The Legend of

ZELDA

The Black City

Chapter 1: False Trail

I'm so blind... I should've known that the moon would never fall… Damn! If only I would've waited…It was all a set up! They set me up... it was them… The fairies…and the damn giants… The mask was merely the last part of it all, the part set up to take my life away…But it didn't work!!!! It nearly destroyed me… but now I'm here… in this…this city… if I should call it that. The place is brutal… they work me for hours…those fairies! Ha! If they can be called that anymore! They are not fairies… for one day I snuck out of my cell and saw them transform into beasts. I was so dumbfounded that I had forgotten that I was sneaking. They caught me, and with a force like no other I've ever felt…Threw me in here…That green clothed kid… He's in the cell next to me. I am able to talk to him every now and again, during work hours. They stripped him of all his weapons, and all the masks…and now we are here…in this… Black City… Waiting for the sun to rise…To rid us of the horrible darkness of night… when the beasts guard our cells and go off about how we don't work hard enough. Someday, I'll escape this place…but the problem is…When?

***

Link awoke just as the sun came up. He stretched, yawned, and began thinking about how today may be the day that he escapes, although there was little hope. The beasts could smell flesh from over a mile away. Link had learned that from watching a prisoner try to escape. The beasts killed the prisoner when they caught him, and they ate him, bones and all. It was a very gruesome sight.

"If only I still had my Goron mask!" Link said to himself, "Then I could kill those beasts and get out of here!" The beasts had all of Link's items, save for the gilded sword, locked up in a safe that had only one key, and that key was in a tub of acid that only the beasts' skin was invulnerable to. Link peered out of the small barred window in his cell, and he expected to see a guard, but nobody was there. He looked to the left, and there were the two guards, having a conversation with a Deku scrub.

"But if you buy it, I will throw in another special item," the Deku scrub said. Link was distracted from the conversation as he saw skull kid, who was normally in the cell next to him, outside, crouched down right behind the guard on the right, who was carrying Link's gilded sword.

No! Link mouthed. Don't get yourself killed! The Skull Kid Simply acted as though he could not see Link. He slowly brought his hand up to the handle of the sword. He ever so quickly and quietly pulled it out of the sheath on the guard's belt.

"Hey, you smell somethin'?" He asked his fellow guard. They turned around and spotted Skull Kid with the sword.

"Well, well, well, look what we have here," he growled, "a runner."

"Let's get him!" they shouted. The Deku Scrub Flew away, obviously scared by all this.

"Link! Catch!" The Skull Kid hurled Link's gilded sword toward the cell. Link pushed against the door and realized that it wasn't locked. He picked up the gilded sword and ran toward the beast that had the Skull Kid by the throat. He rushed over and swung with all his might. Link thought he missed, but then in a gruesome scene, the monster's head fell to the floor, the hulking body still standing upright. The Skull Kid ripped the now dead hand off of his neck.

"Run! Find the way out!" Link yelled as Skull Kid sped away from him. Link turned around and looked the other monster straight in the eye.

"Unless you'd like the same fate as your partner, Tael, I suggest you do what I tell you to," Link said through gritted teeth. "I want my shield and all of my other items back. That includes the masks!"

"Fine, fine. Follow me." The beast said without a change of emotion. Link was led to a large room with a tub of acid and a very large safe. The beast reached into the acid and retrieved a gold key.

"Open the safe and take your things." The monster handed Link the key. Link pulled out his mirror shield, which he had gotten back in Termina from the well in Ikana, the Hero's bow, from Woodfall, the light arrows, from the Stone Tower Temple, and just as he reached for the hookshot, he looked up and noticed a table on the ceiling.

"What the?" he whispered. He grabbed the hookshot, and just as he reached for the Fierce Deity's mask, the beast pushed him away and destroyed the safe. The monster then grabbed every item and threw it all into the acid tub.

"You're next, Fairy boy!" he growled. Link ran for the door, the monster following close behind. He ran outside and to the edge of the cliff where his cell was, and he saw Skull Kid down below, waving his arms and gesturing Link to go to his location. Link searched the cliff with his eyes and spotted a ladder. He dodged the monster's claw and slid down the ladder. He met up with Skull Kid at a long wooden bridge. As they ran, Skull Kid explained things to Link.

"There is a ladder across this bridge, and I saw a portal. I don't know if it goes back to Termina, but I think it does because I'm almost positive that that's where they brought us here from. Now hurry! The ladder is just up ahead, and he's catching up!" The two got to the ladder, and they scrambled to the top. Just as the beast was reaching for Link's ankle, Link dove through the portal, Skull Kid right after. They fell to the floor of the lower clock tower.

"Did we just come out of the ceiling?" Link asked, rubbing his head, still running.

"Yes, that is where they took us through, remember?" Skull Kid replied.

"I must've been knocked out or something," Link guessed. The two ran all the way to the laundry pool in Clock Town. They reached Kafei's old hideout, which was now just an abandoned room. They entered and began talking about what had just happened.

"So you weren't able to get all your items back?"

"No. He threw them into the acid tub. I'm just glad I have the light arrows and hookshot back, though. Oh yeah, did you notice that like, where ever there was a floor, there was a ceiling right above it? Even outside?"

"Yes, I did, and I thought that was weird, because it's not like they could walk on the ceiling or something."

"Wait a minute, Skull Kid! I think I've got it! I went to a temple called Stone Tower, and I was able to turn it upside down to fully access it. It didn't just turn the temple, though, it turned the whole world upside down!"

"I think I know your idea, Link. We head to the tower, I turn it upside down, and you somehow find a way back to Clock Town in the upside down world. Then, you enter the portal into the upside down city! Is that what you had in mind?"

"Yep! Exactly! So let's go to Ikana canyon!"

"But I thought you said- "

"Well to get to stone tower, we need to go to Ikana canyon first. So let's go!" The two left the laundry pool and began to make their way to the Stone Tower.