The Maddest Dash

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 2

The Maddest Dash

Every stride down the riverside road took me closer to the castle, and the swirling, looming Calamity trapped within its grounds.

I didn’t know what I would find.

The way was barren for the most part. The hills began to mount and roll all grassy on the right side, to the north, while on the left side, lower down, the land looked as pleasant and natural as ever.

I even saw a shrine down there. Just the glimmer of orange, inside a hidden cavern it seemed. But heck no way was I gonna give time for it now! Especially as it lay across the river. No fooling around in there. Not right now.

I had a Zora to find.

I passed charred wooden ruins and smashed timbers on the right—a few new bogs had formed there. And I saw a wolf sniffing around one of them. I snapped its pictograph before moving on. My Compendium told me they traveled in packs, and would surround their prey; but this one walked alone. Hmm.

I didn’t bother with it.

Past the ribcage remains of a few overturned wagons, I saw two Hylians having a row with two Bokoblins, and bolted ahead to even the odds....

The man’s name was Mils, and woman’s either Mina or Nina. Nina I think; I don’t recall their names forming an alliteration [they did; it was Mina].... Actually Nina [Mina] looked like a Sheikah come to think of it. White-haired.

Well it was encouraging to see other people out here at any rate.

They thanked me for the assist and we parted ways, they back the way I had come, at a healthy jog; and I ahead to the northwest, a little faster.

Molo had mentioned some docks by which one could reach the land where the castle stood, and I saw the road that led down toward them. It looked like a wooden bridge. And a six-legged Guardian sat camped out on the other side like a cheapskate.

But hadn’t I seen....?

I looked at my map again.

I had mistaken something else for Molo’s “docks”: a great jutting bit of land, all square and elevated above its surroundings. I’d thought it was perhaps made of stone, but....

Well I’d see when I got there I suppose.

The rolling hills piled steeply to my right—the Elma Knolls. And I soon discovered them to be infested with wolves. Eventually one appeared unavoidably close to my path.

I kept running. Straight for it.

I’d been a wolf before! I thought, remembering Twilight Princess, I’ll best you....

And I did—and was rewarded with a thick slab of Gourmet Meat.

But the wolves did fight dirty, circling and circling and keeping back from my sword strokes. But once one of them was killed the rest left off in a hurry—true to the Compendium’s word.

It was only a minor slowing inconvenience—I had to keep going.

And to my left I saw one of those flying terrors—the same kind I had seen near the tower north of Upland Zorana. Hovering and shining red lights down below....

I snapped a pictograph.

It was a flying Guardian.

FANTASTIC.

There were a few of them near the castle, as it turned out. I always found it alarming whenever they seemed to be hovering in my general direction, and you bet your pants I hightailed it into the hills on those occasions! Between Guardians and wolves, I’d take the wolves.

But the Guardian Flyers would eventually make a sharp turn—following a set patrol pattern it seemed—and I would bend cautiously back toward the road, and the river, cutting my corners as fine as I dared....

The castle—the castle grounds—were.... enormous. I did reach what I had thought was the dock, or half of a bridge. But it was not a dock.

It was, in fact, one of a number of immense, black, cubicle stones, shot with magenta light in archaic designs, which surrounded the castle, all jutting inward like the teeth of a baited trap.

Perhaps.... a part.... of whatever apparatus bound the great Calamity to its prison in the castle grounds.

This one just happened to be on my side of the river. The side my Sheikah Slate had downloaded into its map. That’s why it was showing up.

I would not touch it.

It was a long, long trek across the Elma Knolls. Sun and moon arced. Rain came and went. I passed a Hinox slumbering in the middle of what looked like a lumber yard—I considered killing it, but.... my arrows were running low after that Woodland Tower. And I didn’t fancy getting smacked in the everything by one of those logs.

I killed wolves, I startled birds and foxes, I grabbed plants on the go, I ran from a mounted bokoblin—thought about killing him too, but he was packing some kind of super arrows and I had to keep running.

I just had to keep following the river.

That Mei might have passed so close to the castle, so close through the unholy darkness, beneath those undulating clouds of purest evil....

I just had to keep following the river.

I just had to keep following the river....

And I did.

And after a long, long time, it began to bend away from the castle and the Calamity, so blessedly away.

And I followed it.

It had been a big, big castle, and ground, and maybe a town. Perhaps once the bright center of the land. Maybe I should have known it would take such a long, long time.

I followed the river, running and running and making only brief stops—mostly involving Koroks. One of them led me on a merry game of hide-and-seek through the few standing walls of a ruin on a high plateau overlooking the water.

The place was wide enough that it had seemed like boss-room bait, but there were only a few fat blue chuchus lurking in the ground. I dispatched them easily, and played the Korok’s game, as a mighty thunderhead brooded in the western distance, lightning strobing in its shadowy depths....

I ran on.

Bridges spanned into the dangerous ground on my left at whiles—now I was more west-northwest of it.

I ignored them.

Through the darkness of rain I came to a great crack in the earth, with jutting crags like teeth on either side. Things were nesting in the dangerous paths at the bottom it seemed.... But I only paraglided across to the other side—and kept on running.

Stalmoblins burst from the ground and chased me—I had no time for them.

The grass began to give.

Rocks showed through the terrain.

I passed a Sheikah Tower high up away on the rocky hills to my right.

It looked close, but....

Later.

I came to great bald mountains and cliffs of bare stone and—

THE RIVER SPLIT?

David laughed at me.

He’d been with me for a while now.

“Ugh, which way?” I lamented.

“Try the left one; it follows the map line.”

I swiveled between the two in agony.

“Uhhhh.... Okay....”

And so I took the left fork.

I just had to keep going....

RETURN OF THE FOOL

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017

RETURN OF THE FOOL

I’d been trying so long.... so hard....

I’d wanted so badly to find Mei....

“Have you tried playing with your gloves yet?”

“Hah, I don’t think I’d be able to control it....” Unless I cut the fingertips off, but I don’t want to do that!

“Sure you could!”

“What were your joysticks like?”

“Well this one over here had to move like this, and like this.... and this one moved like this.... and on this one were the buttons for—”

Dad went on explaining the various cockpit functions. I didn’t really pay the closest attention until something lodged in my perceptual filter:

“And on top, we had a little tiny joystick for—”

“You had thumbsticks?” I blurted.

“Yeah.”

“And you could control them?”

“Oh yeah. It was easy.”

“With your gloves on and everything?”

“Yup!”

I might have been too impressed with just that to remember to argue that Well, did you have a bunch of little thumb buttons and a D-pad?

Maybe someday I’ll try playing with the flight gloves on. I could practice on the Plateau. :)

He used to do a lot of search and rescue, Dad did.

Search and Rescue.

Search and Rescue....

It was a heroic thing. He even saved lives.

Heroic....

Heroic Search and Rescue....

What—

What kind of Hero was I, if I couldn’t even find one slippery fish woman?

Blow it.

Blow it all, Robbie!

I had some Searching and Rescuing to do!

I WAS GOING TO FIND MEI. Because she was missing, and her husband and children needed her to be all right.

I ran out the door of the Woodland Stable and plunged down the road that Zorona never followed and that Molo only dreamed about.

I’M COMING TO SAVE YOU, MEI!

What I Came For

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 8

What I Came For

I thought I’d heard of a Shiekah Tower like this from Joseph. Something about bogs.... something about the tower being surrounded by giant stones.... something about bombs....

But I don’t think this was that tower.

This tower did indeed have one large grey stone of some kind beside it in the bog. But there was also some strange, large.... dark.... rounding kind of shape high atop its crown. It was difficult to make out from below.

I remembered the Hateno Tower and its briars. Was this another obstacle, only situated at the top instead of crawling along its length? But it looked too thick and solid to be briars. Oh gosh, had bad guys taken it over? Would I have to fight them up there once I scaled it?

I had been so confused as to what was on top of this tower, and I wanted to get rid of it or burn it off it as soon as I could.

But when I came close I understood. And I didn’t think fire was gonna do it.

The large grey stone at the tower’s base and the dark rounding shape at its crown were two halves of a bokoblins’ skull-den—those skull-shaped cave-enclosures they like to hide in. The tower’s eruption from the ground must have cracked this one in two. And now this Sheikah Tower had.... well a very nice lid I guess.

A hat like a big busted eggshell.

Well that was swell.

Wished I could’ve removed it.

Especially once I reached the top—that thick stone casing really obstructed the view. But, no matter. I just had to distill the rune and my map could tell me of the surroundings.... This would tell me the river’s course.

This would tell me about Mei.

I activated the pedestal. The runes dripped down, the teardrop fell into my Sheikah Slate....

According to the map, the river out of the wetlands ran right through Ganon’s backyard. I could even see what must have been the dock Molo had said was situated just north of the castle—the way to get inside, he’d said.

It was all too close.

The castle was right there.

Traveling that way.... I could very well be seeking my own death.

Not now. Not in my present state.

Mei, I’m sorry.... but I have to get to Akkala.

If they don’t find you soon, then I will.... when I’m strong enough to do so.

My map also said there was a Great Hyrule Forest to the north, but.... I couldn’t see it at all from the tower-top. Nor could I see the castle very well. The big dratted stone casing was in the way.

But then I considered.... well....

Did I really want to be visible to the great Calamity, at the top of a glowing blue tower so close to the castle?

Maybe the eggshell cap wasn’t so bad.

I spent a while at the top of the tower; I could still see a great distance over a broad area. I even counted the towers I had already been to; I could see all of them but Hateno. The Dueling Peaks looked like molehills, and the Great Plateau was so far away and tiny....

When the sky was dark again the rain came back—and I started to freeze. I’d been able to see my breath, and my cheeks had had that rosy ice-bitten tint to them, but I hadn’t realized I was that high up.

I put on my Warm Doublet and passed the night beneath the shelter of the tower’s rune stone.

With a Fine-Toothed Comb

Waking of Thursday, April 6, 2017

With a Fine-Toothed Comb

I spent a little time at the Woodland Stable. This one wasn’t crawling with sets of twins like the other one, and the man behind the counter seemed.... a bit more easy-going as well. There was a friendly dog shepherding over some goats in a pen—we became good buddies <3—er, the dog and I, not the goats and I—and I found a really lovely new labrys to swing around.

I saw a man come riding a grey horse along the road in the direction I’d been going; his name was Zorona and his heart was set on the mysteries of the world! Whether solving them or just reveling in their existence I wasn’t quite sure.

There was another man, with white-blonde hair dangling in his eyes, who hung around the stable. He introduced himself as Molo and it was his ambition to go and loot Hyrule Castle. I did not encourage him in this endeavor as we conversed.

He admitted that every person he’d ever known who had ventured there had never come back.... but he guessed it was because they were all too busy being rich! I don’t doubt there must have been great treasures left behind there.... but so many people I’d met had warned of how dangerous it was.... and I’d seen a few Guardians. Uhuhuh.

Molo, don’t say YOLO, just stay where you are.

One other older gentleman whose name I can’t remember informed me about the surrounding areas near the stable—this was the Eldin region. This was the home of the volcano. To the north was the great forest, but he warned me against straying too deeply into it, something about the Lost Woods at its heart.... And Hyrule Field was.... in another direction near here, south or east I think he said. And there was a third feature he directed me to, I’m sure of it.... maybe it was the volcano itself.

Well, it’s hard to memorize the whole map, as I discovered when I warped back to the Lanayru Tower. That other river I’d thought ran back toward the east off the wetlands was actually the other runoff from the East Reservoir Lake. I suppose it flowed into the wetlands. Or it would have, if not for the big dam wall in the way.

But it was, in essence, what I’d thought it to be: another extensive dead-ended waterway for me to search.

Starting from the tower I began a broad, clockwise trek around the entire delta proper, scouring the islets as I went, but saw no sign of Mei.

I did, however, near the southeastern reaches of my circuit, spy a GUARDIAN “STALKER” AS MY COMPENDIUM CALLED IT, LOOSE AND MOVING THROUGH THE MARSH OH GOSH NO PLEASE NO WHY JUST—

It had six legs, and it was very much alive—oh my gosh was this the one I’d seen loose on the Sahasra Slope, made its way down to the marshes now?

Oh gads....

Off came the Zora Helm, on went the Climber’s Bandana, and I climbed up into the mountains to give it a very wide berth as I continued my circuit of the wetlands. I did stop on a little grassy shelf with a single large tree to see if I could shoot it with arrows and chuck bombs at it, but.... well, I did give it a very wide berth. I couldn’t come close to hitting it with anything. I’m not sure whether this disappointed me or not.

If only I’d had a Korok Leaf.... I could do that bomb-golfing thing I’d seen David do....

I kept to the hills until I came to another little deep-water spot tendriling off the marshes in the southwest. It was near a sad little abandoned homestead ruin, with trees, and a well, and a single Korok spriting around in the grass. There were some rusted weapons here and there.... maybe it had belonged to a soldier. Maybe he’d had a family.

It started to rain.

There was a little raft-boat with a sail down near where the little waterway broke off.

But I didn’t have a Korok Leaf!

I’d never really made room for one in my inventory, but seeing David play.... hhhh I kept seeing more and more reasons to pick one up now. I’ve never yet bothered with the boats I’ve seen but I want to now....!

I felled a tree near the old homestead but got nothing but wood. Go figure.

Well, I couldn’t see anything down the short little waterway, and so moved on. The mountains crumbled away, the land leveled out, and became a smooth sweep off the wetlands.

I think this was where I ran into those mounted bokoblins.

I felt a little bad for their horses.... because you see, in my long searching trek through all the islets and the ruins therein, I’d run into a few more of those skipping lightning-ghost things. They could be tricky customers but I’d taken care of them, and stolen their Lightning Rod weapons. And it was one of these weapons I used to stop the charging bokoblin riders.

The peachy, skewbald steed I hit first seized up, neighing high and loud, and the bokoblin fell off and we had it out on the ground. I brought down the one on the brown horse in roughly the same manner. And then....

Well I got on the peachy one, and he bucked for a bit before calming down, but.... mm, the brown was closer to being a one-color horse, and so I got on that one instead.

He bucked too, but I soothed him and saw—this one had three speed-bursts at a gallop.

Brown only had two.

Well that could be useful....

I let this new horse carry me for a bit. His body was all brown, mane and tail black, with four black socks and a white muzzle. I don’t suppose he was anything fancy, but he was just dandy fine for moving across this flatter part of the land.

I left him at the shore at times, to go in and scout out more islets, or to kill lizalfos or bokoblins. And when I’d come back to him he’d wander a bit before I got on.... but he was a good, patient horse. Even when the lashing rain came back.

I rode the horse the rest of the way around the marshes and the surrounding areas. I even came across Tye and S.... Ssss—uh, Saaalisa? Salisa? I came across Tye and his sweetheart again. And killed their bokoblin assailants once more. I rode and searched and searched and rode until I came all the way back to the Moor Garrison Ruins, near where I’d first met Ledo.

I’d circled the entire marsh, and not seen one lick of the missing Mei.... I had even cleaned out every bokoblin nest I had come to and searched among all the buildings. I’d combed through the ruins, I’d left no stone unturned, no box unexploded.

I had not gone up the long waterway toward the Eastern Reservoir; I’d thought to save that for last as it was so extensive. But....

There was no sign of Mei.

Maybe she really was further down the river.

And this horse....

This chuffing, wandering horse was starting to grow on me just a little bit.

I decided to take him up to the Woodland Stable and have him registered.

I rode him into the marsh; it was quite shallow. But.... huh, to get him across to the north bank....

I consulted my map. The water was pretty deep on the north side of the big island. I might.... dear me, I might have to ride him through the boardwalks—

But then I remembered! Thims Bridge! Northward along the river! I could cross him over there.

And so I took the new horse along the other bank now with me, still keeping an eye out for the missing Mei. We had a nasty run-in with another bokoblin camp—the horse got stuck over a rock on the ground as they closed in around us—I did the best I could with a sword until they knocked me clean off. The horse made a break for it, but I could only turn my attention to the bokoblins and pray he didn’t run too far....

Turned out he didn’t. Also turned out the camp was full of high explosives, and I felt quite lucky none of them went off or was employed during the scuffle.

I bombed them just to clear the area, scooped up the spoils, and the horse and I moved on.

He moved at a nice clip, and the ever lurking Piano picked up on the change of movement and plinked happily along around us, sounding like raindrops in the sunshine. At such a pace it was only a short time before we came to Thims Bridge. But just before we did.... I heard a sound I hadn’t heard before. I slowed the horse, the Piano shied and flitted away, and I scanned the sunlit slope to my left, but could only see a couple of foxes.

And there it was again. High, soft.... kind of whistling.... it sounded like.... howling....

But no I was sure those were foxes. And as I came nearer, there I could see the red of their coats. And they scampered away at my approach.

Were there....

Are there wolves in Hyrule?

(I ain’t gonna lie; I seen a few fanarts with ‘em.)

Horsey and I crossed the bridge, and from there it was just a short trot back to the stable. I spoke to the man at the window, and registered my new steed.

I called him.... Thrice. Once for his three-fold endurance, and once for what I imagined must have been his third life—a life before bokoblins, a life with bokoblins.... and now hopefully third time’s the charmed life with Link.

I’ll take good care of him.

Besides, the name Mudfoot for his black socks seemed too sloggish and slow.