Like Prayer Flags in the Wind

Evening of Wednesday, September 19, 2018 ~ 3

Like Prayer Flags in the Wind

I was heading to the Champion’s Gate! That narrow canyon on the east of the desert, leading up into the foothills of the Gerudo Highlands.... That would lead me right into the valley that held that strange, rectangular structure.... Would it be like that stonework above the Forgotten Temple? What would I find there? I wondered....

The glik-glik-glik of my boots on stone was sharp in my ears after so long shuff-shuff-shuffing over the sand! The canyon walls drew in close about me; it was a bit like Satan Canyon, but smaller, more constricted, and with more obstructions. Big boulders and things strewed about the way. And hiding behind these obstructions were hecktons of Lizalfos in camouflage, whom I dispatched. Got a few tails....

I continued up the canyon, but.... wanting to stock my pockets, and being my distractible self, I kept chasing Swift Violets, climbing and climbing again—and catching a couple of Koroks!—getting higher and higher.... until....

Well I could SEE the giant structure down in the depression there. It was a maze. Like the Lomei Labyrinth.

....

I’m going to call it King of the Mountain Syndrome. KOMS for short.

I wanted to float down and explore the structure; it was what I’d come for.

But.... I was so high up, and the altitude, once lost, would be hard to win back....

....

The terrain was rugged, but manageable. And by now, as I could see on my map, I was nearer to the mountain’s top than its foot.

I wanted to climb Daval Peak, and Mount Granajh....

....

I kept climbing.

I’d wanted to climb up here before, when I was on the other side of the mountain, on the high steps west of the Lynels’ Corridor. But I hadn’t been able to abide the altitude then.

But now I had gear made for such climates! I wanted to see what was up there.... That tall stone standing like a beacon....

In due course I changed from my Champion’s Tunic to a Warm Doublet, and donned my Ruby Circlet to ward away the cold. And soon.... on came the Snow Boots....

There are two types of Cold Music that I have heard in this game.

The first plays at the chill’s initial encounter, when the air bursts into frost around you, and Link begins to shiver. It sounds out in a slow pulse: high, clustery, and ringing like ice. It feels like a warning. It feels like danger. It feels like a call for caution. An intolerableness you could face if you had to.... but you really shouldn’t.

It does feel like an easy escape. Like you have time left....

But even so you shouldn’t waste it.

I have heard this music play at altitudes just above the frost line, irrespective of what clothes you pack. Maybe you can stand it, maybe you have to retreat. But the sound intimates a change, and with that change a challenge, or even a threat.

You have entered a new environ.

The second type of Cold Music I have only heard play at much, much higher altitudes. And, perhaps because the element of change is no longer a factor.... or perhaps for the emotional underpinnings of the concept of the pinnacle....

The sound.... sails so pristinely clarion, when the sky is blue.

It sings like prayer flags in the wind over virgin snow.

And you just feel.... like an eagle. above the world.

It is likewise slow, and beatless. One piping flute soaring like a bird while the Piano rolls little chords and cascades beneath it like sunlight off water.

The first time I heard it in the game, I recognized it.... It had played in the beginning of one of the trailers. That peaceful, serene one that just showed the beautiful, beautiful lands in gentle passes. Fields and mountains, rivers and rills leaping with deer, even the traquil lumberings of a Stalnox away up on the ridge.

A beautiful choice to showcase the land of Hyrule.

But for me, for now.... it only played upon the highest, highest caps.

And on that semi-accidental chiasmus....

I climbed up into the high, beautiful music where the snow was so white and the sky was so clear.... and came upon the ruin of a cabin. Right up on Daval Peak. What was this place?

As I drew nearer I could see a few household items still protected by the remaining bits of wall and roof: some barrels, a woodpile for fire, a table, and—a book?

Excitement thrilled in me.... What did it say? Who could have lived up here?

I heard the shuffling in the snow, and the spat, and the impact and crumble of rock against wood. Freakin’ Octorok.... I went to convince him to let me have some peace before coming back to the book on the table....

I read it eagerly – Mountain Peak Log it was simply entitled.

This man was researching the shrine atop the high Gerudo peak. In the entry marked Day One, he said that he’d found the pedestal, and that it glowed for a time each day, at the same time. But he couldn’t quite work out the riddle, part of which said to “cast a cold shadow”....

I had to look for a bit myself before I saw the pedestal—it had been on a little face of rock right behind me as I’d climbed the last rise. A tiny saddle-pass, maybe fifteen feet deep and wide, lay between it and the Mountain Man’s stead.

On Day Seven, the man said that he was eating through his reserves faster than he anticipated, and I felt a sinking chill. What had happened to him?

He was frustrated, in that entry, due to that he had reached the place where the shrine should be, he was so close, had been close for days, and yet he could not solve the riddle. Did it involve throwing something? He puzzled over a few possibilities, none of which had worked for him.

I read on.

And then there was an entry marked Day... lost count.

He was.... losing hope....

I was feeling a strong upwelling of hnnnng for this man. Who could it have been? I could just imagine him up here, in the cold and the dark and the wind....

There were no more entries after that.

I thought about cracking open his barrels, wondering what I might find inside, but.... I didn’t disturb them. I left them for him instead.

Outside the cabin, near the little saddle-pass, was a little pool of.... liquid water. Strange, for so high up. And in the pool was a large.... snowball I guess. It wasn’t a stone; it was much rounder than any rocks I had seen. As a matter of fact there were quite a few of these snowballs around up here.

I saw what to do straight away. In a matter of hours, the sun would sink and sway and, if I stayed near the saddle-pass, cast my shadow across to the other side, where the pedestal was.

The pedestal glowed for a time each day.... I could guess which time that was.

I grabbed the big snowball and tromped as near to the stead’s edge as I could.... and waited.

And very near the appointed time, as my cold shadow crept closer and closer toward the heart of the pedestal.... a Blue Lizalfos came to have a disagreement with me.

Dang Lizalfos! I at least had the presence of mind to let the snowball fall well away from the edge before I knocked the brute off the stead. He was still alive down there, but.... I was busy.

I grabbed the big snowball again, stood back in my place, and waited just a few moments more, until the shadow cast by the snowball darkened the entire innermost circle of the pedestal....

A blue glow—that sheening ring—and the Suma Sahma Shrine erupted from the hill behind me! Not even over near the pedestal, but on the Mountain Man’s Stead!

Cool! ^_^

I’d get to it.... just as soon as I took care of that hopping, chirruping lizard just down the mountain....

I actually led myself on quite a merry chase before coming back to the shrine, paragliding down even lower to come around the southern horn of the mountain to pick up a Korok I’d just spotted on my map. A wrack of snowy clouds descended upon the range and I bumped into some Decayed Guardians SO frozen that they didn’t wake up until I was quite literally nearly upon them—gave me a start.... And then I swung back up to the saddle from the other side.

Once the Spirit Orb was mine I finally, finally trekked the short jog up to the highest crest in the soft grey din, and climbed to the top of the stony spire of Daval Peak. I had seen it from so many directions, marked it so many times through my scope.... now I could finally stand on top of it....

I uncovered a Korok from beneath a rock up there, and the two of us stood King of the World. It was an invisible world lost in the grey, but that made our perch no less a pinnacle.

I waited.

I waited, and turned, and swiveled, and watched Link nod off in the deep watches of the swirling, icy night.

But I wanted to see....

I let the hours pass, and the day crept nearer, and as morning broke the clouds parted and the snow vanished away and the sun touched all with a glowing, ice-gold clarity.... and we could see the whole world....

Do you ever slowly swivel the camera around Link, just to indulge in a little cinematography?

It’s the best place to do it.

High up there in the beautiful, beautiful clear day.