Only those who have walked through the desert

Evening of Monday, September 10, 2018

Only those who have walked through the desert

I warped to the Gerudo Great Skeleton in the corner, ran into the farthest storm, and started walkin’ east. Time to continue my circumnavigation of the map.

It was about noon when I started, and I walked for a long, long way.

But the Lizalfos kept me company.

I was getting better at wardrobe changes in the desert, and so was ready with my Ruby Circlet when night fell. But when the Electric Keese started to come out—where do they roost anyway?—I opted instead for a Warm Doublet and.... the Thunder Helm. It was SO NICE to fight them with the Thunder Helm on! No shocking! Even with metal weapons! 8D

Ahh, never again would I need face their incapacitating overreach in the rain.

I kept running, bumping into the southern boundary with my right shoulder time and again. Occasionally I would venture a few steps to the north if I saw some Hydromelons or a Voltfruit cactus.... and then it was back into the blur, the grit flying in an endless storm.

The desert was vast.

Once I inadvertently stepped into.... a laughing tambourine? And the cellos started up and taunted me to come out, and the name Arbiter’s Ground Molduga appeared at the top of my screen, along with a life-meter.

Arbiter’s Ground?

How interesting....

It was another name from another game. Another reference. Like Spectacle Rock. Or the more obvious Death Mountain—that one’s in a lot of games. But those were geologic features, and not so fleeting as any man-made structures.

Like the Arbiter’s Ground....

I am very fond of Twilight Princess. I was curious to investigate any reference to it, but.... No, I would come back to it later. I was busy combing the nether edges of my map.... in search of.... I was there because....

Well I just wanted to do it.

Soon after I stepped out of the Molduga’s song, however, a new sound came to my ears—the brreep-brreeping of my shrine-detector. And that did warrant a detour!

I turned north, and came out of the swirling limbo and into a brilliant, bright white world of glaring sky. I’d been in the murk so long; the difference was jarring.

Away in the dunes to the north I could see a single, large, solitary rock. One guess where the shrine was.

I followed the signal nonetheless, and was unsurprised when it took me straight toward the formation. I wondered if this was the shrine I had heard when the Chief and I had been sand-sealing after Vah Naboris.... I thought I’d even caught a glimpse of it then....

I climbed up on top of the rock and swept for Koroks before I found the familiar orange glow on the far side. The Misae Suma Shrine. But when I floated down.... I found there was a Gerudo collapsed against the activation pedestal.

What the....? Was that Barta? But this one wore green.... I didn’t remember Barta wearing that color....

It was....

Pokki!

I’d been looking everywhere for her!

She was exhausted under the hot sun, and she croaked that if this were the end.... then before she went, she just wanted a taste, just a sip.... of a NOBLE PURSUIT.

This gave me something of a dilemma.

See, Pokki’s name always made me think of Pocky. I do enjoy Pocky. And somebody must’ve let it slip to my Mom because she’d given me a large box of it for my birthday. And now I was down to the very last packet. And I’d been saving that packet.... for whenever I happened to find the missing Pokki.

And I’d just found her.

But it was late. It was nearly bedtime. I didn’t want to go to bed with a whole packet of Pocky just sitting in my gut like a stone all night.

So....

I left her there. Still begging for a Noble Pursuit in all her heat-stroke delirium. Very unlike me....

And I ran back down into the farthest storm and continued eastward.

I would save the Pocky for the time when I rescued her instead.

Soon, Pokki.... Soon....

I kept going east until I came to a sheer cliff face—the drop-off at the west end of the Devil’s Own Highway. I attempted to climb it, but.... it was too tall and I didn’t have the stamina.

I could no longer circumnavigate the map from here.

....

But.... that had never really been my immediate intention....

For now.... I decided to suffice myself with the desert. For there was plenty I had not seen of its deeper interior.

And so I bent my course to the north. I didn’t venture into the mountains but stayed down on the sand, skirting curious and tempting features on my map like that large, straight-edged rectangular structure, and of course those monumental statues of the Seven Heroines, whose grandeur I had thus far only witnessed in the topo.

However I was already fairly well acquainted with the desert’s northern edge, and its forests of stone pillars. And so halfway to it, I left the anchoring foothills, and plunged back westward into the trackless ocean of grit.

I passed through strange, flat scapes of small, isolated stonework ruins, the lot of them jutting from the sand like a pox. I found the sandy dell where my sand seal and I had won the race, and for kicks I rolled Bombs down into the Lizalfos camp. And I scaled every surprising island rock I found breaching the sand for air. The Koroks did not come out easily.

Every so often I gazed into the south at the enormous, palm-capped rock that had to be the Southern Oasis. I’d been giving it a wide berth; there was a Molduga down there, and I was short on Bomb Arrows. Soon.

After a very long time, mostly via the sand seal track at the end, I managed to walk all the way back to the lookout tower, and thence back to Gerudo Town.

I had walked through the desert.

And it was vast.

But does vastness retain its vastness once it is known?

Hm.

At any rate I felt undaunted enough to continue westward further still! I did make a stop at my favorite specialty arrow stall first, but.... Bomb Arrows were so expensive. And I was still short on cash. I couldn’t go Molduga hunting just now.

Unfazed, I continued nonetheless into the desert’s northwestern regions, with which I was not quite so familiar. There were many giant bones, and a lot more rock. Great place for an ambush, I thought in Scott McNeil’s voice.

I made it all the way up to that shrine beneath the ribcage, and this time, with my stronger clothes, I was able to climb up on top of the spine! And as I’d suspected there was a Korok.

The Koroks weren’t so shy out in the west. In fact they were fairly obvious, one of them perched at the top of a ribcage angled so high out of the ground that it could be seen for miles all around. There were also absolute treasure troves of Swift Violets to collect! Albeit along rock formations crawling with Lizalfos. But that didn’t pose too much of a hassle.

When I had ventured to the edge, and had my absolute fill of climbing around in the western sand storm, picking violets from high walls, turning over treasure chests, scaring up the odd Korok, and fending off Electric Lizalfos.... I hoofed it back to the ribcage shrine, captured a sand seal, and sailed back to Tera’s spring.

With all the Swift Violets I had collected, I was able to have her do up my Sand Boots another level, which was a welcome enhancement in this environment. However this also required me to part with four of my five precious remaining Molduga guts. I’d need to go hunting again soon.

That Molduga at the Southern Oasis....

All in good time.

I’ll get you later!

I warped back to the woods, settled Link down in Pepp’s bed at a decent evening hour for once.... and went to bed myself.