I continued my game in the Lanayru Mining Facility, which is the third dungeon. I was stuck in this first room for a while. There were little icons of a face with a circle around one eye, and there was a large face thing in the room. I thought it was a hint that I was supposed to do something with its eye. I tried bombing it, shooting it, and everything else I could think of, but it didn’t open up a path.
Eventually I found out that this one thing was actually a lever I had to pull down. It looked like a thing in earlier levels that you have to use your beetle on to cut a rope, so I didn’t realize it was a lever this time. Oops.
But once I was past that stumbling block, I was making pretty good progress through the dungeon. I found some blue stones that brought some areas back to life.
It’s pretty cool when the sand-filled, deserted areas spring back to life with all sorts of robotics, neon lights, and technology.
I ended up getting a new item called the Gust Bellows. It can blow an endless gust of wind (much like some people I know). All these curious mounds of sand that I’ve been seeing now make sense. I can blow away the sand to reveal things, much like I used the claws earlier in the game to dig at X spots.
I did reach some enemies that gave me some serious trouble. These flying things that shoot missiles and then floating bombs started killing me.
Smurf-Fi told me I could repel the missiles with my shield. The problem was, I didn’t have a shield. One time I got past that enemy, only to have my rear end handed to me by this other laser-shooting enemy at the top of a ladder. After dying a few times, I decided enough was enough and I went back to the sky to buy shields (and potions while I was there). I returned and I eventually made it past those trouble spots.
I finally ended up getting the map of the level. I say finally because it was very far into the dungeon. Usually you get the dungeon map before you’re halfway through; this time, there were only two rooms I hadn’t been in yet.
But finally having found the map, I saved and ended the game for tonight.