It turns out when there’s a cut between Link jumping and landing, like on Skyloft or the surface areas, he’ll automatically use the sailcloth rather than splatting. (On the other skislands, where there is no break, he’ll take damage if he doesn’t land safely.) Fi pops out wearing her tour guide hat to introduce the Eldin Volcano region. Link can catch on fire in this game, and rather than running around uselessly as in Four Swords/Minish Cap, he can put the flames out with a spin attack or rolling. The enemies in the area include fiery variants of ChuChus and Keese. There’s a Goddess Cube near the entrance to the area. Before getting too far in, Fi pops up to make sure the player remembers they can use dowsing to find Zelda and offer another tutorial if they’re particularly masochistic. As well-mapped and linear as the woods were, dowsing for Zelda was pretty useless, and I imagine it’ll be the same here.
After a couple hops across a lava stream, a couple mole people pop out of the ground in front of Link and… mistake him for a Bokoblin. They eventually figure out he’s not, and when Link mentions Zelda, they saw someone go past, but they were so fast they didn’t get a good look. A little way further, Link finds another Goddess Cube and meets another mole person near some bomb flowers. As always, bombs can be tossed, but now they can also be rolled to go farther or to pass through narrow passageways. There are a bunch of blocked caves nearby for Link to practice bombing, including a crawlspace for rolling and one high cave for tossing. Yet another mole person says they saw someone go by in a “blackish” outfit. That’s almost certainly not Zelda (unless she’s changed since falling), and Ghirahim was wearing white… but it wouldn’t surprise me if he changed outfits.
A new enemy/hazard in the area is the Pyrup, little seallike critters that take shelter in crawlspaces or shells and breathe fire at Link when he gets too close. Bombs explode immediately in the fire, so Link needs to stand back and roll or throw a bomb to get close enough. Passing through a bunch of these guys, with a little bit of platforming, Link gets a heart piece. Across a narrow, rickety bridge, Link finds a mole person who’s plugged up the lava to thwart the Bokoblins… but that leaves Link no choice but to roll a bomb and blow up the plug so he can advance. In the area, there’s a cave with a hole for Link to jump in. On the way down, there are landings, including one with a Goddess Cube.
At the bottom of the cave, Link finds a mole person lamenting the Bokoblins’ presence and wishing someone could do something about them. There’s a whole bunch of them, but Bokoblins aren’t much more than speed bumps, so Link jumps in and kills them all, with the only challenge being getting to the one on top of the platform with a horn. The Mogma (mole person) who set Link on them is grateful for Link’s help and gives him a pair of Digging Mitts to dig loose soil. By digging, Link can find treasure, rupees, hearts, or, most importantly, hidden steam geysers to send him up to a higher platform. (Or, in one case, a Mogma who’s unhappy about being dug up, but still encourages Link to dig whenever he can.) After passing through a maze of Pyrups, Link comes to a large steam geyser that blows him out of the cave.
A Mogma near the exit tells Link that the black-wearing person just passed by and jumped over a large lava river. As Link approaches the river, a bridge extends from the other side, and the person in black calls to him, encouraging him to hurry and find Zelda. So they’re not Ghirahim, and they’re not Zelda unless they’re Sheik. (White hair, black clothes, ninja? They could definitely be a Sheikah, in which case it may be an incarnation of Impa that takes inspiration from Ocarina of Time.) With the way clear, Link can begin ascending the mountain. On the first slope, there’s a Bokoblin on a platform, then another one a little higher up who tries to roll boulders at Link but can’t hold them if he gets hit by the slingshot. At the top of the slope, there’s a Bokoblin camp, including a watchtower with a Bokoblin with a horn; Link brings down the tower with a bomb, creating a bridge.
In the camp, there’s a cave with a blocked wall. Inside the cave is Tubert, a Mogma who comes completely out of the ground and sits on his tail. He runs the Thrill Digger minigame, inspired by Minesweeper. Link can dig up rupees, which tell him how many adjacent holes have bad things (bombs and/or Rupoors). Green rupees mean there’s no adjacent bad items, blue means one or two, red means three or four, silver five or six, and gold – Nayru help us all – means seven or eight. Link gets to keep whatever rupees he digs up before hitting a bomb, and if he safely clears the board, gets a rare treasure. There are three levels of difficulty – easy has four bombs in a 5×4 grid; intermediate has four bombs and four Rupoors in a 5×6 grid, and expert has eight bombs and eight Rupoors in a 5×8 grid. Despite using this game to farm rupees, I haven’t yet been able to beat expert, which relies way too much on luck. (Unlike Minesweeper, where the first cell is guaranteed safe, Link can hit a bomb on his first dig. Fortunately, I’ve checked, and there’s no unique rewards here.)
Next: Five easy pieces.
