The Abomination

Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 2

The Abomination

All right, up from the Library, out the upper exit, a run past the Guardian, dodging an attack, under the pillarway, scaling the wall—required slightly more Stamina than I had....

But I made it to the top.

....

I am going into the Sanctum now.

That room. That broad, round room with many entrances encompassing, tiled and pillared and ramped and balconied and hung with crimson banners and run with crimson carpets within, no doubt so stately and handsome once, all reddened under the rupturing sky.

That room with the pulsating thing clung onto the ceiling, like one of Naydra’s gigantic Malice Eyeballs.

That room from which I had so desperately fled before.

I stepped into it now.

And I stepped further.

And further....

Mercy, Game, when would you just take me and—

Ah.... There was the blackout at last....

The visuals came back unmercifully focused on that.... thing. That ball, that orb, that wiggling, pulsing abomination, rooted to the ceiling by unholy burning tendrils, sapping who knew what life from the very stone. Its globular, blood-colored surface, bound in by sickly-looking iterations of the ancient Sheikah constellation motifs, constricted and recoiled with a slushing sound.... and then the light came.

Golden Light, ringing like a bell, beamed from the center of the mass, while the raging sky silently blew glowing hot fire and hell beyond the high windows.

I stood near the center, eyes cast upward and trained on the demonthing—

A muffled sound—

“...

Link...

Link.”

Zelda.

“I’m sorry...but my power isn’t strong enough...”

She sounded strained.

“I can’t hold him...”—A darkening, another slursh—and a LASER EXPLODED FROM THE GLOBE—bright, blinding, shrieking, it cast about so quickly, violently, stone and pillars crumbling and flaming and smoking in a ruinous wake behind its frenetic trail about the chamber—again—again—

I barely had time to react, casting up two warding forearms as the beams sliced through the stone about my feet—but it never hit me—

A second of silence, and then—more controlled this time—an entire array of penetrating lasers seemed to come from within, swirling smoothly around the globe’s surface in efficient, sweeping arcs—and then their light finally dimmed as well, as smoke poured from the sickly Sheikah stars—

I looked up from behind my warding hands.

My help—Hyrule’s help—was exhausted.

With a final obscene wriggling and gurgling, the pulsating sac ruptured with an almighty SPLURT—dark liquid exploded from within, raining putrid globlets to the floor with a gelatinous splattering—and a form—some incomprehensible, monstrous form—fell out like an unholy birth, crashing onto the stones below—the stones that were cracked and fissured by the lasers—

The dust of a hundred years had sprung up at the impact, obscuring the thing almost immediately—now the floor began to buckle under its weight with a cracking, a rumbling, a grinding and grating—

I only caught a glimpse of it for a second: a flash, a streak of red, like hair—something long and gangling—

The floor dropped out.

And I fell with it.

Stones and rubble and debris and rocks.... Plummeting, plummeting—what was this shaft?

The monster rhooshed into the yawning dimness below, still unmoving, still limp, still nondescript in the dust and rubble, I only a heartbeat behind and above it, stones big as horse-stalls raining down around my head—

The tubular tunnel opened at last onto an immense half-dome chamber, its sectioned ceiling splayed with a heaven of  Sheikah constellations.... but all still stained so blood-magenta red....

The monster dropped through and slammed into the final floor.... and at last began to move.

Peeking through the smoke and the dust as it rose, as it turned and roiled....

Oh gosh what is he, what is this monstrosity—what—I don’t—what—

Strong arm. Flaming blade. Legs. Spider legs.

I had caught myself—my paraglider—I was coming down now—there was nowhere else to go—

The demon turned in the darkness. Insect-like. Spider-like. Mismatched—Cobbled—A perverse mutation—A sick amalgamation of all that Ganon’s Malice had consumed—

I touched down and skidded coolly to a ready halt.

Blue blades, Guardian legs. Stomp went one foot.

Hair. Mane. Abdomen like a vinegaroon. MORE legs. HAND?

It turned....

Head....

Skull-like....

A man’s face?

LOOKING—AT—ME.

The demon reared—

So many grabbing, flailing arms.

Scourge of Hyrule Castle

CALAMITY GANON

We faced one another....

            ....as the scene blacked out—

But....

As the demon’s apocalyptic choir hung onto its dark caesura.... elsewhere a clarion bell rang out. The orchestra’s strings swelled in Revali’s teal glow where he perched in sleepless vigilance atop Vah Medoh—

The Champions!!

“Now my moment has finally come,” the rapier twirled as Revali threw out one wing-arm. “Brace yourself, Ganon, for the sting of my revenge!”

And Vah Medoh BLASTED the mind-bogglingly powerful laser it had been keeping trained upon the demon for this very moment—the blue-white, all-destroying column shaking the earth as it bored through the skies—all melting into white—

“This will be our final opportunity.” Mipha’s hands were gently clasped as she stood serene and beautiful on Vah Ruta. “We will not fail!” Her voice actually cracked as she thrust her arms forward—

Vah Ruta likewise emitted a bolt of such devastating power.... What on earth could withstand....? So blinding.... so blinding....

“Let’s go, little guy!” Daruk POUNDED his mighty fists together. “Now! Open up wide, Ganon!”

Vah Rudania blasted the air from its entire, open, flowered head. The center of the beam.... blacking out.... as though it were all too much and so bright that it had clipped the game’s camera.

“A hundred years in the making...” Urbosa stood cool as ever. Collected. Her waiting was over. “Hold on, Princess.” She didn’t even take the weight from her hip, but only extended her arm, her fingers ready to snap—“Our moment has arrived!”—which she did—

And Vah Naboris’ laser BEAMED out into the sky, burning shadows into the very air behind the Divine Beast....

The Choir and the entire Orchestra marched gloriously into the melting white light.

And the four giant, ancient, incomprehensibly powerful beams CONVERGED UPON HYRULE CASTLE.

They did know I was in here too, didn’t they?

Bright blue, thick, huge, thunderous blasts so violent I was afraid they would shatter the castle and blow the stones to dust and steam.... the bright white light growing and growing....

But the architecture remained undamaged.

Rather, as the demon and I stood face to face, the mere radiance of the Divine Beasts’ power came spearing down through the shaft, down into the very basement half-dome chamber, gleaming like sunrays, and drawing even the Calamity’s twisted attentions.

It looked up.... and we both saw what followed:

The energy of the four combined beams came down the shaft like a glowing blue bubble. Filling up the space, squeezing downward, pressing closer, coming for its target.

And before it had entered the half-dome, it reduced for only a split second to a much smaller, white-hot glowing sphere.... and then exploded into a divine rain of bright, piercing, penetrating, decimating white-blue light.

Down, down, down.

Pummeling.

Relentless.

The Calamity shrieked beneath the cascading downpour of bolts; the earth shook at the continuous battering of every blistering strike; gleaming blue spheres and plashes danced off the demon’s filthy hide like the impacts of raindrops, magnified a thousand times and set with a righteous luminescence.

Calamity Ganon’s life meter, there at the top of the screen already, had begun to drain.

Beneath the barrage it dropped and dropped and dropped as the monster howled, down and down and down.... until with a final blue explosion and a following cloud of charged blue smoke.... it had dropped to the halfway point.

Calamity Ganon was already half dead.

But he remained the Demon yet....

The smoke dissipated, the Calamity stirred again, raised itself from the floor.... and with an eldritch fury howled twice as loud as before, fit to rend the very air. The rippling burble of a Malicey roar gurgling somewhere beneath the scream....

That wild fiery red mane and.... beard?.... surrounding his dark-surfaced, monstrous skull-head with the glaring, glowing orange eyes.... that jewel still set in the center of his forehead, even now.... so many spidering limbs.... each ending in fire-red blade or Guardian-blue sword or sharp-clawed hand, or wielding other incomprehensible horrors.

My gosh he was terrifying.

I....

Stood Firm.

And drew my blade.

And the battle for Hyrule was on.

He pulled back enormously, and slashed at me with the giant blazing sword that was his foremost right arm. I leapt away. The numberless terrors of all his thinner, ganglier spider-legs groped creaking after me with their snipping blades and fidgeting claws—

How could I do, here?

Difficult to get close....

Arrows, then.

And there was no point holding anything in reserve anymore.

Bomb Arrows it was.

But the Demon had its own projectiles. The Piano had long since fled before the pounding Choir and Orchestra now filling up the space, and so I did not hear that most reliable of aural cues—but I did recognize that beeping. That was a Guardian laser.

I could dodge those....

I ran, I jumped....

The monster tromped and shuffled and heaved and—

“OH MY GOSH GET DOWN FROM THE WALL!” I hollered.

Ganon had crawled up onto the constellation-covered dome-wall and begun creeping round to flank me at an alarming speed.... for something so large....

I could see the whole of his.... ancient-tech.... segmented.... vinegaroon-back.... bulbous and bloated and sagging like an overfed arachnid’s abdomen. His legs clutched the wall; his dorsum was toward me—then how did—? —And yet somehow he still faced me. Somehow a putrescent shape which might in nightmares be called a torso still rose incomprehensibly from the mass to set his grinning, scowling, hateful visage toward me, its own attendant arms splayed wide in screaming violence. Crawling.... CRAWLING....

The Calamity’s arsenal was broad and varied. From his higher position he cast his glowing blue spear at me, again and again as it reappeared in his wicked grasp—Moblin’s Magic Spear, I again thought ridiculously.

The cannon fused into his flesh fired rapid volleys of laser pulses, as well as strange, warping bursts of air.

Above his wicked head he conjured fiery meteors.... and sent each one plummeting down toward me with nightmarishly slow-moving finality—these I could not dodge—the fiery blasts so all-engulfing—run as I might—

And there was always that accursed Guardian laser.

But I could dodge that....

When the Demon jumped down from the wall, he landed in a ponderous pounce of weird blue light spread over the floor—a dangerous radius in which to be caught. And I found he needn’t always come from the wall to employ it.

The giant flaming sword, however, was strictly a ground-level implement. A closer-range, tree-sized melee weapon. Its swipes were enormous and far-reaching, trailed by flame, and casting flames out wherever it swung, its terrible downward-chop blowing up infernal jets like dragonfire on the rebound.

I ran and leapt—

The Demon crept—

We harassing each the other with incendiary affronts to the face—I dropped him from the wall—he speared me to the floor—I cut him—he burned me—

Were not these the Champions’ weapons?

He had all the Champions’ weapons here, just as he had had them in the Divine Beasts....

What were they?

That giant flaming sword was surely a reflection of Daruk.

The spear for Mipha.

Those pulses for Revali.

And...

What, those grabbers? So many limbs ended in a sharp, Guardian-blue gleaming—at least one of them was a blade.... for Urbosa....

The Demon’s pulses chased at my heels—

My Bomb Arrows exploded again in his face—

His own erupting missiles blasted me to the floor and set my hair alight—

I let him feel his very Bane in the Master Sword—

We tasted every species of wrath and pain that we could inflict upon the other until—

!!

Oh no....

....

Of course he had a second stage....

Having had enough of my quiver, steel, and fury, the Calamity reared up and with a ferocious roar conjured a flaming, blazing sphere around itself—just like his Fireblight had done—

But no—the sphere disappeared after only a moment—

But the bright blazing glow remained.

The Calamity had turned golden. Its demon body shining a hot and fiery radiance.

Oh no.

Well I’d had enough of his fire as well. But now he looked hazardously hot, and so I quickly donned my Flamebreaker Armor—

However, his color seemed to have been all that had changed. No new firestorms arose, no Fireblight bomb trickery went off.... He hadn’t changed tack. He still swiped his gigantic sword, still beeped his Guardian laser after me, still body-slammed a moderate pool of flashing blue pain into the floor to catch me—

But no, that wasn’t all....

I noticed that none of my Bomb Arrows were affecting him anymore.

No....

Then that glow.... that brazen fire.... wasn’t a fire—it must have been a shield, then.

I put off the Flamebreaker and returned to my Champion’s Tunic.

Really?

I fired again and watched his life meter closely—

Really.

I couldn’t penetrate his stronger defenses.

But he could still penetrate mine—a number of hearts evaporated from my bottom row, and I chowed apples to regain them—

How could I do, here, now?

My arrows were ineffective.

If I couldn’t stun him....

And I dared not get too close....

How could I do....?

At whiles he still hurt me. The laser pulses, the giant blade with its flames, those bloody meteors—whatever it was—

Some terrible blow caught me.

“I NEED MY GREENS!” I howled, groping for another cooked Hearty Radish to eat—

Even the music seemed to recoil in horror before the invincible Beast. It was the same music that had played during my battles against the Blights, really—or it had been. Only now, some of the notes, some of the intervals.... were off, wrong, disoriented. As if the music track itself were screaming in petrified terror, only straining to channel what sounds it could manage into performing its accompanying duty to the conflict.... a tempo-increase borne of fear nipping at everyone’s heels....

The brazen, flaming Demon now stomping, now crawling, now screaming, all its hateful wickedness casting down at me in the tearing mad cackle of ten thousand years of stewing, boiling evil, as it spun round and round and round the room like a great malevolent crab....

So wrong....

So wrong....

How could I do?

That beeping came again—the Guardian laser.

I could dodge those.

But—

!

I could dodge those....

Though.... could it be?

The laser?

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—

It was always easier at close range....

I stepped toward the Devil.... steadied myself....

Be-be-be-be-be-beeee—

Was this the right distance?

The first twining glimmer of light began to coalesce—

Now!

I pressed forward—swung my arm—the laser’s vortex charge completed, discharged already—my shield flashed at the apex of its arc—the blue-white bolt came—

AND I PARRIED IT.

LIKE I HAD TAUGHT MYSELF TO DO SO VERY LONG AGO AND PRACTICED SO MANY MANY MANY TIMES.

AND IT REBOUNDED.

AND IT PENETRATED HIS SHIELD AND HE WENT DOWN.

AND I RAN IN AND MASTER SWORDED HIS FACE!

But every stroke of the Master Sword dealt such a tiny amount of damage to his life meter....

But it was damage nonetheless.

The Mouse could bite, Ganon.

This repeated for a few cycles....

The winning culmination of so many trials prepared for and so many hardships overcome pounded through my veins like a war-drum. I was so PUMPED at the simple learning, the earned advantage, the flashing leap in understanding—that I was dreadfully tempted to say “EAT MASTER SWORD, B[let us kindly redact the remainder of this word]!”

But.... No, I mustn’t.

Besides, Mother is here with me.

Dang you, world and your catchy vulgarities.

Chip by chip, piece by piece, I whittled the demon’s interminable life meter away.... I would bring you death if need be by a thousand cuts....

Striking and slicing and slashing—until at the stroke that proved to be one too many, the Calamity reared back and away from the blow, screaming an unholy, shrieking howl that melted all into the blinding white Void....

.... Dang it I forgot to take a pictograph....

.......

....

.

.

.

.

 

Impa's Final Message

Waking of Saturday, May 4, 2019

Impa’s Final Message

It was still the waking of Saturday, May 4, 2019, but I was into the morning of May 5, 2019, because that was two years, two months, and two days since this game came out, and DANG IT if I wasn’t gonna get some time in on it today. I wanted to see Impa. And so help me after so much bloody laundry and dryers and other chores and the sucking black hole of the following circuses of self-medicinal YouTube and its inebriating memes and vines for ever I WAS GOING TO FREAKING PLAY THIS BLOODY GAME.

I was already in Kakariko.

It was 8:00 pm.

Paya was polishing the guardian deity statues.

I decked myself out to look presentable. No beast weaponry.

Now. Impa.

I went up the stairs. I went through the door.

I had all Divine Beasts. All memories.

What would she say?

She sat cross-legged on her little tower of pillows.

I spoke to her.

“I sense it... Their presence.

Daruk. Urbosa.

Revali. Mipha.”

Her old face furrowed. “A hundred years ago, I put my life on the line to fight alongside everyone. But...I could not protect them. They died without fulfilling their destinies. I have lived all this time thinking they died in vain.” She looked so downcast, and then, “But this energy I feel from their presence...” she trailed off.

“It seems they have not given up,” she smiled. “I can also sense...that they were all overjoyed to see you again,” she said, still smiling.

Heh, even Revali?

Well.... guess he can’t hide it from Impa.

That’s comforting.

And then suddenly intent! “Now you all serve the same purpose! Now it is time to attack Calamity Ganon, while he is weak! Hurry to the princess! Go, now!”

Oh, my map opened. And there was a new dinger at the castle.

“I believe you will find Calamity Ganon in Hyrule Castle.”

And I came back out of the map now.

“Even with blessings of the Divine Beasts on your side, you must be careful,” Impa went on, “Calamity Ganon will be well protected. Be prepared for anything!”

And then, “By the way... How are you faring thus far?” A bit jarring. And with a dynamic little zoom out in the cinematography, back to my person and then coming in close.... all dramatic.

Ah, on to the other quest, I see.

I gesticulated my response.

“No... All twelve pictures already? You’ve visited every place?!”

Was it really that shocking, Impa, with how long I’ve taken? |D

“Hmm... Then I suppose it’s time.” The camera zoomed in toward her face. The music had changed. An eerie, haunting, mystical version of some Sheikah tune.... “I will reveal the location of the final memory,” she said, and there was another zoom in toward myself.... in such a beautiful shot....

This is what I have been waiting for. I’ve seen the empty place for the last memory. I remember flashes of trailers. I’ve heard the stories from all the people in the land.

But will it be where I think it is?

“Here is what happened.” Impa.... got up off of her cushion!—I’d never seen her move from that spot before—and walked over to... where are we going? I followed.... “Lady Zelda asked me to wait to show you this. She gave me very specific instructions.” Or some such words!??

“This is the final picture.”

What is it....?

I looked....

The painting on the wall.... illuminated by a small standing lamp.

It was a rolling green field full of.... Guardian husks....

I knew it.

The flashing final stand in the rain beneath my hood.

Watching the lurching, gleaming beasts from the highest battlement.

The Valley of Terror.

Garill’s Haunt.

Fort Hateno.

“Does it look familiar?” Impa asked, “From this village, you should be able to get there in a half day’s time. Now go, child. Seek out what Lady Zelda has shown you.”

And the music went back to normal.

Free the Divine Beasts – Complete.

The long, long-awaited banner gleamed across my screen.

....

How did Zelda.... tell Impa.... that it was....?

....

I will go. And regain my final memory.

....

Impa still won’t let me touch the orange orb though.

How....

In The Rain

Waking of Saturday, December 29, 2018

In The Rain

I warped to the Wetland Stable, and began to search the woods near the river. I didn’t find much. Just a lot of edible plants, some Koroks I’d already encountered.... Tye and Sorelia in a jam. I stopped to get them out of it.

Nothing. Nothing on this side of the river.

So I crossed to the west side. Picked a high spot of the bank and paraglided over the current. I did not receive a warm welcome on the other shore. One Big Yiga and three Stalkoblins took issue with my presence. But once I’d told them to knock it off, and gotten the woods to myself, and looked just a little deeper into the green....

There.

There was the spot. The Glowing Memory. Waiting for me to step into it....

Link and Zelda ran through the rain. Sword out. His other hand clasped the Princess’. He led her hard and fast through the pouring grey.

They were ragged, and filthy, and dirty, and desperate, panting—

Zelda stumbled.

Link pulled up, stopped. Turned and stood. Walked back slowly.... And stopped.

The trees and the rain could keep watch for a moment.

Zelda had collapsed hands and knees to the ground in her white dress. Her poor, beautiful white dress.

She still panted, and the breaths began to rack her frame with something more.

“How... How did it come to this? Everything... the Divine Beasts, all the Guardians, they’ve turned against us,” she bemoaned.

Link sheathed his sword, and knelt down too.

“It was Calamity Ganon. It turned them all against us—” She clenched her fists against the mud. “—And everyone... Mipha, Urbosa, Revali and Daruk... they’re trapped inside those things...”

She was crying. I could see her tears even through the rain.

“It’s my fault,” she cried, “Everything we’ve done up until now... it’s all been for nothing. All because I couldn’t harness this cursed power!” Her voice was rising now. “So I really am just a failure!”

The mud only ate her howling as she blew herself out, quieting again, “Everyone... My friends, everyone in the Castle... and my father most of all...” she said, “I left them... all to die.”

And she fell into Link’s arms and just.... wept.

Lanayru Road

Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 3

Lanayru Road

When Tera had upgraded my new Barbarian Armor as much as she could, I puttered around the rest of my wardrobe like I do.... Naydra horn, huh....

I still didn’t sort my closet, but left it bungled as ever, and after that....

Kakariko. It was time to venture beyond Cotera’s Woods once again. It was time to explore that inland lake. I had a sneaking suspicion I could find the scale I was looking for there.

I hurried through Cotera’s placid stand of trees, veering only to pick a few of the finer plants and scattering the wildlife before me. In the bare, cliff-flanked road beyond I didn’t bother with the Traveler who’d told me strange stories before, nor did I take the way to Rabia Plain (save for just a little to snatch a Korok I’d somehow missed).

No, this time it was the straight fork, the rightward avenue that dipped lower, and wider, as the land sank into water and stone....

This was the Lanayru Road, West Gate.

And there was indeed a high span of weathered stone bridging the way up ahead.

It looked very much like a gate in one of the pictographs in Princess Zelda’s album. But not quite. But if there was a west gate.... then there must surely have been an east gate....

I went in. There was a memory ahead of me. I knew it. Somehow I’d known it and marked it on my map.... maybe a clue from Pikango or something.... He was always painting landscapes....

The stony corridor widened; the road clave to the north face while the water started by the south; the tumbles of rock meshed through the ancient stonework so that I could hardly tell between what had been, and what was left.

I walked on. Encountered some sleeping Bokoblins. Dispatched them under the quiet of my Stealth Suit; best not to raise a ruckus. Though sometimes it couldn’t be helped to beat them down or knock them over the burm and into the water—for the paving stones rested high on pillars and supports now. Going into the drink to retrieve monster bits would be complicated from here on out....

So much stonework rose all around me, FAR too pocked and hollowed and intricate, in layers upon layers above—to explore it all would take days.... though I tried to search a little. Some minerals here, a Korok there.

But when the day turned grey and it started to rain, I switched my Climber’s Bandana for the more covering Hylian Hood, and only continued walking.

Just walking.

I loved this feeling.

Broken pillars and carven arches with incidental alcoves, all cracked and weathered, all tumbling into ruin, splitting and parting in further holes and crevices, blossoming and burgeoning with surfaces never meant to be walked upon, and yet all the more welcoming for the shelter they provided for creatures like myself to hide in.

I climbed up a bit on the north side, vaulting the slippery stones in quick, powerful bursts for the downpour, and found a little hollow that was just receded enough to be out of the rain. The blocks were straight and cubic against the dark and leaning overhang of foundation or cliffside I did not know, where the sprawling moss joyed in the moisture as it dripped down and slicked over the stone.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, to just light a fire and rest here for a while?

Dang I love this game.

Shortly the rain let up and I climbed further and higher until I reached the topmost northern hills where I was distracted enough to kill a Hinox. As I ran back toward where I had been, I inadvertently chased a goat before me, and—I thought I saw something—

I turned and was surprised to see that the goat’s tromping had cut a trail through the grass! And I found the thing I had seen.... it was.... Hylian Rice?

But.... I thought.... I’d thought that was a crop! That it didn’t grow in the wild—I’d only ever seen it from merchants, but—If the goat had cut down the grass—and I didn’t see how else it could have gotten here—what—was all grass like this? If I cut it would.... Would it yield certain grains?

A more placid world began to swell all around me....

I was still discovering new things. Even this far in.

Dang I love this game.

I made my way back down into the canyon to continue along the Lanayru Road, and I began to see great carvings in the walls. What.... were these.... effigies.... These....

They were cracked and worn and broken but.... these were loftwings. I was sure of it. Shoebill beaks and everything. I was sure.

Because I was recognizing shoebills before Skyward Sword was even a twinkle in its daddy’s eye.

Those were loftwings.

How old was this place?

The canyon widened and the southern cliffs and carvings bent away toward that waterfall beneath which I’d found a shrine before, and this open central watered court.... was the Lanayru Promenade.

What a beautiful sight it must have been once. The path ran down close to the water here (part of it submerged now), and a dead fountain stood in the center of the widest part of the lake. I could imagine it playing merrily as beautiful Hylian holy men and women must have strode about....

Now the only thing stirring were some Lizalfos circling around the fountain.

I drew the green one away first to dispatch it privily. But when I went back for the other three....

They were all silver.

Huh, I thought in my mask as I gathered their attentions to get them onto solid ground (they were hard to kill in the water), three Silver Lizalfos.... at once....

This would be interesting....

And it was.

I called upon Urbosa first as they all gathered close about me, and her furious lightning rained down and kept two of them screeching in frozen electrocution while I grabbed the other and started pummeling his lights out. But presently the other two recovered and they were mad—I pounded one of them into next Tuesday in time to turn and trade blows with the other up against the wall—and then that first one was upon me again—but I moved before they could surround me and slashed that one in the tail while the second one was climbing back out of the water—and then there they stood regrouped and ready but I was fast—I could take these guys....

I have since learned to try and kill silver monsters as far away from water as I can. Tails and talons and horns and eyeballs will float. But rubies and sapphires and diamonds? You can kiss those goodbye if they fall into the water. And nothing your Slate can supply will help to call them back.

They’re gone, man. Gone.

When I had quite eradicated every monster from the Lanayru Promenade, I took my time giving the area as thorough an exploration as I could, turning up treasure chests behind tumbles of stone or sunk beneath the waters around the fountain. I also took another short break away, this time up on the southern hilltops, cresting the tall mountain, the Peak of Awakening, which lay just east of the high pond that fed the waterfall. As I’d suspected.... there was a Korok.

Back down on the Lanayru Road I kept heading east.... The path was rising, and I was beginning to leave the water behind, when something possessed me to take out my Pictobox. I’d seen something further ahead, and wanted to zoom in to see what it was. I knew if my Compendium recognized it, it would flash the name of the thing across the screen.

And as I swiveled the lens around carelessly toward the east, Mount Lanayru towering in shrouding clouds in the far distance, I saw, for just an instant, the name of NAYDRA.

And then it was gone and I could not relocate it.

WHAAAAAT?

Naydra? The Dragon?? What? But!

Had it flown across somewhere? Was it even now in the air, somewhere around the bends of the cliffs further to the east? I longed to plunge ahead, but....! Did I just catch the tip of its tail as it vanished out of sight? For I could see nothing of any dragon now!

Naydra??

Where was it??

But point and swivel as I might, my Pictobox could not detect the dragon again.

But it was near.... somewhere very near....

The road continued to rise as I left the great monumental stoneworks behind me.

And then I had come to.... the Lanayru Road, East Gate.

Mount Lanayru stood in might and majesty beyond the weathered stone portal.

I stood in the light, and remembered....

It was sunset.

The Champions were waiting on the water side of the gate—where I had just been. I and Zelda were coming back from the mountain.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” said Daruk, “How’d it go up there on the mountain?”

Zelda.... shook her head.

“You didn’t feel anything? No power at all?” said the bird man Revali.

“I’m sorry, no.” Zelda didn’t look at any of them. Just the ground.

Urbosa stepped in. “Then let’s move on,” she said, her voice strong and steady as always, “Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help anything.” She offered a seemingly tireless encouragement to keep looking for.... that thing, that.... something.... “Anything could trigger the power to seal Ganon.”

“If I may...” It was Mipha. She spoke! And she.... fumbled a bit, her voice dainty as a fluttering leaf, wanting to say something, but she was embarrassed to say it. “I was just thinking about what I do when I’m healing. Sometimes it helps if I think... if I think about—”

RRRRRRRUMBLE!

A roaring cacophany tore the air and rattled the earth.

Everyone stumbled and shook as the ground heaved beneath them, until Revali regained himself and SHOT into the sky.

A hundred feet up he maintained a steady flapping as he looked into the glowing, flaming western sky and the sinking sun.

Ganon was erupting out of the castle.

“He’s here,” said Urbosa as Revali touched down again. The earth had stopped shaking, though the roaring remained.

“It’s awake,” said Zelda.

“Are you sure?” said.... probably Mipha?

“Positive,” said Revali.

Daruk rallied everyone, “Champions! To your Divine Beasts! Link, you get to Hyrule Castle—” He barked their long-laid plans. It needed to be a unified assault. “Link will need to meet Ganon head-on when we unleash our attack.”

Revali scoffed quietly at this last and looked away. Even now.

What did he have against me?

“Come, let’s go,” Urbosa addressed Princess Zelda, “We need to get you somewhere safe.”

But—“No,”—Zelda pulled away. “I may not be of much use on the battlefield, but there must be something I can do—”

She wanted to help.

She wanted to be useful....

OHHHH MUUHHHH GUUUSHHHH....

A Walk with Yunobo

Waking of Saturday, October 28, 2017

A Walk with Yunobo

David’s been kind. He stayed away from the volcano’s Divine Beast until I’d had a go at it. But now he felt free to plunge right up Death Mountain, and I watched him for some of the time.

He cleverly defeated those first Moblins at Eldin Bridge by climbing up a nearby crag and bombing the living daylights out of them. And as the second one finally died, he jumped off the rock to float down and collect its spoils.

But the cinematic started before he could deploy his paraglider.

And as the camera centered on the bewildered Yunobo, looking around to see if the coast was clear, David and I watched a dark shape swip down right in front of him and off the screen out of sight.

“Was that Link?” we both wondered, laughing incredulously at each other.

The cinematic ended, and the camera pulled back a gentle distance, and there was Link, on the ground.

Which was just . . . . great. XD

With a little more effort than I had taken the time for, David was able to destroy the Sentries using Yunobo as a projectile.

I didn’t know you could do that!! D8 ??

But I did feel a little clever in that I had thought to Stasis them, when this did not occur to David.

He also ran right past the first cannon without firing at Rudania. He was wearing full Flamebreaker Armor, and I wanted to see what would happen if he climbed up near Rudania’s big flaming right hind foot.

David was kind to oblige. XD

And the result was that he burst into flame. ÓuÒ;;

Maybe Vah Rudania was just too hot, even for the Flamebreaker Armor. Or maybe David hadn’t upgraded his armor to be fireproof yet.

After a bit either I told him or he figured it out that he should use the cannon on the Divine Beast, and he progressed on his way.

I watched him all the way up the mountain (he never once was spotted by a Sentry) and into the volcano until.... the trapdoor clamped down behind him and locked him in the darkness.

And on that grinning bombshell, I left to go attend to some other things.

When I came back some time later, he was about to face off against Fireblight Ganon, but he first left to regain full hearts by sleeping at his house.

Which I told him was LAME. And like some crotchety old geezer I told him that back when I did the Divine Beast I did the whole thing at half hearts, and I never warped away or even ate any of my meals!

But he went to rest at his house anyway.

I don’t have a house yet.

It was fun watching him defeat Fireblight Ganon. He was quite stumped for a while, but he was brave and kept psyching himself up to venture out from behind the posterior structure to try a new tactic . . . .

I stepped out for his ending cinematics. It was his fourth beast, and we suspected there might be something extra, and I didn’t want to be spoiled.

And there was something extra, he said.

But I did watch the part with the ghostly Daruk.

And after a little more time, David insisted that I play.

He really does want me to catch up.

And I believe he wants to talk about more of the game with people. And I know that feeling.

Hah. Welcome to my life, David.

I played from the activation of Vah Rudania when I started. Because I wanted to see it again. And.... I was still logging, and I wanted a refresher for the scene.

Sometimes I go through the game faster than I intend, and.... I lose some of the finer details.

Dang this log.

The bright, gold-tinged light that had borne me off the beast brought me down into Goron City.

I can never bring myself to make the avatar run, after things like that. I just can’t.

It just feels so.... uncalled-for.

Being thrust back into normalcy after the brutally insane places I’ve been?

It’s like being on another planet.

It’s a kind of dazedness, a kind of triumph, a kind of relief, a kind of sorrow, which for me will forever require a walking pace.

Yunobo told me the Boss had summoned me, and that that kind of thing couldn’t be refused.

And he rolled away.

I walked after him, toward the Boss’s house.

Bludo said Yunobo had told him everything. And he was amazed and grateful that we had subdued the Divine Beast.

“But did you have to wait until my back finally felt better?” he griped, pressing that now I was making him look like big fibber!

In the end he rewarded me with a gift he said I could find in his house: a blade once wielded by the legendary Daruk himself.

“Take it. Keep it. It’s yours,” he said.

I couldn’t fit it in my inventory.

So I left it there.

Which was just as well, I figured; one block of my weapon inventory was already taken up by Mipha’s spear, which I dared not use any further lest it break.

Made me think of getting that house again. Maybe weapons could be stored in houses....

Why hadn’t I gotten that house yet? Well.... I had my reasoning. Although to be honest I’d since been “spoiled” on that point—I knew by then that it was—

Mm but maybe you don’t.

....

In which case I’ll just say....

....

I just wanted to wait until I had seen all the land first, before choosing a place for me to live.

I was wandering around Goron City, still at a walk.

I saw Yunobo. He was walking too.

I went to speak with him.

“I’m going for a walk today,” he smiled, “Want to come?”

And that was all he said.

And he continued in his slow and easy NPC pace.

Well, he wasn’t like that tour guide back in Hateno, huffing and puffing and making me jog. He was just.... walking. Slow as Uli from Twilight Princess.

But he had invited me, so I followed him.

After a very brief climb, he came to a stop in the middle of a short bridge over the thoroughfare below, and turned toward the volcano.

I spoke to him again.

“Welcome to my secret hideout,” he grinned to me, “This is the best place to get a good view of Vah Rudania.”

We both looked at it, perched way up there at the mountain’s top, lasering toward the castle.

“To think we actually fought that thing...” Yunobo continued. “I’ve never been afraid of it... until just now.”

I guessed it was all hitting him at once.

“It’s strange, but ever since we defeated Vah Rudania, I’ve felt like my ancestor Daruk is somehow with me all the time.”

He turned to me.

“Link, I did good, didn’t I?”

“You did your best!” I said, and this seemed to give him a little more confidence.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I.”

Or some such words.

“And with Daruk’s Protection I know my ancestor will never let me down.”

Or some such words.

Or some such words.

Sometimes I forget the exact things people say.

Sometimes I prefer not to go back and check.

Sometimes I just try to do my best, too.

Dang this log.

Daruk's Protection

Waking of Friday, October 13, 2017 ~ 4

Daruk’s Protection

With the demonic apparition defeated, I was finally able to activate the main control unit on Vah Rudania’s back. And when I did—

“Great work, little guy!”

I turned and there stood the spirit of Daruk, all ghostly teal.... but grinning hugely and with his arms spread wide.

Similar to what Lady Mipha had said, but in much gruffer terms, he explained to me that since I had slain the monster that got the best of him, his spirit was finally free. “Sorry that my resting with the rubble caused so much trouble for you...” he added, “But now Vah Rudania is back under our control!” He pounded fist into palm with palpable force and I daresay a small shockwave.

Man, I bet even Goron ghosts could knock you out if they tried.

Daruk went on to say that he wanted to give me something.... a power he had, called “Daruk’s Protection” . . . .

Oh yeah, I knew.

It wouldn’t do him any good as a spirit, he said, but maybe it could help me.

“Ready? Here it comes!”

These Gorons don’t do anything small. ._.

With a strenuous roar he seemed to summon a ball of energy between his giant palms, and with a “Hah!”, clapped in my direction—

And his power plunged into my chest and I was surrounded with a burning, powerful light, my feet again momentarily losing contact with the ground on which I’d stood as I closed my eyes and took it all in.

And when I was myself again I tried it—I planted my feet and rammed the knuckles of my fists together—feeling all the more impressive being ironclad in the FlameBreaker Armor—and the shimmering, lava-colored dodecahedron flared into being around my person.

I was invincible.

And I let go of it and flexed my gloved fingers....

Daruk continued, “I’m gonna take this thing down the mountain where I’ll have a clear shot at Calamity Ganon. And when you get inside the castle . . . we’re gonna light that place up!”

Or some such words he said....

Hadn’t Mipha said something about.... draining Ganon’s power?

What did he mean ‘light it up’?

And there were parting words—more encouragement I am sure.

I like Daruk’s temperament.

But I remember the very last thing he said before the light swallowed me up to transport me away—

“And.... Give my regards to the Princess,” he said with a grin.

Vah Rudania, lit a purer blue this time between its joints, instead of the corrupted red, clawstomped its powerful way out of the crater and perched atop an impressive crag. Its head moved, lizard-like, getting a fix on the castle I assumed—for the six segments from nose to neck then shuddered apart, splitting the whole of it wide open like a flower. And inside, a great bronzy barrel telescoped out into menacing life, charged with a mighty whirring, and let loose the enormous red beam. Straight into the calamitous clouds about the castle.

Little halos of the same energy ringed in and out of being along its length....

“Well, that about does it!” Daruk spoke to the Divine Beast or maybe a bit to himself. Or maybe to the player. “All we have to do now is wait for the perfect shot.”

Perfect shot?

Hadn’t Mipha said something about sapping Ganon’s power?

What were these beams, anyway? Wouldn’t they just work to weaken—

Red circles.

A red imploding circle on the target. Repeatedly shrinking to the center and then reappearing.

It . . . . was familiar . . . . ?

Oh my Hylia.

The Divine Beasts were Sheikah technology.

Like the Guardians.

THAT LASER . . . . IS A LASER OH MY GOSH WAT THIS I CAN’T—

Daruk took in the landscape.

“Hyrule looks good even after a hundred years,” he said, “The old rollin’ grounds sure are a sight for sore eyes.”

His eyes and his tone fell a bit.

“I wonder how the Gorons.... fared after the Great Calamity. I hope they’re still going strong even after every—”

But the camera had angled behind the figure of Yunobo, on a crag further down the cone, as he gazed up at the Divine Beast, and the ghostly teal figure on top of it.

Daruk had seen him too.

Yunobo gasped in wonder.

“Well would you look at that . . .” Daruk mused, “Still going strong indeed!”

With a manly grunt, he thrust his huge right fist straight up into the air in a rugged salutation.

And with that kind of delight you only feel when you know you are the sole partaker of the rarest of gifts.... Yunobo shouted and waved his hand vigorously back, laughing his exultation to the morning sky . . . .