At Tabantha Bridge

Waking of Friday, August 11, 2017 ~ 4

At Tabantha Bridge

After visiting with Branli I continued down the long road that wound around the Seres Scablands—the place I’d seen north of Satori Mountain, the place with those strange mushroom-like treethings sprouting up out of the earth.

I’d seen a Mount Rhoam nearby on my map, and I wanted to see if that little body of water on it was a Fairy Fountain....

Before I got there however, I came to a crossroads beside which a signpost stood in the grass. It warned me to beware of suspicious characters I might see on the road, of bandits in the area who might attack me.

A woman stood OH SO CONVENIENTLY nearby.

....

Well I wouldn’t be the Hero if I weren’t a proper Fool.

I spoke to her.

Her name was Traveler.

“Dang it!” I shouted.

She threatened to kill me and we had it out. She gave me quite a bit of trouble, this one, but I struck her as I was able. She kept dancing just out of reach....

“Nimble little minx, ain’t she?” said Dad, who was in the room, and I laughed. XD

In the end I took her down and stole her bananas and hurried on up the road to a new stable—the Tabantha Bridge Stable. And a shrine. Which I had trouble accessing at the first by dint of it being up over a small ledge which I was obliged to scale in the rain. But I did get to it, and locked down the warpable.

Did that shrine have Guardians in it?

Where did I get.... more gears....?

Three men stood in a conspicuous huddle outside the stable, just begging to be eavesdropped upon. I approached them and they told me about the Leviathans that used to roam the land, and the giant bones they had left behind.

Ah.

So perhaps those weren’t Dodongos after all.

They asked if I would scout out the three Leviathan skeletons that were known in the land, and then come back and report or show them pictures or something....

At least I knew where one of them was....

Well I checked out Mount Rhoam, but there weren’t any Fairy Fountains on it. Conveniently enough, however, there was another man at the stable, name of Toren, who gave me a clue about a Great Fairy nearby! And he asked, if I were going to go looking for her, would I please make an offering to the Great Fairy for him?

I agreed and he gave me five hundred rupees.

He said something about the Sheikah Tower across Tabantha Bridge—some time in the afternoon, its shadow would point to where the Great Fairy lived....

Hmmm but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get that tower just yet, and so was hesitant to go near it and be tempted....

Do you find it ridiculous?

Why do I play the way I play?

What.

I’m savoring.

I’m breadcrumbing.

I’m exploring.

WHAT.

Instead of chasing after the tower’s shadow, I went back to my map, and studied the Gerudo Tower. I remembered standing near that one all day waiting for its shadow to crawl to where I was. Studying my map and recalling where that shadow had passed, I concluded that any afternoon shadow would be cast first southward, and then sweep counterclockwise to the east as the sun sank lower.

By sight, I placed a marker on the tower across Tabantha Bridge. On the empty blue map in my Sheikah Slate, I added two more markers at healthy distances south and east from the first marker. This pie-slice would be my search area....

And I plunged across the bridge....

A Guardian Flyer seemed to patrol near the road that wound off toward the left. And so as was my wont I took to the hills. I thoroughly searched my little grid around what seemed like it would be the midway point of the shadow’s afternoon course, but to no avail. At length I stood frustrated on top of a high rock, scanning all around me for those bright orange toadstools, that big green cocoon.... but saw nothing.

Disappointed, I moved to the rock’s edge to float down.... and saw the cocoon directly below me.

There was no water nearby.

I floated down, and spoke to the fairy inside.

A thousand rupees she asked for. But that was easy enough, especially with Toren’s help! I handed it over.

The cocoon burst open into a beautiful golden bloom. This fairy’s name was Kaysa. She had slightly darker skin, and sported a gaudy collection of pink-accented jewelry, the bangles on her necklace stark and triangular.

And then there was her hair. It was light pink just the same to match. But if Mija’s pompadour had been the pleasantly proportioned fluff of a strutting prairie-grouse.... Kaysa’s streaming fountain of bangs was more like a long-necked flamingo.

I had her work her magic on some of my clothes, and rather than blow magic at me or bop me with a kissed finger.... SHE LEANED RIGHT DOWN AND KISSED MY FACE.

Link covered his face in a fright before that cinematic was over. XD And it left him gasping and panting like he does when he runs out of stamina! XD XD XD

When I’d had all the clothes enhanced that I could, I went back to Toren and he gave me his thanks.... and I thought of some other clothes I rather wanted to acquire....

I’d recently collected a few more Ancient Gears.

It was time to pay Robbie a visit, and see if Cherry could forge anything for me....

Thing Under The Mountain

Waking of Saturday, May 27, 2017 ~ 5

Thing Under The Mountain

I took my time surveying my surroundings from the top of the Akkala Tower. That first Akkalan shrine I had come to, surrounded by wolves, stood on a red plateau far to the east on the other side of a marshy wetland.

A couple of lower cliffs stood just on this side of it. One of them was strangely-shaped, looking more like a smaller, separate plateau, isolated but for a single, thin, somewhat curved ridge of red earth connecting it to the larger plateau. The other cliff was.... just a cliff. A small wood grew upon it, with a little pond at its heart.

“You didn’t go there?” David asked as we looked at my new map.

“No.”

“Look at it!”

I scoped it.

“What does it look like?”

“....DAY-VIIID!” I griped, and pretended I hadn’t seen.

You know, all in all, he’s really . . . . really fantastic about keeping me unspoiled. From what I gather, it’s been somewhat maddeningly difficult for him at times.

I’m sure I’ll understand someday.

And then I will read the aforetyped line and gawp at my own inadvertent cruelty to him, I am quite sure.

I stayed up on top of the tower as the sun sank lower, viewing my surroundings until after dark. And, as it happened, in the dimness I caught sight of another orange glow to the east:

That little wood on the cliff.

Springing up in the midst of the trees was a number of large, very tall, bright orange toadstools.

(So I could say.... I would have caught sight of it then, anyway. That could excuse and alleviate the spoilage a bit.)

I knew what those mushrooms were. There was only one other place I’d ever seen mushrooms grow like that—

The Fairy Fountain.

Now that was some good fortune. <3

The Road to Robbie was also in that general direction, so I decided to jump for it, and paraglide back east.

It was also partly at David’s insistence—he said he had paraglided to that Wolf Shrine from this Sheikah Tower. Wanted me to do it too, I guess. It was raining when I did, and the grey-green haze of it swallowed me up until I seemed simply to rush through a great dark cloud of dust and wind.

“This is exactly where I was, when you saw me in that place with a lot of wind. It was raining then, too,” said David, referencing a time I’d taken an accidental glance at his screen.

“I thought you were on solid ground then,” I said. It had looked like a desert or something. Daytime colors maybe.

My rain cleared up pretty quick, though, and I looked down in the pre-dawn pink to see the whole expansive wetland below me. And two loose Guardian Stalkers creeping about. “Whoa,” we both said.

And for some reason I didn’t pay attention to my stamina wheel until it was on its last gasping splinter of red and then . . . .

Well I fell out of the sky.

I plummeted below the red cliffs. “Okay I have a better idea,” I said, and looked at my Sheikah Slate. I mapped over to the Wolf shrine, and concluded my journey to it via the warp pad.

Hoped my momentum wouldnt carry over....

It didn’t.

Once I was clear of the wolves, I had a lovely distracting time with a couple of mounted Bokoblins—one of whom I finally got to try out my new tricked out Stasis ability on!

I stopped him in midair as his horse galloped out from between his legs!

And then I walloped him right out of the sky like a big lumpy golf ball! Man, that guy FLEW when the Stasis let go!

And then I ran after him to finish the job AND HE RAN AWAY FROM ME!

I had never seen them retreat before. O__O

I was feeling pretty awesome! >:D

I chased him up a hill to the east and was further distracted by my shrine-locator’s beeping.... Ah, what the hey! I figured. I’ll just go and grab another shrine!

But chase down the signal as I might, I couldn’t see a shrine anywhere.... It sounded so close....

It was in a strange land of deep crevasses and gushing jets of air from cracks in the earth—made for great updrafts, really. I started on top of the hill where the beeping indicated the shrine should have been, and started a spiraling trail down around its sides—perhaps there was some cave....

There was. But I had to hike and glide quite far away to see it. Because it was set into a sheer cliff face beneath the hill, shadowed by an overhang of stone, with no footpaths to reach it, flanked on all sides by the open atmosphere of an immense chasm, and blocked off at its mouth by a wall of crumbling stone. I could see the shrine’s orange glow between the cracks....

Well.

I tried dropping bombs from the hill above.

No good.

I tried Bomb-Golfing from the other side.

Came up short.

I tentatively tried a precious Bomb Arrow.

Got.... nothing? Oh dear....

An inordinate number of large boulders lay scattered everywhere in this strange pit-mine of a place. Some of them were magnetizable....

David told me to take care, though. He said he’d seen places where lots of boulders like this meant ammunition for nearby Flying Guardians.

I kept my eyes open....

I tried Magnesising a makeshift battering-ram.

Couldn’t reach.

I tried Stasising a regular boulder and whacking it up to send a flying bombardment....! But I hit it too hard and missed.

It would take a lot of careful effort to maneuver another boulder over here to the edge....

And then “Wait a second!” I shouted. “It was raining before! Let me try another Bomb Arrow!”

And I nocked it, and it sparked and fizzed as the other one never had! I let fly and BOOM! Hole-in-the-Rock!

After that it was a matter of gaining enough altitude to paraglide in. I ended up on the cliff face beneath anyway, but not by much. It was a slightly startling scramble to climb up to the lip however, as it started to rain again just then. But perhaps I needn’t have worried—there was still that giant stone overhang above. Maybe it kept the cliff beneath it dry.

And what happiness was this! My extra Bomb Arrow was still there! :D It must have sailed right in through the cracks between the rocks! Lucky! 8D

The shrine contained another Modest Test of Strength, and I conquered it.

I tend to go through a lot of specialty arrows in those kind. “You don’t mess around!” David said as I pummeled the resident Guardian with most of the rest of my Bomb Arrows....