Waking of Saturday, December 8, 2018
It was time to fill in another
unexplored spot in my network of shrines....
I warped to the Tabantha Bridge
Stable, and set out east, away from the bridge, to explore the Seres Scablands—the land of those
gigantic, anomalous, strange, otherworldly.... treeshrooms. And the land over which I had always—ALWAYS—seen a dark and pouring thunderhead, flashing from within with lightning.
The sky was actually clearer in the
Scablands near the stable and the ensuing road. The eternal rain only really seemed
to hover over the deepest heart of the enormous treeshroom sprawl, in a place
my map called Ludfo’s Bog, back where
the land flattened into a broad valley surrounded by tall mountains on all
sides.
The topo had always seemed to
indicate a kind of artificial rise in
the middle of that valley.... I was positive
there would be a shrine there....
I had traveled the road past the
Seres Scablands a few times before, and I had seen the alien treeshroom forest.
But for the first time I now indulged myself in plunging headlong into it in
earnest, searching about its cracked and erupted earth, scaring Koroks out of
the large, odd pocks in the ground,
rainwater pooling in their bottoms.
What
had made the ground this way? The land looked like it had boiled and then been left to sit, full
of hardened bubbles like crusty cheese. But the rampant grass and unworrying flowers
with their butterflies still left a gay feeling in the air. And the only
beasties about were Chuchus, Keese, and the occasional Octorok.
I chased out a few more Koroks
until I came to the Thundra Plateau—where
the rain started.
A monk’s voice sounded: You who have come to this thunderous plateau...
When the four spirits are settled in
their places, the way to the trial will open. Or some such words.
Upon entering the darkness of the
thunderhead I had caught sight of these strange, small, beacon-lights of
differing colors, shining steadily through the gloom between the treeshrooms.
Bright as lamps and somewhat above ground-level. Were those the “spirits”?
As I pressed on deeper into the
storm, I saw that a couple of these beacon-lamps—orbs, I could see now, with
strange emblazoned patterns on them—were perched atop imposing columns of more
dragon-headed statuary. I also found the artificial rise indicated on my topo;
it seemed to be a great, walled barrow
of some kind. A Great Plateau in
miniature, its raised surface upheld and bound in by an encompassing wall of dark
stone.
I circumnavigated it first, like I
do, the lightning crashing down on my
Thunder Helm at whiles; I couldn’t be bothered to switch out my gear. The
barrow was so big around that it took a good few minutes to complete one
circuit. The wall had worn and crumbled down in a couple of places, leaving
exposed slopes of rock and earth that gave easier access to the top. These were
handy as it was difficult to climb the walls in the rain. Not impossible. But
definitely hampered.
But first, I went after the red orb. It gleamed atop a relatively
short dragon-totem, which stood beside another one of the Scablands’ jutting ruptures—a perfect stepping stone to
give me a leg up. It took some hard climbing and leaping up the surface between
slippings down, but I made it to the top in fairly short order. I picked up the
orb and chucked it down to the plain before paragliding down after it.
However, when I tried to carry it
up one of the crumbled slopes and onto the barrow.... well, the slope wasn’t
quite so smooth as that. One jutting lip of hardened earth impeded me yet from
reaching the top without climbing, and I could
not climb while carrying this orb. Nor could I simply throw the orb over the lip and up on top—it was just high enough to prevent that.... and it knew it too....
Try every angle and starting point
that I might, I could not get this
orb up onto the grassy top of the barrow.... A couple of times I only succeeded
in accidentally dropping it on my own head. ☆☆
-_- ☆☆
After a while I decided to leave
off the red orb for a bit, and I climbed up on top of the barrow to just go and
see about the other orbs up there, for I was sure I’d seen some....
A purple orb was just sitting
there, in the midst of the four inward-facing dragon-totems. Each of these
totems had a colored symbol on its neck, and a waiting depression in front of
it. So I picked up the purple orb and set it in its place before the dragon
with the matching purple symbol.
Nothing happened. Just as well;
there were more orbs to get.
Some rusting weapon or other was
stuck into the wet earth up here, and it too drew the occasional lightning
explosion. But after a time even I
got tired of all the fireworks, and just put off all my metal trappings.
The green orb was a little
trickier, as it sat up on top of one of the dragon totems, and there were no
handy stepping stones of ruptured earth to give me a boost here. However, I did
have almost three full wheels of stamina, and a lot of Climbing Gear.
I knew I could climb seven or eight
steps or grips before the rain would send me sliding back down. And so it
was grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, grip,
JUMP! Sliiiide.... Which would have
produced a net gain each time if I could just rinse and repeat that pattern.
But sometimes I could only make a couple of grips up the stone before slipping
back down to the ground. The results to my efforts were annoyingly random, but
I kept trying....
And all the while the rain lashed
and the wind blew and the thunder kept up a constant grumbling overhead, the
Piano lazing all over the sodden grass, contentedly picking its nails as it
watched me work.
I scrabbled and slipped and hit the
ground repeatedly, panting and out of breath. But with much persistence, I
eventually did make it to the top of the totem. And the green orb was mine to
toss down onto the grass.
The green orb went into its place
before the green-marked dragon.
Now
for that red one....
I hadn’t wanted to use Stasis, as I
didn’t like wearing down my weapons. But I could see no other alternative. Back
on the crumbled slope to the barrow-top, I found a bit of earth that looked
like it could serve as a ramp.... and there was just enough rock for the orb to
sit without rolling down, too.
I tried a Bomb first, to see if
that would do it.... then two
Bombs.... But Ja Baij had neither the force nor the aim to get the orb where I
wanted it.
So
I picked a single-handed weapon to sacrifice....
I set the red orb down once again
in the nook above the rock, positioned myself just downhill, Stasised the thing, and started
whackin’....
This approach was much more
controlled, and I had soon imbued the orb with enough force to send it rocketing up the ramp and high over the
barrow like a golf ball.
I scurried up once again, was
relieved to find that I hadn’t whacked the orb clean over the barrow, and set
the red orb down in its place before the red-marked dragon.
One
more.
The final orb, orange, was set atop
another dragon-totem down on the plain off the barrow. The tallest totem
yet....
I got to it, jumping, climbing,
scrabbling, grabbing, slipping, falling, panting, running out of energy again
and again and again.... until my
persistence paid off and I got on top.
I cast the orange orb back down
onto the plain, and went to position it on the makeshift earthen ramp....
Huh....
this corresponding dragon’s motif looked yellow, not orange....
I wondered for only a moment, and
then placed the orb.
And in the flat grass in the midst
of the dragon-totems on top of the rainy barrow.... the Toh Yahsa Shrine came rumbling up out of the earth.
The trial within was called Buried Secrets. And WOW that was a lot of big blocks to knock around and blow up. Much
fun.
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