The Legend of Zelda: Restoration Age

Dungeon Chapter 5 - From a Distance

 ...and slid down to the floor below. Arrow drawn on his bowstring, Link aimed for the rope bundling up the ladder. The last thing he wanted was to cut the ladder itself and leave himself trapped on this lower level until the the Restoration either let him die or provided another way out. Fortunately for Link, his arrow merely cut the rope and dropped him a line between the floor above the grate and this basement. It was a very small gap between the rope and the grate, forcing Link to press his stomach up against the wall hard to slip through, but at least he couldn't get trapped below if he closed all of those pools back up by mistake.

Link pulled himself up to the floor about the grate. He wondered what the point of it was, considering there was another entrance down to this level. What did it even block off? Maybe he'd find out if he got all of those doors open. Right now, he needed to get that last key. He had a guess, remembering that cluster of vines on the ceiling above the large key. Perhaps there was a switch beneath the pool, he just needed to close the doors and get back beneath it another way, either from one of the other pools' bottoms he could now open with his bow or from the ladder he had just climbed up from.

It was as he was about to climb back onto the vines that Link realized he could knock off a few of those spiders to keep them from charging him. Their backs were tough armor though, more than able to deflect a few arrows, leaving him just with their soft heads to aim for. That would be a difficult shot, even with his sudden proficiency with the longbow.

After knocking a few off the vines, Link decided to save his arrows. He managed to salvage a handful of arrows as he climbed up, but not enough that he thought continuing to pick off the spiders was worth it. He cleared out enough to let him climb with ease between the levels, and left the rest alone. He could dodge them decently enough as it was. When he found more arrows, maybe he'd bother with it, but he knew he needed those arrows for those levers and he couldn't spend them on spiders until he knew he wouldn't need them.

Back at the top of the pit, Link turned around to reorient himself with the doors. To be fair, he only had two options, as the third was still locked, and the room he didn't want had a hole in it. He guessed the correct door, not that it matter.

Pulling the lever again, Link let out a sigh. This was going to mean a lot of climbing. He had a moment to avoid fighting while he solved this puzzle, but he knew he was going to be sore like nothing else when he woke up from...wherever he managed to get some sleep. He didn't know how other Heroes had done this. He reasoned they likely went into these temples knowing they would be dangerous and not half asleep, where Link wasn't expecting for this building to come to life and consume him, and was slowly losing his mind out of worry for his friend and his own lack of energy.

Link dropped back down the pit until he reached the ladder as the very bottom. He would have dropped from the pool, but he was still drying out from his last dive and the last one had been risky already. He would take this safe option until he could give himself a better cushion for that drop. Dropping into cold, dirty water didn't sound fun, even if it would wake him up again.

Back down to the bottom of the pit and then up through the barracks, Link returned to the room with the large button. Before Link turned left towards the room he had just closed off, he looked up at the bundle of vines on the ceiling. Link flexed his bowstring. "Let's see how strong this thing is then."

Link drew his bow back, letting an arrow fly. The arrow didn't cut deep into the plants, but it cut enough. Vines began to snap and break before a chest tumbled down from the ceiling where it had been hidden, rolling to a halt at the far side of the room after a good deal of banging and bouncing.

"This isn't going to be another monster, is it?" Link asked, looking up at the ceiling.

"No, this is a reward for your puzzle solving, Hero!" The Restoration answered, cheerfully. "You have thought through this puzzle and sacrificed your items to gain a reward, so--"