Walkthrough:The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess/VicGeorge2K9/Part 13

This part will take you through getting to the Gerudo Desert to reach the Arbiter's Grounds.

Hyrule Castle Town
Link decides that he's going to help Midna track down the Mirror of Twilight which is her last link to Zant. The first thing we want to do, however, is get over to where we will find our next hidden skill to learn, so select the Warp command to transport to Hyrule Castle Town. From this point on, Link can actively warp to whatever Midna-warp spots were created, and can transform between his Hylian form and his wolf form whenever he desires. However, using the Midna-warp requires Link to transform into a wolf, and he will stay in wolf form after the warp ends until the player selects him to transform to his Hylian form (indicated as "transform into human").

Now that we're on the eastern gate to the city, let's enter and head for the south entrance. But as we enter, we will meet the mailman on our way in, who will give us a message from Telma, which will tell us to meet her friends at her bar. (Interestingly, if the mailman approaches you when you're a wolf, you'll automatically be changed back into Hylian form. A rather strange power he has over Midna's in those circumstances!) We might as well do what the letter says and head over to Telma's bar to meet them. The first of the three people is Shad, who sits on the left side of the table, a man who is more formidable at book reading than at the sword. The second is a woman warrior named Ashei, who stands behind the table, telling you about what she's heard of a place called Snowpeak. The third is a man in a helmet that won't say much at first, but speak to him again and he will remove the helmet briefly to reveal that he is Link's old friend from Ordon Village, Rusl, who has left Uli in the village to join the cause in fighting for Hyrule. The thing you want to do here is look at the map on the table. It will close in on a red spot marked out on Lake Hylia, where Shad says we will meet a man named Auru.

Once you're done getting to know the folks in Telma's little circle, head out through the south entrance of Hyrule Castle Town. To the right of the big set of stairs you'll find the glowing golden wolf, who will take you back to the white misty place where the Hero's Shade will teach you another hidden skill once you've shown that you've mastered the Back Slice. This new hidden skill is the Helm Splitter, which combines the Shield Attack with a sudden jump strike to get behind your opponent and hit him when he least expects it. (Like the Back Slice, this hidden skill is also similar to the parry attack found in the alternate-timeline game The Wind Waker.) As usual you'll have many tries to do this correctly.

Lake Hylia
With our hidden skill learned, let's warp over to Lake Hylia. You'll see the spot where you will find Auru appear on the map, so travel along the rock ledges to the right to reach that spot. You'll see a Howling Stone on one of the ledges, so stop by it, transform into a wolf, and listen to the musical pattern it plays so you can copy it and howl it to the glowing golden wolf in the moonlit place. You'll then see the golden wolf icon appear in a place east of Lake Hylia that we have yet to set foot on.

Auru is located on top of a tower we need to climb up so we can talk to him. He will tell us about a prison in the Gerudo Desert where criminals were sent to and then sentenced to the underworld with a "cursed mirror" located in that prison. He suspects that the evil that has spread over Hyrule is linked to that prison, which has now fallen to ruin. The desert is unreachable by any roads, but if we can talk to his friend Fyer, he may send us there another way. Auru will then give us a memo to show Fyer, saying that he once saved Fyer's life and now he can't refuse any favor Auru asks of him. Once you get Auru's Memo, take it down to Fyer and show it to him. He will now give you a cannon shot into the nearby Gerudo Desert free of charge, though he will charge us the next time we use him for air travel. Get inside Fyer's cannon contraption, and he will wind it up and shoot you over the mountains. Wheeeeee...

Gerudo Desert
After Link enters the sprawling desert he sees before him, Midna tells him that the dark interlopers that Lanayru the light spirit was talking about were the ones who were banished into the Twilight Realm, and in time became the people known as the Twili -- of which she says with some anger in her voice that she was a descendant. It was a peaceful place until Zant took control of it and turned all of the Twili into shadow beasts, banishing Midna from there so she could no longer return without his power. However, the goddesses left a link between her world and the light world by creating the Mirror of Twilight that was passed to the protectors of Hyrule. She needs Link's help to find the mirror so she can return to the Twilight Realm.

Getting to Arbiter's Grounds
NEXT: Going through the Arbiter's Grounds