Walkthroughs
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Skyward Sword Walkthrough Chapter 11: The Ancient Cistern
Chapter 11: The Ancient Cistern
Skyward Sword Story Guides:
Skyward Sword Secrets Guides:
- Skyward Sword Heart Pieces
- Skyward Sword Goddess Cubes
- Skyward Sword Gratitude Crystals
- Skyward Sword Items & Gear
- Skyward Sword Item Upgrades
- Skyward Sword Enemies
- Skyward Sword Bosses
Objectives:
- Solve the riddle of the central statue.
- Claim the Whip from inside the statue and open the valves.
- Unlock the tunnel behind the waterfall.
- Flush yourself deeper into the temple.
- Lower the central statue to reach the caves below.
- Claim the Blessed Idol from the cursed caves.
- Defeat Koloktos.
Important Obtainables:
New Enemies:
1 - Solve the riddle of the central statue.
As soon as you enter the dungeon, look to the inscription on the tablet just next to the door of the statue. It'll tell you to examine the statue's back, then its rear, then the back of its hands. The inscription refers to symbols depicted at these places on the massive statue. The back and rear are easy enough to see, but to view the symbols on the hands you'll have to dive underwater and spin dash through them (picking up the Silver Rupees suspended above each in the process) in order to get them to close.
Wondering what these symbols mean? One of them points up, the second down, the third to the left, and the fourth to the right. Climb out of the water and head counterclockwise around the perimeter of this room to find the only unlockable door if you're curious to find out. Yank the nearby lever and proceed through.
Drop down - try to avoid the lilypads below, as their undersides are quite hazardous - and head to the left. You'll see a door with a strange lock. You'll need to hit the four jewels on this lock in the order the statue indicated to open the door: top first, then bottom, then left and finally right.
2 - Claim the Whip from inside the statue and open the valves.
In the next room, there's a passage underwater that you need to take to proceed, but it's blocked by the hazardous end of one of the lilypads. Climb the vines in the south corner of the room and leap down onto the offending lilypad from the ledge at the top to flip it over, clearing the way. Swim through, busting up the wooden barriers as necessary with your spin attack, and climb out of the water using the vines at the end of the tunnel. Through the next door is a Small Key, which you'll use to unlock the door at the base of the statue.
From here you'll need to drop down into the room below - it's the same one with the weird lock from earlier - and ride the gushing water pipe up to a corridor at the top of the room. You can leap from the far end of the hallway back to the door leading to the statue's chamber. From there, walk back around to the front of the statue and enter through the front door.
Drop down a level through the hole in the floor and you'll meet a Stalmaster, a more advanced and far more powerful version of the Stalfos. Defeating it will earn you the Whip, this dungeon's special item. You can use it to tug open valves like the one you see nearby. This will activate certain water-driven objects like the gushing pipes, which you can ride all the way up to the top of the statue if you yank on all of the valves as you ride them upward. There's a special lock here that you'll need a boss key to open, so head back to the main chamber for now.
Stalmaster
The Stalmaster is an even more powerful version of the Stalfos that fights with four arms and four bladed weapons. As such, it can block in several directions at once, forcing you to pinpoint an even narrower window through which to attack. Use caution, as it's not only harder to hit but hits you harder as well.
Find out more at Zeldapedia: Stalmaster.
Whip
With the Whip, you gain a weapon with a longer reach than your sword. It's a bit erratic to control, but anything caught within range is sure to get a shock to the system. It's also useful for tugging on certain objects to interact with them.
Find out more at Zeldapedia: Whip.
3 - Unlock the tunnel behind the waterfall.
Head back around the east side of the room and keep climbing past the door you entered earlier. Some hanging ornaments along the wall are easy for your Whip to latch onto so you can swing across gaps, so abuse them to climb higher and grab the Dungeon Map from a chest you'll pass by in the process.
Dive back into the water and swim over to the waterfall. One of the lilypads nearest the wall has been flipped over, but if you use your Whip on the hazardous side you can tug on it to flip it back. You can then use it as a stepping stone to reach a switch on the wall, but not in the usual manner - you can now grab wall levers with your Whip! Tugging on this one will open an underwater tunnel nearby.
Furnix
Furnix have taken up roost in the Ancient Cistern ever since the place has become populated with monsters. They have giant wings which they use to fly around and attack from the air. They're agile, so they do a good job avoiding your Slingshot's pellets and your sword. Try using your Whip to grab onto their tails so you can tug them out of the air and get in some killer strikes!
Find out more at Zeldapedia: Furnix.
4 - Flush yourself deeper into the temple.
Swim through the newly-revealed tunnel and look for a lever on the other side of a barred gate. You can send your Whip through the bars to tug on the switch, which will oh-so-conveniently open the gate in question. Once you're through the gate, look to your right and use your Whip to swing across the gap to the vines on the wall. Hang onto the vines stuck to the rotating pillar so that you pass over the wall and can drop off there to recover stamina. Then resume your rotation until you reach yet another ledge, this one guarded by a Bokoblin and overlooking a lever in the distance.
The lever will open the gate just above it, so use your Whip to swing across the gap, changing the direction of your swing once you've latched onto the overhanging bar, and jump over to the lever. Once the gate is open, latch onto the bar again and swing over to the set of vines leading up to the gate and head through. Open the valve to activate the drain on the pool in the center of the room, then hop inside and let it flush you through.
5 - Lower the central statue to reach the caves below.
In this room, you can knock down the Skulltulas hanging from the ceiling with your Beetle to flip over the lilypads below them. The centermost one hides an underwater tunnel just beneath it, so make doubly sure you get a chance to flip it and then swim through the newly-opened passage. Up ahead you'll see a Bokoblin guard pacing on the other side of the bars. The door nearby is locked but you can use your Whip to nab the key off his hip. Dropping into the water on the other side of the floor will flush you back into the main part of the temple.
Swim over to the east edge of the room and use a spin jump to reach the ledge there. Flip the nearby lilypad with your Whip, then use it as a stepping stone to reach some nearby vines. From here you can follow the path to a spot overlooking a lilypad below that you'll need to jump on in order to reveal another tunnel below. Swim through it and tug open the valve you'll run across at the other end.
You'll need to backtrack a little at this point - climb the vines at the east side of the room again, only this time you want to flip over the nearby lilypad using the Whip and use it to jump across to a lever you can yank with the Whip to open a gate back to the central chamber. You'll emerge on a previously inaccessible ledge, but if you climb along the vines to the west you'll reach a valve you can pull to open a water-based shortcut should you fall down from here accidentally.
Look for a massive lever that you can only pull with your Whip along the west wall. Activating it will drop the central statue down one floor, giving you access to the catacombs beneath the cistern. Head into the statue and drop down to the spot where you met the Stalmaster, then exit through the door to access the caves.
6 - Claim the Blessed Idol from the cursed caves.
You'll meet yet another Bokoblin variety here: Cursed Bokoblins. You can't defeat them in the usual manner - only a finishing blow can fell them. They tend to come in waves, and come relentlessly, so fight off as many as you can at once to avoid getting swarmed.
Cursed BokoblinThe Bokoblins that have been subjected to the poisons infesting the underbelly of the Ancient Cistern for too long become cursed, twisted, and zombie-like. Looks like their flesh is rotting... They come at you mindlessly and in large groups, but how are you supposed to damage them?
Find out more at Zeldapedia: Cursed Bokoblin.
Head down the east path and cross the cursed swamp using the lilypads, flipping over the one in the middle that's otherwise uncrossable. A massive demonic rock formation glares down at you, but it's just a hiding place for a crystal switch your Beetle can reach by flying into the demon's eyes. Hitting the switch will choke off the cursed falls on the other side of the swamp.
Make your way back across and head to the cave behind the former falls. A Bomb Flower lies in wait that you'll need to deliver to a cracked boulder situated on a spire to the right with your Hook Beetle to create a new stepping stone. Cross the swamp using the lilypads a third time and hop onto the new platform to reach the vine-covered rotating columns. These are very similar to the ones you encountered earlier, but spike traps adorning them make the stakes even higher.
Climb up both columns and you'll eventually reach a ledge overlooking another Whip lever. Tug it from right to left to reverse the direction the columns spin and jump from here on top of one of them. Travel along with it to a previously-unreachable ledge. Follow this ledge and climb on the spinning column again to reach another vantage point overlooking the lever and restore it to its original direction. Seem a bit backwards? This will actually allow you to reach another new ledge - backtrack a bit to the last set of columns and climb the vines to access this new area.
Follow the path for awhile until you're forced to drop down into a room with a single rope hanging from the ceiling. Start climbing it and the Cursed Bokoblins will give pursuit. You can't fight them, but you can shake them off with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk as you climb. Head into the light and you'll emerge back outside the caves. Here you'll be raising the giant statue back to its original position so you can grab the big chest that was trapped beneath it when it sank. Hang a left and pull the lever to lift the statue, then drop back down into the pit you just climbed out of with the rope.
This room actually overlooks the big chest's location. Make sure you open the nearby valves to create a shortcut just in case, then proceed to the chest and withdraw the Blessed Idol that's inside. A bunch of Cursed Bokoblins will rise up from the ground and the statue will start to fall, but if you just run out from underneath the statue they'll all be crushed.
With the Blessed Idol in hand and the statue lowered once again, all you really need to do is head back into the statue and ride the geysers up to the lock at the top floor. Once the seal is broken, tug all four of the valves in the room above to raise the statue's head all the way into the ceiling, where the dungeon boss awaits...
7 - Defeat Koloktos.
Ghirahim looks to have infiltrated this dungeon already, and he revives the ancient machine Koloktos to attack you. What could he be after? The Sacred Flame of Farore?
Ancient Automaton Koloktos
Koloktos looks to have been left behind by the ancient civilization that created the cistern, but Ghirahim has twisted it for his evil purposes. Fight it off to break the curse and proceed to the first sacred flame!
Find out more at Zeldapedia: Koloktos.
Koloktos looks intimidating, but it's not as hard as it looks. During the first phase, it will attack you with its many arms. Just dodge these attacks, then Z-target the joints of its arms and use the Whip to pull them apart. Once all four of its main attack arms are dealt with, you'll see its red core exposed, meaning you can run up and slash away to deal damage. A few hits later and the arms will re-form, and you'll have to do it all over again.
Once Koloktos sustains enough damage, it'll sprout legs and start moving around the arena. Its arms will fight with giant bladed weapons that can knock you off your feet. What's more, a small grate blocks its core, meaning you'll need some heavy weaponry to damage it. Fortunately, Koloktos still suffers from the same weakness. When it tries to attack you with several of its arms at once, slamming them into the ground, use the brief opening this leaves to latch onto one of its arms. This time, yanking the arm off will leave the giant sword for your to pick up and use to wail on the boss. It'll break right through the protective grate and deal direct damage.
This isn't the only attack Koloktos uses at this point. It'll also wave its arms with incredible speed and occasionally even summon forth Cursed Bokoblins to join it in the fight. After a few beatings from its own weapons, however, even Koloktos can't fight anymore.
Retrieve the Heart Container and proceed to the chamber of the sacred flame ahead. As you might expect, you'll need to hit another Goddess Crest with a Skyward Strike to trigger the ritual that will empower your sword. Farore's Flame will strengthen your blade's attack power, leaving you with the Goddess Longsword!
Goddess Longsword
Thanks to the power of Farore, this blade has a sharpened edge that deals more damage to your foes. Two more sacred flames to go before it's fully empowered!
Find out more at Zeldapedia: Goddess Longsword.
