Before Link checks in with the pirates, there are a few things he can clear up on Windfall Island, even with the stormy weather driving everyone indoors. The mailbox is hopping with a letter from Orca, the sword master on Outset Island. Link’s collected a lot of green Chu Jelly by now, and by giving them to the potion maker, he develops green potions for sale. If Link takes the special firefly he got from Forest Haven to the pictograph guy, his pictograph box will be upgraded to a deluxe pictograph box that can take color pictographs. Link can also use the Wind Waker to cause a windmill to turn, then ride it like a Ferris wheel and, from there, jump onto a balcony allowing him to sneak in to the pictograph shop and loot a couple treasure chests, gaining some rupees and a treasure map. Downstairs, the guy is having a conversation with a woman, and is startled when Link comes up on them from inside the shop.
The town’s Bomb Shop is locked up tight, and the owner refuses to open the door. Link, undeterred, sneaks around the back, climbs up some vines to a ledge, and crawls in to see what’s going on. During Link’s first visit to the island, he visited the shop only to basically be kicked out because there’s no way he could possibly afford the prices. Well, apparently the pirates didn’t like his prices very much, because they’ve got the shop owner tied up while they loot his inventory. They mock his prices and where they’ve landed him, and brag about how they got the information about Jabun’s location out of Quill.
They’re not very excited about the prospect of heading back to Outset Island immediately, but Tetra’s concerned that what happened to Greatfish Isle could happen to it. As the other pirates wonder if her concern is for the island or just the treasure, she stammers that it’s the treasure – as she looks up to where Link’s watching the whole sequence and winks at him, so she clearly knows he’s there. She relents and says they’ll set sail in the morning, and leaves them to finish up. As they do, one of the pirates asks another to remind him what the password is, noting that Niko’s a stickler for that. Link overhears the password and waits until they leave before jumping down and leaving himself. There’s no option to help the shop owner, so Link just leaves him tied up. (I know the game wants Link to go steal the bombs from the pirate ship, but, seriously, he could just say they stole everything he had, but he’ll offer Link a discount on future sales or something.)
After Niko lets Link onto the ship, he challenges Link to a harder variation of the test from last time. This time, there are no platforms, so Link has to make like Tarzan and swing from rope to rope, still with a time limit that feels stricter because Link needs to take time to line up the swings. Once he successfully makes it across, Niko gives him the bombs, and Tetra contacts him via the pirate gem. She commends him for having the nerve to steal from them, and says that she’ll give him a head start in the quest to get Nayru’s pearl, but her crew’s sailing first thing in the morning, and has more bombs, so he’d better not dawdle.
There’s not much to do on the journey to Outset Island aside from track down the fish to fill in the map. At Windfall, the fish talks about a dancing man on the island and how he’d like to learn the dance. Three squares to the south at Southern Triangle Island, it’s a hint about the pictographer on Windfall who has a collection of legendary pictographs. Turning to the east, Link comes to Stone Watcher Island and the Islet of Steel, each of which are said to have a map to the “Triumph Forks.” Finally, just north of Outset at Five-Eye Reef, the fish says the “abandoned” fairy fountain on Outset isn’t actually abandoned and the fairy’s still there.
As Link arrives at Outset Island, the King of Red Lions understands that Link may miss his home and tells him the quest can wait a bit while he visits his grandmother. First, though, the mailbox has a letter from Beedle, the merchant ship owner, who now has bombs in stock. When Link returns home, Grandma is not faring too well. Link uses the fairy he has bottled to heal her, and that plus seeing Link again lifts her spirits. She’s determined to be strong again, and fills the fairy bottle with her special soup, which acts like a blue potion plus doubles Link’s attack strength until he gets hit and the bottle has two servings. And she offers to make more if/when he runs out. I haven’t bothered with potions in the 3D games because it’s hard to run out of magic (Ocarina final fight against Ganon aside) and fairies offer full health refills from dying, but this one’s tempting.
Next: The long night ends.
