As noted in our previous post, there’s a lot of returning here and there in Skyward Sword. Return to the Sealed Grounds; return to Faron Woods; and return to Lanayru and Eldin at some point, no doubt. In this post, we head to a place to which we hope never to return: the Ancient Cistern. As it happens, we almost didn’t get there at all even once, so returning would not have been an issue. But we get ahead of ourselves.
Skyview Spring and Sacred Water
First, thanks to a task assigned by Faron the Water Dragon, we return to Skyview Temple, which is a little nastier this time than it was the last. Apparently, word’s gotten out that Link’s in search of Sacred Water, and the bad guys aren’t going to take it lying down. That’s another theme with all this returning we’re doing – it’s always worse the second time around.
After some digging – there’s an intentional pun here, along with the Mogma who inspires it– you’ll find a Small Key to aid you in your progress. You’ll also find Staldras and Bokoblin Archers to impede you in same. It bears noting that the Bokoblin Archers have a lot of range, and since Link doesn’t, at this point, have a bow of any kind, he must resort to the Hook Beetle and bombs. And, Itzal notes, to hiding.
Never fear, however; there are more enemies coming with which Link can engage in hand-to-hand, or sword-to-sword, combat. Indeed, next up are a pair of sword-wielding Stalfos. According to one walkthrough we consulted, it’s best to take this dangerous duo out with the bombs that litter the room, but we bombed ourselves just about as often as we did the Stalfos, so we resorted to our tried-and-true flailing with the Joy-Cons until the Stalfos were defeated. Okay, and a few bombs.
Upon entering Skyview Spring, there was, not surprisingly, plenty of water for the taking, but not all of it was sacred, you see. Look for fairies near a waterfall, take your empty bottle, and – Gah! You had an empty bottle, right?
Belated Zelder Tip #1: Be sure to have an empty bottle before you go in search of Sacred Water. Generally, we have at least one if not three empty bottles, since we are usually drinking up our heart potions as fast as we can buy them. Thus, we were able to scoop up not only some Sacred Water but also a fairy. Still. Perhaps you are less heart-potion-needy than we are. In that case, pour out any unused potion so that you have an empty bottle, then scoop away!
Back to Lake Floria
Sacred Water in hand, it’s time to return to Lake Floria (there it is again, this returning nonsense) to chat up the skinny-ant dragon.
Amazingly, Faron feels so much better after the Sacred Water is added to her tub, she feels its energy surging through her, making her stand tall and vital once again, skinny-ant no more! (We have a similar experience with a well-timed cocktail.)
What’s more, Faron’s renewed vigor triggers cutscenes that result in Link being deposited quite nearly (but not quite exactly) on the doorstep of his next destination.
The Ancient Cistern
In a post coming soon to a blog near you, we’ll have something to opine about the entrance to the Ancient Cistern. For now, suffice it to say that once inside the Ancient Cistern, you’re going to do a considerable amount of swimming and spinning underwater (so practice up) and an annoying amount of backtracking and circling round to enter areas that are initially impassible.
You’ll also pick up a nifty new tool, the Whip, which rivals the Gust Bellows for fun. Of course, you don’t get it for free. First you must defeat a new enemy, a Stalmaster, which is like a Stalfos but meaner and with two extra arms with which to be mean. We’d like to advise you to watch which way it’s holding its four arms to decide how to attack; in truth we (again) used our tried and true Joy-Con flailing accompanied by plenty of running away. But hey. It works for us. After the Stalmaster goes down, a treasure chest with the Whip is yours for the taking.
Wielding the Whip made us feel like Indiana Jones, twirling it this way and that and turning stiles and swinging from overhead hooks and grabbing the tails of the flaming bird of paradise (not its real name; it’s called a Furnix, like a cross between Furnace and Phoenix). Indeed, although there are many recurring items in the Zelda series (hello, sword and bow), we could not recall another game with a Whip. Grappling hooks, yeah. Whips, no. Naturally, we (Demelza) Googled, and returned with this answer: Link gets a Whip in Spirit Tracks, a game we never played because it was for the Nintendo DS, and that was back when we were still acting adult enough not to play games on a handheld device. In addition, something called a Whip Badge made an appearance in Hyrule Warriors, another game we didn’t play, likely because it sounded like a lot of fighting.
(The preceding has been brought to you by a grant from…um, nobody. We’re just nerds.)
The Ancient Cistern contains a giant statue that, naturally, features in several of Link’s cistern-ly adventures. In keeping with the area’s name, there’s also a lot of water. The Whip is used to turn stiles, pull levers, and turn over lily pads. There’s, um, also plenty of swimming underwater and spinning.
Cursed Bokoblins
Eventually you’ll reach a point at which the giant statue lowers, and you’ll turn to look at your Zelder partner as you descend into the statue and drop down to the basement, saying, just before heading into a new area, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
Oh, how about the Zombie Apocalypse? You heard that right: there’s another new enemy in this area, the Cursed Bokoblin, which moves slowly like a Zombie and is just about as good for one’s health. And, like Zombies, they’re persistent and they get as many of their Cursed Bokoblin friends around them to try to turn Link into a Zombie. Or a Cursed Bokoblin. We don’t know which; because naturally it didn’t happen to us. No, we tackled many Cursed Bokoblins, which, when felled, make a weird wee-wee-wee noise like the shower scene from Psycho, until Link lands a Fatal Blow upon them.
Really, we were quite adept at Cursed Bokoblins, if we do say so ourselves. And they dropped a new item, Evil Crystals, which are reportedly rare. Indeed, Demelza was delighted to learn that THIS IS THE BEST PLACE IN THE GAME TO GET EVIL CRYSTALS so we should consider RETURNING WITH THE TREASURE MEDAL so that we can fight some MORE CURSED BOKOBLINS and get ALL THE EVIL CRYSTALS WE WANT!!!
Yeah. You know what Itzal had to say about that idea.
Blessed Idol
Eventually, you locate a jeweled chest that you really, really need to open. First, use the Whip to return the statue to its former level, but then go back down a rope to the lower level and follow a path to the jeweled chest. Huzzah! You’re the proud owner of the Blessed Idol, which is the key to opening the final dungeon door.
Um. Unfortunately, once you take the Blessed Idol – seriously, doesn’t this remind you of Indiana Jones, trying to remove a treasure by substituting a bag full of sand of similar weight, except in this case, you don’t have any sand to substitute – let’s see, once you take the Blessed Idol, the statue starts descending again, and hordes of Cursed Bokoblins try to follow up the rope you’re climbing. Ignore any temptation to stop and gather ye Evil Crystals; climb the heck up the rope as fast as you can.[1]
What about my cocktail?
Now you’ve got the key to the dungeon, but that’s for another day. How about a liquid refreshment to celebrate your watery progress en route to the Sacred Flame? We recommend – or at least one of us does – a Caipirinha. The Caipirinha requires lime, fine sugar, and cachaça, a popular Brazilian liquor made of sugarcane juice. Cachaça is not precisely an aguardiente, but close enough for Zelder work so we consider it apt here: aguardiente means fiery water. We certainly had a lot of water today, and we’re in search of a flame; that’s our cocktail pairing connection, and we’re going with it!
P.S. Cachaça has a kind of funky aroma that Demelza couldn’t get into. Indeed, Itzal “lapped” her, that is, two Caipirinhas to her one, until her competitive spirit took over and she switched to a Lemon Drop martini, with which she could keep drinking pace.
[1] Itzal would like to point out that this advice is contradictory to the earlier shouting about the importance of retrieving Evil Crystals.