look down at the hot spring.

"Hmm... Quite the jump to get down there, huh?" Link nodded. 'Not a jump I'm eager to make, either.' Midna put a hand to her chin, humming to herself. Then she snapped her fingers. "I think I have an idea." She smirked at him. "Stay still, all right?" He would have raised an eyebrow at her were he still human, but instead he just looked at her as he waited for her to do whatever it was she was planning to do.

Suddenly, the hair-hand erupted from her helmet. It hovered over Link for some moments, before its fingers wrapped around his stomach and back. Without the bones and muscles, it didn't really feel like a real hand. It was also cool to the touch. It wasn't an unpleasant frigidness like the water in the castle's dungeons had been, rather an easy coolness like the afternoon of an early fall day. The hand lifted him into the air, careful to not put too much pressure on his stomach as it carried him up and off of the cliff top. His legs dangled above empty air, a feeling that profoundly unnerved his canine senses.

Slowly, the hand lowered him down and onto a rock that stuck up from where the waters of the hot spring would be, until his paws all touched the ground again. The hand released him and sunk back into Midna's helmet. She smirked, clearly satisfied with her handiwork.

"There! You'd better thank me - that's a lot of work, you know!" Link snorted, in lieu of the smirk he would've worn were he still human. 'Midna, are you saying I'm heavy?' After a moment, however, he did nod, the closest he could come to a "thank you" in his wolf form. Midna's smirk seemed to shift into a grin.

"Now, come on! The sooner you track down all the insects, the sooner you can help me find the next Fused Shadow!" Midna was once again on his back, allowing Link to survey the area. Four of the squirming monsters slid across the ground, thankfully far enough that they didn't see him. Multiple rock platforms like the one he stood on rose up from the ground, including one that led to a section of the wall with a wooden frame on it that had two rocks sitting inside. 'Where does that lead to?' On the other side of the spring, nearby the blocked wooden frame, was what looked like a cave that seemingly led back to somewhere else on the mountain.

Seeing nothing else to do, Link decided to use his senses to try and find another of the insects. There it was, lazily clinging to the wall of the hot spring, near the squirming shadow monsters. As he jumped off of the rocky platform, he saw the insect leap off of the wall away from him, running directly into the swarm of wriggling shadow monsters that were now moving towards him. Thankfully, with Midna's help, the shadow monsters and the insect fell dead. He walked over to the orb of light, and as the warmth spread through his body the world around him grew brighter and brighter, until all he saw was pure bright light.