Spirit Orb Shenanigans

Waking of Saturday, July 28, 2018

Spirit Orb Shenanigans

I warped from Zora’s Domain to Gerudo Town, grabbed a sand seal and headed out southwest. I still needed Molduga fins for the next upgrade to my Sand Boots.

The heat was still an issue, even with my Sapphire Circlet and Gerudo Outfit. Outside of the solace of night and dawn and dusk, at the height of the day I could only cling to the thin shadows wrapping below tall rocks. ....Rather like the time we spent at Needles Outlook. It was so hot.... but having the place to ourselves for an hour was exquisitely adventurous.

Though the high sun was still intolerable, this time the Molduga didn’t take me that long—not when I knew how to draw it out, and not when I employed my Most Terrible Lynel Bow, which spat three arrows of thirty-two attack points each for ninety-six damage at every shot. And that if I had only used normal arrows. No, it was Bomb Arrows this time, as it should be every time, and the Molduga was such a large target that the only shots I missed were during its recovery-burrowing animation.

I brought it down in one pass.

Excellent.

I also picked up more Rushrooms and one more diamond from Ledo, and then it was off to Cotera to have her do up some of my clothes. Got my Sand Boots to a more respectable level of defense. Since I’d be going out into the desert and all....

I also saw I had three spirit orbs. Just one more shrine and I could add another heart or a slice of stamina.... So I went to where I’d always suspected there might be a shrine: from the Hateno Tower I paraglided toward a certain stretch of the Hateno Road—checking out Oakle’s Navel for the first time along the way—there was a Korok down there—

I headed toward that little grotto on the north side of the road. Kind of a big grotto actually. I had heard my shrine-locator go off near there before, back before I had the wherewithal to climb the surrounding cliffs.... But my locator had seemed to indicate something up on that shelf opposite the Cliffs of Quince, or maybe a little beyond.

With a little persistence and my Climber’s Bandana I got up on top, and was promptly led by my locator in dizzying circles around a small lakespring, which poured into a long valley just to the north.

I had regarded this valley many times on my map, but had never visited it. It had seemed isolated at first, but upon closer inspection I could see there were ways to access it—ways whose entries I had brushed against many times.

But I did not want to be tempted by it now. I was pretty sure I saw David exploring it one time and.... there were things going on that I heard, but didn’t let myself see, except in the murky reflection off the microwave door. What was I eating that day....?

At any rate I was leery of the valley. First of all it was raining, and any elevation losses would be difficult to regain. And secondly, I had to head into the desert; I didn’t want to get too distracted or trigger anything momentous in this new environ....

In truth.... I suspected Naydra might make a pass.

However, the brreep-brreep I was hearing now sounded like the shrine might be under the little lake, and like I might not be able to access it unless I descended into the long water-valley.

There were an awful lot of ruins down there.... I got as close as I could to the edge first on one side of the waterfall, then on the other.... On the east side I dropped down by small degrees onto ancient mossy stonework shelves, peering down at lonely Lizalfos stretching in and out of camouflage—and there. There on the west side of the waterfall was a hole cut into the rock. It was well off the valley floor. Er, valley-bottom. (It seemed to be all water down there.)

I paraglided down and in. Brreep-brreep! The tunnel was long, but at the end.... stood the Dow Na’eh Shrine. Cool.

The cavern happened to have a second opening, right onto the back of the waterfall. I dove in with my Zora Armor for a quick ascent back up to the mountain shelf....

That made four Spirit Orbs all right, but when I was back on the Hateno Road, I considered.... I was much better equipped than I had been before.... What was up with that grotto anyway? Maybe I could solve it now. A long time ago I’d thought the shrine I heard on my locator would appear in that grotto....

But hidden shrines didn’t work like that.

Doctor Calip was there, studying the hordes of little statues standing in the ground like an army in prayer. Doctor Calip from that friendly house back in the woods near Fort Hateno. I’d slept there once....

I’m not sure if I knew it before, but I gathered now that he frequented this place. I spoke to him. It’d been a long time. And he repeated the strange riddle to me, the one he was trying to puzzle out himself: “When a dark light resides in the cursed statue’s eyes, pierce its gaze to release the seal on the shrine” or some such words.

Was the statue one of this bunch of little ones?

When I asked him about it further he said he reckoned it was some terrible variety of doll that could influence people’s behavior.

What like a voodoo doll? .__.

Sounded freaky....

When it started getting dark, Doctor Calip high-tailed it out of there—monsters came out after nightfall, he reminded me.

I had made Doctor Calip’s riddle my active quest, and I watched him leave by the pulsing yellow light on my HUD. I looked up and could see his person jogging away in the distance, about to round the bend—the yellow light had barely moved—and I marveled at the scale of the map. <3

The fall of night in earnest was still a good way off, but.... I decided to hang around anyway. Would any monsters bother me in here? Mmmm maybe. But maybe there would also be some kind of clue the night might reveal.... or maybe it only happened on Blood Moons. A voodoo doll? My hopes weren’t that high. I ran around collecting plants and passing a Korok I had found.... was there anything I had skipped over before? I jumped off low blocks of old ruins, waiting for the sun to sink....

Wheee.

Then uh—

Looking back. Into the grotto. For I had jogged over near its mouth. Oh gosh what—

The little army of statues stood clustered and shrouded in the dimness. But it looked like.... did that one there.... But it was a good stone’s throw away—maybe it was just a trick of my vision—I scoped in—

NO THAT ONE STATUE’S EYES WERE DEFINITELY GLOWING. THEY GLOWED PURPLE. WHAT.

“David look!” I strained in tight unmoving terror.

Oh my gosh it looked so freaky....

So I snapped a pictograph.

The statue didn’t do anything as I came back toward it.

Its eyes just glowed purple. What unholy....

I swung at it with my farmer’s hoe. But I couldn’t hit it that way.

So I tried shooting an arrow into it.

That destroyed the statue.

And up rumbled the shrine out of the earth, right in that bare patch of ground I had always thought would look just dandy with a shrine in it....

The Kam Urog Shrine.

Inside was the biggest hamster wheel I had ever seen. With giant, free-rolling morningstars in it.

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME,” I said.

But I did it.

And it was awesome.

The Third Tower

Waking of Saturday, MARCH FOURTH, 2017 ~ 17

The Third Tower

Away beyond the hills and dales by the house I had just asked for.... was another Sheikah Tower. I was so tired, the road had been so long and fraught with danger, but.... that tower was so close....

I went for it—and I tried to just avoid any conflicts I could help avoiding. Just to get to the tower, and activate it.

As I was climbing the last great big hill, I saw there was one moblin I could not avoid. And it was talking to some unseen companion—a bokoblin I could barely see beneath the roll of the land.

I still had my hammer. My trusty Iron Sledgehammer. My but those moblins were enormous....

Instead I tried my Phrenic Bow, and a few Fire Arrows.

Three hits took down the moblin, but the bokoblin I had to deal with in person. Easy enough, I just needed to get through....

But when I approached the tower—

Briars?

There were briars all over it! I couldn’t get close at all! I tried smashing them, I tried bombing them—they would not be destroyed!

FINE!

I found the one surface I could ascend and got up onto a platform. So it was to be a vertical maze with my stamina-meter ticking, was it? Well I had a few elixir-tricks up my sleeve....

It was a tight race, but I did reach the top, and when I did, and activated the tower, and it turned blue....

I

just

decompressed

for

a bit.

I was very high up—this tower was situated on a most prominent little spiraling kind of mountain in the midst of a huge span of valleys and canyons. I could see the whole world for miles and miles around me.... I could even see my (soon to be) house!

When I was ready, I set my face back toward Hateno Village and jumped off, paragliding to the brink of my stamina before I touched down again—it was a long, quiet, airy float.

And I found that, having launched from such a height, it brought me practically all the way back.

Well, a slope nearby the village anyway.

How neat. <3

Hateno Village

Waking of Saturday, MARCH FOURTH, 2017 ~ 16

Hateno Village

Much of the end of the road was taken at a gallop; Hateno Village could not come soon enough, but come it did, under the dreary downpour. It was a weary end to a long journey.

Tired and wet, I rode straight through the village proper, walking Brown slow beneath me, sufficed only to glance numbly about as we moved. There were so many people, so many buildings to inspect and see what they could offer me—

But there was a shrine here, and, wrung out by the long road, I wanted to stick first to the essentials.

The Myahm Agana Apparatus gave me absolute fits.

I came out of the shrine in a higher part of the village where it was less crowded. A signpost stood nearby.

It advertised Bolson Construction homes, with an invitation to look at their model homes.

I turned to my left.

They were IKEA houses.

That put a tired little eye-rolling grin on my face.

I went inside one of them.

Unbelievable.

These were definitely IKEA houses.

My gosh.

Across a small bridge over a grassy little ravine, there was a nicer, more traditional-looking house.

As I drew closer I saw a man hammering away at one corner of it.

His name was Karson and he told me this house had been abandoned for some time, and that he and his fellows were demolishing it.

I went around back and found Mr. Bolson himself. He told me much the same thing; the empty house needed to make way for more of his live-inable lunchboxes.

The option arose to say.... “I’ll buy it.”

What the hey! I thought.

“I’ll buy it.”

50,000 rupees he said.

Now, rupees were scarce here. I hadn’t even seen so much as one blessed green one until after I had left West Necluda!

“Impossible,” I said.

“All right look....” he said again, and he offered to slash the price to 3,000 rupees IF I could also bring him thirty bundles of wood. Building materials, you know, he said.

So I said I’d do it.

And we parted ways.

I did speak to the third and last man first, though, and his name was Hudson. He told me I looked pretty strong, and that maybe I could work for Mr. Bolson too. But when he found out my name was Link, he said that was too bad, and they couldn’t take me on anyway. When I asked him why not, he said Mr. Bolson only hires people whose names end in “-son”.

“‘Builds team unity,’ he says,” said Hudson.