Hidden Ruins and ‘Cotton Candy Hunt’ quest walkthrough for Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom

The Hidden Ruins is a mini dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, which you’ll need to beat as part of the “Cotton Candy Hunt” sidequest — a followup to “Let’s Play a Game” at the Eastern Temple. After losing their delicious spider web treat, the deku scrubs of the Faron Wetlands are looking for new sources of sugar.

In this The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom guide, we’ll show you how to get through the Hidden Temple and complete the Cotton Candy Hunt quest, including letting you know how to beat the dungeon boss, Smog (for the second time!).

Hidden Ruins location and how to start ‘Cotton Candy Hunt’

In order to unlock this quest you will need to have completed the “Let’s Play a Game” quest at the Eastern Temple. You will also need to have progressed the main story long enough to close the rift in the Faron Wetlands. This becomes possible after closing the first two rifts in Gerudo Valley and finishing the Hyrule Castle dungeon. (Our Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom walkthrough can provide guidance on the best order for those tasks.)

Once you’ve done both of these, you’ll be able to find a deku scrub in the Faron Wetlands who’s looking for cotton candy. They’ll say that they heard a voice asking to play a game (sound familiar?) and saw a flying cotton candy.

You might have an idea what they actually saw, but there’s no way to tell them that, and you want to explore the Hidden Ruins anyway, right?

Head south to find them, in the watery area to the southwest of the Faron Wetlands. You can also warp close to the Faron Temple and walk north.

How to enter the Hidden Ruins

In this swamp area, first defeat the two drippitunes (one on the lilypad, and one hiding in the grass at the back of this area) to stop the rain.

Now use water block “staircases” to get to the level of the braziers, and ignizols to light them both. This will cause the statue at the back to move, revealing the entrance to the Hidden Ruins.

Hidden Ruins Room #1

In the first room you will simply find some braziers, jars, and a treasure chest with a monster stone inside. Continue through when you’re done looting everything.

Hidden Ruins Room #2

Sparks are back! Just like in the Eastern Temple, you’ll need to take these two and shepherd them into the cube mechanism at the back of the room. Alternatively, you can cheese it by summoning two sparks and shooting them directly into it. Problem solved.

Hidden Ruins Room #3

Use an ignizol here to set fire to everything flammable. You’ll again find sparks underneath the spiderwebs — either move the boulders so that they can reach the mechanism or use your own echoes to open the door.

Hidden Ruins Room #4

First, use Bind to move the boulder here up towards the cube. The spark that’s orbiting it will follow and enter the cube. Now use the extended echo summon (by holding down Y) to shoot two more sparks that will hit the boulder and enter the cube.

Hidden Ruins Room #5

In this room, climb down the ladders and then make a stack of water blocks to get to the level of the platform with the sparks rotating around it. This works best if you stack them against the wall, not touching the platform directly, as the sparks will electrocute the water. 

Once on the platform, it’s easiest to defeat the sparks so that you’re not constantly dodging them. Spear moblins still come in handy here. Open the chest for 20 Rupees.

Drop down again and build another stack of water blocks on the other side of the next platform. (This spark has to go far enough that you have time to climb it before it gets around to electrocute the water again.) Head into the next room to the right.

Hidden Ruins Room #6

Use a long Y press to shoot three sparks into the cube here. Then you can just pass through into the next room — there’s nothing in the water but electrocution.

Hidden Ruins Room #7

A bit of a breather here. Break the jars and continue onwards.

How to beat Smog, the Hidden Ruins boss

Smog is back! Not very surprising, given the deku scrub’s report. He’ll immediately break into three clouds. If you remember from the last time you played this game with him, you’ll need to cause them to bump into each other in order to recombine them, since they don’t take damage in this form.

In this stage, we used a bed falling from the top platform to push the topmost cloud down onto the larger platform at the bottom. Its path then intersected with the right cloud and soon after the left cloud.

Once reassembled, Smog can take quite a few more hits than previously, but you can wear him down. We found an effective method was filling the bottom of the room with pathblades to make it absolutely hazardous. It still took a while (pathblades aren’t that strong) but was quite safe as long as you stay in the middle of the room and dodge the lightning balls.

Smog will split into five clouds this time. On the right and the left, where there are two platforms being circled, statues will force the lower cloud to rise up, and cause a collision. (You may need to use Bind to reverse their travel direction.)

You can then push the top cloud down for another collision. Depending where the resulting combinations end up, continue pushing and manipulating them until you have Smog back.

The second part of the combined Smog fight is much the same as the first part — and seemed to take less time. Once you’ve defeated him, Smog will explode into a bunch of rupees, monster stones, and a piece of heart. Then you’ll be able to climb out and exit the Hidden Ruins.

How to finish ‘Cotton Candy Hunt’

Return to the deku scrub in Scrubton to tell them the bad news. They won’t believe you, but they’ll see the ancient charm that you got in the Let’s Play a Game sidequest and fix it up for you anyway. It becomes a curious charm which greatly decreases damage when Zelda wears it.

Congratulations on finishing the Cotton Candy Hunt quest! Shame there wasn’t any cotton candy after all.

And for more Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom side quests, we have guides to “A Treat for my Person,” “Cuccos on the Loose,” “The Flying Tile,” “The Rain-Making Monster,” and “The Zappy Shipwreck,” plus details about the side quests related to automatons and getting a horse. Or see our full Echoes of Wisdom walkthrough.