WEST SIDE

Friday, May 10, 2019 ~ 2

WEST SIDE

As I came to the street that led over the castle’s moat, that big natural bridge of earth and stone.... Malice began to drip through the air. And when I came to the big threshold.... my HUD map changed, and I was in the Castle Grounds Proper, and the music turned to the rupturing, tempestuous orchestra.

A mighty gate with two enormous Magnesable doors in a massive masoned frame spanned the width of the bridge. A single Guardian Flyer circled this edifice, sweeping the road below with the beam of its eye.

I just needed to avoid it....

As soon as it passed, I ran to the gate; the Flyer’s scanning did not come near to or brush the actual structure. Even so, I started climbing. Once I’d gotten up on top, I could see there were Guardians everywhere inside.... One Decayed one beyond could see me if I climbed wrong or didn’t keep my head down. I tried to parry its blast, but the distance was too great, my timing was off—

And as I landed back on the ground and then scurried to hide from the circling Flyer again.... “Daruk’s Protection is now ready to roll!” the Goron Champion rumbled in my head.

Convenient.

Hah. Lousy timing, though.

It had been regenerating.

I may need Daruk’s help.

The Decayed ones.... They spot you from such a long way away. But Daruk’s Protection was as good as a Perfect Parry....

I decided I would call on Daruk....

And I did. And it helped.

But there were other Guardians to deal with yet, as I left the Gate and its Flyer and pressed my way inward. Too many for Daruk alone to deal with. I tried parrying again on some of them, and that worked too at times!

I made an effort to follow the road, but was distracted pretty quickly by a tiny, spinning pinwheel up on a balcony.... an Archery Korok.

I climbed up to the wide, battlemented balcony and found it to be backed by a wall of pure Malice, with no eyeball in sight. If there was a way past the dark blockade and into the castle just here, any eyeball guarding it must have been situated on the inside.

The Korok, meanwhile, proved to be RIDICULOUS in its demands—after dispatching all nearby Guardians or hiding from their view, I stood in the optimum spot beside the pinwheel and went through so many arrows trying to land a hit on the Korok’s designated target, which seemed for all the world to be all the way back across town....

But land it I did, eventually, and collected the seed, whereupon I sailed back down to the road.

This was a smaller track than the great broad street that was so large it showed up in the topo, winding its way over the Castle Grounds and up to the Front Door. But it was still wide enough and serviceable; the blasted waste of a hundred years had not robbed the cobblestone of its charm.

I don’t think it’s possible to do that to cobblestone.

The Lesser Road bent to the left, seeming to start a clockwise circuit of the castle, trailing away around the west side through a pox of Malice and eyeballs.... I followed it, but only briefly, and stopped well before reaching any more Malice gates; for near where that first Decayed Guardian had been that had knocked me off the moat bridge gate, there was a doorway on the right side of the track, leading into the castle’s interior....

I went inside, killed some Lizalfos....

This passage looked like it wrapped back around to the right, and I could use it to make my way back to that Malicey balcony from the inside; the HUD seemed to indicate a connection there.... But when I reached the appropriate junction after following the hallway, Malice blocked my way there, too.

The only way left to approach the chamber leading to the Malice Balcony, then, was from the east. The other passage must connect....

I’d find it later.

I went back the only other way to go. Bypassing the door I’d come in, I followed the passage westward and northward until I made my way to the Guards’ Chamber.

More Lizalfos, and one Moblin. I killed them all. I also found another piece from that dark-sheened weapon set, the Royal Guard’s Claymore. Or whatever the big giant swingy one was.

In the Guards’ Chamber, uh muh gush, there were a couple of hidden chests.... One contained a Savage Lynel Shield. I’d take that! The other, dumped in the hollow under a staircase and hidden behind a curtain of dried leafy overgrowth.... was a SHARD OF NAYDRA’S FANG?

WHUUUUTT???

Oh my gosh, oh my gosh....

Okay.

Okay....

But....

Augh, but hadn’t I fired on the poor beasts in too many places already? Visions of shooting the dragons in the mouth spun through my head.... Now that would just be irritating!

Did they drop eyeballs too?

Whatever!

I kept on!

I made my way back to another chamber, another path.... and this one led to a grand circular staircase blocked by Malice.

I killed the eyeball, clearing the way up—this staircase was massive....

Oh but first... I ran back down and checked round the rubble on the other side, the right side—it was piled up thick beneath the ascending circle of stairs—and climbing up over the heaping mounds of it.... I found more treasure up in the cracks near the top. :) Been finding lots of good weapons.... And in this chest.... 3 more Ancient Arrows. I think that’s the third chest here that’s done that for me.

Thank you.

I clambered back down and back around to the left side to ascend the massive spiral staircase in its ponderous clockwise turn....

And of a sudden I was outside. Back in the blustery grey before I knew it.

A Turret took issue at my appearance.

I killed it.

The staircase had come out underneath some kind of huge overhang, some kind of masoned patio roof with a perfectly level ceiling.... The cover from anything overhead for a generous radius was comforting at least, though it still left the lateral directions to deal with.

A very shallow channel-like depression ran through the patio, stretching away in both directions—and then I realized. This was part of the Outside Track—the Lesser Road. There was the Main Road that wound up to the Castle Gate, and then there was this smaller Outside Track that circled all the way around—I could see that now on the 3D overlay in my HUD.

Well, I had started out following it....

I was going to follow the Outside Track again.

As I continued clockwise around the castle, the road took me lower.... I wanted to go higher; I suspected.... that a shrine might be higher, closer to the top, but.... Well, as long as I was here....

I went down lower. Found another entrance to the interior, with Luminous Stone deposits around it. Hmmm.... I wondered if this were one of the ones I had marked on my map in spying the place out from the Elma Knolls. Would I have already walked over it and thus deleted the map marker? Time would tell. Or I guess it wouldn’t.

I went inside....

The name of the place gleamed over my screen, coming into focus....

LOCKUP?

D:

It was a prison....

Or rather a dungeon.

That’s right, I was on the west side, near the Castle Town Prison out on the grounds.... made sense....

What was more, there were Moblins and Lizalfos in here....

Guess they been bad.

....

Man, how awful did a monster have to be for Ganon’s Forces to throw it in the dungeon?

What violent brutes these must have been....

....

The architecture was all hard stone and iron, and a little wood. No fineries for anyone meant to be housed here. After the corner near the entrance, the single corridor continued on a gentle curve, with a row of cells on either side. A very shallow depression ran along the center of the way, sluicing some dismal water drainage away to who knew where.

Malice eyeballs blocked the path, but those were easy enough to dispatch. And I could see what they had been guarding at the first one’s evaporating: there were switches in the central corridor, straddling the sluiceway, that could open the cells on either side, all down the way.

One Silver Moblin was free already, and he and I had it out until I’d laid him out and spoiled his corpse. And then.... I started activating the switches.

Killing them all.... did not feel nice.

They were trapped.

And I an Executioner.

I just wanted to be thorough combing this place....

Well, the Lizalfos were still able to spit at me.

Small consolation.

I killed them all, raiding what spoils and treasures were to be found strewed about their cells. My Master Sword didn’t seem to be running out of energy; it’d been glowing like this for ages, and I’d been killing so many things.

So this was its strength....

Some cells had bombable walls between them, which proved to be the only way to access some of them. And one cell on the left, the castleward side, had a bombable back wall....

I broke through, followed the passageway around; it opened up into a large chamber with some Moblin skulking around.... What was this place....?

But....

No. Not yet.

This wasn’t just some hidden hidey-hole; this was a whole other pathway, and I was not done in the other room yet.

I ran back to the Lockup, slipped around a final dark corner to get to that last, biggest cell, and walked in.

The portcullis slammed shut behind me.

How very OoT.

I’d seen the Stalnox bones. They’d been flopped out in the center of the floor of the big round chamber, bleach-white against the dark stone, and they had stunk of miniboss.

They came to life now.... and I put them down again, with a flurry of arrows to the great, bulbous, black eye, slicing the thing into evil oblivion with my sword at the end, as it popped out and bounced grotesquely around....

There was a treasure chest now, as well as a signpost in the back, engraven into a stone marker. Had these been here all along? The room was quite dark....

The stone read:

- Test of the Royal Guard -

Strike down the giant foe to become

recognized as a knight of the kingdom.

Well....

I opened the chest.

There was that You Get The Thing Music and....

*GASP*

WHAT?

A Hylian Shield?

I mean I had wondered what could be in here, but this was.... I hadn’t expected....

“A shield passed down through the Hyrulean royal family, along with the legend of the hero who wielded it. Its defensive capabilities and durability outshine all other shields.”

Does this.... Is this shield....?

My Master Sword—The Master Sword had been staying so strong. While it had shone. Here in the dark castle. In the Malicey air that seemed to activate its resilience.

Does this shield....

Is this shield unbreakable?

Its strength was 120. Shield Guard Up +30. What does it mean?

Oh my gosh....

Was this shield unbreakable?

I almost didn’t want to test it.

....And after typing a flurry of notes for the log I came back to the game and....

....

Oh, my inventory was full. |D

I dropped the Lizal shield I’d been using, and opened the chest again.

Got the music a second time. Nice.

Now I had the shield....

But heck if I was ever gonna use it.