Waking of Saturday, July 29, 2017 ~ 2
The deep valley ruins were expansive.... but blessedly devoid of
monster life.
I climbed all OVER looking for that
shrine, my locator beeping feebly at me at every triangulation. The house was
still full and the table had filled up a bit. The chatter drilling into my
temples....
I asked them if they could chat in
the living room instead, and they were very kind to oblige. But Dad stayed and
sat by me, keen to solve the puzzle.
“Why don’t you try bombing that
platform?”
I knew it wouldn’t work, but I did
it anyway, and planted a bomb on one of the great stone octagons jutting from
the floor. “Cool guys don’t look at explosions!” I sang as I leapt off the
platform and detonated.
But the stone remained solid.
And when the sun had gone down—
“Wait a minute wait a minute—what’s that up there?”
“Those are Luminous Stone deposits.
They’re not a shrine.”
The beeping seemed to be coming
from.... one of three large stones, between which I’d scared up a Korok.
But.... there were no weak spots to bomb, no cracks to enter. Nothing I could
do would upset such a huge piece of rock.
I finally said, “I’m going to go to
the end of this.... construct.... and see if I can get underneath.”
Dad gave a single surprised laugh.
“I wouldn’t have thought of that!”
It was a long jog. I hopped on one
of the stone ribs in the architecture, making it my pathway as I ran toward the
little horizon that indicated that the valley became deeper further on. I
jumped over more stone octagons and ran and ran until I came to an edge.
The place was called.... the Forgotten Temple.
The valley indeed became much deeper here.
A wide patio-shelf of more
stonework lay below me. I paraglided down to this second level, and had a look
at the wall that held up the top.
There seemed to be a gigantic
archway.... but it was blocked and filled with earth and giant standstony
boulders.
But near the base was a bit that
looked explodable!
Surely this would be my way inside!
I blew it up—!
A Korok hid behind it.
“Yahaha!” he giggled, “You found
me!”
>_<
I walked to the edge of the second
level, and saw a similar patio-shelf even further down. I paraglided down toward
this third level, and was hungrily
relieved to see that the archway in the wall between levels two and three....
was unobstructed.
I angled the camera as I touched
down on the stone, so that I had a good look through the archway.
I registered only one thing: a
number of dark mounded shapes.... like upside-down cereal bowls....
Those were Guardians in there.
I paused to flip the sensor in my
Sheikah Slate to look for Decayed Guardians.
Unpaused.
Brreep-brreep!
Even as I saw the nearest mounds light up red. Brreep-brreep! Their heads began to swivel. Brreep-brreep! Found me. Lasers locked on.
I RAN. Straight away. Straight
toward the edge. Not bothering with any other controls. I just ran.
The camera remained directed at the
open archway behind me, the horde of black shapes like spiders congregated in
an overturned box, three hot red lasers
boring into the back of my shirt—one of them blinking—it was going to fire,
it was firing—
And BARELY I jumped off the edge in time—
The air began to rush and I caught
myself with my paraglider before I hit the ground—the final rocky dirt bottom
of this canyon.
“HAAAUUGH!” Dad and I looked at each other.
That was close.
“Only one thing left to do when you
hit rock bottom,” I said.
“Dig,” said Dad.
“Start digging,” I concurred with a nod. u_u
I found a way to climb back up,
which brought me back to the Korok level. I could paraglide down for another
quick entrance this time.... Because there was something else I had noticed through that archway.... something absolutely
ridiculous....
Air
currents. Blasting up out of the floor. Meant to be sailed upon.
Heh, my brothers and I used to
really enjoy playing a demo of a great little side-scrolling game where you
controlled a paper airplane. The floor vents were your friend.
Seemed like the same story here....
Go
nuts! Ben had told me at the lake.
I sailed in. The Guardians glowed
red and began to swivel. I hit the ground for a few paces to regain the sliver
of stamina I had spent. Jumped off the inner edge—there were so many of them in here—lasers tagged onto my shirt—the
air current lifted me up—
One of the Guardians blew me out of
the air and I fell in a flaming rush—too
fast!—But I recovered before I hit the ground—the flames went out—oh my gosh so many lasers....
Up
the updraft again, across the huge room—so
many Guardians.
I neared a tall, thick barrier wall
which seemed to bisect the length of the Temple—there was a hole in the middle
of it. I headed straight for it, dropping a bit to get down to its altitude and
inside it more quickly....!
I touched down on the last dregs of
my stamina and ran to duck behind the mounded earth and rubble in this little alcove.
My
gosh that was the LAST dregs of my stamina! Lucky I’d enhanced it as far as I had....
From my hidden perch I could see
what that giant dark grey thing was at the far end of the Temple: an enormous statue of the Goddess.
My
gosh it was like.... Skyloft....
What
was this place?
There was still the other half of
the room to cross.... and I crossed it, sailing through another net of
pin-cushioning lasers and deadly blue bolts whizzing behind my back—how do you weave when the lasers come from
so many angles?—but somehow none of them hit me—too low to make the hole in the last wall—had to drop to the floor,
run through that opening down at floor level—lasers chasing me in—UHH!
I
made it....
I
made it.
And I found the shrine that had so
MADDENINGLY eluded me up above.
And it was a Blessing Shrine.
You know, the Blessing Shrines seem
to have the same muted music as a shrine you enter after it’s been beaten.
Soft. Echoey. Like a memory or a ghost.
I received the Spirit Orb, the
eighth I now carried with me, stepped outside, and prayed before the Goddess
statue.
One Heart Container.
One Stamina Vessel.
One save.
And one quit.
My battery was out, and it was time
for bed anyway.
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