Sorry for the long wait, but I've finally finished chapter eight. I decided to experiment a little bit and add humor to my fanfic in order to balance out the darkness a bit. I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter 8: Red Hot Adventure
Link stepped into the Fire Temple where his vision led him. Lava bubbled and popped all around him. A narrow walkway lead out to a central platform at which three other narrow walkways branched off, each leading to a door.
Carefully and instinctively, Link walked across the narrow walkway and onto the center platform. Without warning, a gigantic slug like creature popped out of the lava and proceeded to shoot a fireball at him.
Link quickly grabbed for his shield and blocked it just before it could hit him. The lava slug, known as a Fire Toadpoli, sank under it's firey veil.
Link saw two glowing blue locks on the doors straight ahead of him and to the right, while a mere metal lock stood as the barrier to the door on the left. Link passed through the door to the left with his ghostly powers.
This new room had flat blackened ground all over, probably the result of lava cooling off and hardening for some reason or another and a door at the end, completely unlocked. The young man clad in green tread carefully across this ground.
The way it crunched under his feet sounded unsafe to him, but then again, the mere fact that it was crunching wasn't a good sign. And with the way he had been phasing in and out between tangibility and intangibility on the way to the temple had done a number on him.
After all, even the most powerful ghosts had limits to how much they could use their abilities in succession and Link was definately not the exception to that rule.
Regardless, Link had to keep moving in order to get the next Pendant. Suddenly, the ground caved in underneath Link. Reacting quickly and out of impulse, Link scrambled for the door, barely avoiding a drop underneath this layer of hardened lava and into the molten red liquid below.
He sped through the door and into a room with a single narrow ledge in front of that door before a long drop into a lake of lava. Link stopped abruptly as he realized there was no solid ground ahead and teetered on the ledge, trying desperately to keep himself on top of the ledge.
But alas, his attempts proved fruitless as he fell. Thinking fast, he grabbed his Hookshot out of his magical satchel and latched onto a target just above the door he came out of.
Then, as he dropped onto the ledge, the whole room rumbled and roared and waves of lava crashed upon the rock walls of the room. A gigantic creature burst from the lava, sending blobs of it flying almost everywhere.
"Crap!" Link exclaimed.
It was a gigantic scorpion that not only thrived in lava, but also seemed to be made of it. Lava seemed to be coursing through it's body and it had large black claws and a pair of pincers covering a single eye.
The large scorpion creature slammed one of it's claws onto a wall, dislodging the ledge Link stood on as well as dislodging a few large rocks from the ceiling.
The ledge fell in the lava and began to dissolve away and to top it off, the scorpion monster swung it's other pincer at Link. Thinking fast, Link hopped onto one of the boulders that had been dislodged, narrowly dodging the claw and avoiding having the only ground under him dissolve.
He rolled the boulder and himself away from the monster in a fashion identical to how people walk on balls. However, the monster that he was fighting had not given up chasing after it's prey, or at least, what Link assumed he was to it.
It had slammed it's two claws on the walls on both sides of Link and his dissolving boulder. Then, the pincerss on it's eye opened up and a small hole under neath it's eye opened up as well.
Instinctively, Link grabbed for his Hookshot and fired it at the creature's eye, and was ultimately pulled to it. Once on it's eye, Link reacted quickly and unsheathed his sword. He stabbed the eye mutliple times, specs of purple-ish blood splattering all over.
As Link stabbed the scorpion in it's eye over and over again, it shook around violently, trying to throw him off in addition to closing it's pincers on him. But Link phased in and out in order to avoid them and his right hand was firmly gripped his Hookshot which was still embedded into the creatures eye and kept on stabbing.
After three minutes the beast stopped moving. It quickly fell back and as that happened, Link removed his Hookshot to get back to the door and waited for a moment. Nothing besides the beast burning up in the very pool of lava it once called home happened. With that, Link carefully made his way back to the entry room where he discovered something odd.
The door across from him, the one with the blue glowing lock had now disappeared.
Must've been because I killed that beast... He thought to himself. With that, he headed over through the door, ready for what may lie beyond.
This room was spacious, the ground beneath him incredibly solid and sturdy. Before him lay a large treasure chest with a pulsating blue lock on the front, preventing Link from simply reaching in and taking the treasure with his ghostly abilities. Link walked towards it, fully prepared for something to happen.
In all his many times crawling dungeons, things were never quite as easy as just walking up to a chest and getting it's contents. Whether it was aquiring a key before hand in order to open it or defeating a fearsome monster, things were never quite that easy.
Link attempted to open the chest despite the lock. After three minutes, Link's grip had slipped and he fell on his back. Shortly after this first failure at opening the chest, he stood back up and unsheathed his sword.
"It's go time now..." He said as he jammed the tip into the chest. With all his might, Link pushed down on the handle of his sword and used it as a lever. Eventually, Link lost his grip on his sword too and it came out of it's place in the chest.
With blinding speed, his sword flew up into the air before hitting the ceiling with a deafening CLANG and coming back down to the ground, spinning as though it were a mid flight boomerang, and clattering on the ground, barely missing Link as he lay on the ground. CLANG, clang, clang...
Again, Link did not let this failure deter him either. He brushed himself off and stood up just before picking up his invaluable weapon. He pondered the situation for a moment. Perhaps he missed a key somewhere in the dungeon. Perhaps there was a secret path way that he missed.
After thinking over the possibilities, Link decided to turn back for now and see if he couldn't find a way to open that chest and gain whatever valuable item that lay inside... or at least, he would have, if the ground hadn't begun to tremble and shake once more.
BOOM!! Large boulders had come flying towards Link, a wall apparently having broken. Thinking quickly, Link tried to dodge the boulders but a large one hit him and as quickly as it came, Link had gone. He had phased out of reality again, further pushing his limits.
As the dust settled, Link could see the cause for the wall's breaking. A large brown figure, semi humanoid in appearance and with armor all over it's body. It resembled a Goron, a race of friendly rock eaters who had once inhabited Death Mountain and a race Link knew well at that, but something was off about it.
The friendly atmosphere of the Gorons he once knew was completely gone. It's eyes were a bloody shade of red and it seemed to have a lust for blood. Saliva dripped out of it's mouth and splashed onto the igneous rock they both stood upon.
Link knew from one glance that this Goron was not here to chat about the good old days. This Goron was blood thirsty, and seemed to want Link's blood, even though he no longer had any to give.
Link didn't want to have to kill this Goron, because while they may not have known each other, long ago he made a pact with the leader of the Gorons and ultimately the two of them had become Sworn Brothers through that pact, and as such Darunia's fellow Goron tribe members were just as much Link's brothers as they were to Darunia by extension. He hoped that at the most, this Goron would just be sore from battle and that he could perhaps return him to what he should be.
The Goron clad in armor curled up and rolled straight at Link. He jumped out fo the way, narrowly dodging the attack and the Goron made a u-turn straight back at Link. Narrowly, Link dodged once more, but the Goron kept rolling at Link relentlessly.
As the Goron made another u-turn in Link's direction, it rolled right over the treasure chest and broke the top right off. Fortunately, the base was too strong for even a gigantic Goron like this to crush with it's mad rolling.
As the Goron missed once more, Link took the opportunity to snag the item within the chest while he could. It was a small wand of a light blue hue up to the top at which darker blue crystals seemed to form at the top.
Link recognized it's power almost immediately as he picked it up. He had used it before, and he knew he had used it for conjuring up ice and snow. It was known simply as the Ice Rod.
The Goron made another u-turn for Link. Thinking fast, Link thrust the Ice Rod into it's direction and a flurry of ice and snow came rushing out of the crystals at the end. The ground underneath solidified and as the Goron got close to Link, he jumped out the way and aimed the Ice Rod at the ground in front of the Goron, partially freezing it in the process as well.
The Goron crashed into the wall and the armor scattered all over the place, uncurling and ultimately laying there in the whole chaotic event.
Link cautiously stepped close to it and it abruptly shook it's head and stood up.
"Ugh..." The Goron moaned. "What have I been doing all this time?"
"Trying to run me over." Link joked.
The Goron stiffened up and slowly turned around to see Link before him.
"I-is that you?" The Goron asked. "Is it really you? Are you the hero from all the stories? The one named Link?"
"Yes." He responded. "That's me, the Hero of Hyrule."
"I-I'm so sorry!" He said, bowing down in forgiveness. "Please forgive me! I had no idea what I was doing! An evil mage in black robes came here and cursed me with that black armor! Please, forgive me!"
"Hey, don't sweat it." Link responded cheerily, putting a hand on the Goron's shoulder. "You were under a curse, you couldn't help it. And besides, if you hadn't shown up, I'm not sure how I would've gotten the item in that chest you destroyed."
"R-really?" The Goron asked, looking up, still not quite enough to making eye contact with Link. "Thank you so much! I will help you as best as I can!"
"Well, it would be good if I could find the Pendant of Power." Link said. "Do you think you could help me with that?"
"Of course!" The Goron said, standing up straight and saluting to his smaller superior. "I am here for the very purpose of making sure the Pendant never falls into evil hands. Not only are you worthy of it in my eyes, but you are the very person who brought it here in the first place! I will lead you to the chamber where the Pendant lies."
With that, Link and the Goron left through the door and into the main room.
Without a word, the Goron pulled a small blue pulsating key out of a satchel around his waist and together they went through the door. There they found a large room complete with an altar and a large red gem on a silver chain sitting on top of a pedestal at the far end of the room.
"Here it is." The Goron presented. "That which you seek: The Pendant of Power."
"Thanks a lot for the help." Link responded. "I'm not sure I would've been able to get here without your help."
"M-my help?" The Goron stuttered, honored by Link's statement. "No, that is not true at all! I'm sure you would've figured out how to get in here anyways."
"Regardless, it's thanks to you that my quest is going along faster." Link countered. "So thanks for that... brother."
The Goron was now just as confused as he was honored.
"Did you just call me 'brother'?" The Goron asked.
"Yes, I did." Link responded. "A long time ago I made a pact with the leader of the Gorons and as a result, we became Sworn Brothers. By extension, the other members of the tribe had become my brothers as well."
The Goron was shocked by that statement. There had been tales, though distorted, and the integrity of which questioned, of a young boy clad in the green of fields who had come to Death Mountain and met with a former leader of the tribe to make safe their primary source of food, a cave known as Dodongo's Cavern. He was speechless that he met the very same hero that not only brought with him the Pendant of Power, but also the same hero that had appeared in some of his tribe's earliest legends.
With that exchange out of the way, Link walked up to the pedestal where the Pendant lay enshrined, carefully. He had a feeling something might happen, so he walked slowly.
He looked around for a moment and saw nothing other than the symbols of fire on the walls as decoration, the Pendant and it's pedestal, and the Goron who led Link to this place.
Feeling safe, he grabbed the Pendant and held it above his head in triumph! With that, a vision of the same young boy from when he had picked up the Pendant of Courage. The very same blonde boy clad in green.
"There we go." He said, placing the Pendant upon it's pedestal. "Zora's Waterfall is probably a pretty good place to hide the next one."
With that, he snapped back to reality with knowledge of his next destination.
Ah, ha, ha, ha! A voice cackled from the shadows.
"Excuse me, Link, did you hear something?" The Goron asked.
"No, nothing out of the ordinary." Link answered. "Why, did you hear something?"
"Yes, I thought I heard laughter..." The Goron said.
"You're probably just hearing things." Link dismissed. "Maybe you need some rest."
"Maybe..." The Goron said thoughtfully.
END OF CHAPTER!