Link and Samba stepped into the infamous foundry and stopped to look around them. Metal met their eyes in almost every place they could see--which, admittedly, was not very much. Standing in what they assumed to be the foyer, they could see a pair of slanting I-beam girders forming a triangle, point up, in the center and one on each side of it, these triangles being perpendicular in direction to the center one. Link noted the placement of the first triangle's floor ends and the thickness of the beams made it a somewhat difficult squeeze between them and the ones of the others. All three of the basic, yet powerful, shapes supported a set of cylinders--rollers--sandwiched between a lower long, broad, flat surface (to which the supports attached to) and an upper surface of equal size that was moving along. The device emitted a medium-volume trundling noise that served as the first taste of the racket the swordsmen could hear, muffled, behind the three walls in their field of vision.

Above them and flush against the middle of the machine was a woven wire floor, cross hatching the ceiling with dull, rust-colored metal lines. It appeared more sturdy than it at first looked, and the wires were close enough together that Samba would most likely strike one of them if he attempted to toss a pebble through. This was a problem, since they could barely see a sliver of a crystal switch on the ceiling from their position. In the ceiling, two grating-covered pairs of long cylinders emitted almost harsh, white light, the bars glowing brightly.

Before and to the left and right of them, each lined up with a triangle support, were three doors. They were large and rectangular and in double door fashion, though smaller than the ones behind them at the moment. They had no handles--only a circle in the center of the portal that held a largish, octagonal button with a thickness that allowed a quarter-sized hole to be drilled through one side and out the other. The doors themselves were designed with a large goron emblem in the center and rectangles etched into three sections each (stacked broad sides together) on each door in the background of the logo. On the doors to the left and right of them, however, three thick, squared bars were pressing up against the edges of the goron emblem, preventing it from opening if they did, as Link assumed, slide into the walls.

On the far wall, one on either side of the door, was a pair of goron emblems made of red gems. Well, the one on the right was; the one on the left was missing the three triangles above the main shape. They could see three-cornered slots where they had fit.

The walls themselves were tall and broad and generally flat, made of panels of metal. At places, there was an open panel, revealing rock within and, occasionally, a few exposed cords of wire with different-colored coatings (probably to tell which went where), some showing the metal beneath and sparking every now and then. Below them was a floor that consisted of a thin layer of tannish dust, with more of the covering the closer to the entrance one got, and, surprise, surprise, metal flooring. A pattern of raised, perpendicularly-oriented, pointed ovals provided better traction and an interesting, state-of-mind inspiring feeling when one looked at it.

To be blunt, there was a lot of metal.

"This is going to be a very annoying dungeon, isn't it?" Link asked a little weakly, looking about at the cold hardness and new sights, mostly above.

"Let's not forget a very long day," Samba added grumpilly, doing the same, mostly at eye level.

They looked back at each other, sighed, then nodded resolutely and began. Link walked forwards to the first door, Samba behind him, and, after getting a good look at it (assimilating the description above), shrugged and pressed the button. The button stayed inside the circle, which depressed inwards a little, turned a third clockwise, and seperated from the left door as both slid apart moderately slowly, allowing time for Link, then Samba, to run through.

But even before they entered the next room, the relative quietness and moderate coolness of the foyer vanished as their flesh and their eardrums were hit with an onrush of air and what it carried as soon as the door opened. Heat started their sense of touch feeling waves crawling up their skin and hide, while their sense of hearing was sent telling their hands and paws to cover their ears reflexively as the sound came.

The grinding of gears turning each other.

The rattling of wheels moving along tracks.

The whining of iron sliding across steel.

The sizzling of metal pouring onto surfaces.

The roaring of motors running machines along.

The blaring of sirens signaling dangerous operations.

The ringing of tools striking temporary bells.

The clamoring of industrialization working relentlessly ceaselessly.

The foundry was very, very aptly nicknamed, indeed.

"Great Din!!" Link swore loudly as this experience met his ears.

"You said it!!" Samba shouted as it met his.

They stood, ears reluctantly naked, as they took in the gargantuan monstrosity of a chamber they now stood inside. On the floor they were on at the moment was probably the most activity. Ahead to either side of them was a normal minecart track with a platform on each, ready to take large loads to either one of the moving floors to their farther, immediate left and right. Each one went through a large opening in the wall that they could pass through if they rode the machine. Further from them was a series of large square sections of flat metal with little troughs of rock going through the centers of the squares. They led down to a great, jagged chasm whose contents were illuminating that part of the room very well without the need for the (broken) bar lights that they saw there. Above the troughs and tracing their paths from above was a hanging track, from which traveled suspended, odd structures of what appeared to be stone from their doorway standpoint. A track branched from the main track to hang over one of the cart tracks, one for each. At the junctions and various points along the hanging track were small hunks of metal whose purpose was a mystery to the outsiders. Directly above them was a solid metal-floored path that formed a wide catwalk around the room's second floor. On the walls at regular intervals were those lights from before, but one each this time. Some were, like the ones near the chasm, broken, revealing they were actually glass tubes with wires inside.

But all this was nothing when they found what was to their direct right.

Walking towards them, fizzing and sparking with electricity now and again, was a tall, jerky creature, which resembled an artist's wooden posing mannequin in shape. Instead of wood, it was made with smooth sheet metal (bearing many patches where wires, metal "bones", and other strange inner workings stuck out or were otherwise visible) and big hinges as elbows and knees and other joints. It clanked and squeaked along, faceless head jerking in odd directions as it moved, arm outstretched for them (and also failing to keep straight). Link and Samba instantly drew their swords, the human drawing his shield and the lizalfos ducking partly behind him. "What is THAT?" Link asked, keeping his eyes on it.

"It must be one of the monsters that Boroy mentioned!" Samba answered. Both had to raise their voices to be heard above the din.

"Anything else?" Link asked as it finally got there. It stopped and tried to swing a punch at them. It reeled back, then, in good right cross form, twisted its body section around halfway before jerking back for a split second, sort of "rewinding", then continuing the attack. Link blocked it with a grunt, being pushed back a little.

"I don't know," Samba confessed bluntly with a grimace.

"Thanks," Link said half-sarcastically. "Well, let's see if I can do anything at all!" He swung with the Master Sword and instantly regretted it. Not only did it bounce off the golem-like creature, but Link froze his position and jittered about a bit, a buzzing sound coming from the thin twigs of electricity covering his body before he was blown back into Samba, who yelped and turned his sword away before he accidentially stuck his partner through the belly.

"Well, you can get the world's hugest static shock," Samba grunted as Link got up off of him.

As the blue-scaled warrior stood, Link looked at the machine and said, "I'm going to just stay away from them for now," with a little uneasiness.

"Good plan," aggreed Samba, and they dashed off, going between the cart tracks and away from the creature. They found that other monsters inhabited the room as one slammed into Samba from the side. He grunted and got up for the second time in half a minute, growling as he looked around at what hit him. "Oh, great, YOU guys," he complained, narrowing his eyeridges more in annoyance than rage. "Trying to get a little revenge for the Empty Cavern, I see?"

"Huh?" Link turned to see him sidestepping a helmasaur as it charged once more. Samba spun about, slashing at its backside as it passed. Link took the idea and ran around the monster while it turned to face its attacker. He slashed twice at the exposed rear and the creature let out a high whine that was lost in the noise of the room as it fell. "Helmasaur, I think...What for, 'revenge'?" he asked, looking up again.

"Rargon played some kickball with them when there wasn't a ball to kick," Samba answered, smirking. Link, thinking about the difference in sizes, couldn't help but burst out in a bout of laughter.

They continued on and found three more helmasaurs and two more of those mechanical creatures, as well as a few bokoblins and a tall, dirty yellow-plated, statue-like creature--one on either side of the room--that, when they got close, turned its red, actually sullen-looking head/eye and fired a focused beam of light at them that was unblockable by their shields and very painful. "Those are Beamos, Link!" Samba scolded Link as he was struck by one and blown back (the lizalfos ducking this time). "You've never heard of them? ...Well, they're mechanical sentinels with the ability to fire thin beams of focused light or something from their big eye that burn painfully. Use explosive means to defeat them!"

"But we're knee-deep in goron territory and have yet to find a bomb," Link pointed out, getting up. "Notice that little cosmic joke yet?"

Samba raised an eyeridge. "No, but that's interesting, nonetheless," he said before hearing the sound of the beamos charging the laser, which was like a sucking in of electricity instead of air through one's lips. He trotted away to avoid the attack. "Let's leave them alone for now, too, and move on," he suggested, and Link agreed.

The place they found the beamos statue was relatively nearby the chasm. The edge of the chasm was jagged and irregular, as if it were widened by some violent force. It was also very broad; the other side was a fair bit too far for Samba to jump. Below them was a long pool of what appeared to be lava, but it could have been pure melted metal, since it appeared the troughs were built to safely drain excess down there. "But why waste the metal?" wondered Link to himself. Regardless, when they looked down there--heck, just being near there--they felt uncomfortable from the heat and pulled back. (They had already been feeling quite warm, even before they got near the chasm, since the hotness there was heating the air of the entire room like an oven. If it were not for Samba's reptillian heredity and Link's Goron Tunic, the duo would have been baked alive thanks to convection.)

Another thing they found near the chasm was a large central structure. It had four corners, two of which were precariously near the edge of the chasm, and at each was a tall support beam with a covered wire wrapped around it. These went upwards to a bundle of gears and belts high above in the center of the ceiling. Attatched to this main machine was a higher network of hanging track, this one thicker and carrying thick, dark metal buckets, each of which had a tapered spout for pouring. These buckets varied in size, but they were all pretty big, at least as big as themselves. Turning their attention back down to their floor, the pair noticed a very different floor within the four corners of the square formed by the supports.

It was split up into a 5x5 grid of metal tiles, a screw at the corner of each tile (except on the outside edges) and at least one deeply indented line on each square. All of the lines at least went to the center of the tile, but there were more unique tiles than repeats, with some having two lines in differently-turned "L"s, and some had three lines in "y"s, for instance. The tiles in the corners all had a line going into the corner posts, meeting the wire that curled up the support. Five of the tiles had large, geometric-shaped holes with a short rod pointing up in the center, and three large blocks, each using the area of a tile, with a chunk on the bottom in the same shape rested in different places around the grid.

Link assessed the situation in a heartbeat and knew that he was looking at a puzzle, and the smile of one willing to take on a challenge appeared on his face. Samba groaned and rolled his eyes and head when he saw this smile, then pushed Link (semi-gently), saying, "C'mon, let's see what we need to USE this for before you try and solve it."

Apart from this spectacle, there was also the other side of the chasm. The their-floor hanging track went over three molten rivers that must have served the troughs' purpose on that side. They also, when they got there, saw that there were ladders on the sides of the chamber. However, the ladder on one side was broken, and Samba couldn't jump from it to the piece above without more practice in those situations, he explained.

They shrugged at this and turned to the right to the door set right near the chasm, on the same side of the room as the broken ladder. Link opened it, ran through, and Samba followed as the door closed behind him, shutting the noise out behind them and letting them cool down a bit. "Oh, my ears," groaned Link, holding them for a moment. "Sweet relief..."

"Well," Samba said as they heard the clattering of something going across a hanging track to their left, "almost. We're just going to have to get used to it, I guess. I mean, hey, they don't call this place Clamor Plant for nothing, eh?" He tried to smile a little at this.

Link tried a smile back, then looked around. They were in a room with a large stairway to their left. It curled up and to the right around them. Behind a wall of bars that they could easily get projectiles through was the track guilty of the noise a moment before and then just this moment. Around the walls at about three-fourths Samba's jumping height were circular, white lights about the size of saucers that gave off less light than the bar lights before. They let off a quiet hum that they would only hear should they place their ears to them. Before them and underneath the second floor that the stairs went up to was a pair of doors, one in front of them and one on the right wall nearby it. They trotted over.

Suddenly, as they crossed the middle of the room, the sound of a blade sliding against metal to their left alerted them to a large, spiky, disklike, maroon-and-steel object hurtling at them from under the stairs. It slid across the floor in a straight line. Link was able to run at escape it, but Samba had to jump to avoid it, barely making it. The trap clanged against the wall before it began to draw back to where it was, going slower than it went out.

"Well, I wonder what use THAT serves the gorons," Link said sarcastically, turning and watching the thorny thing creep back underneath the stairs' shadow.

"That's a Spike Trap, which is, basically, nothing more than an enchanted hunk of metal," Samba identified, pointing at it. "Specifically, it's a 'seeing' one, as evidenced by the colored paint on it. It detects intruders in its path and shoots in a straight line at them." He smirked at Link. "Maybe it's a deterrent to keep anyone who can't curl up into a ball of rock out of whatever room's over there," the lizalfos joked, thumbing to the door behind them. They went over and examined it.

The use for the hole through the door button was revealed. A rod was currently in the hole, blocking the button from being pressed. And, to ensure the rod wasn't removed, it was part of a big padlock that hung on the door. "Great, it's locked," Link said, lifting up the lock. "We need to find one of those small keys."

"Why don't we start by looking over there?" suggested Samba, pointing to the other door. They went through it and found another noisy room. It wasn't as noisy as the other room before, but it was full of the trundling of the moving floor. One big moving floor snaked its way around the room, and on it was...well, nothing, at the moment. In front of them was a pathway wide enough to walk down, but a bit barely. Above them was a second floor part that, when they ran out and looked behind them and up at it, was a balcony.

"Hey, there are bars up there, too," Link noted, pointing at them.

"They're probably there to make sure whoever goes up there doesn't fall down and hurt the machinery," Samba chuckled.

"Yeah, but good luck getting up there to begin with, now," said a voice to their left, and they looked across the moving floor. There stood three gorons in a line, each looking pretty tired. They each held an apparatus in their big hands that consisted of a hose going into the wall, a metal tube at an angle, and a nozzle at the end. A short pillar with a button on it stood next to them on their left, whereas they held the device on their right. The goron in the middle appeared to be on a sort of special platform, since the floor beneath him was different--plain metal instead of the textured flooring--and there were walls on either side of him made of metal boards that formed a boxed "X" made of the same metal. His tool's hose appeared to be much longer and skinnier, as well. All three also wore a flat, rectangular, iron mask with a window for their eyes. These masks were being raised and looking up, sitting atop their wearers' heads. The goron on the right--the nearest--waved with his left hand. "It's great to see some new faces around, especially ones made of flesh instead of metal," he said, being the one who spoke before.

"Oh!" Link raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You're the gorons who are stuck here!" He jumped onto the moving floor and trotted across, moving to the other side of the goron. Samba chose to remain behind.

"Eh? Yeah, we're some of the gorons stuck here," the goron said, nodding. "What, you guys here to rescue us?" Link nodded. The goron chuckled. "Well, that's nice, but if we gorons need rescuing, it's a pretty bleak situation. I doubt there's much a hylian and a lizalfos--an interesting combination--can do."

Link shook his head. "We're going to try," he said.

"You're gonna try?" the goron reiterated, raising an eyebrow. He smiled and nodded. "Thank you, brothers. If you can, try and get up onto the second floor, there. There should be a big red button that will shut off these conveyer belts."

"Conveyer belts?" Samba asked. He looked at the moving floors. The floor, split into strips of what appeared to be black canvas-covered metal or rock or even wood, moved along. "Is that what these are called?"

The goron nodded. "Yes. They carry large works around this room and another room nearby," he explained. "Now, though, they're under control of the mechanical creatures around here."

Samba furrowed his brow. "Any idea what those creatures are?" he asked.

"Yes, actually," the goron replied, raising an eyebrow. "But shouldn't a smart monster like you know about mechanoids?" He crossed his arms.

Samba sighed and held his paws up in defeat. "I do, but my memory's foggy about when I learned about them," he answered. "Those mannequin-like things seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite recall what they are."

"Well, try harder, brother," the goron told him.

Link got back over to Samba and beckoned. "C'mon, let's see if we can get up there," he said, and they jogged around the corner of the conveyer belt and across a gap between the belt and a stairs of metal that went up to the balcony above the door. It started on the right (from when they entered the room). They instantly saw why they couldn't get up, though.

Right in the floor in front of the stairs was an odd, round, stout machine that popped up and began to spin blades and strips of spikes around its middle that, along with a high wall of fire that shot up powerfully on either side of it, prevented the two from getting across safely. The top was flat, they noticed, and Link had the urge to push it back into the floor. They could do nothing, however, so they returned to the goron. When they did, the machine retracted its weaponry, stopped the fire walls, and plopped back into the floor from whence it came.

"See? You'd need to slam that thing back into the ground somehow," he said. "However, you'd need the strength of a goron to do it--it's just too stiff for you two, brothers!"

"Well, why can't you just get up onto the conveyer belts and walk across? Are you too heavy?" Link asked. He looked around. "I don't see how else you could get here..."

The goron nodded. "That's what we do," he answered. "And we COULD just walk across and get onto the other side, but what's the use? The door out to the foyer is barred shut from the other side and going the long way would be suicide. We can't roll around inside the foundry, especially in the pouring room, that huge, noisy place you two must have went through to get here. Without rolling, though, we're too slow to avoid the monsters and traps, not to mention our own machinery, like the sand molds we pour metal into."

"So THAT'S what those are," Link and Samba muttered.

"Not only that, but we're not the only ones in here," the goron continued. "There's two more of us in here and quite a few more of us in the smithery, behind that locked door you saw back in the stairwell. We can't leave without them!"

Link nodded. "We'll find a way to get to them," he said. "We're here to help you, trust me."

"Thank you, brothers," the goron said. "I wish there was more I could do, but I suppose all I can do is wish you luck."

Link thanked him and got back on the other side of the conveyer belt before the two moved out of the room. They ran parallel to each other and the trap's starting position so that they both got on the other side before it got them (although Samba had to yank his tail back). Then, they traveled up the stairs. It went to the right, then the left before getting up on the second floor. Only one door was there, a door to the balcony. Link entered and found an interesting sight.

Counters of levers, lights, and buttons were on the balcony, as were a number of strange, large switches and other devices. Link looked around and found the remains of one of the counters, and among the debris, he found a big red button. He frowned, then shouted through the bars, "The conveyer belt button is broken!"

"Great, they want this thing moving, then," the goron called back. "Thanks, though. Don't worry; if we ever get out of this nightmare, we'll fix it up!"

Seeing nothing else of interest, apart from a second level of twisting conveyer belts on that floor, they exited and went downstairs again. "Link, I think I have an idea," Samba said. "About those mechanical, mannequin-like things. Let me fight them, alright?" he asked.

Link nodded. "Alright, we'll see," he said, and transfered Nayru's Ring to Samba.

Samba, now the leader, led Link out to the pouring room. He ran until he found one of the robots and confronted it. "Link, try your boomerang," Samba said, dodging an attack.

"But it's made of metal! What's it gonna do to it?" Link asked.

"It's a machine! The force might knock something loose for a moment!" Samba said, and Link obliged. To their delight, the mechanoid stopped entirely, the electricity ceasing to spark from its exposed wiring for a moment. Samba quickly executed a four-attack combo, ending with a pair of kicks. His sword bounced off, but he kept going anyway. He resisted hopping in pain from the hard target as the twitchy robot moved again.

Samba had Link hit it with a boomerang strike again, then attacked once more. However, before Link could hit it again, Samba pointed and shouted about fire keese coming at him and to watch out for the--He stopped when Link, hearing about the keese, instantly drew his sword and executed a spin attack, nailing the bats...and the mechanoid behind him. The manniquin was obviously damaged, reeling away, and Link hadn't gotten electrocuted! "Spin attacks work against them!" Samba deduced. "I don't know what makes them so special, though..." (Link, hearing this, looked over his shoulder for a moment, having an idea about the answer, but decided to focus on the fight.)

With this discovery, the bipedal lizard turned and used a spin attack on the mannequin before ending with a reverse hook kick, using his momentum and ability to land formidable kicks together to form an attack Link was unable to do for all his swordsmanship. The machine stood back, head and limbs quirking around a bit before it exploded somewhat and began to fall over. It disappeared before it fell, and Samba smirked victoriously, also mentally relishing the realization he could do something in fighting that Link couldn't (launching an effective attack directly after a spin attack, which normally needs time afterwards to deal with the momentum). "Link, let's do some housecleaning, huh?" he asked, turning around. The red-tuniced warrior was gone.

Link was currently running away from a Beamos while holding something above his head. He got out of range and breathed a sigh of relief before stopping by Samba. He showed him his cargo, a big triangle of red crystal that looked a familiar size. "Agreed," he said.

So, they decided to go and find those triangles from the decoration in the foyer. They found that the first robot thing they had met was carrying one, and they found the last one in another corner of the room, this time carried by an armored bokoblin. While doing this, they noticed that there was a ladder on both sides of the room on this end, too. These ladders, by the way, were actually rungs stuck in the wall, and it appeared the one on the right (when they first entered the room) was now connected to wires. Electricity ran through it visibly, meaning it was unclimbable for now. They decided to forget about this for the moment and went back into the foyer, Samba carrying two by using his tail again. He went slower from the effort used to keep his tail wrapped around an object securely, since the appendage wasn't the most prehensile in the world. He opened the door by pushing the button with his foot and went through with Link.

They inserted the red gems into their original homes. When finished, they stood back and admired the symmetry. Then, suddenly, they heard a click. They turned and saw the bars keeping the door on the left of the room (left from when they entered originally) slide into the wall. "It's open!" Link said. "What a strange reason to close that door." He crossed his arms. "I thought that it'd spawn a chest or something, frankly," he murmured.

"But why not just go through on the conveyer belt in the other room?" Samba asked. He gave the Master Sword back to Link, teleporting Nayru's Ring back, since he wanted him in front to assess the situation faster than he could (and to block anything coming at them with the Hylian Shield).

"You didn't notice when we were near there?" Link asked, looking at him as they walked to the door. "It LOOKED like we could go through the gap, but I saw some needles with electricity on either side of the gap. You'd get zapped by them, I'm sure of it, if you tried to go in."

"Huh." Samba followed him as they went into the next room. He widened his eyes as he saw the contents. "I bet it's to make sure those things don't accidentially start work on someONE rather than someTHING," he guessed.

Before them was the conveyer belt they spoke of snaking its way around the room, perhaps like in the room they were just in. It came forwards from the pouring room and was turing a hard 90-degree right right in front of them. A short ways down, it went through a large, square archway with many red bands painted on with some more foreign doohickies on the sides. Going straight through the center of the top was a proportionately stout pillar with a broad, thick disk on the bottom end. It resembled a many-times-magnified version of a flat nailhead. Rods and other objects of machinery attatched it to the rest of the arch and moved it. It rose up until the top of the disk touched the ceiling of the arch with a somewhat loud clang, then, with a much louder WHAM! sound, slammed down to crush whatever would be below it. Every time it dropped, a hiss of steam erupted out of a pipe on the top right corner of the arch.

Apart from that, there wasn't that much else of particular interest in comparison. They could get around the left of the arch safely, walking through another one of those strange open boxes that the middle goron from before had stood in. A black line in a circle was straight ahead of them on the far wall, casting a shadow on the metal from the ceiling lighting, which was in the style used in the foyer. Overhead was the bottom of what they saw to be another conveyer belt. For some reason, it was unsupported--the conveyer belts below it were probably the reason. It must have had some reinforced bottoms and used the walls whenever possible, as far as Link could tell. In fact, it must have used the wall of a platform to their left above them. Above them, they could see a network of those conveyer belts, some obviously broken. Some of them stopped very short of going out of sight, indicating that the belts must have looped around beneath the rollers and between those and the flooring. 'I thought I saw movement under those things in the first room, but the lighting cast it in shadow,' Link mused. They saw another conveyer belt right of the arch and beyond it, going upwards in a ramp. "This looks like a very complicated room," Link observed aloud. "I hope that we don't have to figure out something too big in here..." He trailed off.

"What?" Samba asked, raising an eyeridge and putting his paws on his hips, a smirk on his face. "I thought you liked those kinds of things."

"Well," Link said, turning his head to look at him, "I generally do, but we could get seriously injured here. Besides, this place is a foundry built for and used by the gorons," he added, holding an arm out and looking back at the room. "If we DO run into problems, we'll have our work cut out for us since it probably has something to do with things that the gorons, not we, would know how to deal with."

Samba leaned out from behind Link and looked at his friend's face, which was calm and looking ahead, then at what exactly was ahead and saw the crushing machine, and finally back at Link. "You're scared you'll get smashed by that thing, aren't you?" he asked.

"And you aren't?" Link asked back, giving an uneasy chuckle.

"No, I am, but I'm sure we'll figure out a way around it," Samba said, crossing his arms. "Well, come on, we're wasting time just standing around."

"That we are," Link agreed, and they went around to get past the machine. They noticed, to their annoyance, a beamos right against the wall and facing another right turn in the conveyer was ahead of them. "I have a feeling that these ordeals go a lot quicker without all of this dialouge..."

"...Link, we going to try and run past that thing? Because if we are going right up by it, my dash should escape its beam, but you'd need to hide to do that," Samba informed him, pointing at the beamos.

"I was thinking of getting onto the conveyer and running along it, but that'll work if we need it," Link replied, raising an eyebrow. He hopped up onto the conveyer after walking past the noisy machine on their right and began running, speed enhanced while going with the direction of the belt.

Following after, Samba smirked again and pointed out, "But there are times when things go smoother because of it." They approached the beamos and both made a short hop across the corner and past the range of attack. As the laser beam traveled across the belt, it burnt a black line and produced a mite more smoke than when it struck metal. The range didn't go much past the turn, thankfully.

Landing, Link grunted and replied, "Okay, that's true, but it's the small talk that can happen, I should've said." Having turned a corner in the hall-like room, they found a new set of factors to consider and hopped off the conveyers on the right.

They had been going the same direction as before, since the belt took a left right after the right, and that went forwards towards another hole in the wall. That wouldn't just involve a shock, but there was a large buildup of stuff on the other side, blocking their progress. This belt was now on their left. Behind them was a forwards-moving belt going along in the direction it would have gone should the left turn not existed. It soon went to another branch, the belt being to their right. Also to their right was another beamos, this one a bit away from the corner but still in this section of the room that made another left farther on. They saw two more arches, one right after the other, on the main belt. The first, banded with yellow, was right after the left turn the belt took and fully in their sight from their position. The other was partially seen, and it appeared to have blue bands. It was unsure what function these machines did, since their tops were thick and likely contained all of the workings. Farther behind Link and Samba was the other belt, which came down from a ramp going up to the wall above, for some reason. To the left above was a belt whose direction was undiscernable from here. Link wondered this; wouldn't whatever they were working on be damaged by the fall or suddenly tumble and THEN be damaged if it fell onto the ramp? He shook his head, not worrying for now.

In front of them as they faced the wall was the full view of what that circle, now to their left, was. What was unmistakably a spring of thick, round wire, coiled into a perfect column of winding metal, stuck out perpendicular to the wall. A covered wire, as they presumed it to be, ran up the wall from where it ended and into the ceiling. They also noticed a blue glass ball with wire in it--an unlit electric light, Link assumed--on the wall very near the coil. Also, above them, there was a giant hinge in line with the coil attached to the bottom of the upper conveyer. A second hinge in the upper conveyer was lined up with the other coil, the "black circle" they had seen before. (It, too, had a blue, unlit light nearby.) "Interesting," Link muttered.

"That it is, but we have to get past that beamos," Samba said, pointing at the statue with the round, rotating eye for a head. "Should we do that dash technique I came up with?"

"Sure," Link said, and, as practiced, teleported both rings to Samba's finger, causing him to hide. In other words, he switched and hid, a term that shall be used for ease from now on when one does this.

Samba nodded and hopped onto the conveyer again. He turned to face down the next turn of the hallway, sidehopped over the (second) early left turn of the conveyer, and landed smack dab in front of the beamos, looking at it right in the eye. Quickly, and with thanks that there was a path wide enough between the wall and the machines, he dashed away from the beamos right as it fired the beam at his spot. He zipped right by and was behind the corner and out of range within two steps. He skidded to a halt, turned, and barked a laugh at the machine. Turning, he took a look at what ended up to be the final portion of the room.

The second archway machine in that section was directly to his right, now, and he saw a fourth and final ahead, the smallest yet. The path of the main conveyer made no more turns, since what appeared to be pivotable bars with an abacus-like array on them that blocked the progress of any product from going one way to slide another made these decisions, now. One was at the corner of the third branching conveyer, now going in a top-left-to-bottom-right diagonal across the belt (when looking at it in the direction the belt traveled). A covered triangle brace spanned the other corner, lined with ball bearings to allow the product to slide over with minimal friction from the belt. 'That'd explain the counting beads on the bars,' Samba noted, using the best translation he had. The next one, behind the final, green-banded machine, wasn't easy to see. To get to a better view, he decided to kill two birds with one stone, noticing the other side of the section of belt the branch went from was occupied by a third (and hopefully final) beamos. He took a (normal-speed) running leap over the belt in front of him and went past the fourth branch-off belt, then stopped and turned to his right. The beamos never had a glance.

The second bar was in the center of the main belt's path and had a pair of shorter bars, forming a "Y". It could point one way or the other and ensure each way was safe for the cargo. Two ball bearing-bearing triangle braces were present to account for the new direction, as well. If the person working there wanted whatever they were making to go right, it would go right, then be carried hard left, forwards, left again, and up a ramp to the second level above. "Is it necessary to be this complicated?" muttered Samba, looking up at the new network of second-floor belts. He looked in the nook formed by the "U" of belts in front of him to find another different floor.

Smaller than the one in the pouring room, it was also much different. On each but one of the tiles in the 4x5 patch was a coil like before or a small block that allowed multiple ones to go out. None of the coils could touch each other, even the ones aligned with one another. If this was a form of channeling electricity, it was a way foreign to Samba, and more than normal. All he knew was that metal conducts electricity from Link's experience earlier. There were other details to the setup that Samba didn't bother to pay attention to for now, muttering about how he'll worry about it later. He turned around and faced another door, mercifully open. He pushed the button, ran through, and let Link out after it closed behind him. "I was about to let you out back there," he told him, "but I'd've had to've dragged you away from what's obviously another potential puzzle."

Link pouted at him before turning to look ahead again. A much quieter room faced them. (Yes, another lengthy, and probably confusing, description awaits. You have only this storyteller to blame for it, seeing as he picked a story featuring an area with a great amount of activity going on in each of the rooms to tell as best as he can. Humblest apologies.)

This room was almost perfectly rectangular; the only thing keeping it so is one first-floor corner directly across from them that had a barred door on the wall they faced. This door was seen behind a couple crates, one taller than the other. Samba noted that he could jump up to the shorter, but then he couldn't jump over the taller. It appeared they were bound to one another. Behind it lay a minecart track, on which ran a small machine that resembled a chariot without horse, sides, and wheels big enough to go off the ground. Instead, the wheels were on the track, enabling the machine to move forth and back, pushing along a metal platform with a small roaring sound that sounded like "rrrrr". It faced their left, since the platform was on the left of it to their perspective. It sometimes went off the track on the right, as they saw after moving to look beside it, but it had no problem since it went perfectly straight back on. This platform appeared big enough to carry the crate bundle, and on its sides were four wide strips of metal that scraped the ground as they formed ramps, which would let the crate be pushed on after the machine pulled the platform to the right (if it hit the end on the left, it would stop before the platform went off the rails and pull it back shortly).

"That pushing machine actually kinda looks cute, compared to the other ones we've seen," Link said, pointing at it with a chuckle and smile.

"Yeah, compared," agreed Samba. They looked around and found more. Another track went in front of them, carrying another small machine that faced the other way and carried another platform. Farther away was a crate that was about as tall as the one Samba could jump to nearer to them. Next to it was a larger pile of crates, some tall enough for Samba to get to. Far down from the closest track to them and to their left was a crate too tall for Samba (around which was another track that was hidden by the central pile) and farther away was a very wide one he could get to. In the parts of the room where the branches (from the conveyer in the last room) led to were large, sloped trays in the floor. They went around the room and took up, from what they could see, the same amount of space, though the one behind the too-tall crate might be shorter than normal. They couldn't tell from there that well, though, since it appeared that sheet metal and other objects piled up high in each one, forming relatively flat tops. The one farthest, probably since it's the first one met on the belt, had the highest, which Samba could get to. They went down from there the farther down the conveyer they went: the one left of the tallest was second-tallest; the farthest from them on the side they entered through was a bit smaller, almost Link-able, and the one right next to them was the smallest, the most attainable by Link.

They could tell there was MUCH more in this room for them to examine by sounds and motions of different things inside. They found a few bokoblins walking around and standing on crates and on top of the room in the corner, oblivious to them as long as they didn't stray far from their spot at the entrance, a helmasaur's squeaking roars were heard in one far corner, and, after they took another step farther in, a whirring sound that resembled a small blade cutting the air constantly and quickly told them a new enemy was approaching.

Hanging from the ceiling were a few odd machines of small stature. They had two wide, but small, white, interestingly-shaped blades with flat points and a rounded edge that came from a white-colored cube, from which protruded a black glass circle with a black rim. A "foot" resembling a much smaller version of the crusher piston before was hidden behind their blades, somehow attatching them to the metal ceiling. They removed this and opened their blades, dropping, as they noticed Link and Samba. Right after they retracted this "foot" into the cube, they half-rolled, set their blades so that the blunt side faced them on the left and the blade on the right, and began quickly spinning them. They slowed their descent afterwards, somehow flying from the white disk formed around them. Using this and adjusting the pitch of the disk, they came down to in front of Link and Samba. Instead of going to attack, though, they hung and circled around them, keeping the black glass trained on them.

"Those black circles are like eyes..." Samba muttered. "They're watching us!"

"It doesn't look like they mean harm, though," Link muttered.

Samba kept an eye on them while they walked past to see more of the room. The hovering things were quick, but they moved slowly away from him while he went past. If he didn't walk, he probably would have come into painful contact with the spinning blades of one. It wasn't too much longer until Link yelped in surprised pain. "Run into one?" Samba asked, turning.

Link growled, drawing Betta's sword and his Hylian shield. "No, they took a two-pronged fork and stuck me with it," he answered, "and I got shocked!" He slashed at the machine and, seeing that he wasn't getting hurt, did it again, defeating it. "They're like keese, kinda..."

Samba yipped comically when he felt a painful shock in the back of his neck and turned, jumping and kicking away two of them at once. They were destroyed instantly from the rapid, blunt force of his big footpaw and he landed, grumpy frown on his face. "Just as annoying, that's for sure," he said.

They dealt with the creatures, of which remained four, and turned to face the other enemies. After defeating the last of four bokoblins (one normal and one armored acting as snipers and two on the ground, with the ground ones in the other far corner while the normal sniper stood wedged on the top of the corner room (you'll see why "wedged" in a bit) and the armored standing on top of the long crate mentioned before), they looked around the other section of the room.

Behind the long crate was a smaller one of equal height, next to which was a same-size but much taller metal crate. (The others were plain wood, a nice change of pace.) The track that went around the too-tall stack in the corner opposite the corner room made an "L", and had a platform-pushing machine, this one on the end facing the wall to the right (they currently faced the wall they came in from). Samba looked around and noted there were also some switches, but he couldn't see that well. So, he jumped up onto the long crate to get a better view.

Now on the second floor, he could see there were many things on top the corner room, like how people place things on top of free-standing cabinets. The roof of that room was about the height of the box he stood atop at the moment. He noticed a broad but semi-skinny crate, probably full of sheet metal, in the middle that discouraged him from jumping to the rightpaw section of the room/shelf when facing it. It was against a more square crate that made a niche on the left. There was a thin gap between the crate and the wall, but he would have to be as slim as a fish to fit inside. In this niche was a peculiar, box-like object that looked to be inside a hole in the roof below. "I think that might be a sort of switch," Samba added after describing it to Link, who could only see a little of it from the floor. He looked back to the roof and looked on the right of the separating crate.

Another crate was partly off the corner of the room, being the last on there. All of the crates were too tall to jump for him, nearly touching the ceiling. A bit farther from that was a circular cage around a sheet metal wall, the vertical bars and the sheet metal going into the ceiling. The horizontal bars actually didn't go the entire way around. Instead, they curved out from the wall in big "U"s. The place in the wall they went to had grooves the bars were at one end of, suggesting they were two sets of separating bars that came together or apart. "Well, well, well," Samba said, smirking, "I think I see where their maximum security cargo goes." He described the device to Link, who raised his eyebrows and let out a chuckle.

He looked about and noticed a couple of crystal switches, one coming from the wall and a bit above the his-level crate to his left and one on the ceiling above the right wall (when facing the entrance wall) end of the track, this one sticking from a pole with lines on it that appeared similar to the lines Samba noticed on the rods of the mechanical keese's "feet". They reminded him of his fishing pole, which screwed apart and together, but he thought for a moment. "Who's to say that you can't have the sections be hollow tubes that slide into one another...?" he muttered a little loudly, chin in paw.

"What do you mean?" asked Link, hearing him.

"Huh? Oh, I'm wondering a new way to make a collapsable pole," he answered aloud, not completely lying but choosing something else to answer with.

"Well, I remember seeing my grandfather taking a thing that was made of a couple of tubes that slid into each other outside to look at the stars, sometimes," Link recollected. "He never let me touch it--he still doesn't, actually--and he called it a telescope."

"Telescope? ...Oh!" Samba put his fist in his paw. "Yeah! Ko has something like that! He says they're hard to make, since you must align and size things perfectly. Thus, they're expensive." He pointed at the ceiling switch. "That thing must be like a telescope...telescopic, I guess you could say," he described.

"Is it me," Link asked, hooding his eyes to sheild from the bright tube lights spaced about in the ceiling as he gazed up at the switch, "or is that thing black inside?"

"The one behind me is, too," Samba said. "I wonder..." He looked left at the roof, curiosity piqued now that he had entered the rarely-explored but larger-than-normal part of his mind focused on problem-solving, which he had used when engineering his fishing pole. He jumped over to the box switch and landed on it. When his weight settled on it, it entered the roof with a dull click and they suddenly heard the soft sound of a chest appearing. It came from the miniature high-security prison cell on the roof. "You hear that?" Samba asked.

"Yeah, I did!" Link answered. As well, he had heard the sound of the telescopic pole extending, making the switch level enough with the second floor that he could hit it with his sword if he got up there. Its contents also brightened to grey, like a normal switch. "The switches are active, now, too," he added.

"Really? Let me see! I can't from here very well," Samba said, and he jumped back to the crate. As soon as he left the switch, however, it came up again. A FFFFFT! sound came from the hollows of the metal cage, the switches went black, and the pole went up again. Samba blinked as this all happened, then cocked his head and went, "...Reh?"

"You've got to have someone or something on the switch at all times, I think," Link said. "Get back on it."

"Well, this is going to be annoying..." Samba grumbled, crossing his arms. Then he snapped his claws. "Wait! Just hide, then I'll release you here. You should be able to jump across to the other side of the roof there and shoot the switches from here, as well. There might be a third nearer to the door that I couldn't see. Then, we can get the chest like that," he finished, snapping his claws again, a triumphant smile on his face.

Link smiled and nodded. "Good plan! Alright, let me hide," he said, and he held his hand up. A few seconds passed, then he lowered it to him again.

"What's wrong? Think of something?" Samba asked, looking over the side of the crate.

"It's not working," he said, holding up his ring. "My Ring of Dualty won't let me hide!"

Samba gasped in horror, then looked at his. He focused, but found he couldn't send his ring to Link. He swore in lizalfos, Link noticing he couldn't understand him, this time. Samba then tried sending the Master Sword over. THAT, thankfully, worked. He cocked his head quizzically. "Well, at least that works," he said, beckoning for the sword again. "That was just a test, you'll have it in a bit."

Link nodded, knowing that they agreed to give the sword to whoever was to take the initiative while the other followed behind or whatever the leader ordered. (That wasn't steadfast, however, for him; his inquisitive, experimental mind sometimes caused him to try things anyway, such as getting the first emblem piece back in the pouring room.) "These rings are way too powerful to be dead," he said. "Besides, mine's still brighter than what an emerald should probably be," he added.

"And mine's more than any ruby," Samba reported.

"I think there's something with this room that is disrupting our ability to hide in the rings, but, thankfully, not coming out," Link said. "We'll have to ask someone who knows about them later."

"Right." Samba sighed aggrivatedly, looking about. He noticed another bundled crate on the floor in front of the tallest conveyer-fed stack, this one like the one they first saw but turned 90 degrees clockwise so the unscalable part was facing the corner room. Now that he thought about it, standing on a crate he had to jump-grab, the shorter crate on it could be used as a stepping stone for Link from a platform he could climb to a platform he couldn't. "Link, I think I have an idea."

"Push those solitary crate bunches and that single crate onto these platforms on the tracks, then use the topography to reach the switches and ultimately the other side of the roof while you sit and wiggle your toes on the switch?" Link guessed, smirking.

Samba raised his eyeridges at this before narrowing them, crossing his arms, and pouting. He grumbled, "Yas, thanks for stealing my thunder."

"You've been having too many clever moments in the past hour," Link joked, grinning. "Sorry, really. I started to figure it out after I realized my ring wasn't working." He rubbed his hands together. "This is actually going to be a little fun, I think, and a good leg exercise." He walked forwards and pushed against the crate, which did budge and slid forwards slowly.

"I'll admit, you've yet to face a jumping challenge," Samba said, hopping back, switching leaders, and, as suggested, sitting on the switch. Not in the mood to fiddle with his big feet--especially with how dirty they've gotten with all of this running around--he got out his guitar and started strumming aimlessly. As he did, he slowly realized he was playing along to a melody that he'd actually been hearing, in different volumes and instruments, all around him from the clanging and other noises. 'A symphony...That guy Boroy was talking about was right...' While the full song was quite busy with the metal sounds, the melody was sort of slow and unsettling (as dungeon music should be, if a little faster than most).

'He usually gets them all,' Link mused, feeling a little happy that he could finally do some jumping, himself. 'But I bet there are things I can do that he cannot, and just as many times.' He waited for the platform to come back, then started pushing the load on. The robot stopped after it sensed a load coming on. As soon as it was entirely on, it made a happy whirring sound as the platform's sides folded up to form short walls. After locking together with a CLICK, the pushing machine resumed its rounds. Link went back to the other two tracks, standing inbetween them so as not to get hit, and found he could push either object--the single crate or the crate similar to the one he just pushed--onto the platform handled by the first of the pushing machines they noticed. He looked at the single crate and noticed that it was on a small platform that was about the height of the tracks. 'I bet I can push that one over the tracks and onto the other side,' he thought. 'Besides...' He looked at the bundled stack, noticing the unpassable side, and then to the other track. '...it would be kinda hard to jump from that one to the plain one if the direction I'm going has a big box in the way.'

So, he pushed the other bundle onto the track-borne platform closest to the room-within-the-room, then, waiting for the now-mobile stack to pass before going over the tracks with it, pushed the single crate across to the platform waiting behind the big stack of containers in the center. It wasn't entirely on yet, and the platform-pushing machine patiently waited until it sensed the load was centered on the platform (Link theorized that the platform pressed down on some buttons underneath it that told it so). After pushing it onto the bot, Link stood and watched the creation of his final moving platform before Samba, watching when he could, told him to Get out of the way, stupid! WHAM! The robot slammed into Link, blowing him to his left, seeing as he wasn't entirely centered with the crate before, and forwards a bit with the great weight. Samba facepalmed while Link grunted and got up, the little chariot robot making a beeping sound, one akin to a goose or a duck honking, using a small horn stowed inside it somewhere.

Now that the stage was set, Link brushed himself off and faced the first of the built-up stacks. He jumped up onto it, pulling up, and trotted around the edge of the room. He hopped onto the slightly-taller one, then jumped the corner slightly as he got to the next, and finally got onto the tallest one. Once there, he jumped down to the first moving platform he'd made as soon as it came. While it rested, he got out his sword and vertically slashed at the switch. It turned light blue, and he hoped it would stay that way.

When it did, both heard a sound. They couldn't see it from the crates, but the horizontal bars separated and slid apart, confirming Samba's theory. A grinding of gears was heard while they went, with a dull thump as they stopped.

Link then kept his footing whilst the platform transported him. He went around the tall stack, the bundled crates turning around with the bend. Thus, he was able to jump to the single crate that was conveniently right there for him when he got there. He quickly jumped over before it left and hung on. He was about to jump over to the next one when he noticed an eye switch in a niche in the wall that had been covered by a shutter before. "That would explain the sliding sound I thought I heard before," he muttered, getting his bow and firing at it once he got into range. The arrow struck it and another mechanical groaning sounded. The vertical bars slid up into the ceiling. Another thump was heard as they stopped, lifting three-fourths into the gorons knew where.

Jumping over to the third platform he made, he waited until he could do a somewhat tricky jump. Since there was an obstacle to his right while he faced the middle stack, he had to go off the edge at an angle to catch the edge of the next crate that he could get to in the middle stack. He looked around briefly after getting safely onto the container that he barely couldn't reach from the floor. A smaller but taller, second-floor height crate stuck out from the too-tall cargo that made the rest of the pile. It was around a corner made by those boxes, and Link had little room, so he had to jump diagonally from corner to corner, catching the edge with his left (and, thankfully, dominant) hand and barely hanging on. Samba grinned at this and half-roared, "Rauaah!" cheeringly after Link got onto the box.

Link made his final jump to the long crate, catching the edge again (but more comfortably this time). He pulled himself up and struck the final switch. Turning, he saw the (thicker than normal) sheet metal lift into the ceiling, going all the way and making a scraping sound as it slid up into the metal sky above. And there, as Samba had thought, was a large chest.

Link whooped and punched the air in victory. "We did it, Samba!" he cried joyfully. "Lemme get to the chest!" He trotted over and did a final corner jump and grabbed the edge at an angle again. He pulled up and trotted to the chest. He opened it up and reached in.

Samba was standing and putting his guitar away when he heard Link go, "Huh?" "May I get off the switch?" he asked.

A couple footsteps--Link stepped away from the range of the metal walls and bars that might come shooting back if stopping the switch made everything reset. "Alright."

Samba made a slow "V" as he went to the crate and then to the roof again. Nothing happened since the chest was opened and the bindings were dispelled, despite the switch popping up again. He walked over to see what Link had in his hands. It was a compass. Raising his right eyeridge and lowering his left slightly, Samba asked flatly, "Well, how's THAT gonna help if we don't have a map of this place?"

Link frowned in thought, looking at the spinning needle. "...Wait," he said quietly, jerking his head up as a thought came. He rummaged in his bag before drawing out the map of Hyrule he had found. Handing the compass to Samba, he opened it up and looked at it, blocking his view of his starting comrade. "...Nope, nothing here," he said.

"Wait!!" Samba stopped him, holding a paw out. "The back!"

Link turned it around and gasped. "That's clever," he said, turning the map so that it was parallel to the floor and open for both to view. He went to the side a bit as he let Samba come beside him, and each held an end of the map as they looked at it.

Lines of gentle light, colored black, traced two rectangles, one on top the other, and a couple Hylian runes formed in the upper right corner, indicating the top was the first floor and the bottom was the second. In green and black light, it traced the rooms they have already entered, but only the outlines of the platforms. The room they were in was brighter and the outline of the room itself was traced in dark purple for some reason. In yellow light, it showed the locations of chests, most of them hanging in spots out in nowhere. A red arrow indicated the point each had entered the floor they were on--an edge of the crate--pointing the direction they faced. Samba's was more faded than Link's. Also, both had yellow arrows that indicated where they were, like normal, but Link's arrow had a blue dot above a green dot, the blue one being more towards the point, and Samba's had a red dot.

Samba held up the compass in his free paw and looked at it. "It must be responding to the Rings of Dualty," he said.

"It has to--otherwise, why would it be picking up the colors of the rings we're holding?" Link asked. They looked and saw that a chest was in an area over the foyer door of the pouring room, they estimated. Link pointed to it on the map, hand and finger partially lost in the light as it faintly shone onto his body, almost as if it were being projected from above. "Let's head there," he suggested. "It might be a key or, better yet, the map."

"Roger." Samba let Link fold the map again before crossing his arms. "It's going to be a bit annoying, unfolding that unweildy map each time we need to get our bearings," he grumbled a little.

"Well," Link said, looking at his hands, front and back, "it doesn't look like it's being projected onto my hands or your paws." He let it fall as he took the compass from Samba's paw. It went into his pack, next to the one he kept from the Forest of Peril.

Samba lifted his right paw to look at his ring. "One can wish," he said wistfully, then he let out a surprised, "RAH!" as something flashed into existance from his ring.

Link looked over and raised his eyebrows. The arrows appeared, but not the map, above Samba's paw. "I stand corrected," he said. "It looks like it's only this room, though."

"Still dead useful," Samba said, letting it fall. He beckoned with his arm. "C'mon, we've got a long way to go, yet," he said with a little reluctance.

"Right, right." Link hopped down and rolled on the floor below, going past the tracks. Samba leaped down and landed in the same spot, restricting himself to leap only as far as Link for now if he didn't need to jump farther. Then, the lizalfos followed behind Link as the two exited the room.

"Hey, you think that we have to do something else to open that other door?" asked Samba as they reentered the noisy conveyer room.

Link, absentmindedly hearing the same melody Samba heard, shrugged. He answered, "It might never open, for all we know. Maybe only a goron can unlock it."

Together, they ran out the room and back into the foyer. Thankfully, the door remained unbarred behind them, since the emblem was still fine. They took a short breather, readying themselves for the noise, before going back into the room that gave them the complete cacaphony symphony.

- - -

AUTHOR'S COMMENTS -- OPTIONAL READING

Yeah, guys, this one's going to take helluva longer than the other dungeons. I'm sorry, and you can blame me for insisting on heavy description. However, as I said at some point before they entered the room with the compass, there's a LOT going on in this dungeon. I pray to dear God that this is the LAST dungeon (at least for a while) with this much stuff to describe. (The conveyer room with the machines and beamos was tedious as all get out, both to write and to read.) It's hell on wheels already without the other little tidbits that I've yet to describe. I'll probably forget to describe some parts and redescribe others, but a once-over after I'm finished ought to fix that. (Which, after I did it, didn't that much, because I'm lazy and there's too damn much info and excess.) But this, kids, is probably why you've yet to see a ton of Zelda dungeons that are supposed to believably function as true structures. (I doubt much of the Goron Mines was built that way on purpose by the gorons, no offense to anyone. If someone can prove me wrong, though, I'll hand it to the Zelda masters for creating a dungeon that has few PITA-to-describe rooms, yet be logical as a mine.)

This is going to be done in multiple parts, but you'll be happy for it with how big it'll be (at least, I HOPE...). I predict at least three total, minus the boss fight. (Speaking of that, I'm thinking of doing something after this dungeon that will spur some omakes, like the omakes I'm now putting at the end of my chapters in Kingdom Hearts: Puzzle of Truth, for those who are so nice to read that one. I assure you, by the way, this fiction won't have any side stories you'll have to read this one to read and understand fully!)

...Also, VERY sorry for how boring this place has been, what with the serious lack of solved puzzles in six (yes, there's only been that many, which includes multi-floor ones) rooms! n.n; I'll try harder now.

Notes on liberties taken this time around:

-The rings providing the minimap. Yeah, it's kinda corny, but it both explains the minimap and will be easier on our heroes. They can dismiss it at any time they want.

-The way they can get the map without the map.

-I'll be providing another liberty next chapter related to the compass.

Thank you for reading and reviewing, everyone! I'm very flattered by some of your comments and am inspired to write as best as I can! n.n