Waking of Monday, April 22, 2019
I searched a few more shrines for missed treasure.... no good.
SHRINES.
I am missing some shrines.
Impa is hiding at least one shrine.
And Impa wanted me to regain my memories.
My last memory rests at the castle.
I must go to the castle.
So.... I went.
At least I had a shortcut now.
I warped to the Docks Shrine, donned my Lizalfos Mask, and ascended the crumbly, rubble-strewn passageway to the Library once more. Venturing further along the avenues I had previously discovered, this time I made my way to the Dining Hall.
And found I had to change my Mask.
Ugh, four Moblins had turned it into.... a waste. But there were edibles everywhere. On what looked like animal furs draped over the ruined tables. What a mess. But I took the foodstuffs for myself.
Two Moblins squatted near a little fire at one end of the long room, and the other two squatted near the cold and unused fireplace at the other end. For—
I killed them. As was my wont in such tight quarters; I didn’t need their noses in my face while I was poking around.
The Dining Hall had a very gentle bend along the length of it, so that one of the long walls was slightly concave and the other silghtly convex. The convex wall had two doorways, each double-doored and both widely spaced from each other, and those led back to the red-carpeted corridor where the Lizalfos patrolled. Or.... where they had patrolled.
The concave wall had only a single door in the center, framed with fine stonework, and that led outside.
....
I went outside, and it was a bewilderment of Maliced things, the mighty Sheikah Sealing Pillar looming toward me, looking down the drop-offs, dun and dusty ruin, cobbled stones and.... uhuhuhuhhhhgjklhdfsjgklfhjk Guardians.
! But what was that Guardian? There on the other side of some kind of battlemented tower. Just far enough around the structure so that it couldn’t see me. The head looked different, skinnier like a pole, there were swivelly bits.... Guardian Turret? That’s what my Slate told me.
And then that dread spotlight, and a Guardian Flyer chased me back inside. I hated the flyers; they were hard to kill....
Hhhh but....
Gotta move forward now.... gotta find that memory....
I watched the Flyer settle down and resume its normal pattern, and waited for it to pass by again.... and then came back out through the door. It was a broad, flat area, just bare stone, with what seemed to be a street of hardy cobblestone continuing off from it in either direction, running fairly parallel to the Dining Hall behind me. And across this street from the Dining Hall was only a drop-off down to the lower levels of the tiered castle grounds.
I had seen the castle from many angles, but it was bewildering to be crawling around the surface in the thick of it.
As the Flying Guardian was elsewhere in its circuit, I ran to the left, hard along the wall, which degraded into a rough earthen slope as the street continued counterclockwise at a gentle incline. I ran until I was certain I was far from the Guardian’s patrol loop, and continued cautiously as the street became progressively rougher, the cobblestone giving way to packed dirt and the traces of double-ruts.
The wall of earth to my left became more uneven and encroached upon the road, as though parts of it had broken off and slid down over the years AND A BIG DARK SHAPE DROPPED AND THUDDED ONTO THE ROAD IN FRONT OF ME.
A GUARDIAN? DECAYED? NO, IT WAS—it was—It was dead.
Its overturned, cereal-bowl-shape teetered to a creepy standstill before me, and a couple of Ancient bits tumbled down beside it or bounced away unclaimable down the drop-off.
I looked up.
An Ancient Screw still perched on a little jutting boulder most of the way up the steep slope.
Had this Guardian fallen from all the way up there?
What the heck?
That Flyer was coming back. Coming from the direction of the Dining Hall. I didn’t want to be under its gaze, and so darted up the landslide from which the dead Guardian had fallen.
I didn’t even know which way I needed to go.
Where was that spot?
That spot in the pictograph, the last memory.... such elegant stonework....
I thought I needed to get higher at any rate, and so I abandoned the circuiting road and just kept climbing up to the next tier. It was unnerving to peek up over the last edge....
But I climbed. I could face down the Guardian Turrets, for they behaved no differently than Decayed Guardians, and I could simply avoid the flyers. Or dang well try.
Where was it?
I ducked beside a wall and studied the pictograph: Spires, a big round turret of some kind, winged caps of stone on the battlements. Echoes of that motif from the Royal Crest. Those wings.... Where was that spot? I looked at the pictograph, the map, the pictograph, the map, my surroundings.... Danger was everywhere.... and the 3D overlay map was deucedly difficult to read.... Could it even register details so fine? Maybe that structure there....
One Turret had me pinned. It had the higher ground, it was far away at a very unpracticed distance in my parry-reaction-timing, and Daruk’s Protection had become a short-lived resource in this place. But I couldn’t hide forever. I stepped out from behind the wall again and again, fishing for the correct angle, and I arrowed that Turret to death. Dashed across the open—how could there be grass here?—and hid beside a large structure. This was quite sizeable and roundish. Could this be the castle turret in the pictograph?
There was a doorway that led inside the structure, but I did not go in. I could see Malice Mouths in there. And no eyeball in sight. Didn’t need to deal with that....
And on the outside of the structure, just around the corner, was another Turret. Didn’t need that just then either.
My options were somewhat limited.
So.... I climbed up.
I climbed up over the awful, perpendicular stonework and jutting battlements, and onward and upward, until I found myself clinging to the side of a very pointed roof-spire. But I didn’t dare go higher than the width of my own silhouette lest another Turret spot me. The Guardians seemed to crop up on all sides; they were so thick on the castle grounds.
The air was so blustery and hellish hellish red....
I looked around, but the pictograph.... this place that I’d thought might have been it.... It didn’t look like it was so. No matching battlements, no winged capstones.
Haungh, besides, the turret in the pictograph didn’t have a pointed roof-spire of its own.
Hahhhh.
But as long as I had such a spider’s-eye vantage point I took the opportunity to look around a little more.... Those wings.... Looked around.... looked around.... scrutinizing every pointed spire I could see and every object nearby, scanning for those wing-shapes.... near and far, far and near, high and low, low and—and?
There! That spire! Those shapes! Could it be?
I studied the scene and it.... looked likely! Those wings were there! And they seemed a proper distance from the spire!
But.... it was on the other side of the castle! The west side!
I was on the east!
....
Well....
There was nothing for it.
I climbed up to the highest, highest spire on this big round structure—and found a Korok. Hey there jolly little friend.
The Turret did not see me.
There was another Flyer nearby, however. Patrolling right around the direction I wanted to go no less, gleaming a loop over some kind of landbridge near the end of the broad road to the castle’s gate. I waited for it to make its round a couple of times, and then.... paraglided. Oh gosh through all this danger....
That other Turret saw me then, but didn’t lead me as a target. One blue bolt flashed behind me, I cleared its range or line of sight—didn’t check which—slipped under the landbridge and was coming down fast over a deep pool. Made it to the water, swam only a couple of strokes against a tame waterfall’s current and climbed up the little bank which immediately dropped off in a ledge. Malice gathered on both sides of me. The air was clearer again down here.
Danger? Am I safe?
....
I thought so, for the moment.
But this was a narrow perch—what waterfall engineering....? It was a little like standing on the lip of a bowl.
I looked over the edge, down the drop-off.
There was another Turret on the next tier down below, a bit to my right. Guarding that little winding staircase I’d seen on the external map. Only he was facing the large open area away from the wall behind him. Away from me.
So I dropped down onto the stairs behind him and whistled to get his attention.
Funnily enough, it worked.
I parried him into oblivion.
The stairs were only slightly clockwise round the Castle of where I had stood on the lip-ledge, and they were set into a much taller tier of the castle ground, the one spilling the waterfall that fed the pool I’d landed in. A mountain of Malice globbed all over the towering walls of this tier, and high above, spanning out from near its crest to connect with another tower....
That bridge.
That must have been the battlement from the pictograph. I was probably just below the round turret-structure! I was so close!
I climbed the stairs—watching out for the Flyer, for there was another Flyer patrolling high around the attendant tower. Patrolling that battlemented walk where I needed to be....
The Flyer passed by, I scrambled up quickly over the rough and weathered stones, got inside.
Inside—
Silver Moblin!
I wasn’t wearing my mask.
Oh, he’d seen me....
But I switched to my Barbarian Gear, and the Master Sword had been glowing fiercely this whole time besides.
I killed him in short work, and he went down beside a fireplace.
Inside. Inside.... Where was I?
What was this room?
What? What.... was this.... corner?
There were papers plastered on the walls.... books everywhere.... and.... one book open on the desk.
Zelda’s Diary.
Oh my gosh.
