The Ancient Cistern is an ancient building that serves as the resting place of Farore's Flame. It is visited as a dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword near the beginning of Link's quest to find the three Sacred Flames to temper the Goddess Sword into a weapon able to activate the Gate of Time and defeat Demise. The Boss of the dungeon is an automaton called Koloktos.
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The Ancient Cistern's design is heavily based on the buddhist myth of "The Spider's Thread" and as a result, the whole dungeon contain and is built around buddhist imagery. As a result, the dungeon is both a water themed dungeon and a dark themed dungeon. The water themed half of the dungeon representing the Pure Land found in buddhism is filled with many drains and switches that allow Link to change the water levels in many rooms of the dungeon or activate various mechanisms. The Whip is actually needed to activate some of the switches and can be obtained after defeating the Stalmaster who serves as the mini-boss of the dungeon. After obtaining the Whip, Link can also use it to raise and lower the gigantic buddhist statue found in the central room, which allow him to access new floors including the lower half of the dungeon meant to represent Naraka which is similar to a dark themed dungeon with a lot of undeads and poison replacing the water. After link finds the equivalent of the Big Key, he is forced to rise from the lower half of the dungeon by using a single spider thread while being chased by Cursed Bokoblins, this is meant to represent the end of "The Spider's Thread"'s story. After finding his way back to the upper half, Link can use the key to access the Boss room and fight Koloktos who was reanimated by Ghirahim, after that, he is rewarded with an Heart Container and the first upgrade to the Goddess Sword.
