They entered the largest square room they'd ever been in. The din took on a slightly subdued feel compared to Pouring, as did the color scheme. Instead of warm colors, cool steel and iron and bright electricity filled the busy room. Well, the room that could be pretty busy if it wanted to. To their right was a big, steel cylinder that reached up to the second floor, holding a platform, and past that was something odd they couldn't make out from there. To their left were six thick girders supporting the diamond sheet print metal-floored balcony they were just on. In front was the machine they saw earlier.
It was circular in shape and had a ramp going left partway up it after an elevated landing in a spiral--it appeared to be broken, with the other part (if any) not visible at their vantage. A console was on the landing. Only the landing had a railing. For the device itself, it was basically, they realized, a huge, fat cylinder. A close-knit version of the chain link fence covered it. Behind it, they could see a huge...THING behind a few very big girders that formed its outside. Light blue light glowed dimly from between the black shapes of the girders. On the floor around it on the right of the landing was what appeared to be a curved cut, with a hinge on a corner it made. 'A ramp?' Samba wondered. From around the left side of the central device came a red glow, like magma.
There were also some enemies in there, as they found when bokoblins, both armored and not, came at them in two swarms of at LEAST ten or fifteen. They didn't have much room between the door and the landing (which was actually balcony, but not THAT wide of one), so the two moved away to either side, handling each swarm of enemies on their own, happy to have targets their swords could strike effectively.
After an intense battle, during which Samba found he could add extra damage to his sword attacks by using Volt Claw, charging up some electricity, then drawing his sword (up which the bolts crawled), they looked at their new surroundings around the device. Samba, in the northern (right, before) half, saw a big wall. Behind him, the device too far to see before was a strange, decagonal floor switch that didn't move to his weight pressing on it.
Link saw a more interesting story. The ramp around the device wasn't completely broken; its middle was out, that's all. Samba could likely jump the gap, since it was a bit high and Link didn't fancy grabbing the sharp, jagged edge. Ahead, at the southwestern corner of the room, was a pit that was jaggedly-edged--broken, perhaps, by the monsters. Below was magma. Link went to the edge up against the machine and looked. The machine was built even down to there, to his amazement. 'How?? So dangerous...and wouldn't it all melt?' He noticed some sort of mechanism down there, as well. Dim lights went in lines around it. Going back to the corner of the room, he saw a big square that was still intact. It stood on a hunk of rock above the chasm, and from this rock came some cables. The cables must have been connected to a strange, huge block that quickly rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees every few seconds. Link counted about seven and a half. Two sides were painted red and two blue, and the same color showed twice before switching. 'I wonder if...' He noticed no more enemies. He called Samba over.
"Look at that," Link pointed after giving the lizalfos a few seconds to take in the more-interesting half of the room. Samba looked at the rotating block and furrowed his brow.
"...Think it'll react to Volt Claw?" he asked. "It looks a bit heavy..."
"I think, this time, you might want to pull YOURSELF across," Link theorized. Samba looked down and gulped, and Link smiled and held a hand up. "Don't worry, I'll stick here to let you try your emergency trick."
Samba nodded, then studied the rotating block. Link let him figure it out himself. As the block rotated a third time for him, the lizalfos raised his right paw and gulped. Then, as soon as it stopped turning a fourth time, turning to a blue side, Samba cast Volt Claw, hoping he had enough magic.
As Link thought, Samba, lighter than the block, flew straight out, defying gravity. He let out a bit of a yell as he flew off. He had enough magic--just enough. It ran out short of the platform, making him let out a reptillian screech from the sight of hot magma coming to greet him, but his momentum carried him to the edge, which he grabbed in time with a definite yell, then a sigh of relief. He climbed up and onto the square. There, he found ONE pot with a small bottle of green potion. However, by then, he'd come up with a plan.
He saw that there was a western side of the room, which he could reach by repelling himself from the block...theoretically. Wasting no time in looking at details, he got back until his footpaws felt edge and looked at the block, paws slowly losing power. It turned and he, looking at it, jumped back and held out his left paw, this time. The south polarity of the block pushed against the south polarity of his paw, and he flew back. Thankfully, it was another straight line. Unfortunately, he ran out of electric power. However, his plan worked.
As soon as his electricty was used up, Samba recast the spell, dropping only an inch, and used his magic to push himself half the rest of the way before he stopped and started again, using the electricity he'd built up, noticing they depleted at equal speeds. He reached the floor with a half second's worth of electricity to spare. "YASSS!" he pumped his fist down in victory preceeding a punch upwards and a whoop.
"Sounds like that was thrilling," called Link from across the gap.
"You have no clue," Samba shouted back. He then looked around. Along a vertical stripe of metal were lines that, upon further inspection, were slots. These slots held what felt like round bars of metal when Samba stuck his claw in. Also, right near the edge in a corner with the machine and the pit, was a normal crystal switch. A crack ran from the edge and went all the way to the machine, with it on the other side. Samba wasted no time--he hit it with a pebble. Good thing, too, since the switch, as he had feared, soon joined the rock as it broke off and fell down to the abyss. Before it did, however, Link heard a chunk from the other side of the machine and ran over. He saw a curved ramp lift up from the floor up to the landing they had seen. "What happened?" came Samba's voice once the whirring stopped.
"It's a ramp! The switch made it go up!" Link called back after running around again. He noticed the switch was gone, raising his eyebrows.
"Just in time, too, as you can see," Samba laughed. They were both closer since the edges were sort of slanted (more like it had bits jutting out) in a way that the whole thing was another triangle (more like a wide, red "W" on the map). "Hang on, gonna check this out quick--then I'm coming back and we can go up the ramp."
Samba found that there was only another one of those things from the first goron-inhabited room they'd come across. After reporting what he had found to Link once he had hidden, he was asked about what they were. "Oh, it's an XT23-8X, commonly called a 'Pegbot'. It's a staitionary thingy that pops up in places where people have to come through, usually narrow ones, and spreads a flaming wall on two sides while rotating strips of spikes around its middle. It's indestructable. It's based on a security robot built by gorons that only they can handle--one good Goron Pound and it's out for a while."
After letting Samba out again, Link led them up the newly-risen ramp. He passed the sword to Samba at the split in the ramp. Samba cleared it and let Link lead again after the hylian was on the ramp with him. They continued up the ramp until they hit the landing, which was above the top of the machine.
Now on the second floor, they looked about before going further. The walkway went around a foot above the top of the machine, tracing its edge. In the center of the top was the tippity-top, a large (but smaller) cylinder about five feet above the top. It was surrounded by the main top of the machine, which was brimming with electricity, making it the only part that was safe to walk on apart from the walkway that went all the way around. Well, almost. A section right to their left when going onto the walkway from the landing that was about a sixth of the entire circle appeared to be lowered down, covered with the same electrified grating that covered the rest of the machine's top. (The metals were different; the grating was a fair bit darker than the walkway. They saw it fairly clearly.) There was nothing keeping them from falling onto the grating there, so they went on around the circle in the counter-clockwise direction they had to go. They also noted that it ended with either another drop onto the grating or with a ramp going up on their left once they got there. As they went on, they found that the elevated platform was the box-like kind they remembered from the inhabited conveyer room. It held a chest, and it didn't have a key, since the compass hadn't sounded. They couldn't reach it from there, so they went on.
They went up the ramp at the end onto the true top, going up and across five feet. Before they did, Link noticed that there were twin tracks in the walkway at the base of the ramp, and he wondered what that meant. He found out after both were on the highest point of the machine. As soon as they were there on the sheet metal-floored disc, a mechanical whir sounded as the top of the ramp lowered down behind them. They turned and saw that, as it lowered, it pushed out over the walkway until it was flat on it. It stuck out over the edge a bit.
Another mechanical sound alerted them back to the platform. Rising from a circular opening in the center was what appeared to be a suit of armor. When it stopped, they waited. Nothing. So, they crept over to investigate. It was an odd-looking full-plate suit. It had a sort of dress made of sliding plates of metal, bearing an etched symbol like the goron emblem, but slightly different. The base triangular shape was stretched, made wider and shorter, and two more smaller triangles were added, with one on the top and on on the left side. If the main triangle were upside-down, it would almost resemble a cat or dog pawprint. The middle was a simple sphere of metal, it appeared. The rest was very blocky-looking, basic-shaped chest armor and arm armor. The helmet had an oval faceplate with four rows of parallel slits. In its hands was a giant hammer.
They couldn't get a good look at this weapon, though, because when they got near, it almost got THEM. Luckily, Link noticed two red lights turn on within the helmet and was able to grab Samba back before they were crushed by a swing. Samba raised his eyeridges as the silvery grey metal being came to life, walking slowly towards them, each step of its full metal body clanking. Link drew the Master Sword, grimacing.
"Alright, Link, have you ever heard of Iron Knuckles?" Samba began.
"Not really, but I've heard of posessed suits," he replied, strafing around this thing.
"Well, they're what inspired this monstrosity you see before you," Samba nodded at the creature. "This is the XT23-7L, the 'Silicon Knuckle'. It acts like an Iron Knuckle, attacking with its big, heavy weapon in wide, quick swings. Unlike the Iron Knuckle, it both keeps all its armor on and is inpenetrable from all sides. Unlike the Iron Knuckle, it must bend its entire upper body with each overhead slam. That's GOTTA be our only chance! Stick with the Master Sword, it'll do the most damage!"
Link absorbed this information and nodded. He was running out of room, it appeared. "Alright, stay out of trouble--I'm hiding and switching if I get too hurt," he planned. Samba nodded. Then they had to run as the Silicon Knuckle came and tried a wide swing. "ROLL!" They dived away and around the sides of the ring, as it had become before they could get slammed.
Unfortunately, Samba went a bit too far. The unlucky lizard yelped as he rolled off the side. With a yowl of pain, he landed on the electrified flooring, jerking a few times before being blown back into the ring by a burst of electric power. He'd lost a full heart already, and they weren't hit by the Knuckle yet. "...Okay, I've got to practice rolling in a circle like Link can," he grumbled, standing up again. His scales were still smoking a little.
The Knuckle found Link (who had, indeed, rolled in a bit of a circle) its main prey. Smart young man, Link had stayed in a crouch when his roll finished in case he hadn't cleared the hammer, which whizzed over his head, blowing his cap around, when he stopped. He rolled again and stood, turning to the already-turned robotic creature. Then, it rapidly reeled back and slammed down with the hammer. Link jumped to the side away from it, but still got caught by the attack. After slamming to the floor, a short, literal shockwave eminated from the head of the hammer. The electricity reached Link's foot and shot along his body, paralyzing him for a moment--just long enough for the Knuckle to pull itself up again.
By then, though, the two organic fighters had figured out a plan. "Have someone stay behind it--" Link started to call.
"--and it'll use its overhead attack since there's only one target!" finished Samba. He yelped as Link barely avoided a sideways swing by rolling. "Well, probably more often," he added.
So, they worked it out like so: Samba would make sure he wasn't nearby the monster and Link kept in front. The Knuckle used its overhead only when there was a single being around it in range of the hammer, as they found out when it revealed itself able to move quicker, giving Samba a hard time of getting out of the way. When it DID use the overhead, Link side-hopped, then side-rolled around as soon as he landed from the hop, as if he were using his Back Slice attack that Betta had taught him. This got him out of the way of the lightning. He came up and saw a thick bundle of wires exposed on the bent back, behind what had looked like a sphere on front. He gave it two slashes with the Master Sword. When he was about to hit a third slash, the Silicon Knuckle came up and around, swinging horizontally. Link lost a heart and three-quarters from it, and he was also blown clear away. Thankfully, he was facing the inside of the ring when it happened. The next times he did this, though, he was able to remember that two hits was it before he had to avoid the swings.
It took about five rounds of running around, avoiding falling off and falling victim to the heavy hammer blows, and two slashes before, finally, the Knuckle screeched as metal ground on metal. A blast came from its back, making it stand upright. It dropped the hammer (literally) and stumbled back jerkilly, starting to go haywire from how much damage had been done to its workings.
Link looked at the hammer and suddenly had an idea. He narrowed his eyes, put his sword and shield away, and grabbed it. He hefted it in the reverse way the (right-handed) machine did. Then, with a warcry, he jumped and gave a literally thunderous finishing slam on the machine. A delightful crunch of metal sounded as the heavy, blunt head came down, and a crackle of electricity as it emitted bolts from the sides of the head. Link swung with such force, he had pushed the robotic thing to the floor in one go. He stood up and stepped back, looking at it. Thankfully, it soon exploded.
The ramp came up again, as well as the portion of ringing walkway that had been hidden. Out of the slots Samba had found before came rungs, forming a ladder from the first floor to the second floor's walkway (which had a bit of ladder on its side). And, strangely, a ring of light appeared in the center of the fighting ring, rotating counter-clockwise a wave-like fan of gentle pink. A wavy circle of the same color rotated opposite in the center of it.
(Also, six hearts sprang out from it. These were greedly grabbed up by the two.)
Link then looked at the hammer, which had remained in existance after its owner had been defeated. It was long, being a warhammer. However, its sturdy iron handle was rather thin, about as thick as a normal lead pipe, and Link could easily grip it. It was colored mostly black. Around its rounded butt was a band of metal with four round studs of what appeared to be steel or some grey metal. The other end of the handle stuck out of the head like many hammers in that time, and a steel rod kept it from coming out. The head itself was the most interesting.
The part of the head through which the long metal stick went was circular when looking at it from the back, which was good, since it let the two ends attatch well. On each side was an etching of the goron emblem, black filling in the lines. The back end was a thick hook with two notches taken out, each in the shape of a wave. When looking at it from the side, it resembled a lightning bolt. The flaring head itself was the strangest and most decorated. Instead of the flaring part coming smoothly out from the middle of the hammer, rounded, it came out as if hewn, with ten equal sides apparant, though curving inwards shallowly on each face. The faces of the flare's sides matched up with each side of the decagon-shaped, two-inch-thick flat part of the head. On the sides of this part was an alternating pattern of a central, carved diamond surrounded by two lightning bolts going to each corner, with one set being carved out, as well, and the other being etched and tipped flatly before reaching the diamond. On the broad, flat part itself was an odd way to design a hammer. A circular hole sat in the center, wide enough for an index finger to stick down and find it's actually half a finger deep before a button was pressed to no apparant result. Radiating out from the hole were ten straight, etched lines that each met another, larger diamond carved from the metal. Each was parallel (lengthwise) with the side it was near, and perpendicular (widthwise) to the center of it. Coming from the sides of each diamond was a stright line etched into the grey, not black, metal of the flat end of the head to meet the end of another, forming an interesting, angled wheel on the head.
Link looked at it in wonder, feeling its weight in his hands. "Interesting..." he muttered. He looked at the spot the Knuckle had been before remembering what happened when it slammed the hammer down. With a bit of an effort, he raised the hammer above his head and, shouting, brought it crashing down onto the floor in front of him. With a very satisfying WHAM!!, it met the surface, shaking the world around a bit, and, as it hit, a ring of yellow electricity burst out around the sides of the head. Link gasped in a smile, holding up the weapon. "Now that's one HELL of a hammer!" he crowed.
Samba raised his eyeridges, impressed, before smirking and scoffing. "Well, now, jealous of Volt Claw, anymore?" he asked.
Link, putting the hammer away, chuckled and turned to his companion, hand on his hip. "If I was, I certainly aren't, now," he replied. He looked thoughtful. "I bet, with that thing, we can take care of those Pegbots, now..." he muttered.
Samba thought back to the floor switch he'd seen before. "And I bet that'll give you enough force to activate that weird, ten-sided floor switch I saw over there," he added, pointing in its direction.
Link nodded, smiling. "Right. Looks like we've each gotten ourselves a new tool to assist us in this whole ordeal," he stated. He looked at the ladder that had come up. "Hmmm..."
They went down the ladder. Link let Samba out (he had hid as they both decided to do when one was climbing a ladder) as soon as he got down and proceeded to the Pegbot. On either side of it was a tall, full-floor-high wall of consoles, and a roof of that same kind of electrified grating spanned above it. He walked up to it and stopped when it came up, whirring its spikes and FWOOM!ing its fire walls. Then, producing the hammer, he gauged the distance, both horizontal and vertical, between his swing and the top. He determined a jump attack was in order, so he backed up and jumped, giving a mighty cry as he brought the hammer down as he did before--sliding both hands to the end to give maximum force from the head after he pushed with his top hand (which I think would be the left--I'm not quite sure for two-handed, single-attack-point weapons like axes and hammers). CLAHNG!! The Pegbot went down into the floor with a quickly slowing grind sound, and as it did, the flames went out. "C'mon, let's go," Link beckoned over his shoulder, and they went off.
This new corner of the room was like an entirely new room, if moderately cramped. Beautiful lines of dull blue light covered the floor, slow yellow pulses traveling along it. The consoles looked very complicated to them, despite them having separate lights in place of a screen to warn of specific things. Many words in goron script were written below buttons and lights at adult goron eye level. The floor was tiled, like the tiled-floor puzzle in Pouring they had yet to investigate. Directly across from them was a button in the floor that took up a tile. Like the mechanism Samba had seen, it was ten-sided, but this one had eight lines coming from it on the floor, one from each side and one from each corner of the tile. There appeared to be lines of light on it, as well, but they were out. A thin, short rod was in the center, but wasn't attatched to the rest of the button--it was in a hole in the center. Link looked at the hammer in his hand and then at the rod.
Samba looked at what he recognized to be a shutter in the corner, in a gap in the northern console wall and against the eastern wall he'd seen before. He knew it was a shutter because it disappeared into the floor AND wasn't covered with more lights than the night sky. He also noticed a note sticking to it by something--a hunk of metal that gave resistance when he pulled it off. "A magnet?" he muttered. He then looked at the parchment written in Goron and Hylian again. "Again with the two languages...must be for learning."
Before he could read it aloud, Link slammed his hammer down onto the switch. Samba turned and looked at this. He noticed electricity fizzling out of the sides of the head that fit like a glove in the center of the impression, but it was going INTO it instead of out. Around them, things began to hum more. The pulses of light beneath their feet moved in the opposite direction and much quicker, and the lines brightened. In fact, EVERYTHING brightened.
Also, something metal slid, and they turned to look at the shutter dropping. A big block as high as them and about the size of a tile was revealed. Next to it was some strange, flared-ended pipe of brass that pointed out. Samba looked at it in interest and walked over to it. Link squinted to see, hands still on the hammer.
Samba got close and examined it.
Link, who couldn't see from there, removed his hammer and trotted over.
As soon as he had, everything shut down again. Samba squeaked and jumped back before the shutter had flattened him against the ceiling. He looked at Link, who was surprised at this all. "I have to keep that hammer there?" he asked.
Samba shrugged. He then remembered the note he'd picked up--which, he determined, had fallen to the other side of the shutter. He sighed aggrivatedly. "I think we'd reached our goal when you activated that thing there, which I think might be what Boroy calls a contact circuit. I think you need to keep it there..."
Link humphed and crossed his arms, holding the hammer in them, before leaning forwards and gesticulating with his right hand. "But how will we go on together if I'm stuck here making sure my hammer's not going to fall back into the XT23s' hands? ...Claws? Metal digits? Whatever??"
Samba looked at the shutter. Link did, too, before both raised the muscles above their eyes. "The note from before, up there..." Samba muttered.
"That must be the conductor block!" Link realized, nodding. He looked at his hammer. "I think my hammer here spreads electricity when it contacts a surface, and I think it might continue to eminate it if it's stuck in a pit like that when it doesn't have a rod. The rod must turn the electricity off and let it conduct electricity. I mean, look," he pointed. "The pulses of light are going INTO that contact circuit."
"I get it," Samba nodded. "So, how's about we do this, then?"
They set to work. Link slammed the contact circuit and reactivated the world around them, lowering the shutter. Samba grabbed the block (which was thankfully not too wide for him to grapple without handles) and pulled it out. He noticed the bottom was shaped the exact same way as Link's hammerhead. He barely had two tiles outside of the shutter that he could move around on. He then pulled it from the left side towards Link, moving a tile at a time, for a couple seconds before he moved to the other side and pushed. He stopped when he reached Link's hammerhead. Link pulled it out, and everything started to dim again. Samba pushed once more and the block dropped onto the switch. When it did, lines of light illuminated it, going up in a pulse before glowing entirely. Everything started up again, but even better. Outside the miniroom, they heard a dull hum begin. It became a dull roar, then a real roar as something sounded like it was spinning. Around them, what originally were red lights everywhere, which had become yellow when Link had used his hammer, green lights now shone peacefully. The room, then, felt much less trecherous, and the "instrumentation" of the song they heard only when they focused on it became subtler, now full of happy bleeps. To their untrained ears, it appeared to have modulated into the Major version of the old minor key.
"There!" Link said, smiling and putting his hands on his hips once his hammer was put away. He looked around. "I don't understand much of this, but I feel a lot better."
Samba stood and smiled around him, too, standing by the shutter. After a second, he suddenly jumped back with a surprised exclaimation when a voice came from behind. "Can you hear me?? Hello??"
Samba turned and blinked at that pipe that was there in wonder, then, uncertain, said, "Yas, I can."
"I didn't catch that! Speak into the bell of the pipe!" instructed the voice.
Samba got up close and spoke loudly back, "We can hear you, yas."
"Samba! Good! This means that you've reactivated the machinery in the Power room!!" sang the voice. "Good job, brothers!"
Link looked at it, raising his eyebrows. "What is this?" he asked through it. "A way to speak?"
"Yes!" the speaker replied. "It's an old system we discovered that works pretty well. It doesn't need power, only lots and lots of pipes. The sound travels through them across long distances. Oh, yeah, this is Boroy, by the way. I'm in the balcony floor of the conveyer room the other gorons are in." He paused. "How'd you do it, brothers? What happened?"
Samba looked at his feet and saw the note. "Oh!" He picked it up. "Almost forgot about this...Boroy, this note was on a shutter blocking us from a block that let us activate the switch we needed," he explained. "It reads,
"'Because of the monster raid, me and my friend have decided it might be best if we disconnect the main conductor block and put it away out of reach of the monsters. Forgive us, especially if it does more harm than good. To retrieve the block, you will have to borrow the Thunderforge, the foundry's crowning achievement in invention, and use it to temporarily conduct electricity. It can't handle as much as the block, though, but it will open this shutter and let someone get the block. You know what to do from there.'"
"Thunderforge?" Link repeated, raising his eyebrows.
"The Thunderforge! That's the warhammer that we created that can be used in a variety of ways!" Boroy said excitedly. "Does this mean you have it? It's a big, black hammer."
"Yeah, a Silicon Knuckle tried to turn us into pancakes with it," Samba grumbled. "Link has it. I already got a spell called Volt Claw, so it's only fair."
"Volt Claw? Spell? Never heard of those being here in the foundry," Boroy said. "Anyway, Link, Samba, you've got to get back to the foreman! He'll tell you what to do next, brothers."
"What exactly does reactivating the power mean?" Link asked.
"Well, it means elevators are functional again--there should be one in there--the controls in this room are working again, we're able to use the machines that make molds using normal means, and, most importantly, the beamos statues are essentially off!" explained the goron happily. Link and Samba gasped and grinned at each other at this last part. "Wait, hang on...There. Now they won't attack EITHER of you. They only attack monsters, so I had to quick command them to ignore lizalfos so you'd be fine, Samba. Anyway, get back to Foreman Sarbog right away, brothers! And thank you, good job!"
"We're on our way, Boroy!" Link assured him, and they departed from the pipe.
Link wondered what that ring of energy was when they came out of the mini-room. They saw that the giant machine was a dynamo of sorts, and it was turning and turning, making a roar as it created electricity within its depths. Link said he wanted to check out that weird pink thing as he climbed up the ladder.
"And what about that other contact circuit?" asked Samba when they were atop the generator.
"Oh!" Link nodded and went down the curving ramp. He went to the other switch, which was like the first one he used but without a rod in the middle and lines coming out of it and on top of it...from what they could tell. There were ten dots around the sides on top, though. Link slammed the Thunderforge down onto it. It gave a sharp burst of yellow electricity as it contacted it.
When it did, the elevator by them came to life, lowering down. Link removed the Thunderforge after it reached the ground and went to open it. "Well, about time!" he said, smiling satisfiedly as he turned, holding a purple rupee.
Samba chuckled.
Then, they went back up the ramp and to the tip-top of the generator again. The light ring was still there. Link gulped and stepped into it. Samba gasped as he was suddenly sent into his ring and Link gasped as he began spinning around, floating up. A white flash covered their vision.
When they could see again, Link was coming to a spinning stop--but he didn't feel dizzy at all. He set down on the ground on top of another ring of light, and Samba appeared beside him. They looked around.
They were in the foyer again.
"Must be some sort of teleportation thing," Samba guessed, shrugging as Link stepped off of it and bent to examine.
"Let's got going, then," Link nodded after a moment, and he turned. Samba followed--footpaw accidentially stepping inside the ring. He stopped, squeaking, and looked. Link stopped to look, and both waited a moment. After a big load of nothing, Samba shrugged again. "Maybe it only reacts to the weilder of the Master Sword," Link guessed this time.
They both made their way out and into Pouring again. The monsters were back again, of course. As they went on, they noticed some of the Cirkitts had been replaced by Armos Cirkitts. These were EASILLY dispatched by the Thunderforge, eliminating them in a three-swing combo Link developed. The regular Cirkitts went down in one hit.
"Oh, I think I love this thing," Link laughed after crushing another robot.
Samba chuckled, crossing his arms. He then noticed he was standing by a beamos, eye now deep violet and clearer-looking, and began backpedaling from it before he realized it would have hit him already. "Oh, yeah," he muttered. He grinned sharply. "I'm not considered an enemy to it anymore!!" He jumped for joy.
"Uh, Fire Keese, Samba..." Link warned, standing and pointing behind him.
"Huh?" Samba stopped and turned--just in time to see it shot through with a laser hotter than itself. It was defeated instantly, and both of them laughed. "AND IT'S ON OUR SIDE, NOW, TOO!!" the lizalfos added, jumping for joy again.
They made their way to the door by it, rolling past the Spike Trap and returning to the smithing room. Once in there, they were greeted warmly by Sarbog. "Well-done, brothers!" he laughed happily, turning to them with a smile. "Boroy tells me that the power is back on. That is amazing! I cannot believe it! Was it difficult?"
Link and Samba thought for a second before planing their hand/paw. "Once we figured it out, not really," Link replied.
Sarbog nodded, then dropped the smile, looking serious once more. "Alright, then, the most tedious and difficult task awaits," he said. "What you two must now help us do is assemble the key to the beast's lair. This will require teamwork. If you could reach the switch to reactivate the power--thus putting it back in our favor--you are able to do this. Tell me, have you found any burlap sacks with a stripe or stripes on it?" He raised an eyebrow.
Samba brought out the sack with the III on it. "We found this in the furnace room," he said, offering it up.
Sarbog nodded, taking it. "Good. You must first collect the other two sacks, one with one line and the other with two," he instructed. "They are somewhere in this foundry still, I am sure of it. Any questions?"
"What are they for, exactly?" Link asked.
"They are for creating the key," he answered, nodding. "Each bag contains the parts needed for a key--Bag I has the parts for the handle, bag II has barrel parts, and the parts in bag III are teeth and bits.
"Thank you for not throwing out the parts III bag, what must have seemed to be junk at the time," he nodded. "I shall keep it. It contains a number of copies of the teeth and bit sets used on the key we need. What you need to do is get the other ones, bring them to me, and I shall ready a few keys for you."
"KeyS?" Samba asked, eyeridge raising in confusion. "Don't we need one, sir?"
"True, but you will need a few back-up keys to start over with if you fail," answered Sarbog. "Just bring me the other parts, I will explain later. It will only bog you down if you hear the rest now."
Link nodded. "Yessir, we'll be leaving," he said.
"Happy hunting."
They left the room and made their way back into Pouring, where two chests were left. Link looked at his minimap and raised an eyebrow. "You know, I've been wondering about that moving chest," he commented to Samba.
"Me, too," agreed the blue-scaled one, sharing the look.
Indeed, a chest moved about on the map...well, the second floor. Samba thought for a moment. "I wonder if it's inside one of those buckets," he mumbled, paw to chin. "It goes along the tracks like one."
"Then let's see," Link said, nodding.
"Wait, let's get that other one, first," Samba suggested. "It's easier, it's only on a catwalk."
"How do we GET there, though?" Link asked, looking up and at the catwalk discussed. It was broken off and inaccessable from basically all ways from the break in the catwalks and the broken ladder.
"Let me be leader again for a bit, and I'll show you," Samba answered.
Link trusted Samba and sent the Master Sword over. Samba nodded and turned, trotting south along the east wall, Link following. 'Let's hope my theory works...' he thought as he went. He stopped in front of a ladder made of rungs sticking in the wall that swam with electricity. No catwalk was around it. Nearby it at the top, however, was a sideways ladder of wall-mounted, electrified rungs along the wall (another of which was on the opposite wall but were useless). He could hoist himself up over to it from the ladder and go across it. "How would you climb the ladder, though?" Link wondered.
"You'll see," Samba answered. He looked at the beamos as it fried a Cirkitt. "Glad that thing isn't aiming at us, anymore, or I couldn't be able to use it." He had Link hide before he clapped and rubbed his paws. "Allllrighty, then...Let's hope this works." He cast Volt Claw again breifly before grabbing the rungs. As he did, he built up more electricity. And, since he was climbing a dangerous ladder and he was able to because of the kind it was, he put his footpaws on the wall, straddling the ladder, and climbed his way up.
Link came out of the ring in his ball of light form and looked at Samba. "Cleeveerrrrrr."
"Hope I'm more clever than that," Samba grunted. His electric power had reached half. "Now!" He recast it and grinned. "YAS!!" He had willed his power to come OUT instead of build up as usual when not pulling things. Since he had electric power, no magic was used. His holding electrified surfaces fed him power. In short, he canceled out the forces and froze the level of electric power in him. He could hold onto an electrified object all day if he wanted--as long as he kept casting, he wouldn't overload. He was also able to cast the spell and climb at the same time, so he decided to do this whenever he was climbing ladders (since it was too akward to use it just to build up electricity; he would just use an easy-to-access bar or something).
He got to the top and found himself on the second floor. To his left was the little ladder thing. It ran underneath two electrified support bars for the hanging track that were usable as means of flipping across gaps. The far catwalk was too far to get to, though, for the bar. So, he did what he planned to do. He locked his eyes onto the end of the horizontal ladder and hoised himself up in a jump, hoping he'd make it because it'd be a hard landing below (he had enough hearts to make it, but he'd rather he didn't fall that far). He snagged them and breathed a sigh of relief as he hung from the vertical bars.
Grunting and getting himself up, he set his footpaws against the wall and started hobbling along. Link looked behind him at the machine on the ceiling. There were crystal switches ALL OVER it! Some had colored bases. He noticed colored stripes on the differently-sized buckets that moved about. One bucket was actually full of metal that had cooled and hardened, rendering it useless...except as a platform. He could barely see it from the start of the horizontal ladder, as it went around the west side of the room only (they were on the east side).
Samba made his way across and found the ladder ended a bit before the catwalk. As it did, some rungs were actually pulled out a bit and were more like monkey bars, now. So, he swung off the end on to the catwalk, shutting off his electricity. He spread his arms and sang, "Ta-daaaah!" before chuckling and moving to the chest. He opened it and pulled out..."Parts II (the barrels, I think)!" he announced before putting the "II"-marked bag away. He then noticed that his own electricity didn't affect him, since he forgot to wait for his power to run out before touching his body. He touched his arm with a live paw. He felt the power wash through it and a few inches from his paw. "Wow..."
It's then that he realized he felt something else when electrified with Volt Claw. He felt comfortable with it...as if it were natural. He blinked a moment as this occured to him. '...I...guess I must have a knack for it,' he guessed, looking at his paws.
"Let's get across again so we can find a way onto those tracks since there's a chest in a bucket." Link's voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and Samba nodded.
After going halfway, Samba shifted up to a pole and swung to the other one, which he flipped off of since he was lined up with the catwalk enough. He let Link out afterwards. "Sorry, that's a lot of fun," he said, grinning sheepishly at Link's playful look of scolding at his antics.
They then went to the other side of the room, defeating any in their way. Link decided to use his sword for a bit because his arms did get a bit tired from swinging that hammer around so much. Once that was done, they got back to the door to what they had decided to term the western stairwell. Samba landed on the catwalk and let Link out again, then both looked at the crystal switch. Samba looked at Link. "What should we do?" he asked.
"I don't know, but I think I can actually jump that gap by the eastern stairwell you go across when you go to the north part of this room, grabbing the edge since my goron tunic lets me resist heat pretty well," Link suggested. "I mean, I've been grabbing onto metal ladders right next to the pit, so..." He leaned around the pulled-out machine. "Right. Get me to the other side again and start Sync Mode, then come back while I go down and to the gap."
"Yas." Samba got him hid, then jumped back across the poles. He let Link out and they initiated Sync Mode. Link stayed while Samba went across again and stood by the switch, facing it. Then Link got the Sword and he went down the ladder there. He trotted across the room (waving at the beamos cheerfully while it eliminated the helmasaur chasing him, making Samba laugh) and bravely jumped off of the little part sticking out into the pit. As he suspected, he could catch the ledge with his hands...well, his chest, really. After getting the wind knocked out of him and barely clutching the edge before falling to his doom, he hoisted himself up and over. He then faced a new challenge: Getting across the rivers too wide for him.
He found a solution he could do. The sand molds coming had some parts on it he could grip if he jumped on. He waited until he was sure one was coming that would get him across and not stop over a river and hopped on. "Cleeverrrrrr," Samba complimented this time, smirking. It carried him to the farthest one, where he got off and hopped over the river that was BARELY narrow enough for him. Getting a rolling start helped a lot. From there, he made it to the ladder and climbed up.
"Alright," he panted before taking a breath, catching it. He faced the switch. "Ready?"
"Ready."
They Synchronized, joining minds, and as one, the drew and attacked with their swords. The switches pinged in a nice chord. This chord was drowned out by a siren sounding. They turned off Synchronization and looked at the central machine on the ceiling. Red lights appeared around it and spun while the whole thing slowly came to a halt, except for the biggest, green-rimmed bucket that kept going around the main track. The noise died down considerably. (The siren didn't last forever.) As well, they heard the sound of a chest materializing, and saw a chest appear on top of the smallest bucket.
Ah...NOW would be the time to describe this tricky hanging track system. Though not moving at the moment, the two swordsman had seen it enough and saw it on their maps so that they knew the basics. Taking up the majority of the space on the second floor, the central machine and the attatched tracks sent the five buckets along. The tracks weren't directly attatched to the central mechanism, but were attatched by corner-mounted poles that stretched to the track's corners on the main, first level, making a shape that some readers may attribute to old floor switches when looked at from above, except rectangular. There were two levels--the main, first level and the secondary level. The main one circled around the mechanism in a rounded rectangle, stopping at one of eight points...the four corners and the middle of each long part. It matched with the hanging tracks for the buckets below, ofset to allow the metal to pour without harming the tracks. All of the buckets went clockwise around it.
Each bucket had its own route. Sometimes, a bucket only went around the northern half of the main track before going back to the secondary. The secondary track...THIS was the complicated one. Different buckets moved along it in different directions at different times, sharing the same track and not moving aside for other ones, it seemed. The track itself was attached to the main one at two points, each one between the middle of the long part (the rectangle was longest north to south) and the northern corner. Poles from straight above supported it at the southern part. It went out from the main track into a sort of square, down south, then back to the center, the eastern turning before the western. Each then did a sort of loop that intersected each other. It went straight, then turned a tight, curving turn that met the same track it had been smoothly, with the western track turning north and the eastern south. This let the buckets either return to the same side they were on, like the solidly-filled bucket Link remembered seeing stayed on the left, and others to switch tracks.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: I promise, people, I'll be putting up diagrams of some of the messier parts of this dungeon when I post this. I'll tell you where to go at the end. It's simpler than you'd think, really.)
At current, the other four buckets were in different parts of the track, still save for swinging slightly: The solid-filled bucket, of medium size and wrapped with a bright red band of paint, was heading for the loop from the main track; the smallest bucket, decorated with a band of purple and holding the chest, had just exited the main loop, hanging on the western half; the bucket sized between those two, with a vibrant, but deep, azure band set around it, currently hung at the southeastern corner of the secondary track, coming around and north; and the second-biggest bucket, bearing a loudly yellow band, was almost midway down the same side, coming at the blue one. To help tell where each was heading, the spout to pour the metal out of pointed to the right of their direction of travel--facing out meant they were going away from the machine, in other words. They didn't know their exact routes except for the red one.
Link, after giving Samba the sword, hiding, and reappearing again, looked at the colored crystal switches around the sides of the ceiling machine again. "Hey, that's the same formation of switches as last time, on the other side, when I faced it," he noted, pointing at them. "A normal one on the left corner, then the one with the yellow base, the one with the purple...wait, the middle normal one is missing...but there's still the red, then the blue, then the other corner again." He raised an eyebrow. "They're all red inside, now."
"Must be for ease in this situation, when these things don't work," Samba theorized, pointing at the console. A few buttons were visible. "There's no green switch--assuming those switches DO match with the buckets."
"But do we need to power them again?" wondered Link.
"We'll see," Samba muttered, readying a pebble. He aimed at the red switch and fired. CLANG! It turned to green inside and the bucket moved, going forwards relatively slowly. Samba smiled and ran to jump on. He got on with not much space to spare behind, going early as possible, so Link was able to catch it and glare annoyedly at his partner. "Sorry," Samba blushed. "Forgot."
"We're gonna crash if you don't stop this," Link warned, pointing at the bucket coming at them.
"Right," Samba nodded, aiming again. He threw and hit the red switch again. It turned red again and the bucket stopped, swinging a little bit. They weren't close enough to the other bucket to reach over and grab the chest, so Samba hit the purple one. It came a fair bit faster, being smaller, probably, which was unexpected. "Quick, quick...!" Samba squeaked, trying to throw another pebble, aiming.
Suddenly, they heard a clicking sound and both their bucket and the other one moved up a bit. The buckets themselves had mechanisms inside the points the handles went inside and were lifting up and away from each other! They went just far enough that they barely passed. Link looked up and noticed, a bit ahead of the buckets, a rod traveling with them on the track that held a flat rod of sheet metal. They must have clicked together, tripping a switch to alert the mechanisms to start. Another was trailing behind, probably to tell them to stop. He realized this hanging track was one-but-two-sided with a bottom central track that they must drop to for the loop parts, allowing two buckets to pass. "That's amazing," he marveled softly. Samba stopped the purple one just as they were close together, so they were able to lean over and open it.
"Got 'em all!" Samba crowed as he beheld the parts I (handles) bag. "Now let's get to Sarbog, after we get down from here."
They were right by the catwalk, so they jumped over to it. They noticed, then, that the molten metal troughs were pouring out their loads now, being too full otherwise. They poured safely down to the rivers of lava, though, so it didn't affect anything. They only offloaded enough to let them drain their excess, though, before stopping up again, giving a good half minute between unloads.
Within a few more minutes, they were back down in the smithy. Sarbog smiled and accepted the parts. "Thank you very much, brothers!" he said. "Now..." He bowed his head, closing his eyes, before looking up again. "...the hard part begins. Now that we have these parts, we must construct the key. To do so, we need to get them to the goron in the elevator down in Goron-Assisted Refining, the room Boroy's in right now. We cannot just take it to him directly, however, since the key must be put through a special process to be accepted...in my opinion."
"What do you mean?" asked Link. He didn't like the sounds of this.
Sarbog smirked. "You honestly thought we would use our talents and cut corners, ever?" he asked slightly incredulously. "Hm, well, you DO realize that smiths are as much artists as painters, correct?" Link and Samba raised their eyebrows/-ridges. Sarbog pounded his broad chest before crossing his arms again. "We gorons take pride in our work, and we would feel cheapened if we simply gave you a plain key to the door. Desperate the situation may be, we all feel the need to do our best and nothing but our best. Also, we feel the need to create something in its entirety if possible, even if it is in multiple parts. Thus, bear with me, please..." He looked serious again. "...Help us create the chest this key is made to come in!"
Link and Samba fought back a groan. They understood why they wanted to do this, but they both wanted to just get to the boss chamber, already. They were tiring of this foundry...but when they considered it, there were still many puzzles to solve. This perked them up again, thanks to a trait they shared that was both dangerous and advantagous, a trait that assisted their courage: Curiosity. They nodded.
"Thank you," Sarbog smiled. It faded soon after. "We must construct it, regardless, because its unique inner mechanisms, which must be built through the efforts of machine, goron, and both, will respond to the lock and open it. See, the creature behind that door is nothing short of a behemoth. Five gorons can ride its back. And, by now, it must have grown even larger than that." He narrowed his eyes as he spoke of it. He nodded at them. "Because of that, the door had to be reinforced with magic power. That's why we used a one-of-a-kind super lock that ensures NOTHING may escape from the prison it creates. It also makes sure that, unless the proper spell is used on it, no key can properly open it. You can even pick the thing, if you want, brothers, but the door shall neither budge nor give. The spell needs the help of focusing mechanisms placed by heavy machine, which are affixed by the help of a goron-guided machine. It is then cast with the help of the spirit of a skilled craftsman's heart.
"In other words, you need to construct the frame, put it through the correct machines, then place the key inside the box at some point after that and before it returns here, preferably immediately. In the meantime, it must be safely taken to the goron on the elevator, the only one with a blowtorch--the tool we need, mind not--and the skill to use it minutely and quickly as it passes him on the belt. Then it has to come back down and placed on the mine tracks in the room south of here, where it SHOULD be a simple matter that ought to take but a minute before you bring it back here for me."
They absorbed all of this information, then Link nodded. "Alright, I assume that means we follow the way the machines link together?" he checked.
Sarbog smiled. "Smart."
"Anything we need to do to prepare?" inquired Samba. "After all, a pot cannot boil if no fire is set down."
"True. I suspect that we must prepare a few things, but the only ones I can think of are the parts of the chest in Molds, the correct-sized bucket that must pour metal into the mold in Pouring, and the proper machines to be used in Mechanical Refining, which we have to play by ear. That, and which mold machine to use if some are broken," Sarbog listed. "I trust you can figure it out on your own. If need be, Boroy knows exactly what I have planned, and can help you. There are a number of speaking pipes around that you can use to communicate, hidden behind panels in the wall that Boroy will open if you speak with him. Tell him where you are, and he should be able to help." He nodded to the door to Molds. "Begin now, going to Molds to make sure the machines are accessable to you--manually compressing the sand is needed for this spell to work, strangely, but at least one must be left intact--and then direct the carts of sand to it. Good luck."
With that, he fell silent.
Link and Samba looked at each other and nodded, then said they'll do their best.
"I feel like we're only halfway done with this place," Link grumbled as they walked out into the hallway, turning to the other door.
"I hear ya," Samba grumbled, pressing the button. They came in and looked around. "Boroy?"
"Up here! Above you!"
They trotted around to the beginning the ramp up. Another Pegbot popped up. Samba stepped aside, making the "after you" gesture, and Link slammed it into the floor. They trotted up and saw Boroy at the top. Around him were four--FOUR!--contact circuits. One was on the wall by the door (not the wall the door was on, but the eastern one), for some reason. The others were on the floor, and each one was surrounded by a circle, a notch on the side the switch was on and two on the outside. There were also the consoles from before, including one with a red button. "Hey, wasn't that broken before?" asked Link, pointing at it.
"Yeah, but I fixed it up," Boroy said, smiling proudly. "You're doing great, brothers! At this rate, we'll be able to get to that monster in no time!"
Samba nodded. "Thanks. Say, you activated those pipes from before?" he asked. "I mean...well, he said that you could open shutters or something..."
"Oh, I see," Boroy nodded. He walked over to a place in the wall that held a patch of sheet metal. A goron emblem was on it. They had dismissed it as nothing before, just decoration. He banged on the wall by it and it sprang open. "These things need handles," he muttered as he opened it the rest of the way. Inside were a number of bell-ended pipes like before. Each had a red button and a green button on a little shelf in front of it. Boroy had one green pressed, but the others were red. Below each was a Goron word. He pressed the rest of the green ones. "We usually turn them off if no-one's in the room to save power, but we need them now." He turned and smiled at them, gesticulating. "Now you can see panels in the wall with a pipe behind it, brothers!" he announced happily. "There will be an emblem on the lid. Just hit the wall around it with some blunt force--like with a kick or a hammer, or a roll if you're feeling adventurous--since a sword's too precise. You'd have to be REALLY close to it. It'll spring open, and you can open it the rest of the way. Just be sure to close it when you're done, or it'll get hurt by monsters, for sure."
They nodded. "Right," Link understood. "So, we need to get to Molds, first?"
"Correct, brother," Boroy nodded. "Get there and then talk to me--I'll tell you what to do."
So, they went out the door nearby and made their way to Molds, truly starting the final leg of their journey in Clamor Plant.
- - -
AUTHOR'S COMMENTS -- OPTIONAL READING
TWO MORE, GUYS! One for this huge ordeal, and finally one more for the boss fight and what happens afterwards. I'm REALLY sorry this is taking so long and it's so confusing! As I said, I'll be posting up the stuff that's most confusing online when I post this up. You should be able to find it on my deviantART account, FerreTrip. Just go to ferretrip(dot)deviantart(dot)com and look in my gallery. No, I'm not posting entire maps, yet, because I both want to try and use flash to make it layered like in Zelda and I want to remake the map for this place, at the very least, because it's really smudgy and I can barely read parts of it. And it's cramped. Yeah. Let's see...
Liberties taken:
- I'm having it so that when Samba has his paws up with Volt Claw, he doesn't backflip when you jump back.
- The game's AI, unless the programmers are GENIUSES, won't be able to stay away from the Silicon Knuckle, so you'd have to have him hide so he doesn't interfere.
- The moving chest. Yeah, I'm trying to be creative, here, so sue me.
- I shouldn't even put this here, because it's Zelda and you should know better, but putting away the Thunderforge is technically impossible. But, again, THIS IS ZELDA and you should know better.
I PROMISE THAT NO DUNGEON WILL BE THIS DETAILED AT LEAST FOR A LOOOOOONG TIME. Hell, I don't even know what to do for the rest. With college coming up soon, I may not for a while. But you're used to whiles with me, right? n_n;;