The Tallest Tower

Waking of Tuesday, June 20, 2017 ~ 2

The Tallest Tower

After a while the canyon widened.... and got wider.... and kept widening. I was getting farther away from the visible tower.

But I kept on my course around the Gerudo Highlands—that’s what these were.

I don’t know why. I just wanted to explore.

It’s a Zelda game.

It was that fever again.

You just want to wander.

I wanted to circumnavigate this mountain range.... probably come back around near Satori Mountain or the Plateau after a big clockwise path....

I got higher and higher until I had to put on my Warm Doublet.... and higher still until even that was insufficient and I had to come back down.

And far away stepping around in its clouds of what David said was dust, I could see the Divine Beast Vah Naboris.

“That’s the Giant Golden Tingle Statue,” he said.

It had been Vah Naboris.

“Well how would you react if you came up over a mountain and saw a three-hundred-foot camel walkin’ around?” he laughed.

I guessed I’d be as flabbergasted as he had been.

The desert stretched out below me, far, far into the distance.... littered with ominously gigantic ribcages and vertebrae—what had those come from? And beyond the sandscape....

Beyond that....

Hhhh.

I saw the sea, and it made me.... sad.

I thought of San Andreas.

I thought of Pacific City.

And I just felt.... sad.

I guess there was something about just the impassable mountains and cliffs you always see in other Zelda games. Those boundaries.

Just the thought of Hyrule—that beautiful land!—nestled somewhere in the vast, indefinable world. Lands and worlds unknown, unseen. Left to the imagination.

But here, on the western edge of the map—and having been to Hateno on the east, and having seen the sea there—and having seen it in the south, beyond the Highland Tower—and seeing it again, here in the west—

I just felt . . . . a sadness.

“Why don’t you go get that shrine?” David pointed to the settlement-looking place I had been watching for a while, way, way out in the desert.

“It looks.... like it could be a friendly place,” I conceded.

“Is the front door open?”

I laughed.

UHF. Fun movie.

Oh, there was plenty down there that had looked intersting to me. That settlement, plenty of ruins, a bit of treasure.... even what appeared to be the location of one of Princess Zelda’s pictographs.

But something still kept me away.... And it wasn’t just this mountain I was exploring....

My thoughts were still back in Akkala. I still had business there.

How had I even gotten this far? All I did was go climb the Lake Tower just to give David a kick and then—suddenly I’m wandering the backside of the Gerudo Highlands.

And then ahead, over a little shoulder of the mountain I saw.... some kind of shape that looked familiar....

It was.... a tower top?

I moved in close. A couple of Bokoblins tried to signal my approach but I rather cut their horn-blasts short. A big black Moblin stepped in to investigate but I Stasised him in his tracks before laying him out flat.

“Nice,” David grinned.

Cool. X-)

I’m feeling quite a bit more confident in combat.

I hiked over the shoulder and it was a tower top. A Sheikah Tower hiding right here in the folds of the mountain! Seemed to be standing in a lower spot in the middle of a ring of cliffs.

There were only a couple more baddies to deal with in the little clifftop camp I’d stumbled upon, but they weren’t too much trouble. And as I raided their spoils, breaking open metal boxes with Magnesis, I was MOST gratified when David shouted in surprise, “Those things BREAK?”

8D

Oh yes they do—and I turned over quite a few rupees that way!

Sweet.

I approached the cliff’s edge to have a look at the Tower’s base. But the hole in which this Sheikah Tower stood was so deep.... that I saw an atmospheric haze before I saw the bottom.

My gosh, this was the tallest Sheikah Tower I had ever seen. o__o

And it had only a handful of platforms on which to rest, all clustered near its top.

And there was something else, up at the crown—a bad guy on top? A top-heavy silhouette moving against the bright sky....

I scoped in.

No it was Kass.

I paraglided over from a high wooden jumping platform, and climbed my way up. Kass sang me another song from his old mentor, this one about shooting an arrow from the tower’s shadow during a certain time of day.... something about piercing heaven’s light....

Shoot for the morning light, I thought fondly.

I could see the platform from which to let fly on a cliff far below....

“Aren’t you gonna activate it??” said David.

“Oh yeah....” I turned to the pedestal. “Almost forgot....”

I dunno what was wrong with me.

I activated the Sheikah Tower—the Gerudo Tower—downloaded the map, and saved.