Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 3
“Where are you going, anyway?” David
had asked before, “Where the heck are
you?”
“I’m looking for someone,” I kept saying in Luke Skywalker’s voice.
“Who?”
“Her—”
“Princess Zelda?”
“Noooo—”
The right fork of the river twined
away between massive, towering cliffs. I saw a rickety old bridge spanning
between them on a higher ledge.... seemed like a great nest for baddies to hide
out....
But per David’s suggestion,
following the left fork, which followed the map line, did seem like a sound
plan....
Surely
the river that led to this Lake Hylia
would be important enough to have map-boundaries drawn along it....
And so the left fork it was.
I still didn’t let on much about my
plan to David, though.
The water was flowing roughly
southward now, and I was still on the outside—the west side now. The dangerous
lands of the castle were on the east.
My path took me along a high ledge
on a great beige cliff face. It had been raining—maybe that thunderhead from
before had finally caught up and swept across my path. But as I skirted over
the living stone, the rain began to thin to just a few spitty drops, and the
sun began to shine through....
And it became so bright....
The mist left over from the rain was blinding!
“It’s SO—BRIGHT,” I exclaimed to
David, who could see this quite clearly.
“WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
I turned this way and that. The
cliff face reflected the sun’s light like a solar oven panel, bouncing it into
the lingering moisture—
“WHY IS IT SO BRIGHT?” I yammered
again.
“I don’t know!” David shouted,
laughing.
I was getting low on sleep.
Utterly bewildered, I ran ahead
through the impossible brightness....
I did stop briefly to search out
another ruin—this one on the castleward side of the river, though it appeared
safe enough to have a look....
The ruin was flooded, up to the
depth of about my knees. Watergrass and floating leaves parted at my passing.
There were a few things to loot,
guarded only by a couple of near-sighted lizalfos. The first one went down like
a charm, but the second one gave me a fright when he pulled back on a nocked Shock Arrow.
But my blade cut him down before he
could let fly.
And after looting the whole place—I
COMMANDEERED A CONVENIENT RAFT AND FINALLY USED MY KOROK LEAF TO GO BOATING
DOWN THE RIVER!
I might have accidentally killed some ducks with my boat.
I will eat them later with much
gratitude.
I rafted and rafted until I came to
a little bokoblin camp, grounded my boat and promptly slaughtered the lot of
them.
But
the river split again!
This time I took the right fork; it
seemed deeper, a heavier flow.... But owing to some obstacles in the way, I had
to leave my raft behind.
I passed a Gleeok Bridge.
I hoped there wouldn’t be any
nearby. o__o
And then I passed a Manhala Bridge.
My goodness, or any of those
either! Spelling notwithstanding.
And after a little waterfall, I
finally came to a Digdogg Suspension
Bridge!
There was a Hinox sleeping on it.
Well.... on a small landmass in its
midst, anyway.
There didn’t seem to be any Gleeoks
or Manhandlas or Digdoggs about.... but I was certainly enjoying these lovely
bridge names.
My Shrine-detector had been beeping
at me—and I saw the culprit structure far
below me at the water’s level beneath Digdogg Suspension Bridge.
It was a long way down, but, after
considering and finding myself with nothing much left to do on the cliff-face,
I leapt off the edge, floated laterally to just about where the shrine was,
and—at David’s insistence—HALO jumped down to it.
I completed it, collected a Spirit
Orb, came out, and was delighted to find another boat available to use. And I
did use it, for a while, all around the expansive sort of little lake beneath where the Hinox slumbered.
But....
BUT....
This waterway....
This waterway had come to an end.
I boated around beneath the
suspension bridge, but....
There was nowhere else to go.
This was not Lake Hylia.
The little right fork had been a
dead end.
