Waking of Friday, October 12, 2018
From the Spring of Wisdom and the
Jitan Sa’mi Shrine I swirled my snowy
way down and around the mountainsides, tracking Koroks—I hadn’t known they could
hide in ice! And during one sweeping
paraglide, the wind began to pick up, and I knew....
Turning, I saw that Naydra had
descended again; he was twining westward, toward the Lanayru Road.
I’d had to sacrifice his scale to
the Spring of Wisdom before, but this
time.... I wanted a piece of him and I wanted to keep it!
I sailed after him. But he already
had such a head start, and he was such a gigantic creature and his head was
already so far away.... I’d wanted a hornshard, but.... A scale would have to do.
I pelted his crystal Caribbean hide
with an arrow and chinked off a scale. It glittered for a moment before
breaking off and sailing down toward the earth.
And I realized I might have made a
terrible miscalculation.
We were still so high off the ground, Naydra and I. We were essentially floating
out from the peak of one of the tallest mountains in the game. The ground.... was an immaterial thing, at these heights.
But it quickly became material, as
I saw the scale break off and arc, and arc, and arc down through the sky, on a
trajectory that took it far beyond the icy mountain, away from the Lanayru
Road, away from anywhere I’d ever
been before....
It smashed against an unfamiliar
mountainside on the other side of a large, dark body of water.
I kept sailing toward it, casting
an unsure glance at my stamina wheel....
I had to paraglide all the way over
Lanayru Bay to a place called Trotter’s
Downfall, shedding altitude in great chunks near the end, for I wasn’t sure
I was going to make it....
I hit the sodden green earth on my
last red sliver of strength, and David and I laughed in relief. A short jog
later, the scale of Naydra was mine.
But I made a mental note to not try
knocking off pieces of dragons at high altitudes again, before warping back to
the Jitan Sa’mi Shrine.
My wanderings over Mount Lanayru
brought me easterward until, in a saddle near the sea, but still high enough to
be snowbound, my shrine detector started going off. I ignored it for only a
little spell, just to climb a certain Walnot
Mountain while I had the altitude on my side.... and then headed back
toward the lower spot where the signal was strongest.
A Korok distracted me something sadistic along the way. It was a race.
From the saddle down to the lower crag’s edge.
Paragliding? No, I couldn’t sail
down there fast enough.
What about a long, straight
paraglide followed by a sharp drop at the end? That almost worked.... but not quite. And it hurt on the landing.
I tried a few combinations of paragliding and shedding altitude.... all to no
effect.
What about the straight up bone-breaking approach of just running down
the mountain? No good. That didn’t work either. And it hurt even more.
Difficult
Korok....
I stopped to get the shrine partway
through my efforts for the Korok just to quiet the brreep-brreeping of my
Slate. It lay behind some explodable rocks between the saddle and the crag; I’d
been flying over it at each pass to get the Korok.
The Tahno O’ah Shrine it was called. And when I finally unearthed it,
the shrine quest banner title Secret of
the Cedars flashed across my screen, with a Complete status now affixed to it. Who knew! I’d forgotten.... Somebody had told me long ago.... those
three trees on the mountain.... Line them up and they’d point to a trial
encased in stone....
Guessed that was the shrine.
Tahno O’ah was kind enough to
simply grant me his blessing, and in the accompanying treasure chest, I
found....
CLIMBING BOOTS. SWEET.
So the Bandana was part of a set!
And I thought.... I’d found that
Bandana nestled back in the Dueling Peaks, in the Ree Dahee Shrine.... And here
on this mountain were the Climbing
Boots.... Hmm, climbing gear found on
mountains.... Maybe on another
mountain somewhere, I would find a climbing shirt!
I exited the shrine and once again
made the arduous climb back up the snowy hillside to the race’s start on top of
the saddle. I hadn’t been able to use my Climber’s Bandana, on account of
having to wear both the Warm Doublet and
the Ruby Circlet to stay warm. Unfortunately my new Climbing Boots couldn’t
help me out much either; I needed my Snow Boots to maintain a decent mobility.
Soon.
I tried for the Korok again. Got
close but just not quite there....
Enter David. “Oh THAT one,” says
he.
“Why what a knowing grin you wear,”
says I.
I asked him if he’d used the
paraglider. He said he hadn’t. It was a simple
trick, he said.
But I had only complicated guesses.
“You started the race up here, and you finished with your actual person down at the finish? There wasn’t like.... some
kinda Ben Statue trick?” “Did you use
the Ninja Suit?” “Did you ride an animal?”
His brows shot up and he frowned at
that last one. “Good guess,” he said. But no, it was simpler than that, he told
me.
“You didn’t paraglide?” I almost pleaded for the umpteenth time. This
Korok was driving me crazy. “And it wasn’t clothes?”
“....You’re wearing it,” he finally
said.
I immediately thought of the
Sheikah Slate. “Did you Stasis
something? Magnesis?”
“No.”
I was flicking into my menus; I
studied my person....
And with a groan I saw it—my shield.
“You shield-surfed?”
“Yes!”
“Augh....” I’d forgotten all
about shield-surfing.
I went to the map.... There, around
to the left. That topo looked smooth enough to try it. It bowed wide of the
target, where I would have preferred a beeline. But.... I’d give it a try....
And I did.
And it worked.
“Good job!” said David, “I’m so
proud of you!”
Hahh.
“Thaaaaanks,” I said. |D
