Waking of Saturday, January 5, 2019 ~ 2
From the Ancient Columns and down
the gentler, grassier back of the hill, I sported with a few Moblins and a
lily-Korok before striking toward the Sheikah Tower.
The tower stood at the crest of a
rocky hill to the north, across an empty gorge where the road bent and twined.
Malice crawled all over the stones around the tower’s base. It was at a lower
altitude than where I was, but I could tell I wouldn’t be able to paraglide
directly onto the tower. The best I could hit was partway up the slope on the
gorge’s far side.
Mom was with me during this part. I
enjoy.... just being with my Mom. Even when she still starts and warns and
cautions whenever I run along the edges of cliffs or take flying leaps into the
air.
She is a Good Mom. <3
I floated over, scrambled up the
far slope, and came to where the tower was. Malice completely encompassed its base;
I couldn’t access it. There were a few tall stones standing here and there; I
thought perhaps if I could get on one of those.... I could paraglide from one
to the other.... maybe paraglide onto the side of the tower, but.... No, the
distances were too great. I’d fry in the slime.
“Gooped. Ya got gooped.”
–PBG
I couldn’t climb a stone and float
over to the tower, but....! There!
I found an eyeball. :)
I shot it, it poofsploded and
evaporated, taking a lot of the Malice with it, and the column it had been
surrounding collapsed against the tower! Access!
And a long climb through the
fargazing music later, I was at the top.
This was my last Sheikah Tower. The
Tabantha Tower.
I set my slate into the pedestal,
distilled the rune, and.... ♪You get the thing!♪ ....The last blank space
on my map populated. This was the Tabantha
Frontier.
Complete
Map of Hyrule Extracted, said my Slate.
Wow! ^_^
The Rito Rock—that tall,
oddly-shaped spire—Heh, Oddly-shaped
indeed—it looked like a bird!—Although.... that Oddly was probably a mockingbird or a grackle; this rock spire looked more like the neck and head of
some kind of crane or stork....
*AHEM*
The Rito Rock, I could see from the
tower, was so close now, standing tall and straight, its neck hewn all up and
down with odd angles from erosion, and its “beak” jutting out at a stark perpendicular angle at the top. I
could see, both from the tower and on my map, that the spire actually stood in
the middle of a sizeable lake. Huh.
Okay!
I considered, as I was so high up
and could see all the world laid out before me. I could have struck out on a
more direct route to the Rito Rock, but.... I decided to follow the road
instead. Rather unlike me, now that I
think about it.
It was rife with Lizalfos.
But after cutting and dodging my
way through so many belligerent hoodlums I came at length to the Rito Stable. This was the one I had seen
from the edge of Hebra.
Kass was there.
After talking with some of the
other people there, I approached him.
He was happy to see me in one
piece! The feeling was mutual as always. ^_^ And here so close to his hometown
of Rito Village, he said he was feeling terribly homesick, and confided to me
that he’d had to leave his wife and children back in the village.
Kass
has a wife and kids? I thought. My
goodness!
I never knew.
“But I can’t go home until I
fulfill my promise to my teacher,” he said.
“Promise?” I asked. It was my only
option.
“My promise to... No, perhaps now
is not the time.”
He said he would tell me, in Rito
Village, once he learned all the ancient songs.
So
mysterious, Kass.... I’d heard him talk about his teacher before.... What promise did he mean....?
I decided to sleep the night at the
stable before moving on. And in the morning, I headed toward the village.
The lake—Totori Lake—was different
from most other lakes I had seen, in that its “shore” consisted mostly of two-hundred-foot dropoffs all the way
around. The water shimmered distantly below in the enormous, sunken, beigestony
pit. A few other rock spires stood attendant to the mighty bird-shaped one in
the center, but none it seemed were half so tall. I could see the occasional
updraft blowing here and there as well, in the event I should paraglide around
and sink too low, but aside from those.... there didn’t seem to be much down
there....
Not that I had reason to worry: well
kempt, handsome bridges of dark wood spanned from shore to spire to spire to
spire, high above the water. It was at the beginning of the first of these
bridges that I met Gesane of the Rito as he patrolled the path to the village.
He introduced his home and kin for
me: “The Rito of Totori Lake. Where the men are fine archers and the women
better singers.”
Heh.
^_^ I liked it.
The tops of the spires were grassy,
and pleasant, with birds and flowers and pine trees and even the occasional
little water pocket pond. This really was beautiful country. Breezy and
beautiful.
As I crossed the third bridge after
the second rock, there were.... Malice drips and a sudden blackout? Would I
meet the Divine Beast? I’d forgotten these bits! But it was.... a BLOOD MOON
CINEMATIC?
“The Blood Moon rises once again,” came Zelda’s voice.
BUT IT WAS DAYTIME.
“Please be careful, Link.”
THE SCENE ENDED. It was
six-something in the morning.
What
the heck?
Afraid I had missed the proper
cinematic on a glitch, I reloaded from the stable, and went toward the village
again. I stopped to pick the same peppers or berries or whatever it was I had
grabbed before. I moved forward at the same pace, had the same talk with
Gesane. Began crossing over the water and came to the same bridge and....
Nothing.
Huh.
But.... I had reloaded.... Was the
game acting like I had saved?
I kept moving slowly and shoot that was a bear over there, didn’t
want to get its attention, what was a bear doing on one of these rock spires—
But nothing else happened. And....
I.... finally just kind of accepted that.... the game had somehow deprived me
of the cinematic.
I resigned myself to just find it
on YouTube later.
I sighed, relaxed my guard, and
just continued on AND THEN THAT TERRIBLE BIRDLIKE SHRIEKING FROM THE SKY.
Then
came the Divine Beast introduction cinematic.
. . . . Whoof.
That was alarming. I told David
about it later and we laughed.
On into the village, and I was
really liking the look of this place. Lush grass, sweet flowers, breezy pines;
the dark, comely wood of the bridges-turned-staircases and -boardwalks
intermittently broken by soft earthen paths under the gentle sun; the wilderness on all sides and above and
below....
And the music. Rito Village’s music....
*-!-*
And in a soft jolt, I was both
surprised and not:
It was DRAGONROOST. <3
It was the musical theme from
Dragonroost Island.... only settled cozily in a cabin in the woods, instead of
flying fiercely about a wild island in the bluster of an untamed sea.
Of
course it was Dragonroost.
Ahhh.
<3
The handsome boardwalk continued
straight inward and upward, ending directly against the base of the central
pillar of the Rito Rock, the Neck of the Crane. At this landing, the wooden
path continued to the right, winding upward and away around the Neck. But for a
moment I was more taken with the sight just in front of me.
At this juncture, a gentle alcove
had been carved into the light stone of the spire, and a small Goddess statue
erected in the hollow. The little shrine was laid with decorative cloth;
offerings of flowers lay thereon at the statue’s foot, and a crown of similar
blossoms rested gaily upon its head. All bright and fresh-looking as if they’d
just been picked.
Of all the shrines to the Goddess I
had seen, this one was surely the fairest in its happy simplicity.
*
The pine trees smiled and the wind
and wood breathed.
The
earth and the sun had never been as
content.
The world was at ease here.
*
Well at this point I was pretty
sure I’d finally done it. I had seen every major habitation Hyrule had to
offer. Just in case.... Just in case....
Just
in case of that notion I well knew by now to be only fancy, but which I had
still decided to humor through to the end: I had made sure, or sure enough,
that there were no other houses to be bought aside from that one in Hateno.
So that was the only place.
Hahhhh.
But if I had had a choice.... the
pines, the grass, and open air, the open-walled homes in cozy simplicity,
village full of flyers and all musically
inclined....
Yes.
I think I would have lived here.
I
think I would have lived here.
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