The Pegasus Boots allow Link to run across the muck in the Castor Wilds, so it’s time to go back to make the way to the next dungeon. After a couple swamp crossings, Link comes to a cave with a treasure chest in a room. As Link enters the room, the doors slams shut, the chest disappears, and a Darknut [1] guardian appears for a miniboss fight. This fight is most similar to the Iron Knuckles in the N64 games: defend against the sword attacks and wait for it to leave an opening. After four hits, the Darknut is defeated, allowing Link to claim his reward: a golden Kinstone half.
As Link explores the Wilds, he sees inert Eyegores blocking his path, and comes across a Business Scrub who wants to sell him arrows, but without a bow and quiver, they’d be useless. By finding a nearby portal and shrinking to Minish size, Gust Jarring a lily pad across a river, and dropping into a crack in the ground, Link finds a bow, which lets him fight the Eyegores. (Buying arrows is optional.) It takes one arrow to the eye to wake up an Eyegore, then three more to defeat it. They usually leave a bundle of five arrows behind, so Link comes out ahead on the fight if he doesn’t miss, but more importantly, the Eyegore is out of his way.
There are four more things to find in the swamp. First, under a gravestone, Link finds another dojo run by ghost of the original Swiftblade. Link’s not ready to learn from him just yet, but there’s a heart piece here just like the other two he’s found. There’s another of the exploding statues that freak Ezlo out. Finally, Link finds two more golden Kinstone halves. At the southwest corner of the area, there are three large statues who want to Fuse the golden Kinstones. With each Fusion, the statue jumps, damaging the large rock blocking the exit to the south to shatter; once all three are done, it completely crumbles, allowing Link to exit to the next area.
The main obstacle in the Wind Ruins is Armos blocking the paths forward. A Minish living in a hole in the area explains that they built the statues to help humans – they’ve apparently gone off the rails since, like Reaper weird – and there’s a hidden switch inside each one that someone at Minish size can operate to turn them on or off. Link needs to work them both ways: turn them on so he can destroy them and get them out of the way, or turn them off so they don’t scurry into the nearest gap and sit there and block progress. There’s also a heart piece Link can get by scurrying about the area at Minish size.
The next dungeon is the Fortress of Winds, but I have to imagine at some point it was going to be the earth dungeon [2]. The area is filled with what I think is hard-packed dirt but all I can think looking at it is cheese. Inside the dungeon there’s a whole set of rooms to the front, on all three floors, which don’t show up on the map, which made using the map really confusing until I figured it out. Returning enemies include Stalfos, Wall- and Floormasters, Mini-Moldorms, Wizzrobes, and Sparks (the ones that turn into fairies when hit by the boomerang). The first floor of the dungeon has four small rooms, three of which lead upward. (The fourth is a dead-end with a heart piece.) The two outer rooms lead to fairly linear paths, ending by dropping back down to the first floor to claim an item which similarly fell. (And, if dropping down at Minish size, the heart piece from the dead-end room). The middle path splits into two; the left path leads to a miniboss fight against another Darknut and then to the dungeon item, the Mole Mitts, which let Link dig through the dirty cheese.
The right path eventually leads to the dungeon’s boss, Mazaal, which is similar to Wind Waker’s Gohdan: large head with two disembodied hands. Link shoots the hands with arrows, causing their eyes to pop out, then whacks the eyes with his sword until the hand falls inert. Once both hands are down, the head similarly goes dormant, allowing Link to shrink to Minish size, sneak inside the head, and whack whichever pillar is glowing until he’s dragged outside for the next round. Each round, Mazaal gets new attacks, and the head fills up with dirt that Link has to dig through. After three rounds, Mazaal is destroyed.
With Mazaal gone, Link climbs to the top of the temple. There’s no element, but a stone tablet left behind by the Tribe of the Wind says they took it when they left for the sky. As a test for anyone who would follow them, they left behind a bird with the Ocarina of Wind for the prospective follower to master. When Link plays the ocarina, the bird swoops in, ready to carry him to any of the destroyed exploding statues – they’re called Wind Crests. One that’s marked on the map is one Link hasn’t been to, in Lake Hylia, so that’s where he goes.
Next: Link continues exploring other careers. Next up: Librarian.
[1] Or, as their figurine renders it, “Dark Nut.”
[2] I’m a little surprised it’s taken the series this long to do dungeons themed on the four elements. Majora’s Mask came close with the earthy Woodfall Temple, watery Great Bay Temple, and airy Stone Tower Temple; the fourth dungeon was ice, but gave fire arrows and was in the Goron area of Termina.
