Ice Ruins

The Ice Ruins is a dungeon in. It is one of the seven dungeons in Lorule that can be completed in any order. It can only be accesed by merging into a wall crack through Hyrule. The Fire Rod is also required to enter.

Getting there
The dungeon appears to be an ice fort or castle which has been heavily destroyed. To reach it, Link must traverse a long and perilous gauntlet taking up a significant portion of both Hyrule and Lorule's Death Mountains. Link must first use the Hookshot to cross a broken bridge east from the Tower of Hera, then descend through a volcanic cavern to reach Rosso's ore mine, then pass through a fissure outside to access that region of Lorule's Death Mountain, then ascend through Lorule's version of the same cavern, which is frozen instead of fiery. Along this path there are several signs warning those seeking the Ice Ruins to turn back. The Ice Ruins are next to the upper exit to this cavern, on one of Death Mountain's peaks, in a location corresponding roughly to the location of Turtle Rock in.

Themes and Navigation
The Ice Ruins relies heavily on the use of the Fire Rod. It is full of frozen blocks and enemies, as well as slippery floors. The dungeon has a large number of floors and its layout is based around a central column with a long cyclic chain of floating blocks acting as an elevator system. Areas peripheral to this central column are mostly a network of walkways and platforms over a deep chasm. Although there are cubical blocks of ice that Link can merge into and walk around, there are also more naturally shaped ice crystals that can be destoryed with the Fire Rod and may contain various objects.

The miniboss of the Ice Ruins is a Big Pengator accompanied by a horde of normal-sized Pengators. Defeating them produces a portal linking their room, on one of the lower floors, to the dungeon entrance.

The boss of the Ice Ruins is Dharkstare. Defeating Dharkstare frees Rosso.

Items
The Stamina Scroll can be found inside the Ice Ruins, but claiming it is not mandatory.

Trivia

 * This is the second ice dungeon in the entire series to have "ruins" in its name, with the Snowpeak Ruins being the first one.