Waking of Saturday, November 17, 2018
After I’d had a good sleep, I went
back to the field.
Heh,
I kept thinking of it not as the central plains but as The Field. Like Hyrule Field,
from Ocarina of Time. Because there was a feature I’d seen there ever since I
had downloaded the Central Map from the Scary Tower: Ranch Ruins.
I went there now, and cleared it
out. Just a couple of Bokoblins, albeit they were mounted. But for those kinds I’ve become quite fond of simply Stasising them in midair while their
mounts ride on, right out from under them. Makes them easier to deal with.
I guessed it made sense that there
would still be horses around this place, too.
Those two brutes and a Guardian
later, and the Ranch Ruins were mine to regard, alone in the quiet.
Oh my gosh it looked.... I could
see the similarities. The big, once-fenced horse pasture, with the racing track
around the outside. The remains of the silo across the way. The place where the
cuccos lived. Even the red tile roofings were still here, all collapsed into
the dirt.... Oh my heart.
That was poignant.
Also, when night fell.... I found
another stalhorse.
I guessed that made sense too.
Partly with the aid of the skeletal
mount, I worked my way further around the central plain. Just killing
Guardians, exploring ruins.... There was a Mabe Village, there was some kind of
garrison....
I moved up toward Castle Town, and
remembered that Korok on the western side, in the prison, the one that I could
never figure out. Maybe I could give him another go....
I warped to that shrine in the cave
on the very western edges of the castle’s territory, and worked my way inward,
dodging the Flyer, killing the Stalker.... until I came to the old prison. How many times had I been here? Four?
The little statues stood patiently
waiting as always. Two of the three little offering platters once again held Rusty Shields. Tricksy little punk Korok was still throwing that curveball, eh?
Well.... I would just look a little
harder this time....
And I did.... AND IT WORKED! I
found a Rusty Shield over by a ruined wall beside the moat! And dropping it on
the third platter, I got the Korok Seed! Yay. ^_^
That loose end taken care of, I
started thinking of what other little chores I could tie up.
....I had pictographs of all three
Leviathans now—I warped out of Castle Town Prison and went to the Serenne
Stable to find those guys again.... I remembered, they were in Serenne, not Akkala....
But I paused for dinner before I
spoke to them.
And then after we had eaten, David
wanted to have some time on the game. So I watched him play for a while.
As it turned out, that map-creeper
had been spying on me for shrines now
that I had passed him up! Every time I’d looked at my map, he’d been studying it for the shrines that I had
and he didn’t!
The nerve! XD
He got some shrine that I’d already done; I can’t remember which, and a
little while later.... I picked up the game again.
At the Serenne Stable, I finally
got back to those three men loitering near the manger. I’d never bothered to
commit their names to memory; one of them might have been Akrah....
One of them saw my pictograph of
the Gerudo Great Skeleton, bleached by the sun and mired in the desert sands,
and he exclaimed that he was so happy because now he’d finally be able to prove
his theory that the great leviathans’ extinction was caused by a massive
drought!
The next one saw my pictograph of
the Hebra Great Skeleton, entombed and encased in the heart of the icy
mountain, and declared that now he would finally be able to prove that it had
been a mighty ice age that had wiped out the leviathans!
The last one saw my pictograph of
the Eldin Great Skeleton, weathering away on Eldin’s Flank at the base of the
fiery Death Mountain, and pronounced that finally he had definitive proof that
the leviathans had all been killed by a catastrophic volcanic eruption!
I.... kind of shook my head with a
weary grin and didn’t argue with any of them.
I just accepted the cool three
hundred rupees they gave me for my trouble, and left them to it.
On to another loose end....
I guessed I couldn’t really say
anything about David spying on me for shrines.... because I then went after
some of the Koroks I’d seen him get!
Back to Hebra I went, scouring that
river that fed into the Shrine Under The Hill—the Koroks were really thick
along there. So were the Icy Lizalfos, but I made do well enough.
I wandered more and more southward,
catching Koroks by the butt-ton,
until.... Hey....
“I’m not freezing!” I said to
David. :D
The mercury had indeed risen, I
could no longer see my breath, and my cheeks and the tip of my nose no more
blushed at the stinging cold.
I had come to some large stretches
of bare rock over which the snow had
no hold, and I was grateful for the chance to switch to my more protective
Champion’s Tunic, and especially the agility-boosting Climber’s Bandana. It was
a great help in climbing some rock faces in order to dive into a Korok’s
lily-pad circle in a large, natural water pocket—whose contents were also safely
temperate to boot. :)
The Divine Beast Bird wheeled so
close overhead now....
And away in the distance I could
see what MUST have been.... Rito Village!
8D Houses like Kass’, all forested up and down that mighty rock spire I had
seen!
And just down the cliff from where
I was.... a Stable! ^_^
But.... I didn’t go there.... not
yet.... not yet. It needed a proper
approach.
I whisked away instead to the
Central Tower for more Koroks—for from what I’d seen when David was playing, I
had missed a few hiding in the
scattered copses of trees just south of the ruined Castle Town....
And as I hunted the little sprites
I pondered back on the leviathan pictographs I’d shown to Akrah and his
friends. And I wondered aloud to David that there seemed to be a shrine at each
skeleton except Eldin.
And then I said, “I should not be
saying this out loud.” But David never minded.
I’m not sure what David thinks,
but.... I have my own suspicions.... Maybe it will be the last shrine that appears there, beneath the Eldin Great Skeleton.
The one that has.... those things in
it. Dang
you, internet.... Or was it Madman
Joseph? I can’t remember....
In looking at my map I suddenly saw
the little white icon and realized—“Oh shoot....”—I’d left Memory standing
outside the Serenne Stable. I warped back there to board him again; poor thing
was standing out in the rain.... I’d left him out after taking his and
Dragmire’s pictographs for the Compendium. Evidently White and Giant horses
registered as separate breeds, or separate enough for the Compendium to give
each its own entry.
Hmmmmm....
Of course it was possible there was a discoverable shrine at the Eldin Skeleton
after all.... and I just hadn’t been able to turn it up.
Ummmmm....
Vah
Rudania.
I donned my Flamebreaker Armor and
warped to the top of the volcano.... but—and I
knew this would happen—I touched down on the side opposite where I needed to be.... and the Divine Beast perched in
the way of my taking the short way
round; the game wouldn’t let me get too close to it....
And so in only a minor huff I
about-faced and began circling the caldera, sailing from crag to crag, and
climbing to the pinnacle of each before leaping off again. After perhaps seven
or eight of these slow, hot scrambles, I came to the north side of the caldera,
from whence I could make the long, direct paraglide down the northern flank of
the volcano to the Deplian Badlands below—which flight, even with my nearly
full Stamina meter, required a few pitstops along the way.
This
really was the most direct route to the Eldin Great Skeleton?
Once again, closest shrine to the
east was Gut Check Rock, and that was a very
long trek; closest to the west was at the shrouded Thyphlo Ruins, deep in a
maze locked in darkness, and also a
very long trek; and on the volcano the nearest shrine was that one beneath an
ancient, petrified giant crab’s carapace
in the middle of a lava lake, accessible only by railcar—not really meant to be
a gateway to anywhere....
Gosh there was just NO easy way to
get there....
There
HAD to be something closer....
On the last legs of my long
paraglide I saw that Dinraal was approaching from high in the east over the
chasm that separated Hyrule from the north countries. I knew he would swoop
down near the skeleton.... May as well
try for a piece of him, I thought. But I was so far away still, and he was
already passing by....
I gave it a shot anyway. My first
arrow came up short—the distance was too great.
With my second arrow, I aimed a little higher.... and I JUST caught him on his
left hind foot! The scale shimmered and broke off, Dinraal made for the
heavens, and I touched down on top of the Eldin Great Skeleton’s skull.
The scale gleamed and glimmered at
me from where it had landed a bowshot away, down on the easy, flat ground. A
bit forward and to the left of where the skeleton’s great nose was pointing.
“Well go get it,” says David.
“But there’s bad guys underneath this thing.” I wondered if the scale would wait
for me, not depopulate, if I took time to play the Bomb game....
“Then we’ll do it real quiet like,” said David in Han
Solo’s voice.
And Hnnnnngh I just jumped down and got it. And I found I needn’t have
worried; the bad guys didn’t see me. They were situated more underneath the rib
cage, and with the immensity of this skeleton’s skull, that was no small
distance away.
David was in the other room when I
picked up the scale—
“WHAT.”
“What?” asks David.
“DAVID.” I just—
He came back in.
It was not a scale.
It was Dinraal’s CLAW.
Never got wunna those before....
....
I think I’m over-Zelda’ed for this
weekend.
Korok Woods. Pepp’s. Sleep. Done.
Good night.
