On The Joys Of Mountaineering

Waking of Friday, October 12, 2018

On The Joys Of Mountaineering

From the Spring of Wisdom and the Jitan Sa’mi Shrine I swirled my snowy way down and around the mountainsides, tracking Koroks—I hadn’t known they could hide in ice! And during one sweeping paraglide, the wind began to pick up, and I knew....

Turning, I saw that Naydra had descended again; he was twining westward, toward the Lanayru Road.

I’d had to sacrifice his scale to the Spring of Wisdom before, but this time.... I wanted a piece of him and I wanted to keep it!

I sailed after him. But he already had such a head start, and he was such a gigantic creature and his head was already so far away.... I’d wanted a hornshard, but.... A scale would have to do.

I pelted his crystal Caribbean hide with an arrow and chinked off a scale. It glittered for a moment before breaking off and sailing down toward the earth.

And I realized I might have made a terrible miscalculation.

We were still so high off the ground, Naydra and I. We were essentially floating out from the peak of one of the tallest mountains in the game. The ground.... was an immaterial thing, at these heights.

But it quickly became material, as I saw the scale break off and arc, and arc, and arc down through the sky, on a trajectory that took it far beyond the icy mountain, away from the Lanayru Road, away from anywhere I’d ever been before....

It smashed against an unfamiliar mountainside on the other side of a large, dark body of water.

I kept sailing toward it, casting an unsure glance at my stamina wheel....

I had to paraglide all the way over Lanayru Bay to a place called Trotter’s Downfall, shedding altitude in great chunks near the end, for I wasn’t sure I was going to make it....

I hit the sodden green earth on my last red sliver of strength, and David and I laughed in relief. A short jog later, the scale of Naydra was mine.

But I made a mental note to not try knocking off pieces of dragons at high altitudes again, before warping back to the Jitan Sa’mi Shrine.

My wanderings over Mount Lanayru brought me easterward until, in a saddle near the sea, but still high enough to be snowbound, my shrine detector started going off. I ignored it for only a little spell, just to climb a certain Walnot Mountain while I had the altitude on my side.... and then headed back toward the lower spot where the signal was strongest.

A Korok distracted me something sadistic along the way. It was a race. From the saddle down to the lower crag’s edge.

Paragliding? No, I couldn’t sail down there fast enough.

What about a long, straight paraglide followed by a sharp drop at the end? That almost worked.... but not quite. And it hurt on the landing.

I tried a few combinations of paragliding and shedding altitude.... all to no effect.

What about the straight up bone-breaking approach of just running down the mountain? No good. That didn’t work either. And it hurt even more.

Difficult Korok....

I stopped to get the shrine partway through my efforts for the Korok just to quiet the brreep-brreeping of my Slate. It lay behind some explodable rocks between the saddle and the crag; I’d been flying over it at each pass to get the Korok.

The Tahno O’ah Shrine it was called. And when I finally unearthed it, the shrine quest banner title Secret of the Cedars flashed across my screen, with a Complete status now affixed to it. Who knew! I’d forgotten.... Somebody had told me long ago.... those three trees on the mountain.... Line them up and they’d point to a trial encased in stone....

Guessed that was the shrine.

Tahno O’ah was kind enough to simply grant me his blessing, and in the accompanying treasure chest, I found....

CLIMBING BOOTS. SWEET.

So the Bandana was part of a set!

And I thought.... I’d found that Bandana nestled back in the Dueling Peaks, in the Ree Dahee Shrine.... And here on this mountain were the Climbing Boots.... Hmm, climbing gear found on mountains.... Maybe on another mountain somewhere, I would find a climbing shirt!

I exited the shrine and once again made the arduous climb back up the snowy hillside to the race’s start on top of the saddle. I hadn’t been able to use my Climber’s Bandana, on account of having to wear both the Warm Doublet and the Ruby Circlet to stay warm. Unfortunately my new Climbing Boots couldn’t help me out much either; I needed my Snow Boots to maintain a decent mobility.

Soon.

I tried for the Korok again. Got close but just not quite there....

Enter David. “Oh THAT one,” says he.

“Why what a knowing grin you wear,” says I.

I asked him if he’d used the paraglider. He said he hadn’t. It was a simple trick, he said.

But I had only complicated guesses. “You started the race up here, and you finished with your actual person down at the finish? There wasn’t like.... some kinda Ben Statue trick?” “Did you use the Ninja Suit?” “Did you ride an animal?”

His brows shot up and he frowned at that last one. “Good guess,” he said. But no, it was simpler than that, he told me.

“You didn’t paraglide?” I almost pleaded for the umpteenth time. This Korok was driving me crazy. “And it wasn’t clothes?”

“....You’re wearing it,” he finally said.

I immediately thought of the Sheikah Slate. “Did you Stasis something? Magnesis?”

“No.”

I was flicking into my menus; I studied my person....

And with a groan I saw it—my shield.

“You shield-surfed?”

“Yes!”

“Augh....” I’d forgotten all about shield-surfing.

I went to the map.... There, around to the left. That topo looked smooth enough to try it. It bowed wide of the target, where I would have preferred a beeline. But.... I’d give it a try....

And I did.

And it worked.

“Good job!” said David, “I’m so proud of you!”

Hahh. “Thaaaaanks,” I said. |D