Higher Than Thou

Waking of Thursday, April 6, 2017 ~ 5

Higher Than Thou

I don’t know why I didn’t just warp directly back to Zora’s Domain. I was practically there anyway. Maybe I just wanted to be thorough.

I climbed the dam.

Actually the ground mounded at its base was quite manageable up to a considerable height, and after that.... Well the dam wall itself was a bit sheer and slow-going, but the cliff face to my right seemed.... maybe.... like it was.... doable.... perhaps....?

I was still wearing my Climber’s Bandana. Even so I had to drink two stamina elixirs on the way up, but I made it. And only a little more scrambling got me on top of the dam itself. I was back in the Reservoir. I was on one of the distant docks I had seen when I’d stood on the other shore with Prince Sidon.

My but this world was large.

I headed north along the top of the dam, toward the Domain. I wanted to find Fronk. But as I scrambled over the rockfalls and high meadows of those mountains, something else caught my eye: back across the river, on the south cliffs, down a bit from the top, something glowed....

There was a little shelf of grass there. Was it another historical tablet?

I regarded where I was and where I had come from. It had been a long climb.

But that shelf across the river wasn’t so low that I’d have to drink more elixirs to return to where I was now.

It was so far distant though; the canyon was wide....

Still.... I had to investigate.

Out came the paraglider and I watched my shadow as I floated between the mountains....

I touched down on the far shelf and started running up toward where I had seen the glow. There was an overhang there, it had to be just beneath those rocks, nestled into the mountain, surely—

It wasn’t.

It was just the glassy indigo stone that juts up so often around Zora’s Domain, shimmering in the dimness.

There was nothing here.

Oh, nothing but a treasure chest....

It was stuck in the ground and I had to dislodge it using Magnesis—a bit startling when it came free so suddenly and shot into the air—I almost lost it into the river.

But I magnetized it up into the little alcove where I’d seen the glow, and opened it there.

I don’t even remember what it contained.

But the area was looted, and it was time to climb back.

As my path was slightly different this time before I reached the top of the dam again, I passed a bit more closely to an area I hadn’t been—and heard a Hinox snoring there.

I crept closer inland and saw its huge black form.

You know, I’ve been saying black, but my Compendium informs me they’re actually blue. As are the “black” moblins and bokoblins I’ve been seeing.

I suppose they do have a bluish tint.

Heh, like blue tigers....

Anyway, I saw where the Hinox was lying, and I saw that there was a handy clifftop nearby to the left, the dam-ward direction. It could be an easy kill.... I decided to go for it.

I headed for the high ground, but when I finally came to the crest of that shelf.... I heard a troop of lizalfos croaking and rumbling to each other! I crept closer and saw through the grass: the lizalfos had the high ground.

However.... to the left again, the dam-ward direction once more, the mountain shelves just kept on mounting. And so I backed off and away for one more scramble to the higher ground. And when I came to THAT shelf.... it was empty.

Oh-ho-ho-ho it was empty.

I walked on over to the edge and peered down into the lizalfos camp. No fewer than five of them sat chirruping around their fire. And I saw a powder keg, how excellent.

I produced a single bomb and chucked it over the edge with a little Hup!

I didn’t give them time to notice or to contemplate their predicament, but detonated just before impact, and the whole lot of them went up in a searing fiery ball that rocked the mountains.

All except for one, and just a few more bombs took care of him.

I floated down on my paraglider and collected all the spoils I could find before walking over to the next precipice, and there below me was the Hinox.

I had plenty of arrows, and so got to work. The big brute got to his feet, the fatshnazzy brass band started up with its drums, and it was on.

And it was here that I accidentally discovered something supremely useful:

An arrow to the eye of a Hinox was substantially more damaging than an arrow anywhere else.

I suppose I should have known.

Every time I hit him in the eye, he winced and clutched his face and shook horribly! I almost felt bad for him. Almost, but not quite. My aim was getting quite good now, and with only a few more arrows, I brought him down.

And it was another paragliding float down, another mess of spoils to collect. Ah, felt good; I do love raining terror from above!

I’ve not yet cooked anything with Hinox Toenails in it.

Hard to believe those actually qualify as elixir ingredients. Ughuhuh.... 9__9