Jolene is now constantly patrolling the waters, looking for Linebeck. If she finds the ship, she’ll try to board, and escaping is pretty much impossible unless you’re close to an island or quadrant boundary, or use the Cyclone Slate to warp away. It’s amusing the first few times she does it, but eventually it just becomes tedious. (Right around the time the dialogue starts repeating each time and Linebeck stops giving rewards for fighting her off again.) If Link has trouble fighting off Jolene, Linebeck shouts out a hint, leading Jolene to wonder where the voice came from.
Zauz is expecting Link’s return visit. When Ciela asks how, he explains that his people have served the Ocean King for generations. They developed weapons to fight the Ocean King’s enemies, and most pertinent to Link’s cause is one called the Phantom Sword. Unfortunately, there are none left in the world; Zauz can make one, but lacks the materials. (Ciela isn’t amused by Zauz’ suggesting an idea but waiting to bring up the complications.) For Zauz to make a Phantom Sword, Link needs to find three pure metals: Aquanine, Azurine, and Crimsonine. The three metals were given to three tribes of the world, and to find them, Link needs to visit the Temple of the Ocean King again. It turns out there’s a second symbol Link can write on the door on the sixth floor, the Triforce. This will open the lowest levels of the temple to him.
As Link approaches the Temple of the Ocean King, another earthquake hits, which Ciela says is coming from below the temple, and so it’s probably Bellum causing them. Inside the temple, some of the phantoms have been upgraded to Swift Phantoms. They move faster than their counterparts. Ciela’s worried, but Leaf points out if they don’t see Link, it doesn’t matter how fast they are. All nice to know, but I’ve got to wonder why they’ve got to have Link wander out of the initial safe area to start yapping about it. The first few floors don’t have very much new; a few eye switches Link can hit to make things a little easier for him, and one Power Gem. On the fifth floor, the enemies have been upgraded, but with Leaf buffing sword attacks, they still go quickly.
When Link comes to the sixth floor, Ciela reminds Link that this is where the door he needs to draw on is, and to remember the shape they saw in Zauz’ home. However, Link can draw the hourglass symbol to go back to the original room, which he might want to do because there’s a 30 second time up there. When he draws the Triforce symbol [1], an alternate room opens up. This room has the courage seal for Ciela to open, and the latest victim of the temple opens a checkpoint portal. Link can step into it to return to the start, saving his progress. The only catch is that returning to this room uses the same amount of time Link used the last time he used the checkpoint portal to get out. So, I did the first six floors of the Temple twice: once to remind myself how it goes and see the new stuff the bow opened up, and once to speed through for the most time left going forward. I got it down to about a minute and a half used, which I feel pretty good about [2].
The ultimate goal of the next three floors is to place three crystals into their slots. This can’t be done in a single straight shot through the floors; Link’s path has him going up and down between the floors multiple times. There are two new complications: first, some of the tiles make noise when Link runs on them, which alerts nearby Phantoms, so Link has to be careful when they’re nearby. (Carrying a crystal slows Link’s speed enough that he can go as fast as he can without worry.) Second, the lowest floor has this game’s variation of Wizzrobes, who stalk Link when his back is turned and steal time by whacking him with a scythe. Link can kill them with a spin attack if he lures them close enough. There are a Courage Gem and Wisdom Gem on these levels. Once the crystals are in place, Link finds the Southeastern Sea chart. A skeleton in this room says if Link places the crystals in a specific order, it will open up the way to more levels of the temple. For now, I’ve got enough to go on – I don’t even have to use some other arcane feature of the DS to make the map useful – so I’ll leave the next levels for next time.
I know the Temple of the Ocean King is not the most beloved aspect of this game, but I like it. I think the developers did a good job putting new stuff to discover on earlier-visited floors, plus the shortcuts to make them fast to go through when I’ve already gotten the treasures. Having to stealth it isn’t too bad – it’s not instant-fail, and not that hard to make it to a safe zone. And the time limit is more than generous (although admittedly getting the treasure maps and hauling up the sands from the ocean floor help here). Plus I’ve always been the type to enjoy repeating things until I get them perfect, so replaying the Temple doesn’t bother me too much.
Next: That can’t be a natural island shape.
[1] It’s pretty twitchy about what’s Triforcy enough; if the symbol is close but not close enough for the game’s purposes, it shows up briefly and tells you to try again.
[2] Plus Link can go back to the symbol door, draw the hourglass, and get another 30 second time refund before venturing deeper into the temple.
