The Value of Not Being Seen

Waking of Wednesday, June 20, 2018 ~ 2

The Value of Not Being Seen

Clicking “Continue” from the Game Over screen respawned me back in the Hall of Heroines. I trekked back up the dark, narrow passageway to Barta’s cell....

There was still nothing I could do to help her. I did not rescue Barta.

But I did make it past the infamous pillar and on into the lower part of the passageway, where the next Yiga guard stood sentinel before the only doorway out.

He did not move.

When the circuitous patrolman’s back had been turned, I had paraglided down off the pillar, and landed behind a long pile of storage boxes in this lower part; there were a couple of them down here. But while they shielded me from the second guard’s gaze.... they did nothing to help me progress.

That guard wasn’t moving. He was just standing there so attentively.... How was I supposed to get past him?

It was a cruel joke that I could see a treasure chest across the way on the far side of the room. Yeah, right! This was too much. What could I—

....Bananas, Barta had said.

Hmph. There were bananas here and there throughout this terrible dungeon, but.... what could I do with those?

I looked to where the nearest bunch of them sat, on a shelf high off the floor, on the wall directly opposite the guard.

The single supporting strut beneath the shelf seemed very flimsily put together; it was almost as if it were made of two simple sticks, banded together to increase its length. The white wrapping in the middle of this shoddy construction looked as if.... it were secured by something extra.... like those little metal clasps used to tie off athletic bandaging....

Why it almost looked.... like an X.... Like a tiny.... little.... TARGET.

Well, that chamber back before had offered me a bow....

I shot the strut out from under the shelf. It collapsed, predictably enough, spilling the bananas to the floor.

And the Yiga—he gave the same human-sounding start I had heard the other give before, so low and mundane that it caught me off guard—and then he started tiptoeing his way toward the bananas on the floor—like as if he were afraid someone was gonna see him??—at each step emitting some stupid, careful little “houhp” that nearly threatened to make him sympathetic! Like as if he were being so SNEAKY or something???

He was distracted anyway. I ran for it.

I did not attempt to make the far treasure chest.

I just ran for it until I was safe around a corner.

There were strange rooms further in—some dead-ended stone corridor full of spikes—couldn’t go that way—and more furnished chambers full of Eastern architecture—er, Sheikah architecture—no, the Yiga version of it. Oh it was all rather similar anyway.

I once heard.... probably a cousin or something.... say the Japanese were rather fond of inserting themselves into their video games. I’ve seen it a few times, or what has looked like it.

....I enjoy it.

From there on in I reverted very tightly to my first and wonted way of letting Caution dictate all else. Big Yiga guards patrolled thickly about the constricted spaces. Everything was waiting, watching, crouching, hiding, hesitating, and timing. All my movements were supremely delicate and slow. Silent and threading half-calculatedly, half-madly through the holes left between their patrols. My arrows whizzed below shelves, knocking out supports and throwing out bait-bananas and luring in the great lumbering guardsmen who, for all the acrobatics and rapier-quick mystique suggested by their cohorts whom I had met in the field.... moved like land-bound seals and circus clowns. Always “hup-hup-hup”ing along until they reached the bananas I cast in their way, whereupon they would look around carefully, quickly pocket the fruit, and then sneak back to their original positions. Poor blackguards....

In a catwalk corridor above the largest chamber I was forcibly reminded of Donkey Kong when I caught sight of that pile of bananas at the far end. Sweet Hylia, that was a lotta bananas. Where did these guys get them all, anyway? Not in this desert....

And as I gazed down at the large chamber from all angles, thinking hard on how to proceed.... one of those ridiculous giant barrels—the kind you can hoist up over yourself and hide beneath—had the GALL to fall under my attention, sitting there so still and helpful and quiet and upright and perfect, offering itself as if I were insane enough to actually try to USE it! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. THE NERVE!

No, I was quite content, content as any mouse in a fox-den could be, up here on my completely separate level....

A handful of breathless skywalks on rickety rafters later, just for the sake of some treasure chests that ultimately would not affect the fate of the universe—I was able to displace the guard who protected the last room.

And down I floated—and away I dashed and hid, until his back was turned again.

The final chamber seemed a little more closed off and private than the others. There was a bed, and another loose Duplex Bow. And it somehow felt quieter in here....

There were more treasure chests too, stuck in the ground. I was a little afraid to Magnese them out, for the noise they would make, but I unearthed them all right with no problems. I don’t even remember what they contained.

Ha, but I think I know now what their purpose must have been....

Using Magnesis for the chests, I could see the Magnesability of one of the walls. And when I had checked and searched every corner and looted everything that wasn’t nailed down.... I swiveled the Magnesable wall on its central hinge, and proceeded through one of the two openings....