Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 4
The obvious next destination after
passing through the East Gate of the Lanayru Road was the grand and imposing Mount Lanayru.
But I didn’t quite pass through the
gate after all, because there was a Lynel out there, stalking through the
aspens. White-maned no less....
Rather I skittered up into the
hills to the south, to see if I could bypass it, in the process climbing above
a landmark I had long regarded with awe and reverence on my map: Purifier Lake.
A fat red Hinox snored in the spray
of its waterfall, occasionally scratching its moldy bellybutton. How putrid! OH how I longed to kill the
offending brute—but with that Lynel
so close....
....
I didn’t feel like tangling with it
just now, but at least decided that this was as good a time as any for a
certain.... field-test....
I climbed to a prominent part of
the hillside where the Lynel would just
be able to see me, and started jumping up and down to get its attention.
And it saw me all right. And as I’d
hoped, at this range, it drew its bow, nocked an arrow, and pulled back the
string. On went my Thunder Helm....
The Lynel at Shatterback Point had
nearly zapped me into flash-fry with its Shock Arrows. The one down in the
Lynels’ Corridor had shocked me into dropping my items with the same. But here.... I’d be able to see what the
Thunder Helm was really capable of....
Or I would have.... if only this Lynel hadn’t been using.... ICE
ARROWS?
Fortunately the projectiles came up
short, spawning wicked but harmless frosted stalagmites that erupted out of the
rock with a rumbling.
I booked it, retreating higher up
into the hills. No arrows connected. I was safe.
But....
....
Well.
Another
time.
With another Lynel!
I trudged over the hillsides and
down into the Naydra Snowfield in the foothills of the mountain, safe and
barriered from the Lynel by a sharp ridge of stone. Snow lay thick upon the
ground here, and the Chillshrooms
grew everywhere! They seemed to
spring from the base of every stark or naked pine, and there were quite a few
of those.
I only wandered and swept from side
to side for a bit, checking for Koroks and other interesting things while
heading in a vague, forward direction. The clothes I was obliged to wear—my
Ruby Circlet and Warm Doublet—together protected me from the intense cold, but offered
me poor defense against Ice Chuchus, Ice Lizalfos and wolves. Well, the Ruby
Circlet was strong enough. But the Warm Doublet only had one defense point. Whereas my Champion’s Tunic currently had fourteen.
I suppose I could have saved myself
an awful lot of trouble, and monster encounters, if I had only climbed the mountain
the way I had climbed up Death Mountain for the first time, when I’d realized
there was that memory up there.... That time, I had gone straight up the side,
caring nothing for the road, for I hadn’t even realized there was one. But here in the snowfield, as I
neared the other end, and as the land began to rise, I looked at the ground I
was heading to tread on and—
“Stairs!” I thrilled to David,
“There are stairs!” There was an old road beneath the snow! The ancient architecture
enthralled me as ever.
The land was so blanketed here that
the road could not be discerned, except for the sharp corners of stone stairs peeking through the snow at
the occasional sharp rise.
And I remembered the Lanayru Road,
and how the path had continued, and wound away through the aspens where the
Lynel prowled, and how there was even that cut
through the natural stone barrier to the snowfields—the road must have come
through there as well, though I hadn’t. And now here, at the foot of the
mountain, and seemingly for a great distance yet, fine stonework showed through the frost.
That it should be so developed! I flicked to my map and found
where I was and looked and.... Yes, yes!
There it was in the topo! The road led all the way to the top! And if it was
like this all the way up the mountain....
Augh,
the ruins would be fantastic.
And I could only imagine it in its prime glory days.
Of course, it wasn’t until I had
already come a long way along it, batting off wolves and Chuchus and Lizalfos
all the while, that I recalled how few
monsters I had encountered while climbing off
the beaten track toward my first recovered memory back in Eldin. That is to
say, almost zero. And here on the icy
road, against the more populous foes, my clothes could not protect me very
well....
But there wasn’t really anything
for it now. I supposed I could have veered off and started climbing the walls,
but.... No. I would be all right. I had meant to come this way.
Besides, partway up the mountain, I
was distracted by something so chilling it made me forget my road-woes
entirely.
Night was falling. Though under the
cloud cover of the high mountain, it made little difference to the light or the
visibility. The Ice Lizalfos hunkered thick along the trail. I was paragliding
round to duke it out with one camouflaged one, when—
....Strange music?
Upon landing I turned. Another
Lizalfos I hadn’t seen was behind me, likewise camouflaged. Neither of them
made a move, but I still didn’t care for being surrounded.
What
was that.... music? It sounded
like that music that heralds a dragon,
but.... no, this was something else. What was going on?
The tune was the same, but the
music, the chords, the intervals had
changed. Why did it sound so diminished?
So distorted? It felt sick and
ungodly. A perversion of the sublime erhu I had heard before.
I reached a broad point where the
road switched back and a few pillars stood sentinel or leaned in frozen
tottering. I checked them for Koroks, and in climbing to the top of one of
them, paused for a moment and looked up toward the mountain’s top—closer now.
And there among the jagged crags and icy protrusions I thought I could see....
something....
And I gasped when I knew. MALICE? HERE? No!
But it was worse. It was.... heaving. And I saw the bluish horn
coming off of it.... never seen blue
Malice before.... And I saw another horn, and another, and more slowly
rising and falling curves of a serpentine body, and.... No! It—it couldn’t be!
I grabbed my Pictobox. Aimed it.
....Naydra....
This was Naydra. Naydra was....
something was on it.... a parasite.
A Malice Parasite.
Naydra....
I hurried.
And of a sudden I was there. The
final switchback had been so abrupt.
Naydra.... he looked.... horrible. The Malice was globbing so
huge and heavy onto his head, like a cancerous growth. I could feel the weight
of his wilting neck, his eyes forced near to closing beneath the drooping mass.
The long coils of the dragon’s body
looped heavily among the topmost crags of the mountain. Further globs of
burning, cruel Malice clung onto its scales, the magenta bleeding into the deep
blue, staining it, tainting it, infecting it....
And then the Goddess statue—or the
Goddess, through the statue—spoke.
“You have done
well to find your way to this spring.”
The statue stood at the back of a
spring of water, templed and paved with stones as the Spring of Power had been.
This was....
“You who have
overcome numerous trials
and obtained the Spirit Orbs...
The one you see
before you is an
attendant to the Spring of Wisdom.
This is Naydra, the blue spirit of Lanayru.”
This was the Spring of Wisdom. I knew it. I knew it from my map and from
Sanadin Park memories and from all the hearsay of Hateno.
“This servant of
the Goddess has looked
over the spirits
of this land for ages,
unknown to the
world of man.
However, the
dreaded Malice unleashed
by Calamity Ganon
has possessed its
body and reduced
it to this state.
You who have
received the Spirit Orbs...
Free Naydra from this Malice.
Show what your
power can achieve!”
And at the statue’s last words, an
enormous, popping yellow eyeball OPENED UP
and swiveled ponderously from the heart of the mass on Naydra’s head.
I was free to move and Naydra had
not stirred, except for the lumbering of its panting breaths as its head bowed
and wept. The eyeball still gaped all around like a demonic blinking baby.
A
large target.... and fairly
stationary.... Would it really be that simple?
I took as many steps forward as I
dared, and reached for a Phrenic Bow I had been keeping in reserve for a long,
long time. I hadn’t really known what for. But if not for this, then nothing.
“Don’t fail me now....” I crooned
as I took aim at the distant, house-sized globe....
The arrow struck true, and the
eyeball-mass mouthlessly screeched
before dissolving in a pruff of evil. Naydra’s head seemed to come alive—it
pulled heavily, strongly upward, his
eyes opened, his indigo skin was free and open and cold and—
He kept rearing. Higher and higher
he arced, and then the coils of his long body followed him. Slithering through
the air between the cracks, he mounted up into the sky and twined and writhed
as the remaining Malice globs burned still upon his skin.
Uh?
Was he coming back? It didn’t look
like it—I hoofed it up the one remaining trail to the right, the one that led
right up to the mountain’s crest—Naydra twined in the sky above the cap—
But
he was so big and he moved so fast and there was so much of him—I tried
cutting beneath an arc of his body as it slid over the path, so low.... But I must have made some
contact, and the force bowled me off
my feet and back down the track.
The Malice masses were being pulled
along so quickly and so sinuously
through the air—it was hard to take aim—but
my Phrenic Bow did not fail me—I pierced another eyeball! Giant as the
first had been.
But Naydra’s flight did not slow or
calm. He began to twine away from the
peak, lower down the mountain. And I was hesitant. Such altitude would be
difficult to regain, if I followed him down there only to have to chase him
back to these heights....
But he wasn’t coming back. Only
rolling and weaving and twisting in monumental agitation further down the
slopes. And there was nothing else for it, and so....
Uhhh—
I steeled myself and leapt from an icy crag to sail down
after the poor beast.
Then as I exited the cloud cap and
came into clearer airs, I saw I needn’t have worried—every crag and crack and
dell and glen thrust a powerful updraft into the night. They were far below me
now, but the sight was comforting.
I sailed closer and attempted to
head the dragon’s twining—and one of the Malice globs. But Naydra’s course and
speed were impossible to predict. How
many masses were there? Five in all? I took a chance when a glob passed
close, drew my bow, time slowed, had to
watch my stamina.... carefully, CAREFULLY....
I struck the eyeball, but had expended
too much strength to do it and my stamina wheel was empty and I was falling
toward the black earth and the updrafts wouldn’t help me but no—somehow—SOMEHOW....
How
did I catch myself?
Where had that stamina come from
when I was able to just deploy my
paraglider right above the crag to keep myself from becoming a greasy smear on the rocks....? And I touched
down and—
Where was I?
....
Somewhere low. Down the mountain.
It was a big playing field tonight.
It seemed that, like the glowing and
strengthening of the Master Sword, sometimes, if you executed things just
right.... you could regain your strength, and sail safely away from the point
of exhaustion.
I climbed to the point of the black
rock where I stood, and leapt off into an updraft. The valley was alive with wind.
“Naydra!” I chased after him. “Naydra!”
And still he twined so massively in
his circuitous writhing.
He flew around, I rode the airs, I
chased him all the way back down to the Naydra Snowfield where he tore up the
trees with his passing.
“Naydra you have to hold still!”
I took careful aim.... thank goodness for this Phrenic Bow....
Two
more globs....
One
more glob....
And I shot the last one.
The indigo Naydra huffed, breathed.... and blinked its big bright colorful eye. He flew up
into the air again and with a strain or a stretch, burst from the last darkness that I hadn’t realized was still
holding him—the indigo exploded from him and turned to dust—that was not his true color? He arced
and reared higher, and as he rose he glowed and gleamed brighter, brighter, BRIGHTER,
into an astonishingly brilliant ice-teal
the color of a frozen Caribbean bay, his crown of many horns shining the blue
of an ancient glacier.
Oh he was beautiful now....
He was glorious.
