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eep into the Unicorn's Cave Link ventured, fleeing from the crisp autumn winds outside of the cave. Beneath the earth within the cavern walls, however, there was still a constant damp chill, removed only by the occasional presence of a stray fire lit to provide both warmth and light, warding away the presence of an icy death. Some portions of the cave fortunately were heated by natural hot springs, boiling with intense temperature, scalding to the touch, impossible to scale save for conveniently interspersed magnetic monopoles that allowed Link travel once he found a pair magnetic gloves of Goron craft, seemingly a perfect fit for the Hero's calloused hands.

With his new discovery in hand, Link came across a grand hall, large enough to have been used for formal banquets and lavish ceremonies. Pillars lined the rooms, and Link was curious to see a great spiked sphere resting upon the top of one of them, snugly placed between the pillar and the ceiling, balanced with delicate perfection. Before he could truly investigate the strange ball, a single-eyed creature with armor-like skin so thick that even Link's sword failed to cut a swath through it, always being deflected away from its mark. The creature, a Digdogger, charged for Link, seeking to tear at him with its claws. Without thought—or even plan, Link managed to activate the gloves upon his hands, drawing forth the rolling spiked object and pulling it towards him, and only then did Link finally personally see how razor-sharp the spikes of the spheroid were. Suddenly with inspiration, Link used the magnet of his glove to propel the ball over the Digdogger, squashing it and dividing it into four miniature versions of itself. These, however, were not as thick-skinned as their parent, and Link's sword provided an adequate response to its sudden reduction in both size and armor, slaying them all with ease. Forthwith from the corpse of the last of the enemy's fragments came the fifth Essence, the Nurturing Warmth, a source of strength for the plants of nature. Link stowed the Essence within his satchel and left the dungeon, awaiting the guidance of the Maku Tree.

Once again, the Maku Tree called out to Link from his confines Horon Village, whispering his message to him. He felt the next Essence's gentle tug coming from far to the Northwest, the tug rather faint due to what he sensed was a great distance. Link rubbed his chin, pondering the terrain that laid between him and the furthest reaches of the island; he remembered spying a temple of sorts along the way, but Link had thought that would have been the former home of the sunken Temple of Seasons. Shrugging off his suspicions and willing to trust the Maku Tree, Link journeyed to the gates of the temple, slowly creeping them open as he stepped within the confines of the sacred place. As he had expected, Link found ruins strewn about the forest here and there, the apparent signs of an ancient civilization no longer calling Holodrum home. He walked carefully and respectfully through the woods that had grown about the olden buildings, checking his compass often to ensure his walk proceeded northwesterly. The woods seemed to cast a deceptive illusion over the warrior, causing him to get lost occasionally; Link eventually found himself walking in circles, the sight of a familiar ancient structure cluing him in time and time again, but with his compass, he would always find a hidden path, shrouded by a troop of stubborn vegetation, and so he proceeded up into the mountains, the water crashing against the cliff face far below, up to where a tall tower rose like a resting giant above the lofty trees about the lost ruins.

The age of the archaeological wonder was apparent, and so Link appropriately named the place the Ancient Ruins. Much of the ancient walls were left perfectly intact, preserved beyond their time by the lack of the influence of life to destroy it, but other rooms were left littered with rubble, holes in the floor grabbing unwary travelers to that which rested beneath them. The crypt seemed to hold a great mystery as oftentimes switches to unlock the rooms beyond sealed doors were placed in out of reach places, making it seem as if they had a great technology unavailable to even the denizens of the present, but Link's ingenuity enabled him to find ways to strike them all, foraging his way slowly but steadily towards the tower's peak where Link's objective rested.

As Link rounded about the final circular stairwell leading to the tower's peak, Link nearly jumped out of the way as a fireball whizzed by his ear, jumping up from the ground in response. He looked back in the direction of the attack to find a mobile flora with a long stalk and four brightly colored blooms staring back at him. Link had heard of these from the ancient books in the castle; it was a Manhandla. The blossomed blooms opened up a volley of fire at Link, trying to keep him at bay, and Link was forced to retreat for a moment until the plant, unable to keep Link at bay forever, tired. Link swooped in before the Manhandla could spin around to launch a second wave of attacks, and Link chopped of each of the blooms in turn. Only then, once it had been deflowered, did its stalk open up to reveal the heart of the monster; with a great cleave, Link sliced it into two pieces, and out of its dying core came a miniature object, about the size of a Deku nut, oozing within the plant's slime. Link wiped it off upon his tunic, discovering that it expelled a sweet air from holes in its exterior, finding that it was nothing else than the very Essence he had been searching for: the Blowing Winds that carried the pollen from every flora to their sister plants. Now, with six of the eight Essences in hand, Link knew that very soon he would be close to finding Din.

Link left the Ancient Ruins, and the Maku Tree requested that he return towards Horon Village, for he had the feeling now that the next essence was rather close by. Calling forth a whirlwind using some of the island's magic, Link was carried back to to the village only to hear a great commotion amongst those within the city of a pirate ship that had landed just to the west of their small town; they were fearful that they would come and invade their village, looting it of all its valuables. With determination, Link brandished his sword and headed for the ship, eager to meet steel against steel with the pirates, but when he got to their ship, he found that their intent upon Holodrum was not malicious; rather, they had been stranded by a shipwreck upon the eastern shores of the island for many moons, fortnights, and even countless years without food nor water. They had died upon the eastern seashore, but because of the captain's dedication to his love, they did not vanish from the world but rather were transformed into Stalfos until he should see his love, the Labyrnnian Queen Ambi, one last time. Since that day, they have worked toilfully upon their ship, only recently able to make it seaworthy once more. Link found the story charming and sweet, and he formed a pact with the pirates, that if they would help him find the lost Essence on the southern shore, after his quest was done, he would assist them on their voyage back to the land of Labyrnna. The deal was made, and so they all set sail westward along the coastline.

From the shore, Link could see a scant little path heading inland from the beach, and so he requested that the pirates drop anchor and allow him to use a longboat to search the unexplored sector of the island. With a grand roar of passion, the pirates lowered their anchor in the shallow waters of the island and hoisted Link's boat to the waterside, allowing the Hero to row himself ashore. When Link finally ran aground, Link pulled his vessel higher up on the beach so that the tide would not carry it away, and then he began to walk amongst the tropical trees into the island's interior. Link soon discovered a graveyard utilized by the Horonites for their deceased, and as he approached the black wrought iron gates, with the thickness of the trees about him, it felt as if the day had turned into night. Link crept forward past the gates of each section of the graveyard, the path eventually leading to a mausoleum, its doors gaping open to reveal a set of stairs descending deep underground, the doors trimmed with etched text resting upon a marble placard reading "The Explorer's Crypt".

The mausoleum apparently had not been used nor entered in quite some time; cobwebs clung to almost every square inch of every surface, many of the rooms only being lit by dim candlelight along its lengthy corridors. Link soon found the reason why the crypt had not been used; upon a sign not more than a hundred paces from its entrance, words in blood had been written:

"Those foolish who enter shall suffer my curse.
Those wise who leave shall be spared.
The brave who seek this place to be nursed
Must realize that reckless courage I dare
To challenge me to remove my cursèd mark.
In turn face the wrath I've prepared;
Destroy me or be gone before all becomes dark,
Or your demise will untimely be bared."

A shiver of fear went up through Link's spine with the chilly impact of those words. The haunt was cursed, yet this had to be the place where the pure Essence was being kept. He looked to his wrist where the three Triangles rested without glow. Unable to draw power from the Triforce, Link swallowed a gulp, digging into his courage, running forth through the veil into the next room, which happened to be surprisingly well lit. Suddenly a Poe appeared before him, and its voice spoke daggers to Link's ears. "So, another foolish one wishes to die. Very well; challenge me!" The Poe took out a ghostly sword, translucent in color, and it dove at Link, thrusting a strike that Link easily parried and countered adeptly, surprisingly finding resistance as Link's own blade pierced the Poe's ethereal body. The Poe, almost with a sense of respect, seemed to nod at him before exhaling a great wind, flickering and extinguishing several of the nearby candles' light. With an almost panic, Link charged this time, striking another blow, meeting with less and less resistance, almost as if the Poe were becoming invisible with each decaying flame. Knowing time was of the essence, Link lunged repeatedly, almost desperately, striking as quickly as possible as the Poe frantically went by each candle in turn, blowing it out into nothingness. Ultimately, a single candle remained, Link guarding it, knowing that his life was dependant upon its precious light. The Poe rushed at him one final time, and Link leapt up and sliced his sword down through the Poe across its face, the ghost unluckily disintegrating with this final touch of the Hero's blade. The lights suddenly returned, and both the Poe and his warning had dissipated. There in the center of the room stood now the Seed of Life, the life of Nature. With a smile, Link returned to his longboat and then the pirate ship, asking to be dropped off back near the village.

Waving only a temporary goodbye, Link went to see the great Maku Tree. Much to Link's disappointment, however, he could not seem to locate the last of the Essences, almost as if it were in another world that the tree could not sense; Link seemed to smile rather than find frustration in the tree's inability to help, for indeed the tree had done much more for Link than it thought it could. Link returned to the portal he had first found into Subrosia, feeling the heat boiling off of the magma about him once more. The Subrosians seemed excited about a minor volcano that was erupting in the west, and Link's intuition drew him towards that which had piqued their interest. It was only a matter of time after Link had arrived there when he saw a large explosion rip off half of the face of the mountainside before the volcano finally came to a peaceful halt, its lava flow cooling into solid rock. Link waited perhaps another hour after the excitement had settled as a precaution to the volcano's inactivity, and once he felt reasonably confident of the cave's dormancy, he then entered into the volcano, having at one time been used as one of the Subrosian's forges; to them, it was called the Sword and Shield Maze.

The last of the Essences was trapped in a dangerous mixture of fire and ice. The magma of the Subrosian furnace flowed easily into many of the dungeon's rooms, but the other half were too far removed from the liquid lava about them, freezing with the frigid depths of the underground. The extrema of the two worlds battling one another constantly left Link with either a sweat or a chill, his misery doubled from the drastic changes in temperatures he faced every few moments. Monsters of fire and frost would always make Link's worst nightmares seem tame in comparison. Eventually, Link found an impasse in the lower levels of the maze, finding a pool of bubbling magma standing between him and the door forward. Ultimately, Link thought of the idea to carry ice crystals from the frosted rooms above into the depths of the fiery dungeon, dropping them into the boiling lava so that it might solidify the liquid rock into a bridge, and Link ultimately used the cooled magma it to cross the lake of lava.

As sweat rolled off of Link's face and tunic, he saw a hideous monster holding the last Essence in her hand; it was a Mendelock female who would hold Link at bay from receiving the last of the eight Essences. Mendelocks, as Link recalled, were some of the most feared enemies of Hyrulian lore, believed to be mere legend rather than fact. Uncharacteristically, Link sheathed his sword quickly and cupped his ears before she had the time to act, and he began to cringe as the Mendelock let loose a powerful scream of dischordant melody, a scream disrupting the very fibers of magic, one capable of turning those who heard it into stone. Link began to move closer as the Mendelock's voice began to falter. Faster and faster his feet carried him, rushing the foul creature. The Mendelock stopped her cry as her lungs were sucked dry, but soon began to inhale to replace it with another scream, but Link already had his sword in hand once more, literally throwing it at the Mendelock, knowing he wouldn't be able to cross the remaining distance in time. He prepared for another scream, but it would never come, for the thrown sword had pierced the heart of the evil specter. As she disappeared, she dropped the last Essence upon the ground, and Link, finally realizing it was safe to uncover his ears, walked to the gem and picked it up. It shined with the jewels of the ruby, emerald, topaz, and sapphire; it was the Changing Seasons, symbolic of the cycle of life.

"Finally," Link whispered to himself, "with the eight Essences, I'll be able to rescue Din. Oracle, Din, please don't give up on me now. General Onox, prepare for your last breath..."

However, unbeknownst to Link, somewhere in a cave deep within the ground, what had been pitch black suddenly sprung to life with the crimson glow of a newly lit candle.