Evening of Wednesday, September 19, 2018
I opened my map and made ready to
warp to the Misae Suma Shrine.... but I couldn’t.
Then I remembered. Pokki had been
collapsed all over the pedestal. I hadn’t been able to activate the warp pad.
I’d have to get back there on my own power for now.
The shrine still showed up on my
map, just yellow instead of blue. I guessed that was what visited
but unactivated shrines looked like.
Well, Tera’s shrine seemed to be
the next most convenient—not Tera’s, Hawa Koth! That was its name. I warped
there, cleaned out all the Safflina, caught a sand seal and started out east.
Every great fairy I’d visited
seemed to host a native abundance of.... something.
For Cotera it was Blue Nightshade flowers and, very occasionally, fairies. Mija had.... I want to say some
kind of root, like carrots. Kaysa.... I don’t remember what Kaysa had; her
environ was so dry.... Even Malanya the Horse God had an abundance of butterflies of every kind. And Tera had safflina plants, in many varieties. Good
ingredients for whipping up any number of different elixirs.
But I think the Silent Princess flower grew at every
fairy fountain.
Now, augh, for SOME reason I forgot to jot this down in my original
notes, but.... I think this might
have been where it happened.... A likely time and place, anyway....
I couldn’t exactly beeline from the Hawa Koth Shrine at
Tera’s to the Misae Suma Shrine where Pokki was stranded.... without passing
straight through the Southern Oasis.
I think that this might have been
when I decided to do just that.
Fye! Shoddy
note-taking....
And I
had killed the Arbiter’s Ground Molduga around the same time as well.
FYE!
I sand-sealed toward the great rock
until I caught the music on the air, at which point I let the beast go and bade
it Godspeed.
Taking my time, I softly
circumnavigated the Molduga’s course, limiting my movements when it was near;
this one ran a smaller circuit than that very first one I had encountered. In
fact, that first one had run the largest circuit of any I had seen thus far. It
certainly made each new encounter less daunting at any rate.
One by one I drew out the loitering
Lizalfos to put them down before dealing with the main threat. And then.... I
attracted the monster’s attention.
Just
like at the Arbiter’s Ground, now, I could do this....
I was still short on Bomb Arrows.
But.... Well, frankly I had been just a little bit inspired by a certain video
I’d seen of someone leading a Guardian
Stalker out into the desert to duke it out with a Molduga. That person had been all right handling
the Molduga on the ground....
I
could do it too.... I’d already done it!
I still tried to keep some distance
from it, though, drawing it out of the sand with normal arrows or bombs. And
when I’d stunned it, I moved in right up against its great blubbery bulk, and
it was melee all the way—which turned
out to be faster work than it had been with arrows....
When the Molduga recovered it would
thrash and twist round in a huge circle, flicking
me high into the air with its huge tail, before burrowing back down into the
sand. It sent me cartwheeling head over heels and took some hearts off, but....
it was a licking I could take for the present. My paraglider always caught me.
It only really became complicated when the two of us, ringing round the
oasis, chanced upon a Lizalfos I had missed.
It’s.... tricky, to beat back an harrassing Lizalfos when the ground beneath
you both is heaving uncontrollably, and could explode at any moment.
But it would be a lie to say it
didn’t feel epic.
Turning from my main target I put
the Lialfos down in a fury to give me
some peace!
Well, relative peace.
But after that it was just a few
more meaty exchanges on the ground before the mighty Molduga keeled over and
gave up the ghost.
I’d beaten it on the ground. In the
sand. In its own element.
At last I could explore this Southern Oasis! Perhaps the top held some
kind of shrine-puzzle? I climbed up in the light of the falling sun, checking
for Koroks everywhere....
The top was fairly level, with a
little oblong depression in the middle where water sprang. A few fruit-bearing
palm trees stood about, and there were a few more useful plants.... There were
also a few boxes, and an unlit wok.
Who had been here before?
After looting a treasure chest I
found buried in the dirt, I couldn’t find anything else to do, except.... just
enjoy the quiet up here.
Surely
there had to be a SHRINE or something? The place was too far out of the way!
But I only walked around, cooked a
few meals, explored the placid top of the rock, and enjoyed the quiet.
Until the Blood Moon rose that very
night and spawned another Molduga, along with that confounded cello ensemble which I liked VERY MUCH, but which had
QUITE overstayed its welcome at this point.
I chucked Bombs at the brute until
it was mostly dead, whereupon I sailed down and finally put it out of my
misery.
Of course the Lizalfos were always up for another round of sword-tag....
No
rest for the weary....
I wondered if I’d missed an
opportunity before that Blood Moon. I wondered what might happen at the Southern
Oasis.... if I first dispatched all
the Moldugas....
I was definitely going to come back
here later.
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