A.N : My apologies for the lateness, I've been sick these past few days and had no energy (or mental power) to edit and post the chapter, hence the delay. I hope you like it anyway ! I tried to keep the descriptions on the light side so it wouldn't get too long and boring, but don't hesitate to let me know if you find it too light.

Chapter 4 : The Great Deku Tree

The four companions took a minute to get used to the darkness inside of the Great Deku Tree ; once their eyes had gotten used to the lack of light, they discovered a gigantic room, as tall and wide as the venerable tree itself, or nearly so. A path seemed to have been created along the wall to go up the tree, a mix of ladder, wooden planks and vine-covered walls leading up to a circular path going around the tree trunk's inside. In front of them was a hole in the ground, covered by a spider web. However, the thread making up the web was much thicker than anything Link had ever seen a spider produce ; he gulped as he tried to gauge the size of the "insect" based on the thread it had produced. Shaking himself, he turned to Nienna.

"I would never have thought the Great Deku Tree's inside looked like this... Do you think this is because of the curse ?"

"Unlikely, though not impossible. Usually, dark curses take the form of monsters or miasma meant to poison or destroy someone or something in order to gain a power or an artefact, or so my teachers have told me. Most likely, the Great Deku Tree was carved, or grew, to have this appearance in order to hide something, and the curse that was cast on him is now exploring, potentially destroying, this place in order to find what was hidden."

"What ?! But that's awful ! We have to stop it, and quickly ! Where do we start ?"

"Well, the upper parts of the tree seem easier to reach than the bottom one," Nienna said as she looked to the oversized spider's web in disgust. "Let's try to get up there and see what we find."

On their way to the top of the tree, they found a map of the inside of the Great Deku Tree, confirming Nienna's theory that this appearance was anterior to the dark curse, though they still didn't know why it came to be. Nienna wanted to climb the wall behind the chest containing the map, but reconsidered after seeing that there were small spider monsters hanging on to it, too high up for the children to reach with their swords -and Nienna had unfortunately ran out of arrows on her way to the Kokiri forest, so she couldn't shoot at them.

They decided to keep moving forward until they had a solution to deal with the spiders and then found themselves in front of a closed door. Behind it was an empty room with a tuft of grass in the middle, and as soon as they had stepped foot inside the room, the door shut back down behind them and got locked behind metal bars. Trapped, they had no choice but to try to find their way out within the room. Link took a step forward to start investigating, but immediately took a step back in surprise when the grass started moving, and another when a head emerged from the floor beneath. Navi warned him :

"That's a Deku Scrub ! It will hide in the grass if you get close to it. Try to bounce the nuts it spits back at it !"

"Wait, it spits nuts ?!"

Just as Link asked the question, the Deku Scrub did spit one at him. Nienna pushed him out of the way and batted the nut away with her sword, but missed the monster.

"Nienna ! Use your shield !" Zaïla advised.

"Right !"

The Deku Scrub spit another one and Nienna angled her shield well enough to have it bounce back directly in the monster's face. Squealing, it left its hiding spot. Seeing his chance, Link charged at him but the monster cried out :

"Forgive me, master ! If I give you a clue, will you let me go ?"

"Master ?"

"When you jump off a high cliff, roll on the ground when you land and you won't get hurt from the fall. I can't guarantee it will work, though, if the cliff is really, really high, heh heh ! Well, try it if you are feeling bold ! Wah ha ha !"

"What sort of garbage-"

Nienna didn't even have time to finish her sentence that the Deku Scrub had already ran away. The metal bars blocking both of the room's exits retracted at the same time, letting them advance once more.

"-is that... ? ... Well, at least we can move forward..."

In the next room was a floating platform that started trembling as soon as Link and Nienna set foot on it, leaving them just enough time to jump to the platform on the other side of the room before it crashed to the ground, several feet below. On the platform was a chest in which Link found a slingshot -that Navi labelled the "Fairy Slingshot" for no discernible reason, but Zaïla agreed with her, so the children didn't question it further.

Nienna spotted a ladder hidden above the entryway, near the ceiling, and instructed Link to aim at it with the slingshot. It took Link two tries, but he managed to get the ladder to fall down, letting the children reach the door once more -after jumping off the cliff and rolling on the ground as they landed, making use of the Deku Scrub's advice and finding it to be correct, to their surprise.

Now armed with the slingshot -and its munitions-, Link was able to take down the spider monsters from before and raced Nienna up the wall. Nienna won, to his dismay.

"This is going more smoothly than I expected, to be honest," Nienna admitted to him after they caught their breath on the walkway they had reached on top of the wall.

"Really ? What did you expect ?"

"Stronger monsters, harder puzzles... It's my first time exploring a dungeon, but I'd heard of them from my teachers many times before, and they made it sound harder than what this has been so far."

"Well, let's hope it stays like this. Easy isn't bad."

"You're right."

Unfortunately for them, they realised just a few steps later that things would not stay like this, at least in terms of monsters : a big Skulltula, five times bigger than the small ones Link had shot before, descended from the ceiling right next to Nienna, giving her a fright.

"Aaah !"

"Keep calm, Nienna, and be careful ! It will spin on itself to try and hit you with its legs !

"It will what ?!"

Nienna hurriedly took four step backs, almost hitting the wall with her back in her hurry. True to Zaïla's words, the monster spun around and Link narrowly managed to dodge its long, hairy legs. Navi advised him :

"Now's your chance ! Its soft belly is its weak point ! Attack it with your sword !"

It took him two strikes, but the spider went down with one last, agonising cry.

"You alright, Nienna ?"

"Yes... Thank you. I just... Really don't like spiders."

"That's ok. I'm alright with them, so leave them to me !"

"Don't mind if I take you up on that."

And she did, in the very next room they visited. This time, the mechanism was a little more complex : one of them had to stand on a big button on the floor to activate it, raising up three platforms in the middle of the room they then had to jump on to make it to the other side and the chest containing their prize. On the left side of the room, however, was another chest guarded by another big Skulltula, so they decided that Nienna would go straight forward, to the first chest, while Link took care of the oversized spider and its treasure.

Both managed their respective missions in less than a minute, but their reward weren't really equal : Link -after defeating another, Gold Skulltula- had found a heart berry, a fruit shaped like a heart that was said to give vitality back to the one who ate it if they were tired or injured, while Nienna had found the compass, letting them know where other chests were located as well as, for some reason, the "boss" of the dungeon.

"The boss ?"

"Most likely the monster created by the curse. A dungeon often has a boss, the strongest opponent inside it, but it's likely that the curse's monster has defeated it and taken its place, so the compass is still showing us where the strongest monster is, but now it's a new one."

"So, if we defeat this boss, the Great Deku Tree will be saved, right ?"

"Most likely."

"Then there's no time to lose ! Let's go !"

After lighting up a torch to open the door once more, they realised a rather great hurdle still stood in their way.

"We've explored all three of the upper levels, meaning only the underground two are left, but..."

"... how are we going to get to them ?"

Link and Nienna observed the map closely to try and find a sign of a hidden door or something similar, to no avail. After a few minutes, Zaïla, looking beyond the pathway and down at the whole Deku Tree, called out to them :

"I think there's only one way down there."

The children looked up from the map at that.

"Oh ? And what is it ?"

"Jump."

"... What ?!"

"Jump from here and onto the spider web blocking the way to the underground. It won't resist your weight and you'll be able to get to the last two levels."

"And break our legs !"

"Not necessarily," Nienna intervened. "I looked through the web earlier and saw water below the hole. I don't know if it's a river or a pond, but it should soften our fall."

"Would it soften it enough... ?"

"Only one way to know."

Nienna stood up and approached the edge of the pathway.

"I will jump first and break the web ; you can use the vines and ladder to go back to ground level and jump down from there. You shouldn't risk anything from that height."

"No ! There's no reason for you to jump and me to play it safe ! We'll jump together !"

"But there's also no reason for both-"

"Together !"

Link walked up to Nienna to stand next to her. His hands were shaking slightly and he didn't dare look down, but he stood firm in his decision. He could guess what Nienna wanted to say : that there was no reason for both of them to take the risk, that it would be best to have one of them take the safe path, just in case, so at least one of them could continue the fight. But while the Great Deku Tree had asked Link to use his wisdom to save him, he had also asked him to prove his courage, and Link knew, deep down, that if he was too scared to make that jump, he wouldn't be able to do what was needed later down the line.

Taking a deep breath, he looked at Nienna who was already looking his way, an approving smile on her face.

"A leap of faith, then."

Link found the name oddly fitting.

"A leap of faith. Yes."

"Then, may Farore's wind guide us."

Nienna extended her hand to him and Link took it. A second later, they were falling.

A.N : Hope you enjoyed !

The next chapter should be uploaded on Sunday.
Until then, kudos and comments are always appreciated !