Chapter 13

The Swamp Temple

The first thing they all noticed was the uncomfortably moist atmosphere, which was hot and muggy in some places, but frigid in others close by. The floor of the temple was mostly composed of uneven moss. Vines grew all over the walls and hung from the ceiling. Zelda squealed as something large with many legs appeared from the mulch covering the ceiling. Link gallantly took a few steps in to make sure it was safe to go further. There was squelching sound and the moss that he was standing on sunk into itself by about a foot, causing Link to lose his balance and fall into the mud, which much to his discomfort quickly began to seep into his tunic and hat. Volvagia quickly darted forward to help Link get up while Cyrus laughed hysterically at Link. Volvagia, finished helping Link darted back at Cyrus and tripped him with his tail.

"Good work Volvagia!" Zelda commented, patting the beaming dragon on the head. She noticed Cyrus beginning to pick himself up. She kicked him in the face, making him twirl sideways, landing face first in the muck. "Oops! How did that happen?" Zelda said without any emotion. Everyone smirked except for Cyrus, who uttered a profanity in Draconic.

"Ugh!" yelped Volvagia in disgust, "And next time just say it. We're all old enough."

"What did he say, Volvagia?" asked Link,

"He told her to go f*** a skulltula."

Zelda stared daggers at Cyrus. She then threw one at him from a sheath on her belt. It lodged itself in his left shoulder, where he left it.

"Do you ever react to pain?!" cried Zelda noticing his indifference regarding the sharp, pointy object deeply embedded in his arm.

"I don't react anymore," he grunted.
"Why not?" asked Tatl, flying over to hover around Cyrus' head.

"Once you…" he began.

"Once you what?" questioned Tatl.

"NONE OF YOUR F***ING BUSINESS!!!"

Tatl yelped and darted back to her usual place just behind Skull Kid.

"Keep your temper, Cyrus," said Link calmly.

This earned Link an extremely threatening growl that actually frightened him. They examined their surroundings, quickly noticing a tight passage to their right. They walked slowly, carefully trying not to fall, and succeeding most of the time. The passageway was narrower than expected. They already had to walk single file, but they noticed the passage got even narrower the further they went. They were forced to strafe at certain points because of the constrained area, and just as they thought it couldn't be a tighter fit, Link noticed a crack in the wall next to them that he figured they could just barely squeeze through. He pressed himself through and came out into a more spacious area, tripping because of excess force he has used to get through the wall. Zelda experienced something much the same, except that a shuddering green-clad boy covered in what appeared to be grubs saved her from falling face-first into the slime.

"Ggiiiiiieeeee!" sputterd Link, "Get them off! Get 'em off! Get 'em off!" H He shook himself violently, removing most of the crawling insects.

Cyrus laughed, and caught himself before hitting the ground, but ended up doing a faceplant as Skull Kid had just stumbled through the hole in the wall and tripped over his head.

"Feh!" He spat out several insects, "Tastes worse than Siegard's cooking!"

"Who's Siegard?" asked Link.

Cyrus didn't reply for a moment, and his voice shook when he finally spoke, "He was a friend of mine. I guess that I've abandoned him since I've been here."

Link stared at him in bemusement. Cyrus? Friend? Caring that he may have let someone down?! It just didn't add up at all!

"Well, that was a tight fit," chuckled Volvagia, interrupting Link's thoughts, as he glided between the walls. He didn't even touch the sides. "How was your trip Link?" The room they were in now was dark and very wide on both sides, although the door to the next room was almost immediately in front of them. Navi suddenly noticed something glint out of the corner of her eye. Tael noticed something glint in the other direction.

"There's something here!" they both said at the same time, flying in opposite directions. Skull Kid went after Tael while Link followed Navi. They each found a chest on in front of them. Link opened up the one he was at.

"The dungeon's map! Already?!" cried Navi in utter dismay, "I've never seen this before!"

"Hey, Link!" called Skull Kid from the opposite end of the room, "What's this gadget I found?" He held up a circular abject.

"No way…" Link said in near disbelief.

It was exactly what he thought it was.

"You found the compass Skull Kid! Nice work!" Navi complimented.

"Does it have the new feature?"

"Hmm… let me check," said Navi. After a moment she bounced up and down in the air: "Yes! Now let's go!"

They walked through the door to find themselves in a large open room.

"This must be the central chamber," said Tael. He suddenly made a dash right at Tatl, knocking her sideways and out of the way of a keese that was rushing at her with its mucus-laden fang filled maw wide open. "That was a close call," he said. Link shot the bat-like creature with an arrow, hitting it with deadly precision. He looked around and saw numerous others hanging from the ceiling and some already flying around. He took aim and shot about fifteen of them. He didn't miss a single one. Everyone clapped except for Cyrus who swung his massive sword to kill a mosquito. Against all odds, he actually managed to kill it.

"I'll summon an elemental," said Skull Kid. He made similar hand motions to the ones he used to summon the water elemental, and they all felt the ground beneath them shake. A large piece of stone tore itself out from beneath the moss, and parts of it began chipping away until it had the same basic structure as the water elemental, although there were obvious differences. This one had spikes, jagged edges, a head that was more of an ellipsoidal shape, and of course the defining characteristic; it was made of rock. Link and Navi gasped at the same time. Zelda simply nodded, impressed. Cyrus fought back a sudden urge to pay Skull Kid a complement on how well he did. They looked around the room, trying to figure out how to proceed. From where they came in, there was a pool of water directly to their right. There was a stone structure built into the wall to their left, and there was an elevated platform that had a door leading into it. It was too high to get to without jumping from something that was at least two feet higher than the floor. The far right corner of the room was an empty plateau that was slightly higher than the stone platform.

"I think I see a tunnel under that pool of water over there," inquired Cyrus, "You should check what's at the other end of it."

"Give me a minute, I'm trying to figure out how to solve this room."

"How do you solve a room?" Zelda asked quizzically.

"That is the official question of the novice dungeon crawler," declared Navi, quite intent on giving a quick lecture, "You see, most rooms in dungeons such as these ancient temples, were abandoned a long, long time ago, but to prevent people from desecrating these areas, the ancient cults that worshipped… whatever… here, filled many of the rooms with traps and/or puzzles. Solving a room means figuring out how to solve the room's puzzle and/or disarm the trap."

Zelda nodded in understanding, and looked around again. "There are a lot of switches in this room. Could they have something to do with this room's puzzle?"

"Probably," Link answered.

"There are four in total," said Navi, "Maybe if we all stood on them at the same time?"

Link and Zelda were already running to different switches.

"Skull Kid! Cyrus!" called Link, "Stand on those other two!"

They both ran and stood on the other two switches. They all waited, and four blocks rose out of the ground. The switches they were standing on suddenly bounced back up.

"Now that's just silly!" exclaimed Link, "All right everyone! Choose a block and push it onto the switch that you were just standing on!"

"I can't push one of those things!" gasped Skull Kid, "Elemental! Push block onto switch!" he pointed to a switch in a far corner of the room.

The stone elemental, which had remained motionless until then, rumbled into action. Every time it moved, the rocks that it was composed of ground together making a deep crunching sound. It rammed itself into one of the blocks, and without even taking recoil, started hauling it to one of the switches. The moment the block had completely covered the switch the elemental came to an absolute halt.

Once the rest of them had finished pushing their blocks, they heard a faint jingling sound. Link looked to where the noise was coming from, and saw a small treasure chest appearing over the previously featureless ledge in the corner of the room. Zelda had already noticed and was climbing on top of a block that was close to it. He promptly went over to pool of water in the other corner of the room and sure enough, promptly found a small tunnel about two feet below the surface of the water.

Zelda suddenly called out: "Link! There was a small key in this chest!"

"We're just whizzing through here!" exclaimed Navi, "All right! Link, let's go!" she flew back to Link. He took a deep breath and dived. The underwater cavern was not very long and he had grabbed hold of the low platform on the other side to find another chest, containing a purple rupee. He resurfaced back in the main part of the room and showed them what he found.

"Great! We needed that didn't we?" asked Volvagia, who was now hovering just above the rocky outcrop with the chest, "By the way, Link; do have a bomb? This wall that I'm hovering next to is hollow."

"I only have five right now," Link answered, "so how can you be sure that it's hollow?"

Volvagia tapped the wall with his nose, and there was a faint ringing noise.

"The carapace on my face can be used for a defense, as a weapon. It's composed of a kind of thick scale that only dragons have. This scale is almost like an organic, even 'living' kind of metal. So, it works in the same way that your sword does when you use it to check whether a wall is solid or not."

"That must be useful for you when you're looking for gems and other valuable minerals for you to hoard," inquired Zelda, "You should check out Hyrule's crystal deposits. I'll give you access as long as you leave half of your findings in collecting crates.

"That'd be fun, but it's kind of boring. The real fun is stealing it from careless adventurers and soldiers… Like those wannabe guards at the Arbiter's Dungeon. I still have a magic ring that I found in one of their pockets." He held up a claw to show them a ring with ancient Hylian runes on it.

"That's a Forest Ring!" exclaimed Zelda; "It allows one close with nature to control it to certain extents. It could really be useful to us in Saria's hands."

"Oh, all right… I am so disturbingly generous," complained Volvagia, giving the ring to Link, "Tell her you bought her this with the rupees you found on the monsters you defeated in this Temple. Do this an hour after we get to any town, if there even are any around here."

"Thanks Volvagia," said Link happily.

"You're welcome, but not completely welcome. I need to keep my treasure secret from now on."

"Anyways, here's that bomb you needed," said Link handing the bomb to the dragon who placed it on the ground next to the wall and shot a burst of flames at it, from a safe distance of course, to blow it up. The wall behind it collapsed. Revealing a pathway, from which Volvagia heard a faint humming noise. He flew into the passage and came back out almost immediately.

"There's a magic barrier."

"Oh for crying out loud, I am so tired of just standing here!" griped Cyrus, "Let's go down that stone tunnel behind the door on the platform on the other side of the room."

"Hold on a moment!" Link interrupted, pulling out the map, "According to this, there are five doors in this room. One leads to a big room filled with water, the second leads to a small room that appears to be empty, the one behind the forcefield leads to another empty—Wait-a-minute!"

"What's wrong?" asked Navi.

"This compass is defective."

"Really! That's just unfair!" whined Tatl, angrily bouncing up and down in the air.

"Let's just choose randomly," suggested Link, "I'll take what's behind door number two… Wait here." He walked up to the door to the second room he had described and went inside.

* * * * *

As link walked into the room, he was unaware of the two sets of numerous eyes that were focusing on him.

"Hello!" he shouted to nothing in particular, "Anybody looking to kill me in here?" As he said this, he stepped away from the door into a puddle in the center of the room. Before he knew what was happening, two skulltulas had dropped from the ceiling on either side of him, one of which was blocking the door.

"One I could handle easily, but with them flanking me there's a chance of them getting an advantage," said Link calmly. He drew his Gilded Sword and prepared to do a powered spin attack. The first skulltula lunged at him and he swung his sword, cleaving nothing but air as he noticed to his dismay that his feet had sunk into the muck. He was hit by the first, and before he could regain his composure, the second overgrown skull-shaped spider had bitten his sword arm.

"AAUUGH!" he shouted, dropping his sword and grasping his left arm, "Navi, are skulltulas poisonous?"

""Yes," she replied, "but it's only dangerous to small animals. In most cases, the poison only inflicts pain on the area of the bite. It passes after about ten minutes."

"Okay," he said between his teeth, hissing as he carefully let go of his arm, picking up his sword in his right hand, just in time to impale the first skulltula as it lunged at him head on. It squealed hideously and disintegrated in a burst of blue flames. The other skulltula started charging at him in quick succession, a different strategy from the one the pair had used while flanking him. He dragged his muddy boots out of the puddle and slowly made his way to the door to the room. He was suddenly knocked over by the skulltula. It was right on top of him, its grotesque mandibles clicking together hungrily as it tried to bite his neck. He had made a stupid mistake and was paying the price. Suddenly, a ball of blue light flew out of Link's pocket and started ramming into the skulltula's eyes.

"HEY!!!" hollered Navi at the skulltula, "OVER HERE!" she flew sideways and the skulltula's gaze followed. "WHOOPS!" OVER HERE!" she shouted, flying up. The skulltula began climbing up the wall to try and catch the morsel that was now too high to reach. "LOOK AT ME!" she yelled, "OVER HERE! NO! OVER HERE! OVER HERE!" she flew in several different directions as Link struggled to get out of the slippery unstable ground. The skulltula was getting visibly irritated and started lashing out. Fortunately, Link had finally managed to get up.

"Navi!" Link called to her as she was on the opposite side of the room. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" hurry, and finish it while it's distract–AAUGH!"

Link gasped in horror as the now enraged Skulltula caught Navi in its mandibles and started crushing her repeatedly.

"NAVI!" he didn't have time to run around the room, and in his desperation he threw his sword at its skull shaped abdomen. In a stroke of good luck he hit the monster, digging deep into the spider's body. It shrieked in pain, releasing Navi from its jaws and disintegrating just like the other one had. Navi weakly fluttered to the chamber floor as a chest appeared in the corner of the room.

"Navi, please tell me you're all right. You can't die! You just can't!" he choked.

"H-he-ey… L-lis-st-en…" she whispered weakly, "I-I'll… be a-all ri-ight…"

He kicked open the chest, grabbed the small key inside it, scooped Navi up in his hands and ran back into the main room, forgetting about the pain in his left arm entirely.

"Zelda! Help her!" he gasped.

Zelda put her hand to her mouth as she looked at the horribly beaten fairy. She was barely even glowing.

"She could go any second, I have to hurry!" She placed a finger on Navi's now visible chest and spoke the incantation for a healing spell. Her hand glowed for a moment, and then the light faded and Zelda let out a gasp. Navi's body suddenly began to glow as it usually did.

"Navi! You're all right!"
"That was a close one," she breathed, "Thank you Link. I didn't think you cared that much about me."

"Without you, who would nag me all the time and thereby save me from dangerous situations?"

Navi's wings drooped at this comment. "I'm trying as hard as I can!"

"I told you, I know. I was joking."

"Oh," Navi acknowledged, embarrassed.

"Let's get a move on!" shouted Cyrus, "I'm dying of blood loss here!" He took a swipe at a swarm of mosquitoes, which were all focusing on him.

"Okay then. Into the stone wall we go!" said Volvagia, ascending to the height of the platform and opening the door built into the wall there. They climbed onto the block and proceeded to pull themselves up onto to the platform one at a time.

"Well, nice knowin' ya, you big rockhead," said Skull Kid, waving his hand at the rock elemental, which promptly collapsed with the gesture. They entered a somewhat narrow hallway that went both left and right. The doors on both ends were locked, but they had the keys.

…And suddenly Link heard a noise. Faint, but it sounded like a muffled cry coming from the right. He barely heard it, but he was ready to hold onto any hope that he was going to find Saria. He ran towards the door on the right, not bothering to look at the map. He jammed the key into the lock of the door on the right, and charged through it along with Navi and Volvagia.

"I think we should have gone left first, but you're the boss," said Navi.

"I'll go left then," Zelda called after them.

* * * * *

"Cyrus! Skull Kid! Come with me!" Zelda commanded

Cyrus' grunted in irritation. He stopped in his tracks and sat down on the floor of the chamber. Zelda and Skull Kid both gave him a look.

"Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."

Zelda noticed that her dagger was still jammed in his shoulder. She walked over to him, pulled the blade out of his arm. He made a clip-clopping sound with his tongue. Groaning in frustration, she took out the other key, opened the lock on the left door, and entered the next room with Skull Kid following her.

* * * * *

Link, walked up a set of uneven stairs, with Navi and Volvagia hovering behind him. He reached the top of the stairs and examined the room that their current location displayed. Link felt something odd in his legs and looked down, the ground beneath him was shaking under his weight. Navi flew over the edge of the balcony to look at their location from a different angle.

"EEK!" she yelped, "Link, move back! You're standing on!—"

Link didn't react fast enough and sure enough, he fell straight through the 'ground' he had been standing on, tumbling down the steep slope of the uneven walls of the room. He landed face first in a puddle of moss-filled water.

"—an outcropping of moss…" Navi finished.

They all heard a thud. Link noticed something that appeared to be a silk web… and something was struggling inside of it. He began to run over to it when Volvagia beat him there. He used his claw to tear open the top of the web as Link continued walking towards the web-cocoon. Before the top of the cocoon had even fallen away, something huge with outstretched wings erupted out of the muck on the mossy floor…

* * * * *

Zelda and Skull Kid were standing at the bottom of a fairly high room. There were lots of platforms, each one higher than the one before it.

"Please don't make me climb," pleaded Zelda.

"Okay, said Skull Kid. He nimbly jumped from platform to platform until he was at the top and he was standing in front of a chest on a high platform in the center of the room. He opened up the chest and was about to take its contents when three skulltulas crawled up the sides of the platform and started attacking him. He barely had a chance to attack before two of them had already burned to cinders as Zelda cast her Din's Fire spell. The last one lunged forward, but Tatl and Tael were distracting it. It actually lost its grip on the side of the platform in the middle of its attack and it fell to the floor where its weak abdomen splattered.

"Well, that was easy," said Skull Kid. He pulled the Big Key out of the treasure chest and jumped down to Zelda.

"That was quick," said Zelda, "good job there."

"Thanks for your help on the other two by the way."

"No problem. Let's go meet back up with Link."

They left the room and saw Cyrus still sitting up against the wall. Zelda took her dagger out again and threw it at him again, her aim was off however and instead of it hitting his arm, it impaled his left ear. He made another clip-clopping sound with his tongue. She groaned, pulled it out of his ear, and reached for the handle of the door on the right. Before she could grasp it however, four metal bars fell from the top of the doorframe and landed on the floor with a thud.

* * * * *

Link jumped back in alarm as the monster burst from the muck with a loud hiss. It wasn't facing him, but he knew better than to attack something that he couldn't identify. It shook the slime off of itself, and slowly turned itself to face him, cumbersomely maneuvering its body with its wings, which Link noticed were horribly misshapen. Link stared at it apprehensively as it started crawling towards him. He could see what the beast was now: It was a giant keese!

"This is a toxic keese," said Navi uncomfortably, obviously concerned about Link's safety, "Every part of this creature is like a noxious weapon. Watch out for its acidic saliva and toxic bite! Also, they sweat a lot."

"Would I be correct in assuming that their sweat is corrosive or something like that?" asked Link. Some of the green slime that dripped from the monstrous bat's wings was flung at a nearby rock as the giant bat-like monster flapped its wings. The green slime began bubbling and made a sizzling noise, and the rock began to dissolve.

"That would be a yes…" muttered Link uncomfortably.

He continued ducking under the keese's flyby attacks and corrosive sweat. It flew back to the center of the room, turned to face him, and shrieked. Suddenly Link saw his opportunity: It had thrown its head back and was flapping its wings less franticly. He drew his sword and charged at the bat-like monster. To his astonishment, it noticed him and knocked him away with one of its tattered wings. He landed face down in the mud.

"Link! Watch out!" cried Navi. Slime was gushing from the keese's mouth, its head still pointed upwards. Barely a moment later, it spat a revolting globule of black saliva directly at him. Link avoided most of it, but some of the venom hit his right arm. Nevertheless, he was relieved that he wasn't in the same condition as the vines that had been behind him. They had developed black splotches all over them and they were spreading. What little green that was left was rapidly becoming a sickly shade of yellow. They also appeared to be melting. He quickly tore off the sleeve of his tunic, careful to not let the venom touch his skin. He threw it into the mud, and that was that. It began to use its hit-and-run tactics again. Link continued dodging the corrosive slime that flew from its wings. It suddenly began rising towards the top of the room; before Link knew what hit him, the monstrous bat had dived at him, bashing him into a wall. He barely avoided being cut by its fangs.

"That was a close call," breathed Navi, who had flown out of his tunic momentarily. They watched the keese fly back to the center of the room. "HEY! I have an idea!" she cried.

"Go ahead," said Link, "I'd say we have a good fifteen seconds before it spits again."

"Whenever it stops, try using a fire arrow."

She didn't have to tell him twice. He had already pulled his bow out and pulled an arrow out of his quiver. He hadn't done it in a while, but because of the spell's simplicity, it came easily to him anyway. He focused his magic energy on his arrow and it ignited on a silent command. He let it fly just as the keese spat another glob of venom at him. The burning arrow flew through the poisonous slime, making it evaporate, and then hit the creature just below its left shoulder. It shrieked horribly and then lunged at Link, who dived out of the way.

Meanwhile, Volvagia was still trying to claw through the web like substance that he believed to be binding Saria. He stopped when he heard the webs yelp.

"OW! W-who's there?!" came a muffled voice from inside the webs.

"Saria?! Is that you?"

"Yes! Am I speaking to Volvagia?"

"Yeppers! It's me all right!"

"Then… that means Link is here!"

"Yeah! He's fighting a giant keese right now," said Volvagia as he cut through the webs covering her face.

"What!" cried Saria, "He'll get hurt! You have to help him!"

"You know what, you're probably right about that. Sorry…"

He suddenly bolted towards the monster and breathed a jet of fire at it. It shrieked as it started burning. Link saw his next opportunity to attack and took it without hesitation. He leaped at the creature and slashed at it with his gilded sword. Green acidic blood flowed from the wound and missed Link by inches. It shrieked again and began flailing its wings franticly. Suddenly it shuddered. It began struggling in midair, and then dropped to the muddy floor with a splash. Link ran over to Saria as fast as he possibly could and cut away the rest of the webs with his gilded sword. The moment they fell away, Saria promptly threw herself into Link's arms.

* * * * *

"I spy with my extremely sharp eye… something shiny," groaned Cyrus.

"Is it my armor?" guessed Zelda, deadpan.

"Yes…" What else is there around here—"

There was a sudden creak, and then the bars over the door ahead of them lifted.

"Finally!" said Tatl in relief.

"If I had to sit around for another second I would've lost my mind!" breathed Tael.

"Too late for me…" said Cyrus cheerfully before laughing maniacally.

"Please don't ever do that again," Zelda commanded.

"Yes your highness." Cyrus grunted unhappily. They walked through the door, and came to an overhanging ledge. They looked down to see Saria desperately hugging Link. Suddenly the ledge crumbled and they all toppled down to the muddy floor with a holler.

* * * * *

"Thank you so much for rescuing me! I thought I was going to be lunch for some freakish… thing!" said Saria fearfully

To his utter dismay and partial disappointment, he was suddenly feeling uncomfortable around her again. He waited for Saria to let go of him, which was about ten minutes later, but then he backed away. He found Zelda smirking, and Cyrus trying to cover his elongated face. Nevertheless, it was clear that he was in hysterics judging by the way that his mouth was open and his tongue was lolling around.

"You're prudes! All of you!" shouted Volvagia, "Don't intrude on personal moments like that!"

"You were there too," said Zelda innocently.

"I wasn't watching intently," he corrected her.

They waited for the awkward silence to end before continuing.

"Did you see what kidnapped you by the way?" asked Link in a startlingly angry tone of voice.

"No…" mumbled Saria, "I couldn't even turn my head. All I could tell was that it had huge pincers."

" So where is it now?" asked Zelda.

"I don't know, but the only accessible exit to this room is that narrow passage over there," said Saria after looking around a bit.

"Let's go then!" exclaimed Link. He started running down the narrow passage, and the others followed him.

"Careful, Link!" shouted Navi, as he opened the door to the next room, "There's a lot of strong wind coming from a hole in the ceiling of this room."

The fairy was right. Link found that he was having a hard time staying in place and balancing.

Suddenly, Cyrus jumped into the room, wings spread to try to frighten any enemies in the room. The constant gusts caught on his wings and started dragging him towards the opposite side of the room. He lost his hold on the ground, and tumbled through the air into the wall on the other side of the room. He recovered quickly, folded his wings back, and made a break for the other side of the room. He was halfway there when an entire wall of roots shot out of the ground in front of him and slammed into him. It retreated into the ground, but Link knew that Cyrus wouldn't be able to cross no matter what he tried doing. There was a door on the opposite side of the room as Link, as well as one on his own side in addition to the one leading out of the previous room.

"Meet up with us later Cyrus! You won't be able to cross!" called Link.

"Says you!!!!!" shouted Cyrus. He dashed at the side of the room opposite him, screaming like a maniac. The wall of roots shot out of the ground, and there was suddenly a Cyrus shaped indentation in the roots. "I'll meet you in Hell!" slurred Cyrus, "Or in the central chamber! Whichever comes first. A slight concussion is preventing me from figuring out which it is. Also, I can no longer finish my sentences with the proper words, phrases and gorillas."

"Good luck with that," said Volvagia, laughing. He was suddenly swept up by the gusts and wound up on the other side of the room with Cyrus. He whimpered, but then snarled at Cyrus.

"Shut up, you trapeze flamingo towel."

"…What?…" asked Volvagia in complete bewilderment, "Oh yeah, the new speech impediment…" he said lamely.

"We'll meet up with you later Volvagia!" Link called from across the room.

"Alright!" replied the dragon.

* * * * *

Link, Skull Kid, Saria, Zelda, and the fairies made it to the next room safely. It was perfectly square, and very dark, except for two torches burning dimly on either side of a huge door with a very big lock in its center.

"Oh no…" groaned Link, "I didn't find the Big Key!"

"No worries!" cheered Tatl.

"What do you mean!" shouted Link, "We can't proceed to the final room of the temple! I have to retrace all my steps so that I can find the Key to this room! I don't suppose you found the Big Key?"

"Actually… We did!" said Skull Kid proudly.

"YES! Thank goodness…" Link breathed in a sigh of relief after his short panic attack.

"So, what do we do now?" asked Saria.

"We go through the door, obviously," said Tael.

Skull Kid handed the Big Key to Link, who inserted it into the lock on the door. The lock began to spin around and around, coming off like a twist-open bottle cap. Finally, it fell to the ground with a loud clank.

"This is it," breathed Navi in excitement, "The first temple-master we've fought in this timeline."

"Yep," Link answered.

"C'mon! Lets go!" yelled Skull Kid.

"Is everyone ready?" asked Link.

"Yes Link," chirped Saria.

"I just said so," confirmed Skull Kid.

Zelda quietly nodded to him.

"All right…" said Link, "Here we go,"

And with that, he pushed the huge doors open.