Return to Hateno

Waking of Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Return to Hateno

I wanted to play, but there were people around; I could not continue on with my main quest with that kind of buzzkill risk hanging in the air.

Have I only lost faith in humanity?

Hm.

I warped from Gerudo Canyon to the Shrine of Kaam Ya’Tak. There were plenty of crawlies in there; surely one of them would drop an Ancient Core for me....

No joy.

So I warped to Hateno—I could have sworn there was somebody who sold Guardian parts SOMEWHERE near there.... someone I’d met a long time ago on the road....

No luck.

But I did buy that fancy armor set David had reminded me of in his playthrough—the Soldier’s Armor. And I showed Nebb the Moblin Club, for which viewing he gave me fifty rupees! That was nice. :) The next thing he wanted to see was a Duplex Bow....

Haeh, well.... given where I was fixing to go in the near future that didn’t seem like too tall an order.

I also cleaned up an old sidequest by stepping behind the counter and addressing the lady inkeep directly. Dunno why I hadn’t tried that before.... I asked her what she liked, and she told me “Darners!” more out of a desperation to get rid of me than out of honest consideration. I relayed this to the lovesick chump down the street who’d put me up to it, whereafter he paid me a royal rupee for a handful of my own darners. I don’t even remember which kind.... I had plenty to spare.

I also made a friend at the inn, Worten. He was just sitting out on this patio I had never explored, looking content with the world. He was a traveler like me, and he told me about a few of the places he’d visited—or at least tried to; he hadn’t actually made it to Goron City. Nor had he been able to enter Gerudo Town. But he said if I was looking for adventure, I might try Zora’s Domain or Rito Village, though both of those were quite a ways away.

The sight of him contentedly sipping from his mug as he sat there in the breezy shade was so happily striking that I took a pictograph.

It’s a good one.

I felt like I might have been overworking poor Cotera, so I warped to Mija’s fountain in Akkala to see what she could make of my new armor set. She was able to enhance each piece two levels at least—three levels for the greaves. But I needed Hinox guts for further upgrades.

Fortunately I knew where a few Hinoxes could be found.

At Digdogg Suspension Bridge I left I think it was Memory a couple of bridges out while I marched straight in and killed the Hinox myself—ON FOOT! And I didn’t even get squished. :)

But the brute didn’t drop any guts. Cheapskate.

I boarded Memory again, warped to Dueling Peaks, took out Brown, and—dear me.... as I had done long ago in the dreary, dreary rain.... rode him down the long Hateno Road.

I had not taken that road in so, so long.

Why is that?

....

I don’t know.

Maybe my very first Yiga encounters had made me shy of it.

Maybe the pressing danger of the Yiga and the madness of the Valley of Terror had made me detest Hateno, and its road.

I still have not purchased that house.

....

We’ll see.

I spoke to everyone I met along the Hateno Road, and this time.... good luck was with me—I met a man named Teli, who sold GUARDIAN PARTS. Er, Ancient Tech, I mean.

However bad luck was with me too, for he carried no cores.

Hhhhh.

I rode Brown onward into Hatenooooish lands. One more place to check.

David keeps saying They’re in shrines! The cores.

Well, I knew of one shrine with a high chance of core capacity, that’s.... an odd way to word it.... core containment, no.... breach the core, um.... mockingbirds—

—I knew of ONE shrine with a high chance of containing an Ancient Core. I had quit from it many moons before in a bid to preserve mine own life. Just quit from it—I hadn’t known how to load a previous save from within the menu.

I had Brown take me back to it this time, while I maintained a rotation of different masks; for we passed roaming Moblins in the Woods of Concussion, and Bokoblins in the heights beyond.

The great, jutting mountain-cliff beside the sea was perhaps not well suited for horses, but we picked our way as best we could between stones and along ledges (Brown at one point attempting to align to a path crossing forty feet below us), and we made fair progress until we reached the highest, broadest open shelf.

The Shrine that stood at its tip over the ocean may very well have been the most prominent Shrine on the map. You could see it for miles from many directions. Maybe that’s what had drawn me to it so long ago. I’d been out of my depth, then. But now.... I was stronger.

On the flat, open ground Brown and I broke into a welcome gallop, slipping past the strong camp of curious Bokoblins until we were safe about the reaches of the shrine.

Even so, I led Brown around to the shady back of it, out of sight of the baddies.... just in case.

And then I stepped inside the shrine—the Muwo Jeem Shrine—and faced the long-feared Modest Test of Strength that had so daunted me into retreating before.

I beat it easily this time.

But there were still no cores for me.

Hhhh.

Well, it was another Spirit Orb anyway. I was overdue to pray at a Goddess statue....

I rode Brown back down the mountain [back toward home I wrote in my original notes—To Hateno? Strange of me....]—it was a little tricky to reclaim the path we had imagined for ourselves to get up here in the first place. And when we finally reached the road, I met Teli again.

I asked him about his wares just to see.

AND HE HAD A CORE!

I BOUGHT IT. FOR A COUPLE HUNDRED RUPEES AND THEN SOME.

SWEET.

Aha! So Ancient Cores could be bought!

It was raining as I galloped back westward. But I was feeling too jubilant—this called for a change of outfit! I ripped off my Bokoblin Mask. And then.... I ripped off everything else! And rode back to Dueling Peaks in my skin.

“Well, you’re looking peppy today, stranger!” said Tasseren the stablehand when I came to board Brown again, and I laughed.

A Ride into the Desert

Waking of Saturday, October 28, 2017 ~ 6

A Ride into the Desert

Back at the Outskirt Stable I cooked up a loooot of stamina elixirs for a later attempt at the beast of Satori Mountain.

But for now.... it was time to take Dragmire out for a ride. Up the road we went, between the towering hills and across the green fields, past the lumbering pack of Moblins to Digdogg Suspension Bridge. I walked him quietly here, and we sneaked round the side of the slumbering Hinox before plunging on ahead into the sandy desert lands.

Dragmire it seemed, while not able to put out bursts of speed, nevertheless had a tremendous power of strength. David enjoyed demonstrating this for me with his own tamed version of the Dark Horse—plowing over Bokoblins and Lizalfos, stunning or even killing them. He even took several damaging passes at a Lynel before this last creature had evidently had enough, and started pelting him with arrows.

He fled then.

But for myself I tried not to run Dragmire into too many obstacles. Clomp straight through them though he could, I didn’t want to overstrain him if I could help it.

At least, not without good reason and low-risk opportunity—I make no promises to smaller monsters on foot.

I had often been a very slow traveler, cautiously combing over the landscape as I moved, scouting dangers from all angles before proceeding, and generally creeping with the prudence—and speed—of a church mouse.

But here and now on my gargantuan horse.... and maybe.... just maybe feeling the press of time....

I needed to move.

We just.... went for a ride. Into the canyon. Dragmire led the way; he knew to follow the road. And the path went deeper, and the bordering canyon walls became taller, and the sunbaked land glowed dusty gold in the daylight—it was stunning.

I did not even slow down—except when I briefly had to dismount in order to Magnese an obstacle out of the way.

But onward we pressed. And after a time, we came to the Gerudo Canyon Stable.

I met a treasure-seeking Gerudo there named Calisa.

I am beginning to lose track of all the Sav’greetings they hail me with.

Calisa said that among the voe of this stable there didn’t seem to be too much treasure around here. “Well, except maybe for you,” she added.

^_^;;

I locked down the adjacent Kay Noh Shrine up on the hill across the way—and I decided that that was going to be the last thing I did. It was getting pretty late, and I really did need to get to bed.

I wouldn’t go any further tonight.

....

One guess how long my resolution lasted.

The Long Way Back

Waking of Wednesday, May 10, 2017

The Long Way Back

I shared a somewhat.... irksome exchange with David the other day, as I lamented to him about all the dead-ended rivers I had searched. I told him I had searched every waterway downstream from the wetlands, and that none of them led to Lake Hylia.

And in a terrible digging voice and with shrewdly narrowed eyes he answered, “Are you sure?”

Well.

I did wonder about that lake beneath Digdogg Suspension Bridge, and I hiked to the actual bridge (upon which I had never set foot) to have a look. In skirting round the sleeping Hinox and peering down over the edge, the water really did seem to come to a dead end just there.

But I wanted to be thorough. I pressed on into the desert landscape of the other side, had it out with a couple of mounted bokoblins—and one of their horses, a pretty, peach-dusty thing with a sandy mane, decided he didn’t want me on his back, and promptly jumped us both into the drink.

David lost it completely.

I just.... blinked.

....

The horse looked like a good mount, but I had no stamina for swimming after him, and so warped to the shrine just away beneath the bridge. After that it was a boat-ride back to the waterfall, a quick ascension in my Zora Armor, and.... I was still quite far away from where I had been....

But, as I was so close to the Great Plateau, I simply put on my Warm Doublet, warped to the shrine on the icy mountain, ENCOUNTERED A STRANGE TREASURE CHEST with the letters “EX” on it—for a moment I was terrified it might be a T-shirt or something.... but it was Bomb Arrows—don’t ask—and PARAGLIDED back to Digdogg Suspension Bridge.

I’d dealt with the bokoblins, and I finished off their friends in a nearby treehouse—David got quite a kick out of the Great Thunderblade I had acquired from Sheem Dagoze.

And after a good look about the place.... I decided that Yes, this really was a dead end to the river.

Ignoring my shrine-locator’s beeping, I ran all the way back to the Outskirt Stable.

It was....

It was time to start back. And set my face toward Akkala. And Robbie.

I did still decide to do this all on foot, however.

“Aren’t you gonna just.... Beam-Me-Up-Scotty?” David asked.

“I don’t wanna Beam-Me-Up-Scotty,” I said.

“You’re gonna walk the whole way?”

Well, maybe I’d Beam-Me-Up-Scotty just a little. I warped back to the Sheem Dagoze Shrine, and started north, for the Elma Knolls.

But first I came to that big toothy crack in the earth, found a shrine in the bottom of it, and completed that—I’m up to nine Spirit Orbs now; I really should find a Goddess statue....

And after that it was a very long jog past that sparse ruin over the water where I’d played hide-and-seek with the Korok—The Ancient Laboratory Ruin or something like that—aaaaall the way across the Elma Knolls with their endless wolves, and those mounted bokoblins with the fire arrows or whatever they were.... Got hit a couple of times there—

I didn’t feel like chewing through my food, but decided that, if I fell, I would just rely on Mipha.

What good is a gift avoided? And Mipha’s was a very good gift.

It was a very long trek, and the bokoblins cut me down to one heart, and a mob of giant blue chuchus cut me down to one quarter heart—but I kept running. And I kept killing wolves, never shying.

And it was raining, and I found Mils and Mina—not Nina, as it turned out—fighting against some bokoblins on the road, and I helped them out, and—

“Well there’s a split off the river,” said David.

I looked toward the castle. Beneath the unholy Calamitous Clouds, one fell fork split off and meandered away into the blackened landscape. It looked just like another part of the moat.

“I don’t think Lake Hylia’s in there,” I gestured to the castle lands.

“But.... open your map; maybe it connects with.... these down here.”

He indicated some rivers along the vein that ran between the Dueling Peaks.

“ . . . . Huh,” I said, “Maybe.” Perhaps.... this warranted some looking in to.

Also I had the feeling David was . . . . mmmm maybe nudging me around a bit.

The sun came out like a bad cliché when I finally jogged onto the friendly grounds of the Woodland Stable. It was 11:15 in the morning. I decided to take a forty-five minute nap to rejuvenate my aching one-quarter-heart body, and at noon, I took Thrice out for a ride.

We took the Thims Bridge road, over the mossy mounded hills and past the Honeydell—saving Leekah from a bokoblin on the way of course. But I stopped at one junction of the road I had never explored.

“Stay here,” I told Thrice, and climbed a bit over the rocks beside the long stretch of a T-junction. The stretch that pointed toward the castle....

“In my experience,” said David, “The closer you are to the castle....”

The farther you are from harm? I thought hopefully.

“The closer you are to trouble,” he finished.

“I’m just gonna take a little look,” I assured him, inwardly thinking how VERY like Famous Last Words those sounded....

I crept among the rocks until I was high enough to peer into the central plain before the castle. There at the base of the hill I was on.... coursed a little river. Flowing north to south. One that very probably could only have come from that split David had shown me earlier, among the big cubic stones surrounding the castle.

. . . .

Maybe....

Maybe....

I looked at my map again.

The river system near the Dueling Peaks.... the river that this one by the Honeydell may have connected with.... was called the Hylia River. And it was joined by the Squabble River from the Dueling Peaks....

But further downstream it was still called the Hylia River....

And then it ran away southward off of my known map.

Could it be . . . . ?

I came back to Thrice, and we pressed on to the Wetland Stable—saving Leekah again on the way—and I stopped.

Oh I was aching to go on. I had arced all the way north around the castle again in a great upside-down U, and I still had the drive and energy to keep going....!

But it was late again, and I did have to get up early.

But to be absolutely sure....

To see those waterways....

There was one more thing I could do in pursuit of the hapless missing Mei.

And it lay at the top of the alleged scariest Sheikah Tower in all the land.

Dead End at Digdogg

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 3

Dead End at Digdogg

“Where are you going, anyway?” David had asked before, “Where the heck are you?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I kept saying in Luke Skywalker’s voice.

“Who?”

“Her—”

“Princess Zelda?”

“Noooo—”

The right fork of the river twined away between massive, towering cliffs. I saw a rickety old bridge spanning between them on a higher ledge.... seemed like a great nest for baddies to hide out....

But per David’s suggestion, following the left fork, which followed the map line, did seem like a sound plan....

Surely the river that led to this Lake Hylia would be important enough to have map-boundaries drawn along it....

And so the left fork it was.

I still didn’t let on much about my plan to David, though.

The water was flowing roughly southward now, and I was still on the outside—the west side now. The dangerous lands of the castle were on the east.

My path took me along a high ledge on a great beige cliff face. It had been raining—maybe that thunderhead from before had finally caught up and swept across my path. But as I skirted over the living stone, the rain began to thin to just a few spitty drops, and the sun began to shine through....

And it became so bright....

The mist left over from the rain was blinding!

“It’s SO—BRIGHT,” I exclaimed to David, who could see this quite clearly.

“WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

I turned this way and that. The cliff face reflected the sun’s light like a solar oven panel, bouncing it into the lingering moisture—

“WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT?” I yammered again.

“I don’t know!” David shouted, laughing.

I was getting low on sleep.

Utterly bewildered, I ran ahead through the impossible brightness....

I did stop briefly to search out another ruin—this one on the castleward side of the river, though it appeared safe enough to have a look....

The ruin was flooded, up to the depth of about my knees. Watergrass and floating leaves parted at my passing.

There were a few things to loot, guarded only by a couple of near-sighted lizalfos. The first one went down like a charm, but the second one gave me a fright when he pulled back on a nocked Shock Arrow.

But my blade cut him down before he could let fly.

And after looting the whole place—I COMMANDEERED A CONVENIENT RAFT AND FINALLY USED MY KOROK LEAF TO GO BOATING DOWN THE RIVER!

I might have accidentally killed some ducks with my boat.

I will eat them later with much gratitude.

I rafted and rafted until I came to a little bokoblin camp, grounded my boat and promptly slaughtered the lot of them.

But the river split again!

This time I took the right fork; it seemed deeper, a heavier flow.... But owing to some obstacles in the way, I had to leave my raft behind.

I passed a Gleeok Bridge.

I hoped there wouldn’t be any nearby. o__o

And then I passed a Manhala Bridge.

My goodness, or any of those either! Spelling notwithstanding.

And after a little waterfall, I finally came to a Digdogg Suspension Bridge!

There was a Hinox sleeping on it.

Well.... on a small landmass in its midst, anyway.

There didn’t seem to be any Gleeoks or Manhandlas or Digdoggs about.... but I was certainly enjoying these lovely bridge names.

My Shrine-detector had been beeping at me—and I saw the culprit structure far below me at the water’s level beneath Digdogg Suspension Bridge.

It was a long way down, but, after considering and finding myself with nothing much left to do on the cliff-face, I leapt off the edge, floated laterally to just about where the shrine was, and—at David’s insistence—HALO jumped down to it.

I completed it, collected a Spirit Orb, came out, and was delighted to find another boat available to use. And I did use it, for a while, all around the expansive sort of little lake beneath where the Hinox slumbered.

But....

BUT....

This waterway....

This waterway had come to an end.

I boated around beneath the suspension bridge, but....

There was nowhere else to go.

This was not Lake Hylia.

The little right fork had been a dead end.