[EDITING] The Legend of Zelda: Goddess of Secrecy

Dungeon Chapter 63 - In Memoria

...and back out to the stairways beneath the façade. They returned back to the landing above the courtyard without issue, though a few stray Gibdos did close in as Link was moving the statues to the other side. He didn't notice until he had released the second statue and found his party cleaning their weapons as the last rumors of the monsters disappeared.

Link lowered his stance from the possession and looked over at Endeavor. Despite his relief, he said, "You should have let me know."

"This was faster," Endeavor answered smoothly, sliding her thin sword back into its scabbard. Link couldn't argue with that. Without Princess expending yet more energy to keep his courage bolstered, he did more good clearing their way forward than in a fight.

Though that didn't sit well with him.

That thought sat with him as they began the climb up the left-hand side of the temple. He knew they were nearly to the end, and after that he could take a break. Surely Octan would have somewhere for him to rest and recover his energy. And between the six of them, Zeal should be more easily managed. Link began to wish Endeavor had brought Journey, but the wolf hadn't been with her when they'd met at the Hero's Shrine. He would understand not wanting to bring her and Yore down into the depths, but her companionship was sorely missed and he wondered where she'd gone.

The set of stairs they were climbing went higher along the cliff face, high enough to reach the level of the lower figures' heads, though not those of the Goddesses. It was high enough too to see there was a floor at the top of the temple, and Link thought he could see a circular outline as they came to the top of the climb.

I wonder if the elevator goes up there, he thought. Maybe that was the door Endeavor had said would open once they activated all the water wheels. But they would need to find a key for that massive lock first, and they were running out of corners to explore.

There was only door he needed to focus on for now though, and that was another sinking gate like the one on the other side of the temple. Prepared for this, the party quickly moved through when Link raised the gate, before pulling the opposing lever and letting him through.

Before long, they were back under the mountain. Once again, the wall closer to the interior of the temple spanned deeper into the stone, but Link saw no way to reach the other floors.

Instead, he found himself looking at deep empty ravine carved through the temple floor. There was no mesh in this room, though there were a series of lowered sections of an aqueduct. However, with no mesh, they sunk to the bottom of the channel cut through.

To make matters worse, the channel was spotted with rot root, clots and vines alike. With no obvious path further into the caves, Link guessed that access to this river was fully blocked further into the channel.

"So, who will volunteer to jump down?" Princess asked, wheeling around on the rest of the party.

"Not so fast," Endeavor said, putting a hand up. She crouched at the edge as Princess huffed at the comment. "If we raise the water now, there is no way we will be able to raise those slates and restore the aqueduct. This channel is blocked too close to the spring, it will be heavily flooded for longer than we have time to spare."

There was a sigh of relief between Chop and Slash, and Link felt his own anxiety release a touch. He didn't particularly want to jump into such a dense nest of the toxic plumes. But he also knew he was the reason they had a time limit.

"Then what do you suggest?" Princess asked, looking around the room.

Endeavor paused for a moment, still crouched as she scanned the other side of the chamber. Eventually, she pointed to the other side of the rooms. "There are storage chambers there. I remember reinforced crates being kept."