After leading Ryouga back to the entrance, Navi and Ryouga entered the mouth of the Great Deku Tree. As the duo stepped inside, Ryouga's eyes widened in surprise and Navi let out a gasp.
The Great Deku Tree had been hollowed out, to the point that it almost looked bigger on the inside than it did on the outside. Spiderwebs were everywhere. A cobweb covered hole sat in the middle of the tree, and more of them rose to the top of the tree. Giant spiders could be seen resting all over the tree, ranging from merely cat sized to the size of an adult man. Nearby, several more of the monstrous plants from outside sat in wait, preparing to ambush unwary passerbys. Oddly enough, a ladder was leaning against one of the walls. If Ryouga and Navi were smarter, they might have questioned its presence. Instead, Ryouga walked over to the hole in the trunk.
"Look, look, Ryouga! You can see down below this web if you look down!" chirped Navi.
"Yeah," replied Ryouga. Navi was right. There seemed to be some sort of chamber below. It looked like the water below could cushion his fall if he managed to get through them. Hesitantly, and without a thought toward how he was going to get back up, Ryouga took a step onto the spiderweb. Which supported his weight.
Nervously, he walked to the center of the web. And then he stomped on it. And then he jumped up and down. Nothing happened. If he was going to get down below, he would need to clear out the spiderweb.
Idly, his eyes wandered over to the ladder. Maybe if he slammed a heavy object into the web...
"Wait, what are you doing?" asked Navi.
"Breaking through the hole," Ryouga replied as he lifted the ladder over his head. With a mighty smash, he slammed the ladder onto the web-covered hole. Unfortunately, having misjudged the width of the hole, the top of the ladder hit the ground on the other side of the hole. With a loud crack, the ladder snapped in half.
"RYOUGA!" yelled Navi. "You just broke the ladder! Now how are we supposed to get up there?!"
"Eh? I thought we were going down there?" replied Ryouga, motioning toward the hole.
"We can't go that way! There's a spiderweb blocking it!"
"I thought I could break the spiderweb with the ladder."
"You broke the ladder with the spiderweb!"
An awkward silence broke out. After a moment, Navi suddenly flew over to one of the walls. "Look at the wall! The vines growing on it give it a rough surface... Maybe you can climb it, Ryouga!"
Ryouga walked over to the vines, killing another of the monstrous plants with a swift kick on his way over. After giving the vines a test tug to make sure they could hold his weight, he began climbing.
Upon reaching the top, Ryouga paused to take a look around. To the right, the floor seemed to move up in a gradual incline. More importantly, down the incline to the left, a portion of the trunk jutted out from the wall, hanging over the hole. Navi was saying something, but once again, Ryouga was fixated on breaking the cobwebs covering the hole.
"Ryouga?" asked Navi when her companion failed to respond. Turning her back to the wooden chest she'd just found, the fairy spotted the Ryouga just as he jumped off a ledge toward the hole. "Wait you idiot! You didn't get rid of-"
CRACK!
"-the ladder..." Navi finished lamely, as the web stretched up and down from the impact. Flying down, Navi examined him. Shockingly, Ryouga only seemed to have sustained minor injuries. The ladder, however, had been smashed to pieces. Well, more pieces, anyways. And the spiderweb was still intact. "Maybe we should try dropping something on it that isn't you."
"Ow...kay," groaned Ryouga.
After climbing back up the vines, Ryouga looked around. The wall behind him was covered in vines like the ones he'd just climbed, and there seemed to be a second overhang up above.
The floor of the current level rose on a slight incline, interrupted every so often by steps. A large wooden chest sat just a little way up said incline.
As Ryouga approached the chest, Navi suddenly flew up toward the wall, pausing in front of a giant, white and black spider with a skull shaped abdomen. "That's a Skullwalltula! Be careful not to touch it!" Nearby, a second, identical spider clung to the vine-covered wall, with a third hanging from much higher up.
Keeping an eye on the spiders, Ryouga reached for the chest. And then grabbed it. Lifting it up, he ran up the incline toward the overhang, preparing to throw the heavy object into the spiderweb covering the hole. Except the ledge suddenly cut off, with no overhang!
"Ryouga, stop! You're going the wrong way!"
Mido ran.
He knew what he had heard. The fairy had called that stranger 'Link'. But the stranger had not introduced himself as 'Link'. He had introduced himself as 'Ryouga'. Which meant that he was not who the Great Deku Tree had summoned.
Charging forward, he spotted his goal: the tree containing Link's house. Passing Saria without so much as a hello, Mido grabbed the ladder and started climbing.
Normally, Mido would not help Link. He would do everything in his power to hinder the fairyless outcast that had joined their village only a decade before. But if there was anything Mido hated more than Link, it was outsiders. And while Link didn't have a fairy, he was part of the village. There was no way he was going to let some outsider help the Great Deku Tree instead of a Kokiri!
As he reached the top of the ladder, Mido lunged forward, landing in a roll. Spinning to the side, he spotted Link still asleep in his bed.
"Hey!" yelled Mido, grabbing the unconscious boy and shaking him. "Wake up! The Great Deku Tree summoned you!"
"Ack!" replied Link as he was abruptly awakened.
"Hurry up and get ready! You've got to hurry!"
"..." replied a confused Link, unsure that he wasn't still dreaming.
With a grunt, Mido grabbed his arm and yanked him out of bed.
After being led to the overhang by Navi, Ryouga tossed the heavy chest into the spiderweb covering the hole. This time, the web did not hold up. At first it stretched, but the force of the weighty wooden chest thrown from so high up proved to be far more than the spiderweb could withstand. With a tearing noise, the web ripped apart.
"Ryouga! You did it!" cheered Navi. "Now we can get down to the root of the problem! Now let's-"
Navi cut off as Ryouga jumped after it. From the same height he'd just thrown the chest. Navi fell silent as Ryouga plunged several stories down.
With a loud splash, Ryouga landed in the water at the bottom of the hole. Fortunately, he somehow managed to avoid the heavy chest floating next to him.
In hindsight, jumping down after the chest probably hadn't been the smartest choice of action, especially since the wall behind him was covered in the same easily climbable vines as the area above the hole, but at least he'd managed to avoid injuring himself. Still, he decided that next time he would remember to look for a way to climb down first.
At some point, the chest floating next to him had come open. Apparently, all the large chest had contained was a single piece of paper. Unfortunately, the water had ruined whatever message had been written on it beyond recognition. Hopefully it wasn't anything important. He decided that he would also take a look at whatever was inside the next wooden chest he came across before doing something with it that could potentially destroy the contents.
"Ryouga!" shouted Navi, as the fairy flew down next to him. "Are you okay!?"
"I'm fine," replied the boy, climbing out of the alarmingly shallow water. How the heck had that been deep enough to cushion his fall?! "So, where is this curse?"
Looking around, the duo found themselves in a small chamber, divided into three sections by a small body of water. A door was visible nearby, but was covered in the same spiderwebs that had covered the hole. A large metal switch stuck up out of the floor nearby. And another of the monstrous plants lunged forward at Ryouga.
CRUNCH
"Man, there sure are a lot of those things around here," muttered Ryouga, wiping his hand clean of the juice that had leaked from the plant's 'head' when he had punched it.
"Those are called Deku Baba, by the way," Navi interjected. "If you hit it when it lunges at you, it will stand upright. Without killing it, I mean," the fairy quickly specified. "It won't stand upright if it's dead. Anyways, when it does that, cut it quickly to get a Deku Stick."
Ryouga looked at the fairy. "How am I supposed to cut it?"
"I don't know. Don't you have a knife or something?"
"Nope. I accidentally left mine behind with my travelling pack."
"Ryouga, you're wearing a travelling pack."
"No, this is my backpack. I got lost on my way to school."
"..." Navi, not sure what the difference between a backpack and a travelling pack was, or even what a school was for that matter, decided to change topics and flew off to investigate the room. "Look, there's another hole over here!"
"Really? Let me see!" With a casual leap, Ryouga joined her by the hole, killing another Deku Baba with a backhand. "Hey, you're right."
"Yeah!"
"That must be where the curse is."
"Maybe!"
"..."
"..."
"...There's nowhere around here that's high enough up to drop something to rip open this hole from, is there?"
"Nope!"
"..."
"..."
Ryouga said a word that wasn't appropriate for a child his age to use.
