Waking of Thursday, July 20, 2017
Good friends really are wonderful.
Alison, Jenenne and Jenny came over and took me out for a burger to celebrate
my birthday. They couldn’t do it on my actual
birthday because.... it’s just been so busy at work.
It’s rough when for your birthday
you gotta drive a longer commute, to a less sanitary building, with ventilation
systems ill-designed for the desert environment, which don’t really work anyway,
to sit in a smaller cubicle, at an earlier hour than usual, to do mandatory
overtime.
It’s been some long and hard days.
But....
Good friends really are wonderful.
After food they brought me back and
we all wondered what to do next. “Games?” someone proposed.
And frankly I probably just
panicked. Games like the kind you play at parties? Parties full of people, crowds make me nervous....
I don’t know when the last time I
just plain.... played a game was.
With other people. I know I used to.
Lots of people. But....
When did it become so
uncomfortable, so dangerous, in my
mind?
That just someone saying the word Games could.... make me want to back out
and run away.
And so I brought up something else
that I had heard my friends express an interest in: “You guys want to see my
Zelda game?”
“Ooh yeah!” said Jenny. I turned on
the console.
Alison wanted to start her own game
but when we came to the rigamarole of that she would have to create a profile
on my WiiU first.... she told me to just go ahead.
Just for kicks I found my own way
out of Ketoh Wawai’s shrouded island. Even remembered to turn my HUD back on
halfway through, oops.
Our
mission, I told them, was to Collect
the Blue Marker and Find Mister
Kilton.
And so we wandered west, toward my
blue marker.... but it was quite far away. And zooming in with my scope, it
looked like there might be a danger
of my freezing to death before I could reach it.
Well.... not wanting to be all
night, we decided to forego the blue marker for the present, and wander back
east around the north of the volcano, toward Gut Check Rock, and Skull Lake.
But that was quite a long distance,
too.
And so after looking at some
wildlife—Alison enjoyed the cranes; she asked me to take a picture but I
didn’t.... I should have—after looking at some wildlife I simply warped
straight to Gut Check Rock.
From there I paraglided toward Skull Lake, found the highest jump-point I could
and then paraglided again toward the
shrine on the spire island. My friends were wowed
by the vastness of the world! Jenny
was right glued to the screen. And Alison was right glued to Jenenne’s snack
she had brought: some kinda sticky-sweet puppy chow mix, which I tried to
partake of carefully because I didn’t want to gum up my WiiU gamepad!
It was delicious.
“Here, take it away from me,” said
Alison, and Jenny and I obliged.
The shrine was named for one Zuna
Kai, but I don’t remember whether it was a puzzle shrine or a blessing shrine.
Might have been a blessing shrine.... Yeah.
After that it was a slow float down
all the shelfy rocks to find Kilton.
There were so many crags to explore.... Killed a few baddies....
In the lake at the bottom there was
a boat, and I showed my friends how to blow it around with a Korok Leaf! That
was pretty cool. B)
I blew it the short distance to
Kilton’s island....
And WAITED.
The water in the lake was full of
giant flowers, submerged some feet beneath the surface. Made me wonder if there
could be a fairy nearby....
Night fell, storms came and went
(the foliage-obliterating lightning
was quite transfixing!), and Kilton didn’t show.
After 2:00 am and with still no
Kilton I jumped off the island and swam away for a distance. And then upon
turning back—
BOOM!
There’s a huge balloon of some kind parked there?? (Seemed I just had to step
away so the game could populate it!) All in dark spooky colors in the patchwork
of its envelope and the ramshackle tent beneath it.... at first glance it made
me think of some Halloween-themed version of the Wizard of Oz!
I swam back!
After scrambling onto the island, I
approached the figure moving behind the tent’s tiny counter.... He seemed.... bird-like in appearance—no it was the
torn back of a hood—
I got his attention and he turned
around and spooked and HOWLED at my appearance! And then he said, “Oh... just a
Hylian.”
What....
was he? His face was huge, and
grey-skinned. Actually I was reminded of nothing so much as.... oh let me check the spelling.... Ben Quadinaros. The Star Wars podracer
whose power coupling failed at the start line. Quadinaros also had a huge face.
Kilton’s face was large, with
pronouncedly curly eyebrows and very wide eyes. He asked me what I thought of
monsters.
I told him the truth: “I hate
them.”
And, looking very much, well, deflated, he cut off the conversation.
Oh dear. I.... kind of pitied his
poor timid manner.
So I spoke to him again, and this
time claimed, “I like them.”
He asked me how much I liked them.
There were four possible responses,
and I only remember the most intense one: I ADORE THEM!
But I chose the lowest response.
Whereupon Kilton jumped into an
overbearing pose and screamed, “I LOVE THEM MORE THAN YOU DO!”
o__o;
Guess he was.... anticipating a
little bit of contention there. Guy gets excited! ^_^;;
But he apologized and quieted down
and introduced himself properly and then rattled off the names of a few villages
(some I’d never heard of!) that he might like to do business in in the future—at night.
And then.... he was on his way.
Back in his balloon and off into the sky.
And that was Mister Kilton.
Well that encounter was.... shorter
than I’d thought it would be. Seemed it was just an introduction, to get to
know him.
Guess I’d see him around.
What
even is he....? If not a
Hylian.... I wonder....
Well, we’d completed our mission of
Finding Mister Kilton, and so set
about getting into what tomfoolery was readily available. I wandered....
From Skull Lake I wandered into Rok
Woods, and quickly discovered it was not
named for a giant bird, as I had wondered. I did however get a Korok for my....
heavily concussive troubles. And then I climbed up on one of the jutting rocks
above Tempest Gulch. And after grabbing another Korok there, I considered the
Blue Lynel prowling down near the aspens....
Under a bit of peer pressure from
the ladies, I paraglided down and RODE IT! HAHA!
Wasn’t gonna let David one-up me
entirely! ^_^
After it bucked me off, I had a
fair tussle with it, too! I employed Stasis most effectively, but.... in the
end it proved stronger than I was, and so I warped back to the Zuna Kai Shrine
on top of the Skull Lake Spire, and then back to Gut Check Rock.
I showed them the cooking pot up
near where Bayge sat, and after consulting my ingredients Alison insisted I
should make a Speed Elixir. So I did, and they loved the cute little animation
of Link cooking, just as they had loved the animation of him eating to up my
hearts before I faced the Lynel. ^_^
But the Lynel had taken just as
many hearts back off, and then some, and so it was a paraglide down to the hot
spring for a nice, healing soak.
We ran around a bit more until we
found.... a BLUE HINOX, snoring out there
on the hot rocks. I moved in so they could see the creature up close, and got
closer, and closer.... until the Hinox woke up, and then it was a comical run
for our lives as it chased after us! XD
Ah it were such a delightful time
just romping around on the screen. But....
Well, I was the Hero. And I had
followed the breadcrumbs as far as I could. Perhaps not in a direct course, but hey, I was trying. Go
see Impa. Go see Purah. Go see Robbie. Murmurs about Kilton.
And I’d found Kilton, and then he’d
gone and—
There were no more breadcrumbs.
That was the end of the
breadcrumbs.
....
But....
I was here at the Volcano.
....
Maybe it was time to see whether I
could....
DO THE VOLCANO?
D8
I proposed a new quest to my
companions: find, reach, and activate the
local Sheikah Tower!
They were all in as I scrambled up
the craggy stones and ashfalls, occasionally bursting into flame....
Good friends.... really are
wonderful.
Somehow the house became quite the
hot spot that night. John and Siara were there, had been there since about the
time my friends and I got back from In-N-Out. They gave me a sweet birthday
card, too. :3 <3 ^_^ And later Ben and Cami showed up! What kind of party
was this?
Spontaneous, I guess.
Alison, Jenenne and Jenny didn’t
see me reach the tower; it was getting late and they bowed out before then. I
thanked them for the birthday visit, and they departed.
But once I got very close to the structure, I asked Ben if he’d like to see, and
he did.
It was nice to find a tower that
wasn’t swamped in a bog, covered in briars or surrounded by Guardians. There
were just a few Bokoblins in the way on the hill just below, and they were easy
enough to dispatch.
The Eldin Region map was.... TREMENDOUSLY
INTERESTING. OuO I studied it for quite a long time, noting the places
I’d already been, like the Eldin Great Skeleton.
As it turned out, there were a few more GIANT
RIBCAGES smattering the sides of the volcano. Perhaps not as complete or
grandiose as the Great Skeleton, but.... my gosh, still....
WHAT
IS WITH ALL THESE GIANT BONES? o__o;
But then I saw something that truly made my insides shrivel up and die
in horror just a little bit....
There was a giant ribcage in a pool
of lava.... and just about where the head would have been was.... one of those Bokoblinish skull-dens?
The
ones shaped like enormous skulls?? O___O
WAIT, wait.... I mean I’d figured the
Bokoblins just liked to carve them
that way, but.... then again I’d also seen weird squished mossy ones that
looked.... a little more disturbingly organic
than that. Or like they fell out of a Studio Ghibli film.
Were
they actual skulls?
But I thought of the Eldin Giant
Skeleton—THAT one.... that one had
not been humanoid, as the skull-dens seemed to be. That one DEFINITELY was probably.... something more like a Dodongo.
It had the long tail and everything.
Actually that was the only long
tail I’d seen accompanying those ribcages. I mean I’d seen the ribcages everywhere: Lanayru, the desert, distant
mountains I’d not yet climbed.... and now here in Eldin.
But maybe the long tails just
didn’t survive in any of those other skeletons—and I didn’t see any other bones either, no femurs or
pelvises or phalangies how do you spell that—just....
ribcages and vertebrae.
And those skull-dens everywhere.
And a massively boggling thought
entered my mind.
Dodongos are native to Eldin;
they’re native to the volcanic region. And Dodongos can grow to great size. And
judging by the Eldin Great Skeleton, it could
have been that giant Dodongos once ranged all over Hyrule.
But....
I remembered one other creature native to Eldin that I had also seen reach enormous sizes—and this creature.... was
humanoid—
The
Gorons.
The Gorons themselves.
Oh my gosh.
Were those Giant Goron skulls dotting the land all over?
Was there some tempestuous age of
Giant Dodongos and Giant Gorons rumbling
all over the land in titanic clashes of dominance?
DUDE?
D8
Well, Ben and I had fun surveying
the landscape from the top of the Eldin Tower. But soon I wanted to move. I
tried paragliding down onto where my map said there was a road, but.... a few
seconds after leaping off the tower, the wooden club on my back burst into
flame with a little woof!
So I warped back onto the tower.
Ben, unfamiliar with the HUD,
wanted to see the temperature gauge.
So I jumped off again.
There was something kind of
hilarious about sailing quietly and serenely through the air and then woof!—bursting into flame.
I warped back to the tower again.
Ben said even the gauge itself
burst into flame!
“Really?” :D I’d never seen that!
So I jumped off again.
Woof!
There went the temperature gauge.
I warped back again.
I did this no less than four times,
and we laughed every time. XD
Ahhhh....
X-)
Presently I tried jumping the other
way—downhill over the face of the
volcano—and started making my way toward a shrine I had marked long ago from
the heights of Upland Zorana. I’d forgotten all about it. And it was a little
tricky to find because my detector was still set to find Decayed Guardians.
Mmm makes me wonder if there are
any shrines on the north face of the
volcano.... I hadn’t been detecting shrines there either....
I came to the Tah Muhl Shrine, and
completed it, and saved.... and went to bed.
Good friends really are wonderful.
And so are good family.
It was a good evening.
Just.... nice.
Nice to sit back and do something
simple and fun the night before my doctor would infuse my blood with ketamine.
What kind of person would I be after that?
I didn’t know.
Maybe I ought not to panic next
time.
I remembered games.
I used to play them all the time,
with other people. Lots of other
people. And I liked it.
Why hadn’t I even been able to
remember Apples to Apples?
It’s a good one.
Maybe next time.... I’ll invite the
girls to play Apples to Apples.
And we can make cookies just for
good measure.
