Dead End with Dai

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 5

Dead End with Dai

“Where’d you get all those rupees anyway?” said David.

I had well over four and a half thousand at this point.

“I dunno, I’ve just been around. Sold stuff. Monster parts.” And then I thought— “Why, how many rupees do you have?”

He named some hundred. Four hundred something maybe?

“Four hundred?” I drawled and rolled my eyes so hard at him.

He laughed.

The left fork of the second split of the river seemed to SPLIT YET AGAIN.

I couldn’t take much more of this.

Between these newest forks of the river, on a towering mound of land, there stood a tall, circular structure of light stone—a coliseum—globbed upon by a great pool of malice near its base.

And beyond this coliseum was the old Plateau.

I had come quite close to it—its River of the Dead had even emptied into that lake beneath Digdogg Suspension Bridge. Strange, such a big circle I’d walked in it seemed....

At any rate, this third split of the river seemed to girdle the coliseum on both sides, perhaps even making an island of it....

I wanted to keep an eye on both splits for as long as I could.

There was a long dark bridge I could access which would take me to the coliseum.

It looked scary, I couldn’t see its top or any bad guys that might be patrolling it, and it just reeked of trouble.

But I was the Hero, and it was time to be Foolish.

So up I ran, up the little hill to the bridge. And the bridge, though worn a bit, was empty.

I ran ahead. And when I skipped past a few malice-pools and came to the other side, amid all the crumbled bits of walls and other things rubbled around on the grassy sward, I saw—

“What is that?” said David.

I looked carefully through my scope. “....It’s a backpack,” I said.

It was someone’s back.

And that someone was trembling.

I approached carefully, and I saw, quite clearly, the most probable reason for the man’s distress:

Prowling around inside the coliseum.... was what appeared to be a Black Lynel.

It stalked backward and forward, pausing at whiles to roar in challenge to the air....

Oh gads....

“What is that?” asked David.

“It’s.... I-It’s a-a—”

I legitimately could not speak.

I moved to where the man stood behind a weathered bit of light-stoned wall.

I didn’t think he was a Yiga.... He looked too terrified and his reason for it was too real.

I spoke with him.

His name was Dai, and he was evidently having second thoughts about facing whatever was in there, despite the untold riches rumored to then be found.

I discouraged him most heartily from his endeavor, and continued to follow the left fork, trying to keep low and out of sight of that Lynel if there were any more gaping holes in the coliseum walls....!

I found a Korok on the way. Cheery as ever and giggling its little “Twee-hee!”

Man....

Just....

Not something you really expect to hear in close quarters to a Lynel.

I was very close to the actual walls of the Great Plateau now, and before I got there.... the river ran out.

“Maybe the other one keeps going! Just gotta go around the horn....” I said hopefully.

I ran in a rightward curve until the coliseum walls pressed too close and the ground ran out from beneath my feet, I paraglided off the great mound of land and sailed round its sheer earthy sides, I hit the ground running, I came to the other split, the final split—

And it was a dead end too.