If Link tries to talk to Tetra or any of the other pirates, he’s told not to hang around on deck and interfere with their duties and go below deck with the scrubbie, Niko, whom Link will answer to while he’s on the ship. Niko starts by issuing a challenge to Link, jumping across a series of platforms to the far end of the room. The platforms after the first are too far to simply jump across, so Link has to swing on ropes dangling from the ceiling to make the jump. In other words, it’s a tutorial for another new feature of the game. Once I got the hang of jumping and swinging, it wasn’t difficult at all, despite Niko’s belief it would take him a full year to master. Once Link makes it across, Niko realizes he promised Link a reward for doing it so quickly and tells him to open the chest in the room behind him. Link finds a spoils bag, which will let him hold items dropped by enemies.
Tetra calls down to Link that they’ve arrived, so Link gets back up above deck to see the Forsaken Fortress. She points out the bird, and a lit window that has several seagulls swarming around it. Tetra suspects that’s where Aryll and the other missing girls are. The fortress is swarming with spotlights, so there’s no way for the pirates’ ship to approach safely, so they have to figure out another way. Tetra considers for a moment, then gets a mischievous look, and we cut to Link in a barrel on a catapult. It takes Link a second to realize what’s about to happen, and he starts struggling to get free as Tetra explains this is the only way to get him there. As the countdown goes, Link gradually gets himself mentally ready to go flying, and fly he does as the pirates wave goodbye. He crashes into the wall and is separated from his sword as he falls into the water surrounding the fortress. This whole sequence is hysterical; I love that they’ve given Link a little bit of personality – entirely communicated by expressions and grunts.
With all the spotlights, this can only mean one thing: a stealth section! Only, this seems to run by the Scooby-Doo rules of if you don’t see the barrel walking, and it stops when you turn toward it/shine a light on it, it’s not moving at all, so Link gets to hide in barrels to sneak around, which adds a great detail of absurdity and makes the stealth aspect tolerable. To turn off the spotlights, Link needs to go to the towers where Bokoblins are operating them and defeat the Bokoblins. Except, Link doesn’t have his sword. Before the first watchtower, Tetra contacts Link via a stone she slipped into his pocket. She suggests Link block the Bokoblins’ attacks, then steal their weapons when they drop them, and whack them with it, and it’s a good plan, except there’s a better option. Each of the watchtowers has a pot with a couple more sticks in them, and Link can grab them without waiting for the Bokoblins to drop theirs. So there’s no need to race the Bokoblin to the stick, just roll away from the Bokoblin as it attacks, grab a stick, chuck it at the Bokoblin, and repeat until it dies. Shutting off the spotlights makes walking around outside a bit easier.
Then there’s the inside. The dungeon map and compass are here, along with a heart piece on the first floor that’s not hard to get but getting back to the second floor, where Link needs to be, requires a lot of sneaking past Moblins and running from Miniblins and Keeses and trying to avoid rats who can steal rupees and destroy barrels.
Back outside, after sneaking past another moblin, Link comes to a gap he can’t jump across. There’s a narrow ledge along the wall he can just barely walk across using the wall to maintain his balance, though. After successfully crossing the first gap, there’s another one, this one with a couple hearts in case Link’s taken damage. Finally, Link finds his sword, just in time to use it on another Bokoblin. That Bokoblin blocks the way into a large room where Aryll and a couple other girls are being held in a cage. Link and Aryll are happy to see one another, but before Link can act, he’s grabbed by the bird and taken to its master. We don’t see the bird’s master clearly, but even without my suspicions about who the bird was working for, we see he has olive skin and red hair, so it’s either Ganon or some serious misdirection. Ganon tells the bird to throw Link into the sea, and the bird obliges.
Next: Well, he's obviously not going to drown.
