A Friendly Forest

Waking of Tuesday, March 7, 2017 ~ 4

A Friendly Forest

I was getting to meet some interesting people on the road. I decided the ones that walked the roads were safe enough. I even saw the white-haired man on the pale horse from before. Seen up close and without the haze of rain, he didn’t look anything like the guy from The Witcher III. He was just a guy. I don’t even remember what he said to me.

Just another friendly face.

The trees beyond the gate seemed pleasant enough, full of apples and beehives. There was even a house in there. With a bed! I slept in it for about an hour and I recovered all my health! ^_^

After that it was an excellent game of dodge-arrow with the bokoblins under the Cliffs of Quince. Eventually I was able to dispatch them all and claim their treasure.

I went back to the house in the woods to rest up.

There was already a man inside. A thin old man I’d seen on the road before.

So the house belonged to him. He introduced himself as Doctor Calip, and told me he didn’t have time to talk with me.... until I happened to address him as “Doctor Calip”—you see, it seemed most everyone he knew or met was always forgetting that he was, in fact, a doctor, and had worked hard to become such.

At my show of respect he opened up a bit more, and told me he was studying some ancient texts regarding a “Cursed Statue”. I wonder what it means.

A Proper Exploration

Waking of Tuesday, March 7, 2017

A Proper Exploration

You know, my map really was an intriguing thing to look at—I’m crazy for topo; probably get it from my dad—and the names of all these amazing places! The Cliffs of Quince.... Mount Lanayru.... the Sahasra Slope.... Oakle’s Navel? What the heck was that? XD

Maybe I had felt less agile on my horse. Even though he was good for making hasty getaways.

But I really did want to explore more.

And so leaving Brown safe in Hateno Village at “our” house, I excursed once ag—are you serious, Word? You’re not underlining that? That was just a guess; I didn’t know “excursion” had its own verb—this is really okay with you?

Goodness.

Where was I.

AND SO leaving Brown safe in Hateno Village at “our” house, I excursed once again out over the rolling hills of the high ridge.

I really wanted to explore the Cliffs of Quince. Brokka [Toma] and I had ridden beneath them on our long trek through the rain; they were huge, and hollow beneath, held up by gargantuan pillars and natural bridges. But I wanted to see what was on top....

It turned out to be a wide, pleasantly grassy plateau, though baddies crawled over it like lost ants.

My Iron Sledgehammer nearly died in battle against a moblin.

I’ll have to pick one of the other ones up soon.

I also saw a few large holes where the shelf of rock had worn through, and you could see down into the giant hollow where the bokoblins made their camp.

Some mushrooms were growing on the rock a little way down from the top.

I had never seen anything so not worth it in my life.

Other wanderings brought me to crags overlooking Fort Hateno.

I could see the advance the Guardians had made, and a chill settled into my stomach.

Ughuhuhh.... those things....

I even had a brief peak into Oakle’s Navel, though I did not explore it.

Once I’d had my fill of the immediate area, I decided that I couldn’t be afraid anymore.

I would leave Brown behind, and Travel back to the Dueling Peaks Stable via the local shrine’s warp platform, and I was going to travel the road as I should first have traveled it, as I had meant to travel it: with a fine-toothed comb.

There may have been shrines I missed!

This is why all Heroes are called Fools

Waking of Saturday, MARCH FOURTH, 2017 ~ 14

This is why all Heroes are called Fools

The rain slicked over my Hylian Hood.

Brokka [Toma] and I walked on, soaked, our horses’ hooves endlessly clopping, clopping, clopping over the dirt and slush.

There was so much we were passing by, so much that.... I would have wanted to explore. But I somehow felt safer in Brokka’s company. Safer in the footsteps of a sprite for which the game must always have an escape, surely....

As we passed by some towering cliffs on the other side of a wide river to our right—the Cliffs of Quince, beneath which some bokoblins capered about their campfire—I saw a woman sobbing by the side of the road.

Brokka didn’t stop.

I paused.

Brokka kept going. I didn’t want to lose her.

But who was this crying woman?

This didn’t feel right. This didn’t feel right at all.

Surely this woman needed help.

But I wanted to stick together with Brokka.

What if this was a trap?

Brokka moved further and further ahead through the rain, without me.

Two Roads Diverged.

“All right Brown stay here,” I murmured, and dismounted. I wanted to make this quick.

But the woman had no name.

She was only a Traveler.

Uh-oh....

She was crying because she wanted some salmon.

“And.... and also....” she stuttered.

“The life of the Hero!”

She transformed just the same, into the lithe and lanky thing, reddish, quick, deadly.

Well I’d taken the scythe of the last one—and his bananas and his rupees!—and we fought blade against blade.

Or was this where my Eight Fold Blade finally wore out and shattered?

I don’t remember....

I defeated her. And took her scythe and bananas and the rupees she dropped.

The bananas were from somewhere called Faron.

I wondered if that’s where this Yiga Clan was based....

I climbed back on Brown and raced ahead to find Brokka again.