Hylian Charbroil

Waking of Friday, October 13, 2017

Hylian Charbroil

You know, Goron City can be confusing. Absolutely bewildering down on the ground, where the geology is all the same color, all jutting up in a million variations of the same craggy shapes.

It took me a while before I gave up on my HUD and just consulted my full map. And even then.... I took the cheap way out and simply warped to the shrine near Eldin Bridge.

When I hiked up the hill I found Yunobo cowering beneath Daruk’s Protection; two Black Moblins were harassing him.

Well! I had just the mask for that! C:

I donned the Moblin Mask and dashed up the trail. The Moblins turned at my approach and eyed me suspiciously....

I hadn’t quite thought through what exactly I intended to do. Sure enough I was able to get close. Very close. Right up next to them. Which gave me the element of surprise. But there were two of them. And surely they wouldn’t take kindly to any suddenly violent turns on my part. Hmm.

In the end I just did the best I could—I Stasised one of them, and just started walloping away, fortuitously landing the same blows on his fellow as well. They both went down but there would be no more taking them off guard after that.

Moblins can hit. @_@

When I had dispatched them both, the camera swiveled back to center on the trembling Yunobo, and I suddenly hoped that I wouldn’t be forced to move through an otherwise epic and momentous cinematic while wearing.... a Moblin Mask.

But Yunobo only stood up to look around and see that he had been saved, and the game released me to approach and address him on my own.

PHEWF. ouo;

There was a cannon nearby, like the ones at the North Mine. But when I rolled a bomb into it and tried to fire, nothing happened. Huh....

So I turned to speak to Yunobo. He thanked me for my help, and asked where Big Boss Bludo was.

“He’s not coming,” I said.

“What?”

I explained to him about the painkillers not having any effect, and Yunobo looked downcast and fretted about what they were going to doooo.... Yunobo had Daruk’s Protection, and it was the only way to drive Vah Rudania up into the volcano, but Bludo had to work the cannon....

“I’ll do it!” I said.

Yunobo was shocked. He impressed upon me how dangerous this was. Especially for a Hylian.

But with that wonderfully unscripted series of animated mouth movements and gesticulations that Zelda games have become SO fond of lately.... I explained to him I assume that I actually did need to get inside that Divine Beast.

That seemed to lend him a little courage. Heh, for a Goron he just seems so.... youthfully tender.

Yunobo told me that Eldin Bridge was kept raised to bar Vah Rudania from coming down and across from the upper cone. Actually I wondered whether the Divine Beast would even need the bridge.

Likewise, with the bridge in such a position, we wouldn’t be able to cross further upward. But Yunobo said I could knock the bridge into its lowered position by firing him at it with the cannon.

And he hopped in.

:I

So I rolled in a bomb, took aim and blew it up.

You ever launch someone into the sky in a rolling fiery arc?

I’d thought it might be a trick shot, an angle somewhere between set firing directions, and so almost shot him off too early! But he just barely nicked the upper corner of the raised bridge.... and brought it swinging down.

He landed back nearby on the rebound, a little unsteady and with stars dancing around his head. We could go into the mountain now, he said.

I had wondered if it would be anything like it had been with Prince Sidon—hard and fast and in a desperate rush!

But Yunobo was saying—what—we just—

....

On foot??

I’d wondered if perhaps we would have to do cannon acrobatics together but WHAT we just—the bridge is down and then—what, just—over we go? Onto the mountain? WHERE THE GIANT FRIGGIN’ LIZARD IS?

I dunno there was just something off-putting about climbing up after it, into its territory, on our own measly feet.

But that seemed to be the only option. Yunobo followed after me as I moved. Heh, I like it when the NPCs do that. ^_^

He was a bit slower than I....

Near the far end of the bridge we were thrust into a cinematic—Vah Rudania spotted us. The four large circular vents on its back dilated, and a host of smaller, buzzing, propellered things came swarming out.

Oh great, I thought, Those things are gonna come after us and I’m gonna have to shoot them, how many arrows do I have—

Yunobo lamented this new development as well. Evidently Vah Rudania did this whenever he and Boss Bludo came close. If those sentries spotted us the Divine Beast would go into a rage and cause the volcano to erupt; landslides of fiery boulders would come raining down. Bludo could just smash those boulders to bits with his fists.... But he wasn’t here....

I would lead and Yunobo would follow me, but with those sentries in the air.... he proposed we should decide on a signal for when we should move and when we should stop.

My options to respond were

A wink!

A whistle!

Mind powers!

XD

I suggested a whistle, and Yunobo said that was a good idea, even though it was a little like calling a horse....

The cinematic released me and, still fearing those sentries, I ran for cover like a self-respecting coward. But nothing came after us.

So I tested the whistle. It came out different! A short drill of three quick peeps brought Yunobo snapping to a rigid standstill with a “Hup!”

I moved away a short distance and whistled again. It was longer with a rolling pitch this time.

“Coming!” Yunobo called, and ran to where I was, stopping beside me with a triumphant “Ha-ha!” as if we’d just outwitted something.

Heh, that was for when we’d have cleverly gotten past something I guessed. His dulcet tenor voice is so tender....! XD

The whistle alternated between these two patterns, and when in earshot Yunobo was strict to heed it.... but I wished he’d had a slightly quicker reaction time....

We started out tentatively enough, but it seemed the sentries were not actively seeking us out, and so after a short time I had us plunging up the hill and into the crags.

Well.... plunging as fast as Yunobo could go, anyway. He would always catch up to me panting, and even gasped once, “Wait up!”

Poor guy.

The sentries shone bright red searchlights directly below where they hovered or patrolled. They seemed simple enough to slip past at first—though I did have to work on Yunobo’s timing! Under one of the first sentries, before we could reach the shelter of an overhang—before Yunobo could reach the shelter of the overhang—the beam caught him and—

Some buzzing alarm.

“This is bad!” Yunobo cried.

And Vah Rudania hammered the mountain with its enormous club of a tail, sending red-hot rocks cascading down in a thick and terrible rain of crushing DEATH.

They didn’t seem to reach us beneath the overhang, though, where I crouched down and Yunobo shivered beneath Daruk’s Protection.

But much of the rest of the mountain was not quite so forgiving.

The sentries were tricky! The beam of one stationary one I had to block with a large metal plate propped between two rocks. Clever. Others I discovered could be destroyed by casting bombs into nearby updrafts, and detonating when they reached the sentries’ level. Cleverer!

I had Yunobo stay put when I saw more Moblins in the distance, and put my mask on to go and have it out with them.

Turned out they were guarding another cannon! Yunobo hopped in, and I tried launching him at one of the sentries....

I’d say he overshot it by at least a quarter mile.

But he came bounding back and uncurled from his rolling posture, and told me to watch where I was aiming.

I guessed the sentries couldn’t be dealt with that way.

And I guessed.... it was to be a shot at the Divine Beast then—we did seem to be following it counter-clockwise up the cone. I aimed the cannon and fired, Yunobo struck true, and Vah Rudania groared and clambered further on, Yunobo rebounding back a moment later with more stars around his head. He was pretty pumped at our progress!

There were two more cannons, each guarded by two Black Moblins. We jogged our way upward and onward, skirting the sentries we could manage. Whistle. “Right!” Whistle. “Hup!” Whistle. “Coming!”

And other such noises he made.

.... “Wait up!”

Heh, there was even a little icon for Yunobo on my HUD map.

It even had his same fretting little face! XD

But it was deucedly difficult getting him past the last cluster of sentries before the third cannon. That one sentry going round in circles.... the one I couldn’t bring down with any air-drafted bombs....

Alarm.

“Oh no!”

Red-hot boulders.

Alarm.

“It saw us!”

More rib-shattering chunks of flaming rock.

Alarm.

“This is bad!”

Just bury me in the molten rubble rolling on the ground getting my SKIN seared off, no cover from this unrelenting, cacophonous—

It would have been helpful if Yunobo had run ahead to duck and cover, but he kept running back to that little outcrop. And I.... just did the best I could staying close to the cliff walls, trying to let the rocks bounce over me.

Isn’t that what they teach you for hiking?

I tried hunkering down near Yunobo once.

I was BOWLED RIGHT OFF THE MOUNTAIN. The cascade of hot earth blew me cartwheeling through the open air, down, down, high over the endless dark spires like the reaching pits of hades. It took me a moment to recover enough to deploy my paraglider—and turn myself back toward the mountain’s face where I clung like a bedraggled spider.

It was a bit of a climb to reach Yunobo again—thank goodness I had the stamina. But my hearts couldn’t take much more of this. I’d lost Mipha’s extras plus about half my normal red ones climbing this blasted volcano.

In the end.... I forgot the whistle, and just had him follow close after me as I timed a winding path beneath that infernal circling sentry.

And we made it to the last cannon.

Two dead Moblins later, I fired Yunobo at the Divine Beast again, and it seemed that Vah Rudania had had enough. It clambered over the jagged, oozing lip of the cone, pushed itself over the edge to fall into the crater, and—

THE VOLCANO ERUPTED.

With a tremendous rumble, a titanic spray of hot lava ejected out of the caldera.

But it didn’t hit us. And nothing more terrible happened after that.

The Divine Beast had only finally settled down into the very heart of Death Mountain, lizard legs splayed as at rest . . . . or recalculation . . . .

“That was so cool!” Yunobo crowed as we crested the top in cinematic, “You really put a licking on that thing!”

Oh I just love this kid. XD

I don’t remember much else of his parting words. I just remember his voice still so slight and tender, so hopeful as he bade me good luck in finishing the job, as I leapt off the lip after the beast, paragliding down, down, down into the core of fire, and Yunobo still stood there above, back meekly hunched and clasping his low hands before him like he does, blue neckerchief ruffling in the surging, embered heat....