Rolling his eyes after Midna, he looked around at his surroundings. A tall tower of metal rose into the sky next to him, and another of the strange metal plates sat on the ground near his feet. The tower held up a rope, which in turn held up the circular stone with more of the strange gemstone surface. He cautiously stepped up onto the metal plate, the iron boots immediately appearing on his feet as he did. The tower slowly shifted, moving the stone circle to sit over a piece of scaffolding connected to where he stood. Then the stone circle moved again, to somewhere behind the tower. As it moved again, Link found himself walking slowly towards the piece of the scaffolding that stuck out from the rest. It was a circular platform hanging over the lava, almost exactly the same size as the stone circle.
The stone circle moved away as Link approached the metal platform, bringing its field of blue particles with it. It wasn't long before the stone circle was back, before the boots appeared on his feet, before he was jerked through the air to land on the underside of the stone circle. The boots disappeared as he reached the other platform, higher than the other two, with a ramp leading up to another platform with its own metal plate - as well as more of the monsters responsible for the children being kidnapped. Those monsters soon fell to Link's blade, and he sighed as he stepped up onto the metal plate.
The metal plate also summoned a stone circle, which brought him to an even higher platform with more monsters. Barrels, boxes, and clay pots were scattered about, though out of respect for the Gorons Link didn't go looking inside of them. Instead, he walked over to the door and went inside.
The room he found himself in had more water, as well as stone platforms that would allow him to jump across to where he could see a metal gate set within a stone brick wall. There were also strange creatures jumping across the surface of the water, their bent legs unnervingly reminding Link of the spiders in the forest temple. A large blue gem sat on top of the stone brick wall, which brought Link's attention to a circle of the blue gemstone surface on the wall alongside a metal circle within it.
He didn't have much time to admire his new surroundings, however, as one of the jumping creatures noticed him and jumped towards him. His hand reached for the hilt of his sword, but didn't fully close around it. The jumping creature regarded him curiously with its one purple eye, before suddenly leaping into the air and lunging down at him with its unsettlingly sharp talon-feet. He rolled to the side, and the creature screeched angrily, alerting the others in the room. Now there were four of the spider-frog creatures surrounding him, hissing and jumping and biting at him. He dodged and rolled, sometimes needing to swat away their fangs or their legs with his shield, until he had an opportunity to strike. Then with a spinning slice, the four creatures fell dead around him, crumpling to the floor. He panted. 'That was close.'
"Why don't you just attack first? It'd save you a lot of trouble." Midna had appeared from his shadow, regarding him with a mixture of curiosity and what almost looked like concern. He huffed.
"If I attack first, they're guaranteed to be hostile." Midna scoffed.
"Most of the creatures you've found in here have been hostile. Save yourself the risk and attack them first." Link frowned, earning a sigh from Midna as she disappeared back into his shadow.
As Link walked towards the edge of the ledge he stood on, looking around, he noticed a chest under the water. Remembering the first room with water, he grimaced. To his right, something that made his chest tighten. A cage of metal fencing, underwater, with a metal block in front of the only opening into the cage. He closed his eyes, images of himself drowning flooding his mind. He could almost feel the water around him, in his nose and mouth, burning his chest.
Then, all at once, a new image faded into view. The children, worriedly looking up at Death Mountain as they waited for him to return. Ilia, cowering from one of the monsters that had stormed the spirit spring in Ordon. The Ordon villagers, mourning their children's disappearance. He opened his eyes. Without a second thought, he took in a large gasp of air and dove into the water. As he approached the large metal block, he tried pushing on it, but found himself unable to even nudge the block. He swam up to the water's surface, taking in grateful breaths as he treaded water and pondered his options. 'Maybe the boots will give me the leverage I need?' Another large gasp of air and he was diving down again. The boots appeared on his feet as he neared the rocky surface at the bottom. Immediately he began pushing on the metal block, relieved when it slid aside. The boots vanished, allowing him to swim up and breathe in the warm but welcomed air. His breathing was deeper, from having to hold such large breaths. But he had done it.
He clambered up onto the rocky ledge, careful to keep his grip steady so he wouldn't fall back into the water. The warm air dried his clothes off more quickly as he climbed up onto another ledge which had one of the metal plates on it. The boots weighed down the button, and a field of blue particles appeared on the lower ledge where he had just been. Looking up, there was another of the blue gemstone surfaces on the ceiling. He sighed.
There was a metal platform below him now, stretching out towards the middle of the room, as well as more of the thick metal pipes jutting out of and back into the rock walls. He frowned as he neared the platform, stopping. 'The space between the platform and the ceiling is so small... Won't I just land on my head?'
"Hey, Midna... Would you be able to take the boots back when I get to the edge of that platform, so I don't hit my head?" Midna appeared in front of him after a bit. Her expression, though harder to read since Link was upside-down, seemed quizzical.
"I could, but why? You've been using the boots yourself this whole time." It was Link's turn to raise a confused eyebrow.
"I haven't been doing anything." Midna stared at him for a few moments, before an expression of realization spread across her face.
"It must be the Triforce, then. Or, well, the piece that you have." Reflexively, Link looked at his hand, even though the glove blocked the marking.
"If it's been making the boots appear without you doing anything, it should do whatever it is you want it to do." Link struggled to get rid of the image in his mind, of himself crashing headfirst into the thick metal platform. Midna smirked, putting her hands on her hips.
"Or are you saying you don't trust the Triforce as much as you do your master?" She laughed as Link was forced to debate with himself once more. As much as her calling herself his master irked him, he couldn't deny that her help had been indispensable. At the same time, the Triforce had apparently been helping him without even needing to be asked.
"Well? What's it gonna be, wolfy?" Midna's smirk didn't leave her face. Finally, Link sighed, closing his eyes so he didn't have to see Midna's grin become more smug.
"I don't know how to use the Triforce yet, so... your help would be preferable, in this case." After a few moments of silence, he slowly opened his eyes. As predicted, Midna was grinning at him, though her expression wasn't just one of smugness. There was also a hint of surprise, of an emotion he couldn't quite discern. In a flash those emotions vanished with a laugh from Midna.
"What's the magic word?" He stared into her eyes as she grinned, almost playfully, at him. Another sigh.
"Can you help me, please?" Midna hummed, resting her chin on one of her hands.
"I'm glad wolfy knows his manners, but..." Midna's smirk became devious. "Did you forget what I said I am?" Link slowly tilted his head, and Midna laughed. "Unless you remember, I'm not going to help you!" She began humming to herself as she feigned examining her fingernails. Link could only stand there, on the ceiling, thoroughly confused.
Until all at once realization struck him. It took every bit of self control to keep the growl in his throat. 'Yeah, no, that's not happening.' He huffed and began walking past her, closer to the metal platform.
"Huh? What are you doing?" Ignoring her, Link drew closer and closer to the platform. Only a few more steps. He sighed as he neared the edge of the platform. 'Get ready to catch yourself, Link. One... Two...' The instant his thought was about to continue, the iron boots disappeared and he began falling from the ceiling. He forced his arms out in front of him, and just barely caught the platform's edge. He grunted in pain as his shoulders braced against the weight of his body. It hurt, but he had done it. With careful, deliberate movements, he clambered up onto the platform. Midna hovered in the air for a few moments, before shrugging and floating over to Link to disappear into his shadow.
Link slowly walked along the platform, noticing two metal chains that seemed to hold a part of the platform up. Then he noticed the metal plate. Stepping around it, he again saw the blue gemstone surface on the wall with a metal circle embedded in it. The surface curled up the wall and over the metal platform that had the blue crystal. Link sighed as he stepped onto the button, the boots appearing on his feet once more. As expected, the blue particles appeared around the metal circle, a never ending series of them almost seeming to float towards it and disappear into the gemstone surface.
Falling through the air with the boots on unnerved Link greatly. Not only was he falling with nothing to hold onto, the boots were dragging him down faster. He could only hope that he'd walked off the right part of the metal platform. To his relief and unease, the field of floating blue particles caught him, pulling him onto the wall. The world spun again, and for once he was grateful for the boots holding him to the wall so well. He was however much more grateful when he was able to land on the platform and not have to work so hard to hold himself upright. The muscles in his lower legs burned, and yet he rudely denied them rest.
The chest to his left held a red Rupee, one that was swiftly returned to its holding place. Instead, Link turned his attention to the large blue crystal opposite the chest. He approached it slowly, cautiously. It was spinning on the small stone pedestal, glimmering slightly. He found himself reaching forward to touch it. As his hand touched the smooth face of the slowly twirling gem, it glowed a little, its color changing just slightly. He retracted his hand, and the glowing ebbed away as its color returned to normal. He looked at his hand, though he wasn't sure what exactly he was looking for. After a few moments, he reached out again with his other hand, and again the gem started glowing as his hand touched it. Nothing else happened, however, so he once again removed his hand from the gem.
He wasn't sure why he decided to try poking the gem, truly. One moment he was curiously watching as it delicately spun on the pedestal, the next he found himself carefully poking it. To his surprise, this time the glow was ever so slightly brighter, this time the color changed just that little bit more. Nothing else happened, but this time he had another possibility. He poked at it again, with some more force behind the motion. The glow was even brighter, and the color this time became something like a cool green.
For a moment, just a moment, he considered hitting the large gemstone. If a poke made it glow brighter, surely hitting it harder would make it glow even brighter, maybe even make it do something. But the next moment he frowned. 'No... that'd be stupid. I'd just get hurt.' He stared for a while at the gemstone, watching it slowly spin on its pedestal. His hand drifted to the hilt of his sword, before he thought better of it. 'That'd probably break it...'
It was several moments of staring and pondering until Link remembered the slingshot. 'A pumpkin seed shouldn't break this. If anything, it might break the seed.' He carefully brought the slingshot and a pumpkin seed out of his pockets, and aimed the slingshot at the spinning blue gemstone. With a twang of the strings and a thwack of the pumpkin seed that broke upon impact with the gemstone, Link grinned as the gemstone glowed and changed to a bright yellow color. To his left, he could suddenly hear scraping and clanging metal, as well as the familiar clicking sound. He turned just in time to see the large gate slowly scrape open. As he watched, the gate slid closed and the clicking sound stopped. He frowned. 'I should make sure I don't need to come back to this room, then.'
He looked around the room for a long time, before his eyes fell on the chest that still sat at the bottom of the pool. His frown deepened as he stared down at it. 'For all I know something really important could be down there...' For several moments he debated with himself, whether to leave the chest or whether to risk drowning to open it. Finally, with a sigh, he took in as large a gasp of air as he could and dove down into the water. The boots appeared on his feet a moment later, pulling him all the way down to the bottom, and he fought to keep the panic from causing him to take in a breath full of water. He threw open the chest and grabbed the key it held, then frantically swam up to the surface of the water, once again only just barely making it in time. He treaded water for some time, bringing his breathing back to normal, before swimming to stand near the gate. A second pumpkin seed flew through the air and struck the gemstone, once again turning it yellow. This time Link sprinted through the gate before it slid shut behind him.
Two of the monsters ran down a wooden ramp towards him, which he easily slew, allowing him to look around the new room. Two spinning towers sat at the top of the wooden ramp, as well as more of the strange blue gemstone surface that meant more walking on walls. To his right was another of the blue gems. Curious, he brought out the slingshot again to shoot another pumpkin seed at it. Like its twin in the previous room, the spinning gem turned yellow upon impact. Behind him came a familiar sound of scraping metal as the gate opened again. He didn't even turn around to look at the gate, didn't pay any attention to the faint snickering from his shadow. He just sighed and turned his attention to the spinning towers in the center of the room.
Each of the towers seemed to have a large red gem on one side, with designs carved into the other sides. From the scraping and grating sounds coming from them as they slowly spun, they were made of stone. 'What are these towers even for?' He took a couple cautious steps up the ramp and closer to the towers. They continued spinning, and he slowly shuffled closer, until one of the towers' red crystals spun back around to face him. Suddenly the tower's spinning stopped with a grinding halt. The red gem glowed, and suddenly flames shot out from the crystal and struck Link's foot. He could feel the heat through the leather of his boot, though he could hardly focus on the sensation. The spout of flame slowly rose, prompting him to frantically dash backwards and out of the tower's view.
His breathing was ragged and panicked. Suddenly he realized a dry soreness in his throat, and he uncorked the canteen to drink until the pain was gone. The heat gradually subsided from his foot, and with a start he noticed that not only had the flames died out, but the boots didn't even appear singed. 'Thank Ordona they had these earrings..'
"What were you THINKING?!" Midna's angry voice by his ear snapped him out of his thoughts. She had her arms crossed, a deep frown on her face. Yes, she was mad at him, that much was clear. But underneath that, under the searing fury that her servant dared risk his life so callously.. he could hear the same tone he'd heard in Gor Coron's room.
"How was I supposed to know those things would attack me? They didn't attack the monsters that were here." Midna shook her head, muttering words under her breath that Link couldn't understand.
"Just... stay away from Beamos from now on, alright?" Link tilted his head to one side.
"Beamos? Is that what those are?" Midna rolled her eyes.
"Yeah. They're a defense mechanism. If something comes in that they don't recognize, they attack. They didn't recognize you, so they attacked." Link pondered this for a few moments.
"Then... why didn't they attack the monsters?" Midna was quiet for a time. Then she shrugged.
"Who knows. Maybe those monsters did something to them." Link looked back towards the Beamos, watching warily as they spun like before. Midna disappeared back into Link's shadow, leaving him to plan his next movement.
As it turned out, his next movement was to carefully sneak back to the entrance of the room, praying to Ordona or whoever else was listening that the Beamos wouldn't see him. From there, he took several moments to look around, to learn his surroundings. There was the blue gem surface to the right, leading up the wall to two metal platforms - one that clung to the wall near him, and one that continued to the other side of the room. Near the middle of the far platform, there was a large metal sheet of some kind.
Link cautiously edged his way towards the gemstone surface, avoiding the Beamos' gaze. At the fork in the gemstone path, he glanced to his right and saw a large treasure chest. Inside the chest was another heart-shaped gem. As he touched it, the gem vanished before his eyes. A calmness flowed through him, and with it a sensation like when he had picked up the Heart Container. Like with the Heart Container, he was puzzled when he realized he felt in some way stronger, though exactly how he couldn't quite put to words. He shook his head, forcing himself to focus.
At the platform that stretched across the back of the room, Link found himself standing in front of a post holding up a metal rod with a rope hanging from it. A quick glance down, through the metal grate, told him that the rope was holding up the metal sheet he'd seen from the ground, and that the metal sheet was actually thicker than it had looked from a distance. Curious, he unsheathed his sword and slashed at the rope. The two pieces of the rope fell away, and the metal sheet creaked as it swung down towards the ground until it slammed to a stop. The metal sheet had created a walkway, from the platform with the Beamos to what looked to be another room. He stared down at the metal sheet for a time, tracing his eyes along the markings carved into it. They reminded him of the markings on the wall behind Gor Amoto.
He carefully dropped down from the ledge, tucking into a roll to absorb the impact of the landing. In front of him was another door, with chains strung across it. That wasn't what caught his interest, however. What caught his interest was the carvings above the door. He couldn't tell what the symbols were, what they might mean, whether there even was a meaning. The symbols were symmetrical, surrounding a smaller version of the same symbol that was on all of the doors. 'Perhaps it's something in the Gorons' language?' With no other clues, Link sighed and focused on the locked chain on the door in front of him again. He pulled the key out of the pocket he'd slipped it into, grateful that he'd decided to investigate the chest despite his apprehension, and easily unlocked the chains on the door.
He blinked in surprise as he found himself stepping outside of the caves, greeted by light from the sky above. Wooden walkways clung to the sides of the rocky walls, and another of the metal mechanisms with the blue gemstone surface sat to the side in the distance. A haphazard barricade stood at the start of the walkway, next to a frame with a net that seemed to be holding several rocks of varying sizes. He didn't get much time to investigate, however, before he noticed sparks of flame from the cliffs. Suddenly, the flames streaked down, sailing past the wooden walkway and down below. With a start, Link realized what had just happened. 'Those were flaming arrows! If I don't hurry...'
He didn't even have the chance to finish his thought, as the monsters on the cliffs began to draw another set of fiery arrows. He sprinted forward, climbing up the netting to stand on top of the rocks that were packed tightly together. From there, he could see enough to plan out his path. He leapt down from the rock pile and rolled back into a sprint when he landed on the wooden walkway again. Arrows soared through the air as he ran, but the flames swallowing the pathway behind him roared in his ears, pushing him to sprint faster and faster.
Finally, his breaths now ragged panting, he reached an end of the walkway. He took some moments, evening his breathing, before turning around to look at the smoldering remains of the walkway behind him-
He blinked. The walkway was still perfectly intact. 'Did.. did the monsters just miss the walkway?' But as his gaze swept over the puzzlingly unscathed walkway, he noticed several small embers flickering. He stood, puzzled, as the embers slowly died without so much as charring the walkway. For just a moment, he thought he heard a snickering laugh from his shadow. Then he sighed and turned again to look ahead. Red metal beams lined the rocky walls, and another Beamos spun near one side of the wall. Luckily, it didn't seem to see him from where he stood, allowing him to look around the small area. To his right was a large wooden box, with a small chest nestled behind it, out of the Beamos' vision. He waited for the Beamos to turn, before sprinting behind the box. Inside the chest was a small key, which he slipped into his pocket.
Seeing nothing else to investigate, he walked back out onto the curiously undamaged walkway. On the other side of the walkway, nestled into the rock wall, was what looked to be a door. He sprinted once more, avoiding the fiery arrows as they flew through the air and narrowly missed him. Ahead of him, some of the boards of the walkway were missing, forcing him to scamper across the remaining planks. He ducked into the alcove the door sat in, catching his breath where the monsters' arrows couldn't reach.
The door was locked, and above it again were the markings that had been carved above the other door. Again he stared up at them, wondering whether there was any meaning behind them or whether they were just decorative flourishes added by the Gorons. His breath finally evened again, he unlocked the door and walked through to the other side.
