Link quickly followed Anju into the next room, where she looked around. The room was a bit cramped, with maps splayed across the walls and a large table in the middle covered with stacks of paper, a couple weapons, and another map, with daggers stabbed into certain places. Several people surrounded the table most wearing hoods to hide their face. She wanted to look more closely at the map and was curious about the hooded people, but Anju seemed to have something to say first.

"So, what's your name girl?" The red-head asked.

"Link." She quickly responded.

"Nice to meet you. I hope you are worth sacrificing a powerful politician for." Link could tell Anju was looking her over. Trying to measure up her usefulness. Having just beat Mutoh in an arm-wrestling match, Link was sure her strength was vouched for, so she figured she needed to show that she had brains too.

"Like I told you before Anju," Don spoke up, entering the room behind Link, with Mutoh staying behind. Link figured Mutoh was the doorman, so he had to stay in the previous room. "Politics don't mean squat to Fangor, no politician has the power to even annoy him anymore. But he's afraid of Link here," Don grabbed Link's wrist and showed the birthmark. "And she's a decent fighter. She'll be more useful to us in the coming fights than any wrinkled, old politician."

Anju was silent for a moment. Link noticed she looked tired, and despite being young, was starting to get stress lines. Link could tell that she had once been "the pretty girl" of the village that every guy wanted and was treated like a princess. Link was familiar with these types of girls as being weak-willed though, so Anju was a pleasant surprise. She seemed to be made out of some tough stuff.

"I know." Anju said finally, sighing heavily. "I guess it's foolish of me to keep trying the diplomatic approach anymore." After Don nodded in agreement, Anju turned to Link again.

"I suppose we should introduce you to the gang." She turned to look at the other people in the room. They all looked up and lowered their hoods as Anju would introduce them.

"First say hello to Onyx. He's the only Goron in our outfit." The tallest one lowered his hood and revealed the dirt-colored skin of a Goron. He nodded at Link in greeting, looking at her closely with his coal-black eyes.

"Goro…It's a pleasure to meet you Link. I look forward to working with you, goro." He spoke with an odd verbal tic, something Link had once heard was fairly common among Gorons, although none of the Gorons that visited the Lon Lon Pub ever had such a thing.

"It's nice to meet you too Onyx." Link said, nodding and giving him a small wave as Anju continued.

"Over there is Kauli and Kaubi, they're Zoras." Two more lowered their hoods, revealing the sharp angled features of Zoras. Link had heard that the Zoras had once been more human-like in appearance, but had changed over the past millennia to be much less so, while Gorons had apparently grown more human-like in their appearance. Seeing a Goron and Zora next to each other, Link could see it clearly now, Onyx looked very much like a dirt-colored, very large human. Kauli and Kaubi however, who seemed to be twins, were had sharper features than any Hylian had, with long noses, fin-like ears, solid black eyes, and numerous other details that were decidedly different.

"I take it we're the first Zoras you've ever seen." One of the Zoras commented, looking at Link's face with some amusement.

"Ah, I'm sorry."

"It's fine, girl." The other Zora said, snickering at her apology. Link was getting a bad impression from these two that had nothing to do with their appearances. "Just try to keep the fish jokes to a minimum. We barely tolerate Don's."

Link glanced over at Don, who shrugged with a sheepish grin.

"What can I say? They make it too easy."

Link shook her head, finding it to be a small surprise that Don might make racial jokes. He had seemed, if not a gentleman, at least above such distasteful things. Oh well. Link turned back to the Zoras and introduced herself.

"My name is Link. Don tells me I'm supposed to be a Hero."

"Don says many things-"

"-But on this, he speaks sincerely."

Link nodded at the Zoras, wondering if they would have that odd habit she'd seen in another set of twins where one speaks and the other finishes the sentence. At that point an odd thought occurred to Link.

"I'm surprised to see a Goron and Zoras working together, considering the political shit-storm happening in your homelands." She commented, paying close attention to their reactions. Onyx and the twins briefly exchanged knowing looks tinged with sadness.

"As for that debacle-"

"We know it to be a farce." The twins spoke first, so far confirming Link's suspicions of using "twin-speak".

"Goro, we know for a fact that Lord Fangor is in fact responsible for the pollution incident, goro. In his bid to gain control over all of Hyrule, he has much to gain by causing political strife and turmoil among our respective peoples, goro."

Onyx spoke solemnly. Link saw his hand briefly touch his left elbow. Link recognized that look and motion as one of a warrior remembering an old wound.

"And more, because Fangor's such a master of manipulation, he only needed to stage one incident to get the three main kingdoms of Hyrule at each other's throats." Anju said.

Link looked over at her then, seeing the fair maiden standing over the map with the knives in it, staring with icy eyes at it.

"What do you mean?" Link asked, fearing the answer she suspected.

"Fangor knows how invested Hyrule Kingdom is in the continued peace of the land. As such, all he had to do was stage an industrial accident in the Goron's factories. Once the pollution caused by it hit the Zoras, they would cause political strife between their races. And then, the Hyrulians would get involved and try to play peacemaker. But both sides think that Princess Zelda's giving favor for the other side, causing even more tension. Right now the political stresses between them are reaching their peak."

"But Princess Zelda is making things right. I remember the news before I was kidnapped, things were going fine." Link pointed out the obvious, already somewhat knowing what Anju would say next.

"Do you think Fangor will just let the peace talks go as planned? No, we have evidence that soon enough, he will sabotage the peace meeting, and ruin any hope of avoiding war. And worse, Hyrule won't be able to stay neutral. Hyrule will be forced to pick a side, or fight both the Gorons and the Zoras. Either way, if this war breaks out like Fangor wants, whoever is left standing will be left too weak to defend against Fangor's army of goblins and monsters."

Link's mind recalled the sight of the pig-headed guards of the prison, which made her think of another question she had noted to herself. "That reminds me of a couple things. I had heard that the real reason behind Princess Zelda wanting to have the peace talks with the Gorons and Zoras was to get them to realize the threat Fangor posed. To unite them against him."

"Another reason Fangor will sabotage the meet."

"Yeah… Also, when Don and I snuck into town, I noticed that the guards around town weren't goblins like the ones in the prison. Are they really loyal to Fangor, and do they know about his 'experiments'?"

"Yes, they are loyal to Fangor, but not by choice. They are in fact, part of a difference experiment, involving brainwashing. Right now, every guard of this town has the exact same mind, same memories, and same name, even though they were all once normal citizens."

Link tried to absorb what Anju just said, but it took a moment for her to truly appreciate what was just said. "What…what do you mean?" She asked for confirmation, fearing that she had heard right.

"Fangor kidnapped numerous citizens of this city, and erased their former lives. All guards of this city think they're names are 'Steve' and have the same memories for their entire lives. When we captured and interrogated one of the guards, who used to be a man named Drake, he told us about this entire life he remembers, which we know is false, including a wife (never married) and kids (never had any) as well as being hand-picked by Fangor to be a Guard of the 'Best City in Hyrule.' After questioning several other guards and getting the exact same life story, we figured out what Fangor was doing."

"That's…horrible." Link whispered to herself, dreading what it would be like to lose your entire life and have it replaced by a fake memory.

"That's not even the worst part, Link." Anju said, a horrible sharpness edging into her voice. "The process is irreversible. We've tried every method we could think of to reverse the process. The only avenue we haven't explored is the purely magical ones. Don's the best mage we have, and he's only capable of party tricks. So until we find a way to fix them, we have about a dozen guards in the sub-subbasement chained up."

"Why don't you have any better mages at your disposal?" Link asked, looking at the last two hooded guys, who hadn't been introduced yet. They had been silent this whole time, as if waiting to be addressed.

"That, again, is answered by another of Fangor's experiments." A young voice came from one of the hooded ones.

"I'm beginning to sense a pattern here." Link said dryly, in regards to how many experiments Fangor was apparently doing.

"Yes, Fangor is quite the mad scientist. I should know, I was once his head researcher." The taller of the two, with a high squeaky voice, lowered his hood at the same time the other did. The man was bald with goggles on his forehead, and he had a long pointy nose, as well as a large tooth sticking over his bottom lip in an overbite from hell. "My name is Doc Bandam. And this is my daughter Aryll."

The girl looked to be about twelve years old and she smiled warmly at Link as she greeted Link. "Hiya! I'm Aryll, and I'm going to be a pirate one day!" She waved a telescope she pulled out of her sleeve in the air. Link raised an eyebrow at Bandam.

"She may act childish at times, but she's quite smart and mature for her age. She just has an odd fascination with pirates for some reason." Bandam smiled and rubbed the Aryll's head.

"So, what was that part about you being Fangor's head researcher?" Link asked.

"Ah, right. I was recruited by Fangor back in the early days to do practical research. It was back when Fangor was at least still trying to look nice, so I didn't know. My primary research was into restorative potions using Chu-Chu jelly, based off an old folk remedy. However, when the research topics started to turn military in purpose, I started to ask questions. I was told it was just for the defense of the city, and I bought that for a while. But one day I entered a lab and found the human experiments. A citizen had been kidnapped off the streets and was having some vile looking red gunk shoved down his throat. His transformation started immediately, and within moments he was what we now call a Goblin. But he was an early, rough model. He died within moments."

"Um." Link interrupted Bandam, looking at Aryll, who didn't seem bothered by the topic of discussion. "Should a child be hearing this stuff?"

A sad look came over Bandam's face as he looked at his daughter.

"I know everything about Papa." Aryll answered for herself. "And I understand what these people need to do." Link could tell by the way she spoke, she wasn't just a child acting like an adult. Link could tell that Aryll had ceased to be a mere child some time ago, and it worried her what might have happened to have caused that change.

"Right…"

"Back to my story." Bandam continued. "I of course realized several things immediately. My employer wasn't the saint I thought he was, and that the lives of me and my family were in danger. I made no attempt to stop or interfere with any immediate activities, for fear that it would draw attention to myself. I acted like business as usual as I made my way to my office and prepared to leave. By the time I got home, however, it was already too late. I saw my daughter running out of the house to me with men behind her, chasing her. I knew then that Fangor had somehow already deduced what I was going to do and had come to take my family hostage. I had no idea where my wife was, or what had happened to her, but I had an idea. I made a decision then to protect my daughter, no matter the costs. I grabbed her and ran, eventually being rescued by Mutoh and taken into his care. Aryll was still traumatized at the time, but I got her to tell me what happened. I learned that the men had come to kidnap her to use her as leverage to control me and my wife, but my wife, well… She was always a strong willed woman. She tried to fight them, and was killed. My daughter fled then, right into my arms."

As Link listened to Bandam listlessly tell his story, she felt a tightness in her chest. It was horrible that such a thing had happened. She looked at Aryll and saw the girl's sad eyes as she clutched her telescope.

"Mama told me to run." Aryll commented in a quiet voice. Bandam nodded.

"Yes, she wanted you to be safe." Bandam briefly patted Aryll on the head before continuing. "As for your earlier question as to why we have no mages at our disposal, which we seemed to have briefly forgotten. The answer is that Fangor has an experiment ongoing that has led to Fangor rounding up everyone in the city who has any form of Magical Talent or Magical Energy in their blood. The blood of our city's mages is being drained and used in experiments where Fangor compares their blood and his own. All beings implanted with Fangor's blood become those pig-like goblins, as you've seen, but other's people's blood has different and lighter effects. From what I understand from our inside source at the research facility, no other person's blood has had as much of a dynamic change on a subject as Fangor's blood, but there have been changes. Going with what we've heard from Don, this is likely because no one's blood has as much Power as Fangor's, considering he possesses the Tri-Force of said attribute. Notably, people with significant amounts of Magical Energy have caused minor change. A person named Layne was once considered the most promising mage of our town, having the largest store of magical energy and a moderate amount of natural talent. It seems that when her blood was used, the subject took on a few traits such as developing a few scales and non-functional gills. She also happened to have a penchant for Water Spells, which is believed to be related. When Fangor mixed his and her blood and administered it to a subject, a large fish-like monstrosity was created, apparently the result of Layne's 'attribute' combined with Fangor's raw 'power'. Fangor has done several such experiments mixing his blood with others to create a veritable zoo of monsters."

Link stared at the ground silently as she digested all the information that Bandam had said. Thoughts swirled around her head violently as many questions came to mind. She briefly glanced over at Don, who nodded at her as if to affirm to her that it was all true.

"I've snuck into the research lab when getting supplies for Bandam, I've seen a couple of the monsters myself."

"Why do you call them monsters? They were people once." Link said, slightly in protest. It was bugging her for some reason that they called the victims of Fangor's experiment 'Monsters'.

"We collectively call the results of these experiments 'Monsters' not out of any form of judgment, mind you." Anju spoke up, drawing everyone's attention to her. "They're called Monsters because the pain of transforming into those things and losing all physical semblance of humanity causes them all to go insane. It's rare that a person has the willpower to retain their sense of self once changed."

"Oh…" Link responded with more than a touch of sadness.

"After creating these relatively mindless creatures, Fangor usually places various binding enchantments on them to control them. He's shipped many of them to various places throughout Hyrule for some reason. All we know is that they're meant to guard important places." Don said, glancing at the map on the table. "The knives mark these important places. What's confusing is that, though we know he's moved the monsters, we've no idea how he did it without attracting any attention."

Link glanced at the map and saw knives sticking out of Lake Hylia, Hyrule Castle, Death Mountain, and a spot in the woods nearby. There wasn't any indication of what was there, however.

"What's that?" Link asked, pointing at the spot.

Don stepped over and glanced at where she pointed. "That's our first stop tomorrow. That's those ruins Fangor dug up and used to start spouting his Goddess Hylia nonsense. The reason it's not marked on the map as such is because Fangor goes to great lengths to make sure no one knows where it is. It's his proof of his religion but he doesn't allow normal people to see it."

"Then how do you know it's there?" Link asked, looking at Don and already expecting the answer.

"Been there. Nice place, very…ruin-y." Don said with a shrug and a grin.

"Of course. This entire city is on lock-down and you can pretty much stroll wherever you want, huh?"

"I may not have the strongest magic, but I'm specialized. I can sneak in anywhere."

"But you leave a calling card, hasn't Fangor tried to make defenses especially for you?"

"Yes, but he needs to know exactly how my spells work to do it. There are like five different ways a person can magic themselves to be invisible and making wards for all of them is expensive and hard. I actually know a sixth way that, as of yet, has not been discovered by other mage-thieves."

"Wow." Link said, somewhat impressed. "Lemme guess, trade secret?"

"Yeah, actually." Don nodded.

"Alright then, with all that out of the way," Anju interrupted, waving to get everyone's attention. She then addressed Link. "I'm sure you're wondering why we're sending you to Fangor's hidden ruins, right?"

"Uh…kind of? I was distracted by Don's apparent ability to go where he pleases."

"Right, well, these ruins are full of random junk relating to this Hylia. According to the last time Don checked the place out, a new spot had been uncovered that had a Tri-Force sign on it and the Hyrule's Crest. There was also a hieroglyph on it that looked a lot like you."

Link blinked a couple times in surprise at that last statement.

"Yeah, you. That is to say, an earlier incarnation of you. At this point, it's the earliest known incarnation of the 'Hero'. There's apparently a tomb of some kind for this hero that Fangor's trying to open. We think there are artifacts or something in the tomb that he wants. We want you and Don to sneak in there and take the artifacts before Fangor can get them."

Link was quiet for a moment before asking a somewhat obvious question. "Why hasn't Don just sneaked in and stolen the stuff himself?" She looked at Don with a curious expression.

"Because the door to the tomb won't open for me. I can pick most locks, but this one won't budge. Supposedly the key is hidden somewhere in the ruins, but I haven't found it yet. I'm not a fighter however, so I can't just search through the place at will. I have to be subtle. Or I get stabbed. You however, are the 'Hero'. ("Stop calling me that.") You can just fight your way through the place, pick up everything you need, and then open the door and take the treasure."

Link stared at Don incredulously.

"I'm serious. That's apparently the way the Hero works. All those stories about the various Heroes 'dungeon diving' were apparently legit."

"Dungeon diving…ugh…." Link shook her head. She felt like someone was trying really hard to mess with her, making her go through all this stereotypical fairy tale stuff. "I'm so tired…"

"We have a bed ready for you. You can rest up if you like." Anju said kindly, pointing to a door to the side.

"I'll show you where it is." Don said, motioning for Link to follow him. She nodded and started to follow before turning and addressing everyone.

"It was nice meeting all of you." All of the people she'd just met nodded at her and Aryll waved her telescope. "Thanks for rescuing me from Fangor."

She then followed Don through some doors and up some stairs. She briefly passed through an empty tavern area which caused her to pause. Don spoke before she could ask.

"Lanaryu's Beard, used to be the place to be every night. But after Fangor implemented the curfew, business has been dead as people spend their nights huddling in their homes, trying not to draw the ire of the bastard."

Link nodded. She was glad Don said what the name was, because she had forgotten it. "I thought Lanaryu was a province, not a person. What's up with the sign and the name?" She asked as she followed him up some more stairs towards where the beds for rent would be.

"It's part of the Hylian religion. Lanaryu was apparently a dragon-person-thing that served Hylia. When Fangor first started his religion and it was all popular and nice looking, Mutoh renamed his Tavern to show his support. He picked an important figure in the religion, Lanaryu, since he thought the art depicting him was cool."

"Ah." Link said simply as they came to her room. She quickly went in and slumped on the bed. She was out the moment she hit the pillow, and didn't hear what Don was going to say.

Seeing that Link was already out, Don shrugged. He was going to mention the clothes in the nearby closet for her to change into, but he supposed that could wait until tomorrow. He left the room, pausing only to give Link one more look before shutting the door.

Author's Commentary

Wow, sorry for the delay. My girlfriend finally kicked me in the butt enough times for me to finish this chapter. Feel free to encourage her to kick my ass more if you want more updates, apparently I need it. As you can tell, this chapter was mostly exposition, plenty of explanations of various doo-dads going on here and there, as well as introducing some knew people that may or may not be important later on. WELCOME TO LA RESISTANCE!