Check this ice, son!

Blue Ring: light of my life, fire of my loins.  My sin, my soul...

There's a giant lake in the middle of the Overworld.  If you follow the western edge of this lake northward until you can go no further, you will come across a cave.  Inside this cave is the best magic item in the game.

Fig. 1 - BLING BLING

The Blue Ring, once worn, cuts damage in half.  It's a necessity if you have any ambitions of getting past Level 3, and will make your life infinitely easier if you obtain it prior to delving into Levels 1 and 2.  At 250 rupees, it is by far the most expensive item in the game, but well worth the price.

Fig. 2 - Link makes a bold fashion statement upon donning the Blue Ring

I have to wonder, though, about Hyrulian economics.  It's a strange world in which a piece of bone-in meat costs over 20% the value of a fucking magic ring.  Also, why does a key cost 80 rupees?  Clearly, there is no Home Depot in Hyrule because you can get a key for, like, a dollar.  There are two possible explanations for this discrepancy:

1. Hyrule's currency is on a logarithmic scale (11 is 10x greater than 10, 12 is 100x greater than 10, 13 is 1000x greater than 10, etc.).
2. The game's creators gave little thought to monetary policy, a point made particularly clear by the fact that the maximum number of rupees Link can hold is 2^8.

Given my intense bias in favor of all things Zelda, I will lean on the second first supposition.  In any case, we're finally getting somewhere in LoZ!  I've got the Blue Ring, the White Sword, and a bone to pick with a princess-nabbing lord of darkness.

Let's do this.

The Second Dungeon

Level 2 is in the woods northeast of the starting point.  I actually stumbled across it (and Level 3) before I found Level 1.  In retrospect, Level 1 should have been easier to find, but I did more of a depth-first than a breadth-first search.  Graph theory, son!

Alternatively known as The Moon, Level 2 was fairly straightforward, though I was shocked to find the Magic Boomerang here.  I sort of forgot it existed in the first place.  I was so jazzed about finding the normal version in the first labyrinth that I forgot there was an upgrade just one level later.

When you get the Boomerang, you're first thought(s) might be "WTF?  What am I supposed to do with this primitive weapon that barely fits into the scheme of the pseudo-medieval world of Hyrule?  Am I, Link, Candidate-Savior of this magical realm, He Who Must Save Our Titular Princess, expected to wield this ridiculous wooden banana during my quest?"  It is not long before you realize the Boomerang is the most useful item in the game.

With the Boomerang you can:

• stun enemies
• pick up rupees, hearts, fairies, bombs, etc.
• destroy small creatures at range

The limitation is its range, maybe about 1/3 of the map?  The Magic Boomerang extends your range across the entire map.  It is the bomb.com!  I've developed a tactic whereby I stun enemies and go to town on their stationary asses one by one.

The Boomerang, magic or otherwise, unfortunately doesn't affect Dodongo (Fig. 2), the boss of Level 2.  As a matter of fact, nothing affects Dodongo.  However, the Old Man finally had some useful advice for me (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1 - But what are his thoughts on mirrors?

Of course, I fell back to my favorite item in the game: bombs.com!  Beating it is pretty simple.  Aside from external invulnerability, its only real power is its ability to take a random walk.

Fig. 2 - It's not a triceratops, it's a Dodongo!

All you have to do is get a step ahead of it and drop a bomb into its mouth.  Two bombs later, you are sitting pretty holding a piece of the Triforce With Wisdom (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 - Victory.  It happens sometimes.

At the end of Level 2, my inventory looked like this (Fig. 4):

Fig. 4 - BLING BLING

As you can see, I've earned enough rupees to buy the Blue Ring!  Fantasy world fashion statement, here I come!