Dead End at Digdogg

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 3

Dead End at Digdogg

“Where are you going, anyway?” David had asked before, “Where the heck are you?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I kept saying in Luke Skywalker’s voice.

“Who?”

“Her—”

“Princess Zelda?”

“Noooo—”

The right fork of the river twined away between massive, towering cliffs. I saw a rickety old bridge spanning between them on a higher ledge.... seemed like a great nest for baddies to hide out....

But per David’s suggestion, following the left fork, which followed the map line, did seem like a sound plan....

Surely the river that led to this Lake Hylia would be important enough to have map-boundaries drawn along it....

And so the left fork it was.

I still didn’t let on much about my plan to David, though.

The water was flowing roughly southward now, and I was still on the outside—the west side now. The dangerous lands of the castle were on the east.

My path took me along a high ledge on a great beige cliff face. It had been raining—maybe that thunderhead from before had finally caught up and swept across my path. But as I skirted over the living stone, the rain began to thin to just a few spitty drops, and the sun began to shine through....

And it became so bright....

The mist left over from the rain was blinding!

“It’s SO—BRIGHT,” I exclaimed to David, who could see this quite clearly.

“WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

I turned this way and that. The cliff face reflected the sun’s light like a solar oven panel, bouncing it into the lingering moisture—

“WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT?” I yammered again.

“I don’t know!” David shouted, laughing.

I was getting low on sleep.

Utterly bewildered, I ran ahead through the impossible brightness....

I did stop briefly to search out another ruin—this one on the castleward side of the river, though it appeared safe enough to have a look....

The ruin was flooded, up to the depth of about my knees. Watergrass and floating leaves parted at my passing.

There were a few things to loot, guarded only by a couple of near-sighted lizalfos. The first one went down like a charm, but the second one gave me a fright when he pulled back on a nocked Shock Arrow.

But my blade cut him down before he could let fly.

And after looting the whole place—I COMMANDEERED A CONVENIENT RAFT AND FINALLY USED MY KOROK LEAF TO GO BOATING DOWN THE RIVER!

I might have accidentally killed some ducks with my boat.

I will eat them later with much gratitude.

I rafted and rafted until I came to a little bokoblin camp, grounded my boat and promptly slaughtered the lot of them.

But the river split again!

This time I took the right fork; it seemed deeper, a heavier flow.... But owing to some obstacles in the way, I had to leave my raft behind.

I passed a Gleeok Bridge.

I hoped there wouldn’t be any nearby. o__o

And then I passed a Manhala Bridge.

My goodness, or any of those either! Spelling notwithstanding.

And after a little waterfall, I finally came to a Digdogg Suspension Bridge!

There was a Hinox sleeping on it.

Well.... on a small landmass in its midst, anyway.

There didn’t seem to be any Gleeoks or Manhandlas or Digdoggs about.... but I was certainly enjoying these lovely bridge names.

My Shrine-detector had been beeping at me—and I saw the culprit structure far below me at the water’s level beneath Digdogg Suspension Bridge.

It was a long way down, but, after considering and finding myself with nothing much left to do on the cliff-face, I leapt off the edge, floated laterally to just about where the shrine was, and—at David’s insistence—HALO jumped down to it.

I completed it, collected a Spirit Orb, came out, and was delighted to find another boat available to use. And I did use it, for a while, all around the expansive sort of little lake beneath where the Hinox slumbered.

But....

BUT....

This waterway....

This waterway had come to an end.

I boated around beneath the suspension bridge, but....

There was nowhere else to go.

This was not Lake Hylia.

The little right fork had been a dead end.

The Maddest Dash

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 2

The Maddest Dash

Every stride down the riverside road took me closer to the castle, and the swirling, looming Calamity trapped within its grounds.

I didn’t know what I would find.

The way was barren for the most part. The hills began to mount and roll all grassy on the right side, to the north, while on the left side, lower down, the land looked as pleasant and natural as ever.

I even saw a shrine down there. Just the glimmer of orange, inside a hidden cavern it seemed. But heck no way was I gonna give time for it now! Especially as it lay across the river. No fooling around in there. Not right now.

I had a Zora to find.

I passed charred wooden ruins and smashed timbers on the right—a few new bogs had formed there. And I saw a wolf sniffing around one of them. I snapped its pictograph before moving on. My Compendium told me they traveled in packs, and would surround their prey; but this one walked alone. Hmm.

I didn’t bother with it.

Past the ribcage remains of a few overturned wagons, I saw two Hylians having a row with two Bokoblins, and bolted ahead to even the odds....

The man’s name was Mils, and woman’s either Mina or Nina. Nina I think; I don’t recall their names forming an alliteration [they did; it was Mina].... Actually Nina [Mina] looked like a Sheikah come to think of it. White-haired.

Well it was encouraging to see other people out here at any rate.

They thanked me for the assist and we parted ways, they back the way I had come, at a healthy jog; and I ahead to the northwest, a little faster.

Molo had mentioned some docks by which one could reach the land where the castle stood, and I saw the road that led down toward them. It looked like a wooden bridge. And a six-legged Guardian sat camped out on the other side like a cheapskate.

But hadn’t I seen....?

I looked at my map again.

I had mistaken something else for Molo’s “docks”: a great jutting bit of land, all square and elevated above its surroundings. I’d thought it was perhaps made of stone, but....

Well I’d see when I got there I suppose.

The rolling hills piled steeply to my right—the Elma Knolls. And I soon discovered them to be infested with wolves. Eventually one appeared unavoidably close to my path.

I kept running. Straight for it.

I’d been a wolf before! I thought, remembering Twilight Princess, I’ll best you....

And I did—and was rewarded with a thick slab of Gourmet Meat.

But the wolves did fight dirty, circling and circling and keeping back from my sword strokes. But once one of them was killed the rest left off in a hurry—true to the Compendium’s word.

It was only a minor slowing inconvenience—I had to keep going.

And to my left I saw one of those flying terrors—the same kind I had seen near the tower north of Upland Zorana. Hovering and shining red lights down below....

I snapped a pictograph.

It was a flying Guardian.

FANTASTIC.

There were a few of them near the castle, as it turned out. I always found it alarming whenever they seemed to be hovering in my general direction, and you bet your pants I hightailed it into the hills on those occasions! Between Guardians and wolves, I’d take the wolves.

But the Guardian Flyers would eventually make a sharp turn—following a set patrol pattern it seemed—and I would bend cautiously back toward the road, and the river, cutting my corners as fine as I dared....

The castle—the castle grounds—were.... enormous. I did reach what I had thought was the dock, or half of a bridge. But it was not a dock.

It was, in fact, one of a number of immense, black, cubicle stones, shot with magenta light in archaic designs, which surrounded the castle, all jutting inward like the teeth of a baited trap.

Perhaps.... a part.... of whatever apparatus bound the great Calamity to its prison in the castle grounds.

This one just happened to be on my side of the river. The side my Sheikah Slate had downloaded into its map. That’s why it was showing up.

I would not touch it.

It was a long, long trek across the Elma Knolls. Sun and moon arced. Rain came and went. I passed a Hinox slumbering in the middle of what looked like a lumber yard—I considered killing it, but.... my arrows were running low after that Woodland Tower. And I didn’t fancy getting smacked in the everything by one of those logs.

I killed wolves, I startled birds and foxes, I grabbed plants on the go, I ran from a mounted bokoblin—thought about killing him too, but he was packing some kind of super arrows and I had to keep running.

I just had to keep following the river.

That Mei might have passed so close to the castle, so close through the unholy darkness, beneath those undulating clouds of purest evil....

I just had to keep following the river.

I just had to keep following the river....

And I did.

And after a long, long time, it began to bend away from the castle and the Calamity, so blessedly away.

And I followed it.

It had been a big, big castle, and ground, and maybe a town. Perhaps once the bright center of the land. Maybe I should have known it would take such a long, long time.

I followed the river, running and running and making only brief stops—mostly involving Koroks. One of them led me on a merry game of hide-and-seek through the few standing walls of a ruin on a high plateau overlooking the water.

The place was wide enough that it had seemed like boss-room bait, but there were only a few fat blue chuchus lurking in the ground. I dispatched them easily, and played the Korok’s game, as a mighty thunderhead brooded in the western distance, lightning strobing in its shadowy depths....

I ran on.

Bridges spanned into the dangerous ground on my left at whiles—now I was more west-northwest of it.

I ignored them.

Through the darkness of rain I came to a great crack in the earth, with jutting crags like teeth on either side. Things were nesting in the dangerous paths at the bottom it seemed.... But I only paraglided across to the other side—and kept on running.

Stalmoblins burst from the ground and chased me—I had no time for them.

The grass began to give.

Rocks showed through the terrain.

I passed a Sheikah Tower high up away on the rocky hills to my right.

It looked close, but....

Later.

I came to great bald mountains and cliffs of bare stone and—

THE RIVER SPLIT?

David laughed at me.

He’d been with me for a while now.

“Ugh, which way?” I lamented.

“Try the left one; it follows the map line.”

I swiveled between the two in agony.

“Uhhhh.... Okay....”

And so I took the left fork.

I just had to keep going....

RETURN OF THE FOOL

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017

RETURN OF THE FOOL

I’d been trying so long.... so hard....

I’d wanted so badly to find Mei....

“Have you tried playing with your gloves yet?”

“Hah, I don’t think I’d be able to control it....” Unless I cut the fingertips off, but I don’t want to do that!

“Sure you could!”

“What were your joysticks like?”

“Well this one over here had to move like this, and like this.... and this one moved like this.... and on this one were the buttons for—”

Dad went on explaining the various cockpit functions. I didn’t really pay the closest attention until something lodged in my perceptual filter:

“And on top, we had a little tiny joystick for—”

“You had thumbsticks?” I blurted.

“Yeah.”

“And you could control them?”

“Oh yeah. It was easy.”

“With your gloves on and everything?”

“Yup!”

I might have been too impressed with just that to remember to argue that Well, did you have a bunch of little thumb buttons and a D-pad?

Maybe someday I’ll try playing with the flight gloves on. I could practice on the Plateau. :)

He used to do a lot of search and rescue, Dad did.

Search and Rescue.

Search and Rescue....

It was a heroic thing. He even saved lives.

Heroic....

Heroic Search and Rescue....

What—

What kind of Hero was I, if I couldn’t even find one slippery fish woman?

Blow it.

Blow it all, Robbie!

I had some Searching and Rescuing to do!

I WAS GOING TO FIND MEI. Because she was missing, and her husband and children needed her to be all right.

I ran out the door of the Woodland Stable and plunged down the road that Zorona never followed and that Molo only dreamed about.

I’M COMING TO SAVE YOU, MEI!

Sweaty Palms

Waking of Saturday, April 15, 2017

Sweaty Palms

“I found Gorignak,” said David.

I just said, “Ah!” and we looked at each other for a moment, both of us knowing I was afraid of spoilers—from either end.

“It’s probably the same one you found,” David said, “I’m pretty sure.” The words were so confidently weighted.

I still didn’t say anything.

“Where did you find yours?” he pressed, “It’s fine.”

“....The South Dueling Peak,” I finally said, “Just below the frost line.”

“Yeah. That’s where I found it.”

“And it asploded into a million Ambers.”

“Yup.”

“You know,” I went on, “I remember coming upon that field, and thinking This just LOOKS like a place for a boss fight....”

David laughed.

He’s ahead of me in the game I think. Sometimes I’ll come in the door and hear things I know I shouldn’t be hearing, whereupon I’ll plug my ears and dash away to my room. Other times I have to occupy the same space out of necessity, making a lunch or something, and I’ll just refrain from looking at the TV, and he’ll keep from initiating any important cutscenes. It’s easy enough, until David starts reacting in blustering whattheheckitude at whatever he is seeing.

At one such time I stood where I could not see the TV, just David’s face. He’d just ascended some kind of big, bald, sand-stony mountain I think, and from the sounds he made and the faces he pulled, you’d think he’d just come upon a giant marble statue of Tingle.

“Gold, actually,” he said.

“Gold statue of Tingle?”

“Yes.”

It’s.... maddening.

“I really want to watch you play this part when you get here,” he told me.

Sometimes I’ll watch him play, but only when he’s in places I’ve already been.

I saw him climbing around Zora’s Domain. Ralis Pond, actually! He barely saw the Hinox in time before blundering into it (it was raining). He climbed all over until he paraglided down onto the bridge and into the Domain proper.

And Rivan and Dunma were the first Zoras he had ever laid eyes on.

“What?” I was incredulous. “HOW? How did you even—? Where did you even come from?”

“The south,” David said, “It took me a really.... REALLY long time.”

I told him I’d let him watch me play that other part, if some day he would show me just how in the world he made it all the way into the heart of Zora’s Domain without bumping into any Zora.

And he had to climb down to get to the Lanayru Tower, because he had never even been to the wetlands.

What in the.... just.... ?

One thing I was sad about for him though was that once he did climb Lanayru Tower, Gruve was not at the top. He didn’t get to see that little exchange. Pity.

Sometimes I’ll watch him play even when he’s just near enough to places I’ve already explored.

I saw him sail far out to an island off the coast near Hateno Village once.

(That was probably when I developed Korok Leaf Envy.)

But ah, what another charming animation we found there—have you ever tried to kick open a treasure chest when you have no shoes on your feet?

Oh dear me. Poor Link! X-)

Made us laugh something grand.

We try not to spoil each other, but we’re okay with giving each other little hints, I think. There were electric green chuchus on that island—the first I’d seen in the game—and I passed on Joseph’s warning that those kind blow up. David appreciated that. He also was glad for the tip I gave him on just setting bombs down beside those hidden land-bound octoroks, and then backing up and blowing them up once they show their ugly faces.

And of course I was happy for the extra brainstorming he offered when I was stuck inside Vah Ruta.... and a few shrines....

But there is one thing he always—

Actually there are probably a lot of things he makes fun of me for.

But there is one thing so constant, that his opportunities to poke fun at me for it are far more numerous than the rest, and that is that.... sometimes when I play the game, my palms sweat more profusely than they’ve ever done before in my LIFE.

As a matter of fact, after I started the game, my palms seemed to oversweat wherever I was—for like two weeks straight. Probably longer.

I did feel slightly vindicated once he started his game file, and said to me at one point as he scaled a giant cliff face, “I can see why your hands sweat.”

But he still digs me for it when I get it going bad.

Very occasionally, my father has seen me play this game. And simply due to the law of averages, he’s therefore seen my hands sweat too.

I’ll keep pausing and apologizing for no reason as I wipe my palms down on my sleeves or the front of my shirt....

And Dad will always say “We’ll have to get you some flight gloves.”

And I’ll laugh.

Or.... that’s how it used to go.

Because on this day, Dad made sure to watch me, and beckon me, as I came up and looked at the entertainment center cupboard where my WiiU lives. Because he wanted to see how I would react. Because there draped over the cupboard door were two long green flight gloves.

“What?” I laughed. :D

“Those are for you!” he smiled.

“What the heck??” I laughed some more.

“Try ‘em on! They’re brand new.”

I did.

“Oh they fit great. You look awesome.”

“Where did you even get these?”

“At the store where helicopter pilots know to look for flight gloves.”

“What the heck, Dad?” XD XD

We hugged.

The flight gloves happened to match the mud-green T-shirt I’d been wearing.

And they came halfway up my forearms.

I felt like a superhero.

He used to do a lot of search and rescue, Dad did.

Maybe that’s why.... I’d been trying so long.... so hard....

Had it somehow become.... a familial trait?

Was it just something in my blood?

AN UNEXPECTED AND IMMEDIATELY URGENT DETOUR

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 10

AN UNEXPECTED AND IMMEDIATELY URGENT DETOUR

A circularish bog.... with a bunch of wooden platforms in it....?

I pulled out my Sheikah Slate and opened the pictograph album.... one of these.... one of Zelda’s pictographs.... THERE IT WAS.

The roundish body of water with all the platforms.... on top of a hill?

With a river running nearby and there was the castle behind it?

“OH MY GOSH THAT’S HERE!” I shouted.

I looked at the pictograph—I was too low and to the right—I needed to be up and to the left—Forget the forest, forget Akkala! I needed to climb the mountain!

I paraglided from the hilltop, across the road, and into the red, red stone of the foothills of Death Mountain.

And I scrambled for it.

It was a place called Eldin Canyon, and it was easy enough to ascend—especially with my Climber’s Bandana.

Quickly, quickly, up, up, up! I was in such a hurry to try and unlock my memory I barely gave myself time to take in what oddities and little terrors I passed. There were glowing-hot rocks—fiery versions of those creepy little golems I’d run into outside Hateno. Infantile Taluses, I think. I blew them up with bombs. And there were big, plump birds—Eldin Ostriches—that looked delicious.... And dangerous! Those legs looked powerful.... But they were afraid of my presence, and fled. I didn’t try to catch any.

I HAD MORE PRESSING MATTERS TO ATTEND TO!

The temperature rose as I climbed higher and higher—the baking oven heat just next to intolerable. But not quite. Not quite dangerous. I could take it....

But as I scaled one cliff wall, and just reached the lip of its top and looked over—I briefly saw the glare of lava—

And whatever wooden weapon I had slung across my back burst into flame.

I backed up immediately, shielding my face below the rock again—I hadn’t known I was so close to the open magma flow! Dropping back down to the dirt below, I quickly put out the fire.

I paused, considering.

From the neck down, I was still wearing full Zora Armor. So sleek, formfitting, made for the water.... I didn’t want to damage it....

Perhaps it was time to switch back to my Hylian attire, which I did. Though I passed up the Hylian Hood and just kept the Climber’s Bandana on my head.

Maybe it made no difference, but it somehow seemed.... more fitting for the terrain. Rugged. Ah, I’d missed this stuff....

And up I went again.... being careful to take a different avenue....

Near the crest of one great lumpy crag of the mountain—my gosh the whole thing just went on forever—it was like traversing the Superstitions from Peralta Trailhead all the way to First Water all over again—plus about sixty degrees of incline and ending in a fiery explosion—

UH, near the crest of one of the innumerable regular-sized mountains that somehow comprised the foothills of this gigantic.... unbelievably huge.... oh the word “mountain” just doesn’t seem to encompass it....

Anyway ON TOP OF A BIG ROCK I MET SOME RED LIZALFOS.

I ran in to cut them down, but.... they moved differently, these ones.... Instead of darting in low over the ground like a snake to end up right next to me, they paused at some distance away—and simply breathed fire at me, in front of a slow, pressing march.

I couldn’t get close; I had to withdraw and change tack.

Running back down the hill a ways, I tried to stay as high as I could on a sort of side-slope that arced up concave from the hillside where I was.

Fire-breathers, huh?

I had never purchased specialty arrows before, but I had found and acquired a few in my wanderings. And I had a good many ice arrows on my person just then....

It was a trick to get close enough to see the lizalfos, but remain far enough away for them not to notice. It was trickier still to aim over such distances—and angles. No flat ground here. I must say, I startled them with a few misfires and made them dart about a bit, but in the end.... with one arrow apiece, they shattered into frozen crystal fragments that melted right away in the burning heat.

The way was clear. I moved all over the hill where the lizalfos had stood, looking down at the bog. Was this right? No, I had to be higher. I got on the rock where the first lizalfos had scorched me. Was it high enough?

I took pictograph after pictograph but they didn’t line up. The parallax bend of the river was off.... and there was a rock somewhere in the foreground that I was missing.

I climbed higher, up to the craggy pinnacle of the concave side-slope I had sheltered on.

This was it.

And.... there was a Korok hiding.

I flushed him out and took his seed, and then walked to the edge, looking out at the Training Camp, and the Castle beyond....

The sun was rising.

No, the sun was setting. And there were scads of slain monsters littering the hill I had just climbed. Bokoblins. Moblins. I could have sworn I even saw the severed head of a Black Lynel, still glowering in a frozen snarl.

Zelda’s voice was sounding.... something about me overdoing it....

I wasn’t immortal, she reminded me.

And she was seeing to some minor injury I had sustained, but it wasn’t bad. Just a little scratched up is all.

She was some Princess, to go climbing all the way out here with me—and through the midst of so many enemies....

She wore clothes like mine. Blue tunic. Dun trousers. Boots for easy movement. A pretty braid of her dusky-blonde hair banded over the top of her head.

She was worried.

No, she wasn’t worried; her voice and her manner were too steady for that.

But she expressed a kind of concern. An unsettlement.

About the increasing frequency of these monster appearances—and the exceedingly more powerful breeds that manifested.

Something about the Calamity....

Something about the Calamity impending....

Was it closing in?

I spent all day on that rock.

I’d almost started down as the morning got on—indeed I did start down—but....

No. I wanted to wait. Until the right time.

I climbed back up, and stayed there a long time after.

Just the Korok and his circle of stones for company.

Until sunset, when I took a few more pictographs.

And that was enough.

Everything was so tiny below me: the Sheikah Tower, the Training Camp, and waaaay down there in the valley, the little horsehead shape of the Woodland Stable.

I paraglided from crag to crag back down the mountain, and soon found myself to be sailing over some enormous switchbacks.

So there’d been a road I could have used.

But there were also a few black moblins scattered along it—sleeping mostly—and one ice wizzrobe, whom I would not have cared to run into.

No, I preferred the avenue of my own making: right up the hills near the forest (Yay Bandana), and right down the hills through the air.

I sailed right down to the Woodland Stable, and for twenty rupees booked a bed to sleep in.

It had been a long day.

A long few days.

The Forest

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 9

The Forest

You know, I really enjoy the little stance dance Link does whenever you leave the controller alone for too long. In Ocarina of Time it was the dirt-removal toe-tapping or the infamous tunic-straightening. I’ve seen him sneeze when he’s cold in Majora’s Mask, or swing some moves with the sword in his hand. He would stretch long and luxuriously in Wind Waker, or just take a rest on his haunches when he was a wolf in Twilight Princess. There are dozens of these idle animations.

But in Breath of the Wild.... he just nods off. XD His eyes glaze over and his mouth starts to sag until his head drops a little too suddenly and he shakes himself out of it with a hilariously surprised look on his face!

Ahh delightful animations in this game....

Well.

I’d seen what I had come to see at this tower.

When day broke with a clear sky, I jumped from the top and paraglided toward the road that led to the woods. That old man at the Woodland Stable had said something about the Lost Woods in the heart of the forest.... I would plunge ahead in a minor exploratory sweep until I ran into something too dangerous to face—which I was sure would inevitably happen—whereupon I could simply warp back to Zora’s Domain, and Upland Zorana. Robbie was waiting.

Maybe Karson would react to that pictograph of Tye and Sorelia....

The trees were thick along the road. I followed it until I came to a narrow pass between two sheer hills. Like a canyon.

The overwhelming sense of caution coursed through my veins and filled my lungs, and the bold exploratory sweep was promptly forgotten.

I chose the hill on the right side; it seemed to offer access to even higher foothills....

But up on its grassy top, between the tree trunks, I saw something I had not seen before: lean grey shapes with tufted tails. Canine. Two, no, three, no there were more of them—

Wolves.

I turned right back around. Perhaps the hill on the left would offer me something better.

It did. It was quite clear. However, it was too far away from the right hilltop for me to spy out what creatures might have been lurking there....

Or snipe them.

Drats.

Well, I had a look around anyway.

This Great Hyrule Forest was.... interesting. It seemed completely misted over with a thick, thick fog. The trees looked dead. And far away in its very heart, one tree stood supremely huge above them all. It looked.... like a giant cherry tree....

So many dead limbs with no leaves growing on them made it seem easier to see in there. And yet.... the tangle of it all seemed dangerous....

Was Hestu in there somewhere?

Ugh, but did I really want to go in there?

Wait, but I’d been planning to, hadn’t I?

And couldn’t I just warp away if anything happened?

Then why couldn’t I make myself move?

I surveyed the surrounding landscape a bit instead; the hill was tall enough to give me some fairly good views. I looked behind me and could see the tower I had scaled, standing amid all the platforms in the little circle of the bog—

WAIT A SECOND.

What I Came For

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 8

What I Came For

I thought I’d heard of a Shiekah Tower like this from Joseph. Something about bogs.... something about the tower being surrounded by giant stones.... something about bombs....

But I don’t think this was that tower.

This tower did indeed have one large grey stone of some kind beside it in the bog. But there was also some strange, large.... dark.... rounding kind of shape high atop its crown. It was difficult to make out from below.

I remembered the Hateno Tower and its briars. Was this another obstacle, only situated at the top instead of crawling along its length? But it looked too thick and solid to be briars. Oh gosh, had bad guys taken it over? Would I have to fight them up there once I scaled it?

I had been so confused as to what was on top of this tower, and I wanted to get rid of it or burn it off it as soon as I could.

But when I came close I understood. And I didn’t think fire was gonna do it.

The large grey stone at the tower’s base and the dark rounding shape at its crown were two halves of a bokoblins’ skull-den—those skull-shaped cave-enclosures they like to hide in. The tower’s eruption from the ground must have cracked this one in two. And now this Sheikah Tower had.... well a very nice lid I guess.

A hat like a big busted eggshell.

Well that was swell.

Wished I could’ve removed it.

Especially once I reached the top—that thick stone casing really obstructed the view. But, no matter. I just had to distill the rune and my map could tell me of the surroundings.... This would tell me the river’s course.

This would tell me about Mei.

I activated the pedestal. The runes dripped down, the teardrop fell into my Sheikah Slate....

According to the map, the river out of the wetlands ran right through Ganon’s backyard. I could even see what must have been the dock Molo had said was situated just north of the castle—the way to get inside, he’d said.

It was all too close.

The castle was right there.

Traveling that way.... I could very well be seeking my own death.

Not now. Not in my present state.

Mei, I’m sorry.... but I have to get to Akkala.

If they don’t find you soon, then I will.... when I’m strong enough to do so.

My map also said there was a Great Hyrule Forest to the north, but.... I couldn’t see it at all from the tower-top. Nor could I see the castle very well. The big dratted stone casing was in the way.

But then I considered.... well....

Did I really want to be visible to the great Calamity, at the top of a glowing blue tower so close to the castle?

Maybe the eggshell cap wasn’t so bad.

I spent a while at the top of the tower; I could still see a great distance over a broad area. I even counted the towers I had already been to; I could see all of them but Hateno. The Dueling Peaks looked like molehills, and the Great Plateau was so far away and tiny....

When the sky was dark again the rain came back—and I started to freeze. I’d been able to see my breath, and my cheeks had had that rosy ice-bitten tint to them, but I hadn’t realized I was that high up.

I put on my Warm Doublet and passed the night beneath the shelter of the tower’s rune stone.

Grace of Life

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 7

Grace of Life

It was dark when I had climbed to one particularly broad thoroughfare, high over the bog. It was comprised of a very worn-down bridge extending between two tall towers. Its planks were sagging here and there; some of them were missing entirely. A few explosive barrels sat scattered along its length.

I had cleaned up my end. At the other end, a great black moblin lay snoozing. I thought about casting bombs, seeing if I could detonate the farthest explosive barrel to take him out, but.... who knew if just one barrel would do the job? Did I really want to risk duking it out with a groggy moblin way up on this bridge?

....

Okay the Groggy Moblin needs to be a restaurant now.

BESIDES, if I made such a ruckus, other baddies might wake up as well; I didn’t want to have half the camp after me. And anyway the planks in the bridge were so skewed a bomb might not even be able to hit its mark.

But there were alternative courses of action....

I stepped out onto the planks. No need to make a mess.

I crept forward, sinking into a crouch as I drew nearer the slumbering brute. One sneak-strike would do it....

My father would have called it “a lack of situational awareness”.

A flash of red color, in some inward, downward motion—from above?—from the side?

A clatter, a boom, and the world exploded, and I was flying forward, beyond the moblin, passing on its left, arcing and whirling like a drill bit—I paused, I needed food, no but was I dead?—and the moblin was awake, and its bright blue eye was open, and it was on fire, and then it crumpled down dead—and I was mad with pausing—what had happened?—what had I been foolish enough to miss?—what had I not seen?—and I skidded onto the planks near the other tower, inside the other tower, and a glowing, glimmering teal angel with a long head-fin and beautiful arms like an enfolding shroud shimmered up in the air around me, dissipating into twinkling lights like fireflies.

“Mipha, no—” I choked, feverishly pausing again. I didn’t want to waste her gift on something so foolish—

It would revive me, she had said, the moment my strength was completely depleted.

It would bring me back to life.

Like a fairy, I had thought.

Oh why hadn’t I just been able to use a fairy, and preserve Mipha’s Grace for a time more needed than this?

Was there really any silence after the blast? How could there be?

I staggered to my feet.

I was alive.

I had extra hearts.

I was strong.

But Mipha’s Grace—

I paused again.

Would it still be there?

And to my shock it was. There in my inventory. But it was hollow. No longer gleaming in holy blue flames, but empty, and stark, and red with its usage.

I hadn’t wanted to waste it on something like this....

But as I looked again—there was a timer beside it. Counting down. And the words “Ready in”....

OH SWEET NAYRU IT WASN’T WASTED! I had been so afraid that I would only be able to use it once—but it was going to come back!

Mipha’s Grace would come back!

It would take time, but it was there.

It was still there.

She was still with me.

I took stock of my surroundings. One bokoblin snuffled around, alert, on the platform directly above me. That must have been the one that—

Must’ve cast an arrow, or thrown something.

That blue bokoblin....

Or maybe it really was black this time.

Augh, Black! Blue! What’s it matter anyway? They would all end up both of those colors when I got through with them!

Not So Simple

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 6

Not So Simple

There seemed to be a rugged but fairly clear path straight up into the foothills and toward the tower. I followed it, but.... not for too long. I soon found myself vaulting over the knolls to the left, keeping to higher ground, wanting to skirt the bare open spaces. I didn’t like to make myself a welcome target.

Left was the wrong choice, though, I soon discovered. Not by any imminent attacking danger—but by hazard of the environment.

Unseeable from the river valley below, pools upon pools of sticky brown bogwater festered in these high sort of paddies or spills.... The land was depressed enough up here to hold them. The landscaping might even have been man-made, for there were ruins up here, too. This was the Military Training Camp....?

Hm, but I am hesitant to call them ruins exactly; everything seemed mostly made of wood. Which I don’t suppose disqualifies it, but.... Well, the majority of it seemed to have been smashed and scattered all over itself, but the thing was it looked as if it could have happened only days ago.

Ruin enough anyway, I suppose.... An enormous tangle of tilted boardwalks, listing platforms.... and deadly spills into the bubbling ooze.

It was also crawling with blue bokoblins, and peppered with high explosives.

I moved carefully, and progressed by my bow.

The bokoblins didn’t pose too much of a threat. But it was a little disheartening seeing so many spoils lost to the bog. There was simply no recovering them. I tried to use my arrows sparingly.

The camp was extensive, to put it mildly. Onward and upward the splintered woodwork and wonky boardwalks led, until I came to one very large brown bog at the crest of the whole dead hill. Rickety wooden spires and questionable platforms spread over its glistening surface in an unpleasantly sun-simmered complex that looked thick and navigable enough from the shore. But moving out amidst it, treading over its narrow planks and planting myself on its sorry little islands of scrap boxes and upturned bridge-segments made into ladders and walls....

No, the ways here were few and constricted. The avenues were sparse, and I’d only have one dimension to move around in. I could see a few blue moblins tromping around on patrol up on some of the higher levels.... and blue bokoblins camped out high on some of the towers.

We may as well have been moving through tunnels. There would be no skirting around these guys. Sooner or later, I would have to face them, and take them down.

Because the Sheikah Tower was jutting from this bog too. And if I could just make my way to that high, high platform beside it.... I could reach it, and scale it.

To make it even more interesting, there were two or three lizalfos churning through the mud below. Dratted reptiles, that they could swim in that muck....

With a little Magnesis to move a large metal box for an extra platform, I got just close enough to take out the lizalfos first, not giving them enough time between my arrows to spit back at me. But there were still plenty of bokoblins to get through on the scrapwood islands—and I did not want to upset any of their explosives!

The sun went down. Rain came and went. The trek was longer than I’d thought it would be. There were so many dead-ended platforms reachable only by paraglider, traps low in the mud.... For where could you go once you landed?

This place would be so much easier to shake down once the tower was activated....

Fight For Your Honey!

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 5

Fight For Your Honey!

Now I could set out for the Woodland Stable. There seemed to be a spread of low mountains between me and Thims Bridge. And the path like a stream of water wound through the lowest parts....

Well I didn’t like that at all—I climbed up into the hills on the right side where I could keep a better eye on things, and I found some very craggy land indeed! There was an especially deep little sunken dell in the ground where it looked like there might be a Korok hiding—and which had two bears in it, skulking around the entrance of a small cave.

I stayed up top and gave them a wide berth for the time being—I’d heard things from David. I think he said a bear killed him once.

Besides, there was a big nasty treehouse up ahead that I wanted to clear out.

It held no bokoblins or moblins, though. Just a few large stray blue chuchus. I dispatched them and looted what was worth looting, and then came back to the Korok in the dell.

A few bombs scared off the bears, but I made sure to scout out a quick escape-route if they should come back while I was flushing out that Korok....

But they never came back.

I found some honey in their cave—swarming with bees, but a bomb took care of that, too. Useful tactic for later, I think.

There was a flat way out of Honeydell—mm, yes that fits—which led straight back to the road, but I climbed back out by going straight up the cliff. I didn’t want to run into those bears!

Only a little more trekking, a little more sniping, another treasure chest inside a big mossy skull-rock.... and I had arrived at Thims Bridge. I knew it! I knew they connected. :)

The rain started to come down as I crossed to the other side of the river, and I saw a man sheltering beneath a little half-tent beside a fire.

I’d never yet seen a Yiga with a campfire, so I talked to him. I can’t remember if his name was Fin or Russ, but he and his buddy, whose name was also either Fin or Russ, were in the business of selling shields.

I’ll say Fin was at the tent. His buddy Russ was up on a hill just to the south, beneath a large and prominent tree. All their wares were up there, because aside from selling shields, they were also teaching people how to shield-surf, which was most effective when going downhill.

David told me he’d done this! I remembered!

Like friggin’ Legolas at Helm’s Deep! 8D

Well.... movie Legolas. ^_~

I didn’t buy from them, but I learned the trick! And then continued on my way.

Another blue bokoblin was ruckusing around up ahead—chasing somebody it looked like.

I ran to get closer, and it was.... Leekah again?

I cut down her assailant, and she stopped and stood shivering in the rain, her poor familiar hunch making her look pitiful and vulnerable. When I spoke to her, she thanked me again for rescuing her, and gave me some honey.

Huh, I briefly wondered if she must have frequented that little Honeydell I’d visited!

This time, she continued down the road at a jog toward the Woodland Stable—just the place I’d wanted to go as well. I escorted her.

It was beginning to thunder.... I had to switch to non-conductive weaponry and equipment. The sky was already dark from the brooding rainclouds, but the sun must have gone down behind them, because only a short while later, no fewer than three stalizalfos popped up out of the earth in front of us.

Leekah shrieked and fled while I charged in, trying to draw their attention. The trouble with these blasted stal-creatures was that they just went all to pieces when you hit them.... but you had to find and finish off their heads or else they would eventually locate their members and put themselves back together again.

In a mad, rattling fray of bones, I took down at least two of them, chasing down their bouncing skulls—did one of them come so conveniently flying my way? Did Leekah punt it over for me to finish off? I could have sworn....

My blade put an end to their mischief. But as I turned to confront the last one—they’re usually so easy—so easy to dodge....

I took a bad arrow-hit.

Ugh, that hurt.... so many hearts....

A few bites of simmered fruit from my pocket, and a final charge, and I cut him down as well, before returning to Leekah in the new pouring stillness.

“We have got to stop meeting like this,” I told her.

She once again expressed her profound gratitude to me.... and gave me more honey.

She really is a sweet girl.

No pun intended.

On our final jog over the last few dozen yards to the stable, we passed another person just jogging out, heading southward, the way we had come. Tall, dark-skinned, ruddy-haired, and wearing poofy pink harem pants. A woman....

I caught her attention and we splashed to a halt beside each other on the road. “Sav’saaba!” she hailed. She introduced herself as Karsh of the Gerudo. “Remember it!” she said, and remarked further on how probably the only people capable of matching her own endurance were the Gorons....

We continued on our separate ways beneath the raging storm.

I’d never seen a Gerudo before.... at least not in present memory.

Now there went a damsel who looked hard put to be put in distress.

[[Fanart should have Link putting his cloak around her poor shivering figure as he helps to steady her in the pouring rain. But I was wearing the Zora ensemble + bandana at the time.]] - [[originally withheld from the blog; added from the log 2018-09-17 per entry of Wednesday, June 20, 2018 ~ 6: Unsaved Again]]