That Patience Which Holds Motionless for Endless Hours the Spider in its Web

Waking of Friday, January 19, 2018 ~ 8

That Patience Which Holds Motionless for Endless Hours the Spider in its Web

In the dark of the night I sailed out west behind my rented sand seal, skirting giant bones and Lizalfos habitations.

My trajectory was vague at best and I had no idea what I was looking for—what did Moldugas look like?

Were they gigantic and woolly? Did they walk on their knuckles? Did they have tusks? Would I know one when I saw it?

As it turned out I did—I knew it before I saw it.

The music gave it away.

Like the Talus and its pounding percussion, the Hinox and its fatshnazzy brass band—the Molduga’s name and life-meter appeared at the top of the screen, accompanied by an insistent, repetitive, Phrygian ambush of cellos, arpeggiating sans the third beneath a dancing tambourine pacesetter as if it had been a race!

I banked hard in a panic—the arc was too wide and slow—and charged back the way I had come—!

And the music did not follow me.

I try to be a good steward; I did not want to bring the sand seal to any harm, especially as it was not my own.

But I think it would be a lie to say I was not also fleeing to save my own skin.

Once I was sure I had put a sufficient distance between myself and the monster, I stopped, and had a look back.

The Molduga was somewhere in among those stones, I was sure of it: Great, gargantuan juts of sandstone pushing up out of the earth like enormous toadstools. —And there was movement.

I scoped in.

As the day began to dawn I could see: Something large was.... swimming beneath the surface of the sand, casting up a wake. Burrowing. I could see the hump of earth rolling along, indicating where it was.... but what did the thing itself actually look—

It breached the surface. Whale. Crocodile. Jaws. Teeth. Spoonbill. Little arms waggling. Manatee tail. Thrash. Twist. Snap. Huge—HUGE—

And it was down burrowing again.

Oh my Hylia that thing was—how could I—so big—could it sense me even here?

I watched it. A long, long time I watched it; and it did not stray beyond the confines of its great stone toadstool ring, but only cycled around within it.

It must have been moving so fast and yet.... every circuit took.... what seemed like several minutes. With a few breaches along the way.

So big.

Was the Compendium lying, when it said the Hinox was the largest monster to call Hyrule home?

Or was this not a part of Hyrule after all?

I eased my sand seal toward it again, timing our pace to arrive at one of the gigantic rounded rocks just as the monster was on the far side of its circuit from us.

The cellos were nowhere to be heard.

I left the sand seal near the stone, on the outside of the ring. Removed enough to be out of harm’s way, but close enough to be called at short notice.

I meanwhile climbed up on top of the squat rock formation, and watched.... and waited.

I dared not move a muscle as the Molduga came pummeling back round the circle, clockwise, coming in hard from the right.

It would pass near me soon; I would have an opportunity to strike. And given the enormity of the circuit, I could see just how sparse and precious that opportunity would be. No time for test shots here—it would be imprudent to attempt anything less than maximum damage.

I selected the strongest Lynel Bow I had, nocked a Bomb Arrow, and prepared to demand the attention of a carnivore one hundred times my size....

And with perfect timing the Molduga flew up out of the sand before my eyes, blue-grey-green and enormous, huge jaws snapping, tiny limbs flapping pointless, and I took my best guess at distance, at arcing, at my quarry’s momentum, and let fly—

I wonder how much was skill at this point, and how much was luck.

At least in part, the tripled Bomb Arrow connected! and the huge whale of a creature slammed onto the surface of the sand and lay there heaving in its blubbery vastness.

My gosh I couldn’t believe it! A direct hit on the first go! Great shot! ^_^ And I looked at its life-meter.... It had gone down a bit! Maybe not an overly substantial amount, but—

What was I doing it was immobile I could hit it again—

In the folly of my hesitation I got off only another shot or two before the Mulduga regained itself and burrowed back into the sand, safe and untouchable once more.

And off it went around the circuit.

And the music went with it.

The day became lighter and I was alone. On a few of the other sandstone towers to my right and left and into the distance, little camps of monsters could be seen. On the central hub, a large, wide stone like my own but on a greater scale, seemed to be the biggest party of them all, with a fire, a few storage crates, and no small supply of boomers. On the sands in between, camouflaged Lizalfos crouched still as statues.

The Molduga breached away in its course.

The timing was off—it did not breach in the same places on every revolution. It wouldn’t breach directly in front of me again for . . . . I didn’t know how many cycles.

Landing those hits really had been fortuitous.

But how long was this going to take?

I waited for it to pass by me again, and the arcing sun grew stronger.... I watched my thermometer tip further and further toward the red until it was too hot for me to stay where I was. My clothes could not protect me. I didn’t want to guzzle elixirs, not that I had that many. What could I—

Hm.

The Molduga was far away. I stepped forward and dropped onto the sand on the inside of the ring, landing in the shade.

There was something about letting myself down into the territory, the element, of my enemy that felt.... unnerving at best.

But at least I was protected here.

Well . . . . protected from the sun.

I didn’t like that Lizalfos half a stone’s cast away from me, though. I took the time to dispatch it before returning to the little strip of shade beneath the brim of the toadstool rock, where once again.... I waited.

And waited.

The Molduga slowly arced back around, breaching, as I had anticipated, well out of range of my arrows. How many circuits would it have to make before it would breach where I could reach it again?

I considered. I could try for the central stone hub....

But there were so many baddies there; it could take a moment too long to do away with them all—the Molduga might very well detect the ruckus, and then what? Or would it just as soon detect me making a break for that spot in the first place? To say nothing of what to do with all the Lizalfos in between....

The Molduga’s senses were sharp; I had stepped and jumped around in investigating this, when I was still on top of the rock, and my movements had caught its attention over impressive distances. And every time, I had stopped and ducked before the question mark could develop into anything further, stilling in time to let the monster be on its way. But I dared not shift my footing again down on the sand.

The day passed.

My sliver of shade narrowed. But the cool of the evening returned before it disappeared completely.

I had long since plucked what scanty plants there were in the vicinity. A Rushroom. Some Safflina.

The monster arced around.

Some breaches were nearer, some I could hit, away at the edge of my range, where as many arrows missed as hit their mark. Maybe more. Couldn’t risk a direct hit with something uselessly weak.

And the Molduga’s life-meter would drop by a small degree.

Chip by chip, piece by piece.

By and by the thought came to me, as I employed my projectile weaponry.... The Molduga responds to the faintest vibrations.... I can’t move when it’s near.... But perhaps.... my BOW.

The Molduga came round again. Its breaches would be far out of reach I could see.

But before it came even with me, I nocked a normal arrow into a weak, wooden Bokoblin bow, and fired off into the sand before its path.

The dread question mark appeared again, and this time—the monster breached where the arrow had struck!

I scrambled to switch out my equipment for something stronger again! Lynel Bow! Bomb Arrows! Fire! FIRE!

I could induce a breach from the beast.

I cut down its life-meter by a much more gratifying portion before it was able to escape again.... though my bow-work was become a bit sloppy in my excitement. I knew Bomb Arrows didn’t come cheap, but by this point I would rather have lost arrows than lost time spent refining my aim. Enough had connected that I was sufficed.

And I waited for the beast’s return.

And waited.

And waited.

Round and again the great Molduga came, and I lured it up each time, unmoving in my pocket of shade, in my refuge from the chill, and cast arrow after arrow after arrow.

Quivers ran dry. Bows broke. It was becoming increasingly expensive....

But the desert was not unfeeling toward my plight.

Once as I stood through the long and lonely night, watching and waiting as the stars winked overhead and the Molduga thrashed soundlessly in the far distance, something glimmered over the sand out in front of me.

There was a kind of twinkling, a little way off, but it vanished almost at once. And then it came again, in a different spot—and disappeared once more. Pulsing like a satellite. What in the world....?

Another sparkle, and I could see faint dark movement against the bluebeige of the moonwashed sand. Something was making that light.

And it was coming closer.

And then I recognized the glittering—that was an item I could grab!

But.... moving? Smooth as a shark-fin—was it a lizard?

And as it came nearer, listing away to my right, I saw it clearly: The kindly desert breeze had found one of my stray arrows, and blown it back toward me, rolling it over the dunes.

I ran to collect it as it blew against a far section of my rock, and then trudged back to the place where I had chosen to wait.

The sand—it slows you down.

It was in the nighttime that the mighty Molduga finally succumbed to my Assault of a Thousand Arrows, writhing in the air on the last hit with an almighty bellow before crashing to the ground in an ignominious explosion of wasted darkness.

I was running straight away—already the fickle wind was beginning to toy with the leftover parts and blow them about.... I picked up so many fins, AND . . . . the guts!

Got it! Molduga Guts! HAHHH, that was a HARD-EARNED PRIZE.

And there were yet a few lingering Lizalfos from whose claws I had to pry it.

After this I was not waiting for the next Blood Moon—I stormed and looted the central hub for all that it was worth. And I realized that while I had been hunting the Molduga, some of my incendiary arrows must have ignited a few of the boomers strewed about the sand. For there was a great swath of them missing where I had made my attacks.

Inadvertently handy!

I rejoiced in my spoils, I felt mighty in my accomplishment, but after days and nights in the wilderness of the Wasteland.... the time really did feel ripe to head back.

I trudged back toward my squat little hunting rock to harness up my sand seal once more.

It was gone.