The Key to Time Travel
Shortly after coming out of the dungeon, Link has his first encounter with Maple in Labrynna. It’s basically the same as in Holodrum; there’s a heart piece to be won here just like there. Before Link leaves the graveyard, there’s a few things to collect. First, there’s a ghost who’s trapped from moving on to the afterlife by its tombstone. Link pushes the stone out of the way for the ghost, and the ghost gives Link its poe clock before leaving. Another ghost asks if Link believes what he sees, and teaches him a secret code to pass along to the inhabitant of a grave in Holodrum. Finally, there’s another heart piece that he can get to now that he has the power bracelet.
As Link explores the woods for the next dungeon, navigation starts getting screwy. After he makes it far enough into the forest, he finds three fairies, who have messed it all up, and challenge Link to a game of hide and seek. They scatter to the screens Link hasn’t been able to make it to, and hide under rocks and bushes and wait for Link to find the right paths to their hiding locations. Once the fairies are all found, they fix the forest paths, so Link can finally go to the dungeon. There’s just a rock in the way, which is no match for his power bracelet, so he lifts it, and…
Uh…
Well…
There was a sign near the dungeon entrance that warned that it would crumble easily. So, when Link lifted the rock, the whole thing kinda collapsed. Fortunately, the game involves time travel, so maybe the essence will also be there in the past. However, Link can’t just freely travel through time, he needs portals and a way to activate them. On the Maku Tree’s suggestion, he goes back to Nayru’s house and discovers Impa investigating drafts coming from the basement. He heads down and finds the Harp of Ages, with a pre-recorded message from Nayru saying that something must have happened to her and teaching him a song to use the harp to activate portals. Link returns to the city and uses the harp to activate the portal near the Maku Tree.
Mystery Seeds for the Queen
In the past, Link returns to Lynna Village. He’s got enough money now to buy out the Advance Shop’s inventory. The postman in town needs help knowing what time it is for his scheduled deliveries, so he trades some stationery for the poe clock. Near the edge of the village, there’s an outhouse with… okay, apparently in the Zelda world it’s common for people to get trapped down toilets and stick their hands out in desperate need of paper. The stationery from the postman is good enough for this purpose, and the hand gives Link a “stink bag.” There have been some one-sided deals since Link’s Awakening introduced this type of sidequest to the game, but I think I can pretty surely say that this is the crappiest one. On the plus side, Link can have some fun throwing other things down the toilet, like ember seeds or the pot that’s sitting next to it.
The forest is all abuzz with activity, with lots of people looking for mystery seeds that Ambi desperately wants. It’s not an easy path to get to the tree with the seeds, and along the way Link can find another heart piece and a Deku scrub who knows a secret part of a song, which he wants Link to relay to the scrub in the Natzu Wasteland, the one who’ll refill Link’s seed satchel for stopping by. Once Link has the mystery seeds, one of Ambi’s soldiers recognizes him and brings him to Ambi to present them as tribute. Ambi rewards Link with bombs, and Nayru is pleased to have the seeds.
Switching back over to Seasons for a moment, Link finds a ghost in the graveyard who, after learning the first secret, plays a game with him, asking him to tell whether there are more red or blue ghosts in a given set. The first set is very one-sided, while the latter two are closer. When Link gets it right, he gets an extra heart container. The Deku scrub further increases Link’s seed satchel capacity, to hold 99 of each type of seed. They each give return codes, which in Ages Link can tell to Farore, the third Oracle who makes a home inside the Maku Tree, and get the rewards for the secrets transferred over. (His seed capacity is still limited to 50 until he finds an upgrade in Labrynna, but on the plus side he gets a full complement of mystery seeds after Ambi stole all he found.)
Next: A colorful boss, minus the colorful language I directed at it.
