The Missing Moldugas

Evening of Wednesday, September 19, 2018

The Missing Moldugas

I opened my map and made ready to warp to the Misae Suma Shrine.... but I couldn’t.

Then I remembered. Pokki had been collapsed all over the pedestal. I hadn’t been able to activate the warp pad.

I’d have to get back there on my own power for now.

The shrine still showed up on my map, just yellow instead of blue. I guessed that was what visited but unactivated shrines looked like.

Well, Tera’s shrine seemed to be the next most convenient—not Tera’s, Hawa Koth! That was its name. I warped there, cleaned out all the Safflina, caught a sand seal and started out east.

Every great fairy I’d visited seemed to host a native abundance of.... something. For Cotera it was Blue Nightshade flowers and, very occasionally, fairies. Mija had.... I want to say some kind of root, like carrots. Kaysa.... I don’t remember what Kaysa had; her environ was so dry.... Even Malanya the Horse God had an abundance of butterflies of every kind. And Tera had safflina plants, in many varieties. Good ingredients for whipping up any number of different elixirs.

But I think the Silent Princess flower grew at every fairy fountain.

Now, augh, for SOME reason I forgot to jot this down in my original notes, but.... I think this might have been where it happened.... A likely time and place, anyway....

I couldn’t exactly beeline from the Hawa Koth Shrine at Tera’s to the Misae Suma Shrine where Pokki was stranded.... without passing straight through the Southern Oasis.

I think that this might have been when I decided to do just that.

Fye! Shoddy note-taking....

And I had killed the Arbiter’s Ground Molduga around the same time as well.

FYE!

I sand-sealed toward the great rock until I caught the music on the air, at which point I let the beast go and bade it Godspeed.

Taking my time, I softly circumnavigated the Molduga’s course, limiting my movements when it was near; this one ran a smaller circuit than that very first one I had encountered. In fact, that first one had run the largest circuit of any I had seen thus far. It certainly made each new encounter less daunting at any rate.

One by one I drew out the loitering Lizalfos to put them down before dealing with the main threat. And then.... I attracted the monster’s attention.

Just like at the Arbiter’s Ground, now, I could do this....

I was still short on Bomb Arrows. But.... Well, frankly I had been just a little bit inspired by a certain video I’d seen of someone leading a Guardian Stalker out into the desert to duke it out with a Molduga. That person had been all right handling the Molduga on the ground....

I could do it too.... I’d already done it!

I still tried to keep some distance from it, though, drawing it out of the sand with normal arrows or bombs. And when I’d stunned it, I moved in right up against its great blubbery bulk, and it was melee all the way—which turned out to be faster work than it had been with arrows....

When the Molduga recovered it would thrash and twist round in a huge circle, flicking me high into the air with its huge tail, before burrowing back down into the sand. It sent me cartwheeling head over heels and took some hearts off, but.... it was a licking I could take for the present. My paraglider always caught me.

It only really became complicated when the two of us, ringing round the oasis, chanced upon a Lizalfos I had missed.

It’s.... tricky, to beat back an harrassing Lizalfos when the ground beneath you both is heaving uncontrollably, and could explode at any moment.

But it would be a lie to say it didn’t feel epic.

Turning from my main target I put the Lialfos down in a fury to give me some peace!

Well, relative peace.

But after that it was just a few more meaty exchanges on the ground before the mighty Molduga keeled over and gave up the ghost.

I’d beaten it on the ground. In the sand. In its own element.

At last I could explore this Southern Oasis! Perhaps the top held some kind of shrine-puzzle? I climbed up in the light of the falling sun, checking for Koroks everywhere....

The top was fairly level, with a little oblong depression in the middle where water sprang. A few fruit-bearing palm trees stood about, and there were a few more useful plants.... There were also a few boxes, and an unlit wok. Who had been here before?

After looting a treasure chest I found buried in the dirt, I couldn’t find anything else to do, except.... just enjoy the quiet up here.

Surely there had to be a SHRINE or something? The place was too far out of the way!

But I only walked around, cooked a few meals, explored the placid top of the rock, and enjoyed the quiet.

Until the Blood Moon rose that very night and spawned another Molduga, along with that confounded cello ensemble which I liked VERY MUCH, but which had QUITE overstayed its welcome at this point.

I chucked Bombs at the brute until it was mostly dead, whereupon I sailed down and finally put it out of my misery.

Of course the Lizalfos were always up for another round of sword-tag....

No rest for the weary....

I wondered if I’d missed an opportunity before that Blood Moon. I wondered what might happen at the Southern Oasis.... if I first dispatched all the Moldugas....

I was definitely going to come back here later.

The Other Side of Limbo

Waking of Friday, August 3, 2018 ~ 5

The Other Side of Limbo

The sand storm raged until—

That chime.

And my feet trod for nothing.

You can’t go any farther.

I had reached the western edge of my map.

So I turned south.

The storm continued to rage all around me, blotting out sun and moon, the wind howling, the grit flying horizontal across my path. On and on and on I jogged through the murk, shouldering off to the right every once in a while just to make sure I was still on the border, still on the edge.

My Sheikah Slate had lost functionality again; it was impossible to tell how far I had gone or how far there was left to go. All I had to guide me was that bumping chime to my right side—not that it was too difficult to move in roughly a straight line.

It seemed to go on forever.... just wind and Stalmoblins and dust and more wind and a few lonely animals and more Stalizalfos and—“NOT THE KEESE, NOT THE KEESE!”

I ran whenever I saw them.

Well.... I ran whenever I saw anything. Or nothing.

I just ran.

Was it day or night? I couldn’t tell.

There was a shape to my left. Roundish, humping obtrusive out of the fuzzy horizon. What was this....?

I slowed, and edged closer....

It was a skull-den. And there was at least one tower flanking it, with a Bokoblin on top, keeping a weather eye on—its invisible surroundings.

And I think it’s only now that I’m reminded of the morning of Thursday, January 9, 2003. But that is another story.

I traced the Bokoblin’s obscured movements through the sand, and stayed just deep enough away in the storm that he did not see me as I circled round to the back of their camp.

They never guard the backs.

I shinnied up the rear of the skull, and crouched low before sniping the two lookouts. The wind and the desert devoured their remains and there was no reclaiming them. Tsch!

Thereafter I stood to drop bombs through one of the eye-holes. The wind made this tricky, but with a little trial and error I found a good position, and watched as the life-meters below me reacted, converged, and were blown in all directions, over and over again.... I played this game until they were all dead, and thankfully, the bits leftover were less blustered and more contained inside the den.

I didn’t have room for the actual treasure inside the chest, though.

Oh well.

I harvested what I could from the Limbo Den, and made my way back from nothing to nothing; I hit the border, and started skirting southward again.

The air was a shifting array of dull colors all mashing together, darker beneath, lighter above. Somewhat.

Thank goodness for these Sand Boots at least....

I jogged.... and jogged.... and jogged....

And there was another shape to my left.

This one was.... geologically improbable. A great dark bow loomed from some large mass on the right, and arced unsupported through the air to the left, pointing north.

That had to be—BUT FIRST—

I hurried. Further southward. More creatures, more critters, Lizalfos burrowing through the sand.... I bumped to the right again—the border was still there—and then came the same abrupt chime—and I was brought to a halt.

I had come to the farthest point.

I had reached the corner.

So had the Lizalfos.

I cut them down, and the leftover bits rolled away unreachable in the gale. I might have been able to grab a talon or something....

The big shape with the bowhead still loomed darker than the surrounding grit. I could have approached it from this new angle, but.... instead I followed the western edge of the world back north, until I was even with the bow again. And I stepped eastward out of the storm....

As the air cleared, the great skull came into view. The bow-shape resolved into the enormous upper jaw, the entirety of it from cranium to nose-tip longer and thinner and more streamlined than that of the other Leviathan had been, the one on the volcano. That one had been broader, heavier-looking, more armored, like some giant horny toad.

But this one looked a proper whale. And the entire skeleton was smooth and bleached, whereas the other had been so weathered and darkened that in places it looked more like stone.

And there was another difference—round about where the scapulae might be, the long bones of some right-side limb jutted up from the spine at a high angle—sticking right up into the sky!

What in the—?

Was this . . . .

Was this a WINDFISH?

The mouth was open, the lower jaw buried deep into the sand. And—there was something—

There was a Gerudo! Kneeling directly before the open mouth as if in prayer to a deity.... she was so tiny before it....

Who....?

I approached her.

It was Barta.

“Barta!” The one who had been imprisoned before!

“Ugh,” she groaned, “Are you... a fairy? An angel? Are you here to guide my passage?”

She wasn’t kneeling out of awe or respect; she was clinging onto her spear for dear life, resting in the shade of the bowheaded jaw. “...Everything’s going hazy... This might be the end...”

“Snap out of it!” I said.

But she only moaned, “Ahh... If only I could’ve eaten a hearty durian one last time... A hearty durian... A hearty durian...”

I spoke to her again.

“Ahh, spirits of the Goddess... Before you take me from this world, if I could just taste fruit... Just one last bite of a hearty durian...”

And here I was given two choices of response, and I laughed at the cruel polarity: “Take this!” or “Good-bye.”

“Take this!” I said, and the screen blacked out and back in.

Barta stood on her feet now. “Hah... I’ve returned from the brink of death thanks to you...” she gasped, “Sarqso!”

Then she saw me more clearly—“Huh? Is that you I spoke to before? So you are actually a voe... I thought you were a bit muscular for a Hylian vai.”

XD

“But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I owe you my life, after all!”

Ah, so many Gerudo ladies who’d found me out already. Felt kinda nice to be real.

“Hah... Anyway,” Barta continued, “I’m totally exhausted. Maybe I’ll rest just a little longer then head home.”

I was given only one response to say: “Your boss was MAD.” It was not untrue. Liana and her other subordinates.... had been quite agitated the last time I’d seen them in the barracks.

“Huh? So...they knew I snuck off...”

I nodded.

“...Oh, I am in such trouble...” Barta muttered under her breath. “Yep, looks like I’d better go on ahead. See you later and sav’orq!”

And the screen blacked out again, and when it came back, Barta had gone.

Is sav’orq another form of thanks? Or is it perhaps an expression of farewell? Someone else had said it to me when I’d turned down some business or other. But if that’s what it were, then Barta would have been repeating herself. Does it regard rather the time of day?

Hmm.

I hoped she wouldn’t catch it too bad from Liana. Then again, maybe that would have been good for her.

I turned to check out the skeleton—the shrine beneath it and near to the skull was called the Hawa Koth Shrine, and it was the awesomest shrine ever, with much electricity and GIANT GEARS to play with.... It was like the sparky younger cousin of Kaam Ya’Tak....

But that wasn’t what interested me the most.

After I’d locked down the warpable, I turned to the large, thrumming, pulsing cocoon a stone’s cast down-whale....

There was a FAIRY FOUNTAIN BENEATH THIS THING.

....

AND THE GREAT FAIRY TERA WANTED TEN THOUSAND RUPEES?

. . . .

Oh boy....

. . . . . . .

And I was.... just about skint-broke....

. .  .   .    .     .      .

I needed to go make me some cash.