Ruins and Remnants

Waking of Saturday, November 17, 2018

Ruins and Remnants

After I’d had a good sleep, I went back to the field.

Heh, I kept thinking of it not as the central plains but as The Field. Like Hyrule Field, from Ocarina of Time. Because there was a feature I’d seen there ever since I had downloaded the Central Map from the Scary Tower: Ranch Ruins.

I went there now, and cleared it out. Just a couple of Bokoblins, albeit they were mounted. But for those kinds I’ve become quite fond of simply Stasising them in midair while their mounts ride on, right out from under them. Makes them easier to deal with.

I guessed it made sense that there would still be horses around this place, too.

Those two brutes and a Guardian later, and the Ranch Ruins were mine to regard, alone in the quiet.

Oh my gosh it looked.... I could see the similarities. The big, once-fenced horse pasture, with the racing track around the outside. The remains of the silo across the way. The place where the cuccos lived. Even the red tile roofings were still here, all collapsed into the dirt.... Oh my heart.

That was poignant.

Also, when night fell.... I found another stalhorse.

I guessed that made sense too.

Partly with the aid of the skeletal mount, I worked my way further around the central plain. Just killing Guardians, exploring ruins.... There was a Mabe Village, there was some kind of garrison....

I moved up toward Castle Town, and remembered that Korok on the western side, in the prison, the one that I could never figure out. Maybe I could give him another go....

I warped to that shrine in the cave on the very western edges of the castle’s territory, and worked my way inward, dodging the Flyer, killing the Stalker.... until I came to the old prison. How many times had I been here? Four?

The little statues stood patiently waiting as always. Two of the three little offering platters once again held Rusty Shields. Tricksy little punk Korok was still throwing that curveball, eh?

Well.... I would just look a little harder this time....

And I did.... AND IT WORKED! I found a Rusty Shield over by a ruined wall beside the moat! And dropping it on the third platter, I got the Korok Seed! Yay. ^_^

That loose end taken care of, I started thinking of what other little chores I could tie up.

....I had pictographs of all three Leviathans now—I warped out of Castle Town Prison and went to the Serenne Stable to find those guys again.... I remembered, they were in Serenne, not Akkala....

But I paused for dinner before I spoke to them.

And then after we had eaten, David wanted to have some time on the game. So I watched him play for a while.

As it turned out, that map-creeper had been spying on me for shrines now that I had passed him up! Every time I’d looked at my map, he’d been studying it for the shrines that I had and he didn’t!

The nerve! XD

He got some shrine that I’d already done; I can’t remember which, and a little while later.... I picked up the game again.

At the Serenne Stable, I finally got back to those three men loitering near the manger. I’d never bothered to commit their names to memory; one of them might have been Akrah....

One of them saw my pictograph of the Gerudo Great Skeleton, bleached by the sun and mired in the desert sands, and he exclaimed that he was so happy because now he’d finally be able to prove his theory that the great leviathans’ extinction was caused by a massive drought!

The next one saw my pictograph of the Hebra Great Skeleton, entombed and encased in the heart of the icy mountain, and declared that now he would finally be able to prove that it had been a mighty ice age that had wiped out the leviathans!

The last one saw my pictograph of the Eldin Great Skeleton, weathering away on Eldin’s Flank at the base of the fiery Death Mountain, and pronounced that finally he had definitive proof that the leviathans had all been killed by a catastrophic volcanic eruption!

I.... kind of shook my head with a weary grin and didn’t argue with any of them.

I just accepted the cool three hundred rupees they gave me for my trouble, and left them to it.

On to another loose end....

I guessed I couldn’t really say anything about David spying on me for shrines.... because I then went after some of the Koroks I’d seen him get!

Back to Hebra I went, scouring that river that fed into the Shrine Under The Hill—the Koroks were really thick along there. So were the Icy Lizalfos, but I made do well enough.

I wandered more and more southward, catching Koroks by the butt-ton, until.... Hey....

“I’m not freezing!” I said to David. :D

The mercury had indeed risen, I could no longer see my breath, and my cheeks and the tip of my nose no more blushed at the stinging cold.

I had come to some large stretches of bare rock over which the snow had no hold, and I was grateful for the chance to switch to my more protective Champion’s Tunic, and especially the agility-boosting Climber’s Bandana. It was a great help in climbing some rock faces in order to dive into a Korok’s lily-pad circle in a large, natural water pocket—whose contents were also safely temperate to boot. :)

The Divine Beast Bird wheeled so close overhead now....

And away in the distance I could see what MUST have been.... Rito Village! 8D Houses like Kass’, all forested up and down that mighty rock spire I had seen!

And just down the cliff from where I was.... a Stable! ^_^

But.... I didn’t go there.... not yet.... not yet. It needed a proper approach.

I whisked away instead to the Central Tower for more Koroks—for from what I’d seen when David was playing, I had missed a few hiding in the scattered copses of trees just south of the ruined Castle Town....

And as I hunted the little sprites I pondered back on the leviathan pictographs I’d shown to Akrah and his friends. And I wondered aloud to David that there seemed to be a shrine at each skeleton except Eldin.

And then I said, “I should not be saying this out loud.” But David never minded.

I’m not sure what David thinks, but.... I have my own suspicions.... Maybe it will be the last shrine that appears there, beneath the Eldin Great Skeleton. The one that has.... those things in it. Dang you, internet.... Or was it Madman Joseph? I can’t remember....

In looking at my map I suddenly saw the little white icon and realized—“Oh shoot....”—I’d left Memory standing outside the Serenne Stable. I warped back there to board him again; poor thing was standing out in the rain.... I’d left him out after taking his and Dragmire’s pictographs for the Compendium. Evidently White and Giant horses registered as separate breeds, or separate enough for the Compendium to give each its own entry.

Hmmmmm....

Of course it was possible there was a discoverable shrine at the Eldin Skeleton after all.... and I just hadn’t been able to turn it up.

Ummmmm....

Vah Rudania.

I donned my Flamebreaker Armor and warped to the top of the volcano.... but—and I knew this would happen—I touched down on the side opposite where I needed to be.... and the Divine Beast perched in the way of my taking the short way round; the game wouldn’t let me get too close to it....

And so in only a minor huff I about-faced and began circling the caldera, sailing from crag to crag, and climbing to the pinnacle of each before leaping off again. After perhaps seven or eight of these slow, hot scrambles, I came to the north side of the caldera, from whence I could make the long, direct paraglide down the northern flank of the volcano to the Deplian Badlands below—which flight, even with my nearly full Stamina meter, required a few pitstops along the way.

This really was the most direct route to the Eldin Great Skeleton?

Once again, closest shrine to the east was Gut Check Rock, and that was a very long trek; closest to the west was at the shrouded Thyphlo Ruins, deep in a maze locked in darkness, and also a very long trek; and on the volcano the nearest shrine was that one beneath an ancient, petrified giant crab’s carapace in the middle of a lava lake, accessible only by railcar—not really meant to be a gateway to anywhere....

Gosh there was just NO easy way to get there....

There HAD to be something closer....

On the last legs of my long paraglide I saw that Dinraal was approaching from high in the east over the chasm that separated Hyrule from the north countries. I knew he would swoop down near the skeleton.... May as well try for a piece of him, I thought. But I was so far away still, and he was already passing by....

I gave it a shot anyway. My first arrow came up short—the distance was too great. With my second arrow, I aimed a little higher.... and I JUST caught him on his left hind foot! The scale shimmered and broke off, Dinraal made for the heavens, and I touched down on top of the Eldin Great Skeleton’s skull.

The scale gleamed and glimmered at me from where it had landed a bowshot away, down on the easy, flat ground. A bit forward and to the left of where the skeleton’s great nose was pointing.

“Well go get it,” says David.

“But there’s bad guys underneath this thing.” I wondered if the scale would wait for me, not depopulate, if I took time to play the Bomb game....

“Then we’ll do it real quiet like,” said David in Han Solo’s voice.

And Hnnnnngh I just jumped down and got it. And I found I needn’t have worried; the bad guys didn’t see me. They were situated more underneath the rib cage, and with the immensity of this skeleton’s skull, that was no small distance away.

David was in the other room when I picked up the scale—

“WHAT.”

“What?” asks David.

“DAVID.” I just—

He came back in.

It was not a scale.

It was Dinraal’s CLAW.

Never got wunna those before....

....

I think I’m over-Zelda’ed for this weekend.

Korok Woods. Pepp’s. Sleep. Done.

Good night.

SNOW DAY 2: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES

Waking of Thursday, November 15, 2018 ~ 2

SNOW DAY 2: THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES

I put just a little more juice in the controller before moving on with Selmie’s dialogue.

“*sigh...*” she said, and then, “Hey... What’s that on your back?! That’s a radiant shield! You wouldn’t believe how rare those things are! You practically never see them anymore... If you’re carrying THAT shield, then... Whoa. This is big! You hiked all this way to meet the best there ever was at shield surfing, right?”

Guess that explained all the shields on her walls....

And oh dear I had a choice: “Yes!” or “No.”

I kind of wanted to continue on with my mad rush of a snow day, but.... well, I’d be nice to the lady. “Yes!” I said.

“Knew it!” Selmie cheered, “Too bad for you that I’m retired, huh? It’s been years since anyone knew me as the Duchess of Downhill.”

Oh my gosh I breathed a BIG sigh of relief. XD I don’t like damaging my shields, and hated to think I would be roped into doing so!

“But if you don’t mind a few pointers from a has-been, I’d be happy to critique your technique.”

And again: “Yes!” or “I’m fine.”

Hhhhuhhuhuhuhhhhmmmmm.... but I was sure I could find something.... in my inventory.... that I could throw away for this....

Hhhhh.

“Yes!” I said.

Selmie laughed. She was such a cute, short-haired blond with cute clothes. Just comely.

“Such enthusiasm!” she said, “I haven’t seen anyone with passion like that since...well, me!”

Hehhh.... |D I wondered what Siara would think of my being so codependent. Still.... what was I really here for anyway?

A short while later I was hitting the slopes for twenty rupees a pop, first the basic course and then the advanced. As I’d never practiced very much, my time was pretty average, Selmie said. But she encouraged me by noting that once I cleared the advanced course, I could earn special shields for beating certain times.

“How’s that for incentive?” she said.

Ooh la la! 8D

Except, I was so full on shields already that she couldn’t give me anything just at that time.

Ohh. :c

I could have dropped a Lizalfos shield; I had a million of those. But I didn’t feel like doing the whole slope again just then.

But if I ever wanted neat new shields in the future.... I definitely knew where to find them now!

I had been so distracted by Selmie’s Spot that I hadn’t even locked down the shrine just next door, the Shada Naw Shrine. I completed it to quiet the brreeping, and that was my fifth shrine of the day.

After that I just kept on keepin’ on to the northwest, discovering one Goflam’s Secret Hot Spring. That was a nice place to warm up my hearts.

Next in line was a shrine I had already seen David get—well, I hadn’t actually SEEN him get it, but I sure watched it drive him mad for hours and hours as he combed the northern faces of the mountain range looking for it.

He had showed me on his map all the places he had searched, and the shrine signals he had tracked (he had marked them with stamps). But I had been more interested in the topography.... There on the southern side of the mountains, but still somewhat close to all the hot signals, there seemed to be an overhang of some sort. It looked quite massive....

But I said nothing.

I just watched until David noticed the same thing.

It didn’t feel like a spoiler then.

It was another hidden cavern, and it was kind of like the Kopeeki Drifts in that he’d had to roll a snowball down a hill to smash the doors open. But once those doors had opened for him, I was out! I didn’t want to see spoilers, and the interior of that place looked massive.

But now it was my turn to uncover the same secret.

I hadn’t felt spoiled about watching him roll the snowball either, for I had silently guessed how to do it before he did! (And that before I’d even made it to Kopeeki Drifts!) You had to Cryonis an icy little pond partway down the slope in order to bridge a certain gap and let the snowball go over. And once it did.... smash! The two giant double-doors collapsed inward.

A vast, blue cavern lay within, with what looked like.... roots, at first glance. Pale roots arcing over the path as it bent around to the left.

But then I moved, and the parallax set in. The pale protrusions were much farther away than I’d thought. But I didn’t pay them too much heed; I had eyes only for the shrine I knew was here. And I saw it.

But as I descended further and the cavern widened and I began to take it all in, I could see the glowing orange shrine, and I could see that it was set far down in the middle of the gigantic space, and a bewilderment of dim colors slid over each other high in the gloom as I moved and—AND A SKELETON??

It had registered all at once, of a sudden.

OH MY GOSH THIS WAS THE HEBRA LEVIATHAN??

David passed through the room at that very moment and looked from my gaping mouth to the screen and back, and laughed.

I had found the third skeleton. Without even knowing it.

Those long, bending, crooked pale shapes.

I kept moving forward.

The jutting stalagmites around me rightly crawled with iridescence.

The Hebra Great Skeleton. Oh my gosh.

There was water here, too.... And it was temperate. It lapped along a hump of blue-grey rock that led to the shrine like a path.

This was the To Quomo Shrine.

And that made.... six today, I thought.

It was a Blessing Shrine. I was grateful for the Spirit Orb, but I was also keen to come back out and look around!

I explored the Leviathan, chased a Korok around on top of it. This one’s bones were different again. The skull had.... an occipital protrusion, like a pterodactyl, and its snout was split, down the middle. It was in two parts, all the way to the tips of the nose, which hooked slightly downward. The bottom jaw was in two pieces as well, and those wide apart from each other. A baleen feeder? It had very large eye sockets, and I could also see the phalanges on this one. It seemed.... like a water creature. What on EARTH....

Then.... the Eldin Great Skeleton had been a ground thing, Gerudo a flyer, and.... this one a water-dweller.

But how did it end up inside a mountain? Makes me think of.... Jabun.

Well.

I guess that’s why they call it the Legend of Zelda.

So many elements all the same.

All different in every telling of the tale.

And here was the water-whale god inside the mountain.

Rest In Peace.

Was it.... getting foggy in here....?

I moved on, and kept climbing.

And it wasn’t long before there was.... another Shrine Signal?

I found it over the edge of and down underneath the high, flat Biron Snowshelf. The Mozo Shenno Shrine. Tricky one to get to.

It was a Major Test of Strength, and so I went in with my Guardian Armor. I did well! Until I tried to backflip away again, but evidently came up short as the Guardian cut me once with his giant blade. After this we drew apart, and he did that spinny-laser in a wide radius, casting up an updraft. But hot and mussed from the contact I equipped my strongest Lynel bow (50 damage x3) and nocked some hard specialty arrows.

“Don’t screw with me,” I growled, “I will wreck you.”

I killed him in the end. Hacked him to bits just before his charging laser could fry my face off. And I got a core among the spoils!

That brought me to fifteen cores.

I could upgrade my Ancient Armor set now, I thought. If I wanted.

But I kept trekking through the mountains. More Koroks. Sherfin’s Secret Hot Spring. I wondered who all these people were who had discovered all these hot springs, and why they were a secret....

The Hia Miu Shrine.

I kept climbing about the north faces, chasing lower altitudes and ledges that looked promising but led nowhere until.... I’d finally had enough. Clinging low off my map, wary of the boundary between solid ground and what the game would register as a bottomless fall, I warped the nope out of there to Dueling Peaks. Wasn’t there a cave I’d seen around there once?

I checked.

There wasn’t.

The polygons.... they can trick your eyes, when viewed from a great distance.

I was running out of juice, and for some reason decided to just.... go home. I warped to the Shrine of Resurrection.

“I went home,” I said to David.

And then David caught the affronted look on my face as I saw.... there was a Korok waiting to be found in my bed-pod.

David laughed.

“GET OUT OF MY BED.” I say. D8<

I left the shrine and jogged down the grassy slope to the Temple of Time, and the Goddess Statue.

But.... 11 Spirit orbs.... Just one more....?

I would wait for 12, and pray for three vessels at once.

I did nothing.

I warped to Tera.

But I did nothing.

I went to Pepp’s, and slept.

I was tired.

Been doing this icy mountain all day on a day when it’s cold, cold, cold....

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.

At Tabantha Bridge

Waking of Friday, August 11, 2017 ~ 4

At Tabantha Bridge

After visiting with Branli I continued down the long road that wound around the Seres Scablands—the place I’d seen north of Satori Mountain, the place with those strange mushroom-like treethings sprouting up out of the earth.

I’d seen a Mount Rhoam nearby on my map, and I wanted to see if that little body of water on it was a Fairy Fountain....

Before I got there however, I came to a crossroads beside which a signpost stood in the grass. It warned me to beware of suspicious characters I might see on the road, of bandits in the area who might attack me.

A woman stood OH SO CONVENIENTLY nearby.

....

Well I wouldn’t be the Hero if I weren’t a proper Fool.

I spoke to her.

Her name was Traveler.

“Dang it!” I shouted.

She threatened to kill me and we had it out. She gave me quite a bit of trouble, this one, but I struck her as I was able. She kept dancing just out of reach....

“Nimble little minx, ain’t she?” said Dad, who was in the room, and I laughed. XD

In the end I took her down and stole her bananas and hurried on up the road to a new stable—the Tabantha Bridge Stable. And a shrine. Which I had trouble accessing at the first by dint of it being up over a small ledge which I was obliged to scale in the rain. But I did get to it, and locked down the warpable.

Did that shrine have Guardians in it?

Where did I get.... more gears....?

Three men stood in a conspicuous huddle outside the stable, just begging to be eavesdropped upon. I approached them and they told me about the Leviathans that used to roam the land, and the giant bones they had left behind.

Ah.

So perhaps those weren’t Dodongos after all.

They asked if I would scout out the three Leviathan skeletons that were known in the land, and then come back and report or show them pictures or something....

At least I knew where one of them was....

Well I checked out Mount Rhoam, but there weren’t any Fairy Fountains on it. Conveniently enough, however, there was another man at the stable, name of Toren, who gave me a clue about a Great Fairy nearby! And he asked, if I were going to go looking for her, would I please make an offering to the Great Fairy for him?

I agreed and he gave me five hundred rupees.

He said something about the Sheikah Tower across Tabantha Bridge—some time in the afternoon, its shadow would point to where the Great Fairy lived....

Hmmm but I wasn’t sure I wanted to get that tower just yet, and so was hesitant to go near it and be tempted....

Do you find it ridiculous?

Why do I play the way I play?

What.

I’m savoring.

I’m breadcrumbing.

I’m exploring.

WHAT.

Instead of chasing after the tower’s shadow, I went back to my map, and studied the Gerudo Tower. I remembered standing near that one all day waiting for its shadow to crawl to where I was. Studying my map and recalling where that shadow had passed, I concluded that any afternoon shadow would be cast first southward, and then sweep counterclockwise to the east as the sun sank lower.

By sight, I placed a marker on the tower across Tabantha Bridge. On the empty blue map in my Sheikah Slate, I added two more markers at healthy distances south and east from the first marker. This pie-slice would be my search area....

And I plunged across the bridge....

A Guardian Flyer seemed to patrol near the road that wound off toward the left. And so as was my wont I took to the hills. I thoroughly searched my little grid around what seemed like it would be the midway point of the shadow’s afternoon course, but to no avail. At length I stood frustrated on top of a high rock, scanning all around me for those bright orange toadstools, that big green cocoon.... but saw nothing.

Disappointed, I moved to the rock’s edge to float down.... and saw the cocoon directly below me.

There was no water nearby.

I floated down, and spoke to the fairy inside.

A thousand rupees she asked for. But that was easy enough, especially with Toren’s help! I handed it over.

The cocoon burst open into a beautiful golden bloom. This fairy’s name was Kaysa. She had slightly darker skin, and sported a gaudy collection of pink-accented jewelry, the bangles on her necklace stark and triangular.

And then there was her hair. It was light pink just the same to match. But if Mija’s pompadour had been the pleasantly proportioned fluff of a strutting prairie-grouse.... Kaysa’s streaming fountain of bangs was more like a long-necked flamingo.

I had her work her magic on some of my clothes, and rather than blow magic at me or bop me with a kissed finger.... SHE LEANED RIGHT DOWN AND KISSED MY FACE.

Link covered his face in a fright before that cinematic was over. XD And it left him gasping and panting like he does when he runs out of stamina! XD XD XD

When I’d had all the clothes enhanced that I could, I went back to Toren and he gave me his thanks.... and I thought of some other clothes I rather wanted to acquire....

I’d recently collected a few more Ancient Gears.

It was time to pay Robbie a visit, and see if Cherry could forge anything for me....