A Proper Exploration

Waking of Tuesday, March 7, 2017

A Proper Exploration

You know, my map really was an intriguing thing to look at—I’m crazy for topo; probably get it from my dad—and the names of all these amazing places! The Cliffs of Quince.... Mount Lanayru.... the Sahasra Slope.... Oakle’s Navel? What the heck was that? XD

Maybe I had felt less agile on my horse. Even though he was good for making hasty getaways.

But I really did want to explore more.

And so leaving Brown safe in Hateno Village at “our” house, I excursed once ag—are you serious, Word? You’re not underlining that? That was just a guess; I didn’t know “excursion” had its own verb—this is really okay with you?

Goodness.

Where was I.

AND SO leaving Brown safe in Hateno Village at “our” house, I excursed once again out over the rolling hills of the high ridge.

I really wanted to explore the Cliffs of Quince. Brokka [Toma] and I had ridden beneath them on our long trek through the rain; they were huge, and hollow beneath, held up by gargantuan pillars and natural bridges. But I wanted to see what was on top....

It turned out to be a wide, pleasantly grassy plateau, though baddies crawled over it like lost ants.

My Iron Sledgehammer nearly died in battle against a moblin.

I’ll have to pick one of the other ones up soon.

I also saw a few large holes where the shelf of rock had worn through, and you could see down into the giant hollow where the bokoblins made their camp.

Some mushrooms were growing on the rock a little way down from the top.

I had never seen anything so not worth it in my life.

Other wanderings brought me to crags overlooking Fort Hateno.

I could see the advance the Guardians had made, and a chill settled into my stomach.

Ughuhuhh.... those things....

I even had a brief peak into Oakle’s Navel, though I did not explore it.

Once I’d had my fill of the immediate area, I decided that I couldn’t be afraid anymore.

I would leave Brown behind, and Travel back to the Dueling Peaks Stable via the local shrine’s warp platform, and I was going to travel the road as I should first have traveled it, as I had meant to travel it: with a fine-toothed comb.

There may have been shrines I missed!

Concussive Logging

Waking of Monday, March 6, 2017

Concussive Logging

Well, Bolson wanted thirty bundles of wood? I’d get him thirty bundles of wood.

I left Brown by the house we wanted to buy—heh, I seem to have been including him in my first-person pronouns lately—and took off into the hills. That house (it takes a great deal of concentration to not say “my” house), being way up near the end of the village, opened right onto a grassy, hilly wilderness. And I knew there was a big stand of trees somewhere along the ridge....

There were also some moblins. Whom I bombed. Because I didn’t want to deal with them up close.

They are quite large, the moblins in this game.

Besides, I didn’t know just how long my Iron Sledgehammer would last.

But I know where two more of those are....

From dawn to dusk I was about this endeavor. But I didn’t know how long my axe would last either—and then it dawned on me: In bombing the moblin, I had accidentally knocked down a tree or two....

!

I could just blow up the whole forest! :D

And so some time that day I put away my axe, and only let the wild wilderness resound with the Gift of Ja Baij.

They’re very talented bombs. They could even turn fallen logs into wood bundles.

Cool.

And when the sky was darkening and I had felled every single thin tree in the vicinity (I left the thick ones alone), which came out to exactly the thirty bundles I needed, I climbed a hill to paraglide back toward Hateno Village again (it takes a great deal of concentration to not just say “home”).

As I sailed I saw someone with a lantern walking along the ridge through the tall grass.

“Who’s this?” I wondered, and slowed my flight, angling downward.

I landed next to her, and she was trying to think of a word.

Her name was Traveler.

Oh no....

“It starts with L and ends with K.... What was it again....?” she wondered.

I tried to, uh, help her out with suggestions such as Lurk, Lick and Leek, but none of those were it and.... soon there was only one option left.

“Link?”

As Luck would have it, that was the right answer. She looked happy as a Lark—a very evil Lark—as she dropped all pretense and gave me battle. She went down easier than the others had, but not for Lack of trying; I was just catching on to their fighting style. When they stand still, charging up an orange energy cloud, then is a good time to go Lunk ‘em on the head or slash ‘em with your sword or use whatever you’ve got. Dang Lank creepers.... Do they all keep finding me by chance, or is there some kind of information Leak among my friends? How do I keep my whereabouts under Lock and key....

Okay, Look, fine, I’ll stop. Gosh.

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

The Second Tower

Waking of Saturday, MARCH FOURTH, 2017

The Second Tower

I cooked a lot of dishes with Giro before I finally moved on. I tried to avoid the road when there were bokoblin camps nearby. And as I was climbing the rocky hills south of the road, I looked up.... and realized with a start that I was crawling over the foothills of the southern mountain of Dueling Peaks!

I was here!

I couldn’t believe I made it here.

I had finally made it. And that meant....

For I had seen another tower. I had seen another tower, an orange Sheikah tower, looming closer with the peaks—

But as I swiveled to see it, I saw that it was on the other side of the river which ran between the peaks. The north side.

I was on the south side.

I traveled on, and getting higher I realized with a jolt that the tower was not actually on the other side of the river—it was grounded in it. I could see its glowing orange light beneath the water's surface. Its foundation must have been somewhere deep on the riverbed.

But there were tumbles of rock all around it, leaning up against it—had the tower perhaps erupted these into the spiky, ringing formation they were in? Had it been buried beneath them, beneath the water?

Maybe I could climb the rocks to get to the tower....

I paraglided from the south mountain to a lower track on the north mountain, and thence to the biggest rock that leaned against the tower.

A skeleton popped up in front of me on it.

I kissed it goodbye to the left with one heavy swing of my sledgehammer—I didn’t have time for it now!

I scaled the tower as fast as I could, activated the pedestal at the top with my Sheikah Slate, and the tower turned blue. Moving parts at the top furled upward like a crown, and a new rune distilled and dropped down into my Slate: a map of the area.

This was West Necluda.

And it was vastly larger than the Great Plateau had been.

My gosh . . . . just how big was this world?

The Moblin

Waking of Friday, March 3, 2017 ~ 4

The Moblin

David and I had seen a big guy stumping around down there off the plateau.... He had a long snout and a horn, and so we called him the Anteater Unicorn.

I took the Old Man’s—King Rhoam’s—paraglider.... and took the plunge.

Down to the surface I went, down off the plateau, and it felt.... different.... dangerous.

That Anteater-Unicorn looked a lot bigger from down on the ground. He was twice as tall as I was at least!

I thought about simply skirting round him as I headed east, but.... oh, but I couldn’t be afraid forever!

I approached him. Cautiously. Came close behind a big tumble of rubbled stone.... and then ran round it at him.

I had picked something up in the Stasis Shrine you see—a great Iron Sledgehammer. It had worked pretty well against baddies.

He saw me, and he came at me. And I came at him. And he wound up his club and I wound up my hammer and I hit him once—nothing as he’s still winding up—twice—and I BASHED him across the screen so hard I broke the frame-rate!

“Oh-hohh!” David cried.

And I ran at him again, and he ran at me. And he wound up his club and I wound up my hammer and I hit him once—no effect as he’s still winding up—and twice—and I BASHED him across the screen so hard that I broke the frame-rate again!

And then he got up one last time and came at me and I swung my hammer and knocked the brute’s legs right out from under him, and he went down, and evaporated, and died.

And I picked up what was left—the monsters, they leave bits of themselves behind, you know—and it was a moblin horn....

Huh.

So it was a moblin.

And then I stole his giant club and ran off.