The Legend of Zelda: Goddess of Secrecy

Dungeon Chapter 50 - True Courage

 ...further down the tunnel. Everything echoed against the walls, making it difficult to tell where any sound was coming from. The steady flow of water continued to distort Link's sense of direction as the sound of ripples and drips added to the reverberating sounds.

The best he could do was keep running until he found some way up or out. He tried to keep the layout of the Greenhouse in mind, heading in the direction he thought went back towards the building, but in the end, he had no idea. The tunnel rarely divided, and when it did, one end remained blocked off by a series of metal bars not far after the pipe would split. Everything else looked pretty much the same otherwise, making keeping directions difficult.

Finally, the sound of the boko babas above stopped. Link figured he was beneath the greenhouse now. Or he hoped that was the case and that he wasn't further away. As he continued, he started to wonder what was in here before he restarted the irrigation pumps. Thinking about the boko baba hoard in the garden, he decided that he didn't really want to know and that this was likely much better.

Not much longer after he found himself beneath the greenhouse, Link started to hear screaming further down the pipes. Guessing Saruo was in trouble, Link picked up the pace and sprinted on towards the sound.

Rounding a corner, Link saw Saruo cowering behind one of her puppets as the other one smacked the front side of a skulltula repeatedly. The giant spider's shell would shudder with each hit, but the monster itself didn't move away from the attacks. It just kept its mandibles raised towards Saruo's puppets, warding off the attacks its front legs.

Link snapped the Spirit Whip out of his pack. He lashed the weapon out, catching the skulltula by its right legs. With a hard yank across his body, Link flipped the spider over. The next time one of the puppets attacked, their wooden claws managed to sink into the monster's soft underbelly.

As the skulltula disappeared, Saruo looked up. Before she could turn to face what remained of her attacker, she saw Link approaching her, whip and sword in hand. As Link put away his weapons, Saruo asked, "Did you kill it?"

"Not technically," Link answered, extending his hand for the skull kid. He knew she could float, but he felt that it was the gesture that counted. Saruo didn't seem to care, and took his hand as she floated back up into her normal hover. "Those puppets of yours are pretty mean."

Saruo nodded, silent. She seemed embarrassed again. Perhaps about needing to be rescued. Link asked, "Do you want to go protect the others?"

"No!" Saruo shouted, snapping out of her mood. "I'm not looking after those shrubs." She lowered her head a bit again as she muttered, "I'm braver than them."

Continuing down the tunnel, Link replied, "Bravery doesn't mean rushing into dangerous situations. It just means that you're willing to do something when no one else will. But that doesn't mean you have to run into it blind or unprepared."

Floating on behind him, Saruo grumbled, "Because you'd kno-" She stopped in the middle of her sentence, getting embarrassed again. Because Link would know, out of anyone. Parts of the Triforce didn't seem to pick the second best at something. But he wasn't the kind of person to brag about that, or to drive a point in.

Besides, regardless of how big her struggle was compared to Link's, Link still respected the fact that Saruo was struggling with a lot of guilt about her home. She blamed herself for the state the greenhouse was in already. He wasn't going to make her difficulties seem petty because he had to save the whole world. That just seemed like a rude thing to do.

Eventually, the tunnel ended. Another series of metal rungs had been driven into the wall, leading up to a wooden trap door. As Saruo continued to sulkily float behind him, Link climbed up the short ladder to push on the trap door. It start to open, before hitting something resting on top of it.