To get the obvious observation out of the way first: although it’s called the Earth Temple, this is definitely a fire dungeon. To be fair, it’s set in a volcano, which is right on the intersection of earth and fire. But Link his hit by a wave of hot air from the start, if he uses a wooden shield there’s a good chance of it burning up, and there are fiery enemies and rivers of lava everywhere. On a side note, if Link falls in the lava, the reaction is pretty much the same as in Wind Waker – jumping a mile in the air while his butt’s on fire – only the art style has changed to realistically-proportioned people so the cartoony reaction is even funnier because it’s so out of place.
A little way in, Link catches up to one of the Mogmas from outside, who’s been separated from his partner. He says he saw Zelda getting dragged in, so it almost certainly wasn’t the person in black. He tries to discourage Link from going further because there are too many Bokoblins around, but of course Link is going to persist. A little ways in, Link finds Ledd, the other Mogma, who’s lost his Bomb Bag. After a miniboss fight (a pair of Lizalfos, who have directional blocking and I found easiest to hit with an uppercut when they tried to cower under their armored gauntlet), a treasure chest appears with the Bomb Bag in it. Link wants to use it, so he asks Ledd if he can borrow it; Ledd remembers his partner and asks about him, then generously lets Link keep the Bomb Bag as a gift and gives a few bombs. Link can actually replenish the bag by storing bombs picked from bomb flowers, and if he pulls out a bomb but decides he doesn’t want to use it, can put it back.
The large central room of the dungeon involves Link rolling a giant statue’s eyeball across the giant pool of lava and over the fireball-spitting Fire Spumes to squash them. Off this room, Link finds both the Bomb Bag and the dungeon map (in that order, oddly). There’s one corner the ball can’t reach, so Link has to open a corridor and guide the ball through it, clearing obstacles and avoid lava jets some statues in the area spit out. The core goal of the room is to press two buttons to raise stairs to further in the dungeon. The rest of the dungeon involves running up slopes and dodging boulders rolling down – or after getting the boss key, running down the slope ahead of the giant boulder from the top because he didn’t have a bag of sand to replace the key with. That boulder plugs the lava jet leading to the boss room, so it’s not a total disaster.
Fi detects Zelda’s aura in the boss room – from a broken chain. So she was captured, but got free. Ghirahim explains that Zelda was rescued by a servant of the goddess – our black-clad friend? – and the reason he’s after her is to resurrect his master. He decides to vent his anger by turning the giant boulder into a pyroclastic fiend, Scaldera, and setting it to kill Link (“It won’t take more than a few moments before you’re charred to a satisfying crisp. And let me tell you, that will put a spring in my step!”) before teleporting out to continue his search. Scaldera is a giant walking fireball encased in rock, and the trick is, much like a Dodongo, to toss a bomb in its open mouth, which chips away at the rock coverings, and then whack the eye while its down. Once the rocks are gone, a few more pokes in the eye finishes it off.
In the sacred spring, Zelda is indeed with the person in black, and we get a better look at her and her clothes have the Sheikah emblem. (So, she’s probably Impa.) Zelda’s apparently finishing the purification ritual, and then a portal opens. Before she can go through it, she notices Link, but the Sheikah woman stops her. Zelda’s clearly saddened by this, but apologizes to Link and goes through the portal. The Sheikah woman refuses to let Link go with them, blaming Link being late for Zelda being captured. This might have landed if I wasn’t certain what happened to Zelda is exactly as the game scripted it – it matters not at all how many sidequests or how much farming the player does, Link would have arrived here at exactly this moment. And in the main questing, there haven’t been just a whole lot of delays – the worst probably being having to get the key to this dungeon, which happened after Zelda was captured. And, even if Link is to blame for Zelda nearly falling into Ghirahim’s hands, what good does separating them now do? It just means next time Ghirahim or his minions catch up to her, he might not be there. Bah. But I suppose this is about on par for the game’s writing.
Once they’re gone, Link whacks the crest with a Skyward Strike to receive another message: “From the edge of time I guide you, the one destined to carry out the goddess’s mission. The spirit maiden who descended from the clouds has passed through the Earth Spring and makes her way to a fated place. The parched desert of Lanayru… That is where the chosen will pass through the Gate of Time into a distant world.” Link receives the final tablet, with an amber stone (yellow for desert), and has a vision of Zelda before Fi takes him outside. Link returns to Skyloft and the Goddess Statue, setting the Amber Tablet alongside the others, opening a third hole in cloud layer.
Next: Shifting sands, shifting time.
