Desert of Mystery

The Desert of Mystery is a desert located in the southwest corner of Hyrule in and.

A Link to the Past
The Desert of Mystery is a wide open area filled with cacti. It is the location of the second dungeon in the game, the Desert Palace, which contains the Pendant of Wisdom. The only other features are a few cliffs and caves, one which is the home of Aginah.

The area is swarming with Vultures and Geldmans, as well as bombs that explode at close range, making it somewhat of a nuisance to traverse.

On a cliff in, only reachable with the Flute, there is a portal to the Dark World hidden under a rock. This is the only way to enter the Dark World equivalent of the Desert of Mystery, the Swamp of Evil. On another cliff is a tablet where Link can get the Bombos Medallion.

A Link Between Worlds
The Desert of Mystery reappears in A Link Between Worlds, albeit with several alterations, the largest of them being that the desert is sealed off during Link's search for the Pendants of Virtue, making him completely incapable to reach it. It isn't until Link has access to Lorule that he can enter the desert via a dimensional fissure located in the Misery Mire. Traversing the desert requires the Sand Rod to raise platforms to walk across so that he can access different fissures to enter the Misery Mire, so that he can find a different fissure to reenter the desert, and so on. The Desert Palace also makes a return, but with a different layout compared to A Link to the Past, and it's boss is located in Lorule.

A Link to the Past comic
The Desert of Mystery is also featured in the A Link to the Past comic. Before Link can head out to the desert Sahasrahla's Wife warns Link that traveling through it will not be easy since the "fierce winds and shifting sand" have bested even the most capable adventurers. The young boy who Sahasrahla left in charge of his wife gives Link a hang glider that he can use to traverse the Desert of Mystery with ease.

Using the "miracle wings", Link flies over the Desert of Mystery and locates the ruins of the Desert Palace. Using the Book of Mudora to translate the runes he finds, the ruins begin to sink to reveal a scorpion statue that has the Pendant of Power hanging on it. Before Link can approach it, he sinks into the quicksand and resurfaces on top of a Lanmola. Link tries to attack it with his sword but to no avail; he however manages to retrieve the Pendant of Power from the statue and uses it to defeat the Lanmola.

Trivia

 * The Japanese name for the Desert of Mystery is the same as the Japanese name for the Desert of Doubt in.
 * According to The Great Hyrule Encyclopedia on the official Zelda website, the Haunted Wasteland become known as the Desert of Mystery.