The Legend of Zelda: Goddess of Secrecy

Dungeon Chapter 23 - Warming Things Up

...that was the kitchen. A pair of Rats skated across the ice and into a hole in the wall on the far side of the room before they could be dealt with. Link had a bad feeling about the empty room, picked clean and oddly open now that the previous threat was gone. He kept his sword out, ready in his hand as he searched the space.

"That looks like a furnace," Bruce commented, walking into the room behind him. Link looked at the large frosted-over iron contraption at the far end of the room. He wasn't sure how to get it started with the amount of ice on it. Putting a bomb in there would not be a good idea, not without destroying it, meaning they needed to find another way to start the fire. That wasn't precisely in his toolkit at the moment.

There was a pile of logs set back in the back of the room. With his sword at the ready, Link walked over towards the pile. There was an echo across the room. Link raised his shield as an orb of ice hit the metal face. The sphere shattered. Link looked up at where the attack had come from. He didn't like what he found.

Hovering overhead was a figure with a wide brimmed hat. It swung something in its shrouded hand. A long, curved beak stuck out from beneath its hat. Just as suddenly as it appeared, it vanished.

When Link heard the noise again, he turned to face it. Before the monster had a chance to attack, Link launched counter of his own. The creature swung back, stunned, as it was hit before it vanished to get away from the attack.

This time, it appeared behind Bruce. But the knight was ready for it having seen this twice before. His sword hit heavier than Link's, and harder than the creature was expecting. It shuddered, before collapsing beneath its hat and disappeared. For good this time , luckily.

Bruce kept a wary eye at the ceiling. "You think anything else is going to appear?"

Link shook his head. "I don't think they would expect us to get passed that Freezard, to be honest. Besides, they're probably guarding the rest of the building more than this small furnace."

"Can we get this thing lit then?" Bruce asked. "I'm freezing."

The two grabbed the logs and tossed them into the furnace's chamber. Link hit his sword against the edge, trying to make a spark. A log caught, and Link helped the fire along the best he could. Eventually, the fire began to blaze and grow. The ice melted off the outside. Steam began to climb out of the grates of the fire before it was followed by smoke as the fire grew stronger. Heat traveled up the vent at the top of the furnace, and continued on through a series of pipes on the ceiling.

"What do you think that is?" Link asked.

Bruce replied, "It seems like some kind of heating system. It must go through the whole place."

Link looked around the room as the rest of it began to thaw out. Water began to pool on the floor, before it drained out the side of the room through the hole. The Rats that had gone to hide inside the walls scrambled out. Link took the chance to clear them out. Rats usually had large numbers, and Link had a guess about what these unnatural vermin would think of him and Bruce. He would rather get rid of them while he could in a small batch.

"We should go and see what's thawed out," Link said as he finished the last of the monsters, heading back out down the hall. They came out in the large room with the grand staircase. Heat was pooling the air and water was gathering in huge pools around the room. The door headed towards the front of the building had thawed out.

Icicles tumbled from the ceiling. Link kept his shield up as he looked at the newly opened door. It would be useless unless they found a key. He started back up the stairs to the upper floor. The white coating of snow on everything was starting to vanish, and Link started to warm up beneath his coat. The holes in the roof were still making a valiant effort at restoring that layer though, and Link didn't want to wait out the fires to find out which would last longer.

He entered the hall with six doors again. A couple of them swung open on their own, the hinges broken from being pushed out by the ice. Link looked in these rooms first. They were bedrooms, empty of anything of importance to them. He tried some of the closed doors. A few keys sat in old wooden chests at the foot of the bed. Three once Link counted them.

"That should be enough to get into the other halls from the main hall," Link said. "And open the door beneath us."

Bruce inquired, "What about that big gate?"

"I feel like might be source of our storm," Link answered. "And this place needs a little bit more heat going through it before that thing is going to be beatable."

"You make a point," Bruce replied. "Then let's go open the door beneath us."

"One more door," Link replied, opening the last the door. A blur pushed passed him. Link jumped back, not able to see what went passed him. It didn't come back. "What was that?" Link asked.

Bruce shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe Endeavor will know."

As they started downstairs, Link realized he didn't have an uneasy feeling about that thing. Not like when he knew something was about to attack. He didn't know how to explain it. He just hoped he was right about it as they got back to work reheating the temple.

They raced their steps and opened the door on the first floor. A huge Freezard skated along the floor. It hit a few cracks, but the ice reformed beneath it. It had a partner bouncing around the room with it. They were moving too much for Link to try throwing a bomb at them, but he was sure they were large enough to cast their icy breath.

Link pulled out his hammer. The two-handed weapon was heavy in his hands, but that's what he needed for this job. When one of the giant Freezards got close to him, he swung the flat face into the monster before it could take breath. The beast shattered into countless shards of ice, scattering over the ice. In the heat of the room, the shards burst into puffs of water vapor and blew away.

The second Freezard wasn't expecting Link. Link slid over the ice forming beneath it, dragging the face of his hammer. Like its partner, the thing shattered in one hit. The ice thawed out beneath them. A locked door sat in front of them. Link stuck a key into the lock and let it fall away as he opened the door.

"You're back!" Freya said, jumping up. Frostbar looked up as the two walked back into the parlor.

"What did you find?" the yeti asked.

"Several keys," Bruce answered. "And a big gated entrance."

Frostbar stated, "That would be the entrance to the spring, if I'm not mistaken. Was there a way to get into it?"

Link shook his head. "Not that we saw. But we need to get a few more of these furnaces started. A lot of these doors are still frozen shut"

"Only the north side of the building has thawed out," Freya said with sudden confidence. "There would be two furnaces up there, since the mansion gets the most wind from that side."

"She's right," Frostbar answered, though he tipped his head in surprise as his daughter. "More powerful furnaces too." Frostbar pointed to the door on the northern side of the room. "We should head that way."

Pulling out their final key for the moment, Link walked up to the door. The lock fell off. Yore dashed through the door before Link. Frostbar held the door as the rest of them went through before the massive yeti ducked through himself.

Link turned around towards the room in front of him. It was a bit open. Out in the middle of the room someone stood alone. Bruce came up beside Link. "Is that that thing that we saw earlier?"

"They're human...I think..." Link replied. "Or they are right now."

"Who are they?" Frostbar asked.

"We're not exactly sure," Bruce answered, a glance at Link for support. But Link was still feeling fairly calm about this person, for reasons he couldn't place.

Link catch the attention and shook his head to address the real concern in the situation. "But we should find out." Link drew his sword, and began down the short set of stairs...