Sand Seal Rally!

Waking of Saturday, July 28, 2018 ~ 8

Sand Seal Rally!

I continued talking with everyone I could around Gerudo Town, looking for more days to save, until I came to one gateway guard who mentioned the Sand Seal Races. She told me where they normally took place, and said that, now that the Divine Beast was gone, they could race again.

Oh could they now?

I ran out in the indicated direction, just to a little hill in the sand with some palm trees. I could see no discernible racing track, but near an ancient Sheikah dais I found two Gerudo vai just kind of standing around.

One of them had shaded goggles over her eyes, and the reddest fro I had ever seen.

This was the legendary sand seal racer Tali, and beside her was her elderly trainer, Shabonne.

When I spoke to them it was Shabonne who answered—she blew and blustered on about how sand seal racing was a fast-paced, hardcore sport, and how difficult it was, and that a little vai like me couldn’t really hope to be any good at it, especially against somebody like Tali, who was their most celebrated racing champion, and who held all the records, and who was generally the best of the best and why the heck didn’t I just fall down and start worshipping her right now. Dang.

Tali just said, “...”

XD

But I pressed, and for twenty rupees there was an option to race! I wondered how it would go.... Would there be multiple other racers? Would it be just me and Tali? Would we have to jockey for position?

But it turned out that I alone had only to race against Tali’s winning time.

Well that wouldn’t be so bad. :)

A minute and a half to beat....

But where was the course? Would it be marked? How would I know which way to go?

Perhaps it wasn’t quite like me, to go rushing into something so fast, but before I knew it the screen faded out and I had set the sequence in motion: I stood poised on my shield behind a tame sand seal, all hitched up and ready to go. The timer was counting down—

Ah, I could see it now.... Those were gates!

In front of me, two tall posts were bowed toward each other, tied at the top with ropes and flags to make a shape like a Gothic arch. Similar sets of posts marched off into the dunes in the distance and beyond obstacles....

I could do this! :D

And the timer wound down and I was off.

I don’t remember what distracted me from making my seal dash right off the start.... Maybe just the novelty of the experience. Through the gate, darting ahead between a mess of rocks, down through a narrow little sink where the boulders rolled around—and the music! What a happy, flutey little jig was the music! ^_^ Made all the more charmingly amusing by the fact that as my sand seal put out bursts of speed it seemed to snorfle along right in time to the beat. XD

There was a cool stretch that curved right underneath a giant ribcage that bent round a large rock—and then it was straight through a Lizalfos camp? What the heck??— But there was the next gate just beyond the three skull-dens—I urged my sand seal onward....!

And I burst through a drop with my sand seal leaping through the air like a salmon and the finish line sounded and I had completed the race in a minute and seventeen seconds! I beat the record! ^_^

The sequence brought me right back to the little sand hill, where several Gerudo had turned out to watch me race. Tali finally spoke up and offered me a gracious congratulations, and the crowd all cheered as I was awarded the trophy they had handed down through the years—a Sheikah orb.

Well I knew just where to put that!

I set it down in the glowing orange dais and the Raqa Zunzo Shrine rumbled up out of the earth.

Cool.

Once I had collected the Spirit Orb, I spoke to Shabonne once again.

She was pretty wound up that I had beaten her champion. And she challenged me to another go, this time with a little wager.... If I could beat the time I had just set, she would give me three hundred rupees.

But I had to put up a hundred rupees of my own to start.

Well, considering my sloppy start the previous time....

It was a deal.

And I did the race in a minute sixteen this time! The extra rupees were most welcome—I had been a little low on cash.

Shabonne conceded that I had some skill, then. And Tali opened up a bit as well. She spoke about the trophy, and told me that, though it had been awarded to her before, she was never really sure she would be the one to awaken the shrine I think that’s what she said or something like it.

Had each winner been attempting to summon the shrine?

But there was something about me, she said, that she felt was different. When she looked at me. And I had been the one to awaken the shrine.

Wait just how Chosen was I, if the Sheikah relics were reacting only to me?

That was something new to think about....

I went back to town and visited the guards again.

Barta was still down in Dragon’s Exile.

Did I want to do that tonight? It’d been a long day....

And then one of them shared with me the rumor that THERE WAS A FAIRY AT THE LEVIATHAN SKELETON SOUTHWEST OF TOWN.

OH for—

. . . .

No, this day was too long.

I went to just stay at the inn. Romah’s inn. The Hotel Oasis.

Standard, please, I said, not the spa plan—and handed over twenty rupees.

Besides if they spa me they might find out I’m a man.

It was 4:05 in the morning, game time, and I’d seen two Blood Moons in this town, consecutively.

I asked the innkeep to wake me at noon.

“Sav’orr” she bade me as I went to bed.

Good night.

Friendly Neighborhood Hylian

Waking of Saturday, July 28, 2018 ~ 7

Friendly Neighborhood Hylian

I came back down just outside Gerudo Town.

They could all rest easy now that the Hero had subdued the imminent danger stomping around out in the desert.

But they still wouldn’t let a voe come into town.

....Eh. I had wondered.

I changed clothes right in front of them and jogged through the gate.

Actually all the townsfolk kept talking about how Chief Riju had been the one to put the danger down.... which.... I guess I was okay with. She had been right out there with me, surfing behind Patricia. Right under the Divine Beast’s feet. And I had been in disguise after all. Just some lowly common Hylian vai, assisting the Chief....

I had just imagined some moment when I would be recognized and accepted and able to walk around freely in this place.... No exception even for the Hero of Legend....?

Nope.

Still no boys allowed.

Ah well.

Chief Riju was waiting for me in her throne room. She gave an outpouring of gratitude at my appearance—her people were happy again, and relieved. Stress had been reduced all through the town—“Stress”. Lol, women. XD

As thanks for my help in calming Vah Naboris and saving her people, she offered me the Scimitar of the Seven, along with the Daybreaker, the sword and shield wielded by the Champion Urbosa herself. Riju could think of no more appropriate use for them than to be wielded by the Hero of Hyrule against the Calamity that had claimed their original owner.

Unfortunately there was no room for them in my inventory.

There was something else in the room, however, which rather caught my eye....

Mounted handsomely on a pedestal a little to Riju’s right was the Thunder Helm.

When I examined it, and Riju reacted, there was only one unbecomingly brazen option I was given to say: “I want the Thunder Helm.”

Both Riju and Buliara voiced a polite but firm opposition to this—well, maybe not so polite on Buliara’s account. The helm was an heirloom of the Gerudo; it belonged here.

But.... considering all that I had done for them.... and all that I had yet to do, for all of Hyrule....

Riju agreed to lend me the Thunder Helm. If.... I could continue to live up to the title of Hero, and resolve all the town’s ills. The Divine Beast was no longer a threat, but that didn’t make life automatically perfect. If I could solve the whole town’s problems, and bring the smiles back to her people.... then and only then would Chief Riju lend me the Thunder Helm.

Well....

Hero work was what I did best.

I left the palace and heard from the garrison that Barta.... was in trouble again.

But I had seen her! She had escaped from the Yiga Nest since I had last been there, and I had seen her here in the barracks! Getting raked by her superiors....

But now.... her fellow warriors told me she was in Dragon’s Exile. Home of Moldugas. Mmmm but I was more confident against Moldugas.... but.... Well I had gathered she was kind of reckless, but.... what in the world was she doing down there? Part of me could only wonder, and part of me was.... hungrily delighted at an excuse to venture down to investigate the Great Skeleton....

Wandering further around Gerudo Town I drifted into the canteen, but could still find no clues about the password, and so threw the barrel at the ladies again.

What other ills were there around town for me to solve....? I was quite out of ideas, but at length I did find one little vai to rescue: a child named Dalia.

Dalia wanted to plant an orchard in an unused, obscure corner of town. But so much litter kept flowing down the aqueducts into the water trough....

!! D8<

“CalybaaAAANN!” I huffed as I turned to crawl up the wall.

I found her, and I told her what her face-stuffing rind-waste was doing to poor little Dalia’s orchard plans—the kid had been crying....

Upon hearing of the child’s plight, Calyban agreed to quit chucking her rinds down the stream—but she wouldn’t do it for free. She wasn’t that kind of person. She enjoyed her Hydromelons for sure, but what she really wanted to taste were Wildberries. The kind that grew high up on the freezing cold steps of the Gerudo Highlands. If I could bring her some of those—like ten—then she would quit from her little rind-chucking hidey-hole.

Fortunately I just happened to have enough Wildberries in my pockets; I gave her some.

“Oh! Oh they’re so delicious!” Calyban remarked, or something like it. So juicy and flavorful, sweeter than anything she’d ever tasted.

Evidently it put her in a very good mood, for she then decided that, in addition to stopping her littering, she would even go help little Dalia clean up!

Well that was just dandy. ^_^

The screen faded out and back in, and I was alone on top of the wall.

Time to check up on Dalia!

I followed the course of the aqueduct back the way I had come—there were so many paths.... But I found the one path I was looking for, and dropped down into Dalia’s little shaded corner.

I have to admit, it looked much nicer than when I had left it!

And Dalia was smiling again—she was so happy that her ground was now properly prepared. And she was delighted to relate to me that a vai she’d never met had come and helped her clean it up! And given her some Wilberries to boot!

For my help, Dalia gave me a Hydromelon she had gotten from the other vai as well. Aww.... ^_^

And then.... she said I could come get Wildberries from her little orchard whenever I wanted! 8D

And I did, later, when her bushes were planted and growing—three bushes of two berries each. I plucked the bush on the right clean, but.... I left the rest for Dalia.

It was her orchard, after all.

Wasted in the Wasteland

Waking of Saturday, October 28, 2017 ~ 8

Wasted in the Wasteland

It didn’t look as if.... sleep was going to be a big option for me tonight.

I went for the Sheikah Tower. 熬夜！Aoh yeah!

As soon as I saw this tower, I recognized it from something Joseph had described, long, long ago.

This tower stood in a bog, beside an array of tall stone slabs. Fierce winds prevented approach by paraglider. But a few Magnesable metal boxes littered the shore—I could use those to construct a footpath.

In Magnesising—Magnesing?—the first box, I saw that an additional host of other metal boxes lay beneath the bog’s bubbling surface—it seemed it was deeper than I had realized.... and there were also a few chests hidden down there!

In laying the foundations for a step beside the stone slabs, I accidentally knocked them over, thus creating the domino-ramp that would ultimately give me access to the Sheikah Tower.

Huh.... I’d thought Joseph had used a Bomb.

I guessed a flailing metal box could work, too.

The depth of the pool necessitated some precarious stacking and a great deal of guesswork and patience, but at length I had fashioned five somewhat level stepping-stones across the bog. Then it was a shinny up the fallen slabs, a climb up to the top of the tower, and....

I was rewarded with a map of the Wasteland.

The farthest southwestern reaches populated in my Sheikah Slate.

!

There was a Leviathan skeleton down there.... in a place called Dragon’s Exile.... wow....

And that Satan Canyon that had been full of all the Yiga Archers—that part filled in, that singular little canyon, creeping like an encroaching tentacle into the Gerudo territory map.

And there were all those rock-spires at the canyon’s mouth.... and strange, huge archways of stone.... and giant bones littering the emptiness.... and that circle of Colossi I had seen!

And away to the southeast, there was the Devil’s Own Highway, where I had placed those three star-stamps ages ago! Just above Moza’s cooking disaster, at the mouth of the Lynels’ Corridor....

The area was vast, and looked just full of places and things to explore! Oh I wanted to head for that Dragon....

But.... it was so, so late....

I considered, shouldn’t I just close on the activating of the Sheikah Tower? That was a good achievement to stop on.... I’d have to get ready for church soon....

Then I saw on my map the name Kousok Plateau, and remembered—that guy.... that guy back at the stable, the oily guy, Sesami—hadn’t he said that’s where he had lost his friends?

I could just.... head back toward the stable via that.... plateau and then.... and THEN I could call it quits.