The Windy Canyon

Waking of Friday, January 11, 2019

The Windy Canyon

Ahhhh, Rito Village.

I wanted to find a shrine. There must have been another shrine.

I warped to Robbie’s to check that strange jut of land I had seen on my map—the one at the east end of that chasm that separated Hyrule from the north countries. It was just a raised bit of the topo that ran between the chasm and the eastern sea, flat for a good while as it jutted north off the Hyrulean landmass, and then degrading into rugged and more treacherous spiky formations that marched away to the northeast and off the edge of nowhere.

I had to kill a Lynel before I got there—such a daunting thing before—but once I’d made it to the spot, there was nothing to find after all. No hidden alcoves. Just that chime and You can’t go any farther once I came to the end of the flat part.

Filled with a kind of loneliness, I only gazed out into the mist and across the chasm to the towering northlands. Out of reach.

It looked kinda cool, so I took a pictograph.

After a brief warp to the Great Fairy Mija to upgrade my Barbarian Leg Wraps with a giant fairy-kiss to the face.... I consulted my map to see if I could find any other places I’d never tracked out on foot.

Tanagar Canyon. I’d never combed its bottom.

And so it was a warp to the Snowfield Stable and a jog and paraglide down onto the roof of the Forgotten Temple.

I had my work cut out for me here—Tanagar Canyon was huge.

The windy canyon stretched on and on before me, an endless beige track beneath the strip of sky over my head. Ruins and rubbled bits of stonework littered its floor, becoming more sparse as I moved away from the Forgotten Temple. These were hardly replaced by what scanty scrub had been able to take root in the bone-dry earth down here. And there were hecktons of wolves. Lots and lots and lots of wolves.

Dinraal passed overhead twice, but he was far out of reach of any of my bows.

And then my shrine detector went off! :D

I went and found it! It lay secluded in a jagged little corner veering off to the right—the north side—and back behind some large rocks. The Dunba Taag Shrine.

“Build and Release” was the name of the trial inside—it was a DEVILISH Stasis-based Shrine.

And that made 28 Spirit Orbs.

I must pray now, I thought.

But I am so tired.

I kept going, down to the south end of Tanagar Canyon—it curved that way—until I found a Goron who ran.... the Boom Bam Golf! Course.

The Boom Bam Golf! Course was a long, raised strip of the lower bedrock with some minor lateral angling to it, which connected to a large mound at one end with a sizeable depression in its middle. And a very tall flagpole.

Like any good Goron, this one, Modar, huffed and puffed and groared and whooped about the sheer and raw amazingness of his game and how awesome one would be to play it. He actually asked me, “if ya got the stones to strut your stuff in a game of BOOM BAM GOLF!”

Oh wow I can’t believe a Zelda game just said that! XD

So I played it. It was fun.

I didn’t like wearing down my weapons unnecessarily just to whack around the big Stasised golf ball, but....

It was fun.

I kept going. And toward the very last southern end of Tanagar Canyon, as the ground began to rise again.... brreep-brreep! went my shrine detector!

The canyon floor came gently up, curled around to the right and back northward, and it was there that I found the Kah Okeo Shrine, buried in a hole in the ground under a giant slab.

OH MY GOSH WIND GUIDE—THIS TRIAL—

THIS SHRINE WAS DISGUSTING.

But as soon as I had beaten it—Oh, I saw.

I guess that’s 29 Spirit Orbs now. Oops.

I was out of gas. I wandered north. The impassable chasm gaped stark and dusty to my left. Seas to the east and south, chasms and deserts to the north and west.... I wondered what the lands beyond were like....

Wandered north over the same beige rock.

Found a Gisa Crater with a Talus sleeping in the middle of it.

Pass.

This western coast of the country was long. And I was tired.

I called it a day, went to Pepp’s, and slept.

I guess I have 29 Spirit Orbs now. But I’ll pray next time anyway.

And the Women Better Singers

Waking of Sunday, January 6, 2019 ~ 8

And the Women Better Singers

I went talkin’ around, talkin’ around, and found the Rito Villagers to be happy again. :)

But it was most adorable when I caught one Rito woman, Bedoli, in mid-song. She was so happy that Vah Medoh had finally been appeased, she said, that she hadn’t even realized she’d been singing that old song....

It was an ancient Rito song.

“Teach it to me!” I said. :D

“Oh, well that’s embarrassing,” she answered, but she cleared her throat and sang:

The pride of the Rito, pillar in the sky,

its heart lights up when the sun is high.

And then, “...Uhhh. There’s more to the song, but I forget the rest of the words.”

XD I know that feeling, Bedoli.

She directed me, if I wanted to learn the rest of the song, to speak to her sister Laissa. And a Shrine Quest banner flashed across my screen: “The Ancient Rito Song”.

Well! :D

I ran back to the boardwalk, searching for this Laissa, and I found her in a house just lower down. She had the same plum-colored plumage as her sister....

Laissa said she would sing me the second half of the song, but only if I could recite the first half from memory.

And what followed was one of the most adorable tiny little dialogue guessing games I had ever played. X-)

I was given four response options, one of which was “The pride of the Rito”, and the rest of which were very similar. And in four consecutive parts of four choices each, I was made to reconstruct the verse that Bedoli had sung for me. And the rhyme fragments the localizers had invented were so lovely and clever! XD THIS. WAS ADORABLE.

Once I’d gotten the multiple-choice lyrics quiz right, Laissa sang me the second half of the ancient Rito song:

The heart shines upon a path not whole,

but a warming flame can stir its soul.

Hmmm.... but I thought I might know what that meant.... The “pillar” was surely the Neck of the Crane.... And I had seen a few pedestals around the edge of Lake Totori in the many times I’d taken in the view.... shadow games, perhaps?

This was further along that SHRINE QUEST anyway....

But.... first....

Kheel’s mom was looking for her.

In further meandering about the village, I had come across a light-green Rito lady named Amali. She was looking and calling for her daughter Kheel, but couldn’t find her. Did she go to the Warbler’s Nest? Amali wondered....

We were standing on the landing beside the shrine, and Amali pointed out the Warbler’s Nest to me—it was just across the lake, over on the shore: a group of tall, oddly-shaped stones encompassing a pedestal.

So that was the Warbler’s Nest. I’d seen it through my scope a few times.

Well, I’d be happy to go and take a look! I thought, :D and jumped off.

I paraglided over, and found the little Rito child straight away.

“Kheel what are you doing?” I said, “It’s late and your Mom is worried.”

“My sisters are big dumb dummies!” Kheel started. She lamented that they were all supposed to rehearse at the Warbler’s Nest, but nobody showed up. They were supposed to sing their song for the Elder here.

Then she looked at me more closely and said that I looked like somebody.... she could use....? What did she say? XD

“Thaaaaat is to say you look like a guy who likes to help people in need.”

That little snot! XD

Though now that I think about it, she did kinda have me there....

She told me to go get her sisters.

“They won’t listen to me, but they might listen to a scary-looking Hylian like you.”

Oh thanks, Kheel! XD

Heh, scary, huh? I guess it made sense.... What are Hylians to these bird-people? Weird little naked gremlin-things with squashed faces and stunted fingers? Our toes all facing in the same direction.... creepy!

And a new Shrine Quest was underway: Recital at Warbler’s Nest.

So many musical Shrine Quests! :D

Excellent! X-)

I let Amali know where Kheel had gone, but it was trickier than I thought chasing down all these little Rito sisters EVERYWHERE around the village, reminding them all of their promises to rehearse with Kheel. One was in the shop looking at ingredients, because another one, Genli (the youngest I assumed), was in the kitchen and wouldn’t rehearse until she’d had some Hearty Salmon Meuniére.... One was out actually catching the salmon from a pond on one of the rockspires leading out of the village how.... did a breed of salmon get up there?

And of course I was completely roped into helping make this dish—fortunately they provided the ingredients for me; all I had to do was cook it....

And the last sister.... was practicing on her own up on an obscure crag of the Neck. And she had the last ingredient, so I had to find her first before I could cook for Genli....

My goodness.

Once I seemed to have wrapped up all of their problems, I paraglided over to meet them at the Warbler’s Nest—I’m moving, I’m hustling, I get over there, I think I’ve got them ALL squared away, but—HOLD THAT THOUGHT—

The shadow of the Neck was about to pass over the other pedestal. That shadow-heart thing.... Gotta go do that....

I left the little sisters standing there and paraglided off the Warbler’s Nest ledge and down to the path that led around the lake, running as fast as I could to overtake the shadow....!

When I got to the pedestal, I hurriedly dumped flint and faggot onto its surface and lit it up with a strike of my metal sword—and it was burning. And the shadow was coming. It would cross the pedestal in just a few seconds.

And—wouldn’t you know it.... The shaft of sunlight spearing through the Hiker’s Hollow up in the Neck.... really did light up the ground in the shape of a heart! ^_^ How Friendly. ♡

When the Neck’s shadow completely encompassed the pedestal like the eye of a needle, the pedestal lit up blue beneath the little fire I’d made, and....

The Bareeda Naag Shrine rumbled up out of the earth just a half a stone’s cast inland!

Excellent! ^_^

Cannon was the name of the challenge inside. Just Cannon. Much fun with projectiles and a LOT of lucky shots.... Got through it in a breeze.

All the better. Once I was out, OKAY, I thought, now RUN BACK TO THE GIRLS! I even used Revali’s Gale to go faster and to get up onto the Warbler’s Nest ledge again. Handy! Thank you, Revali. ^_^

The five Rito girls were there. Kheel was so grateful for all my help getting her sisters to rehearsal that she gave me a Korok Leaf. I didn’t have room for it, but I just picked something to drop in the meanwhile so I could at least hold it. For Kheel said that if I were to use it to blow wind at the stones.... the stones would sing.

The girls meanwhile practiced their own song. They stood in a neat little line, but not in age-order—or at least, not in the order I’d seen them in when I’d passed their house at night and saw them in their little hammocks, which I assumed was age-order....

No, they stood in rainbow-order, making a lovely gradient between them all. ^_^

I spoke to Kheel again as they practiced, and she said that she didn’t understand all the words, but that there was one line that always caught her ear: “When the wind convinces the stones to sing, open the monk’s door will swing” or something like that.

Ah, I have to listen to them.

Out of their standing order in line, which seemed to be based on pitch, each one sang a single note in turn: 4____ 5____ 3____ 1____ 2____.

But.... the intervals were so constricted....

They repeated the pattern.

4—5—3—1—2....?

No, that last one wasn’t two, it was the tonic! It wasn’t 4—5—3—1—2.... It was 3—4—2—7—1!

Mi____ Fa____ Re____ Ti____ Do____.

Small steps. It was a cute little tune.

I stood on the pedestal between the stones. Each stone had a hole in the middle—reminiscent of those howling stones from Twilight Princess—as well as an identifying number of knobs on top. Useful....

Wielding the Korok Leaf, I swung it to send powerful air-thrusts at each of the stones in turn. Four knobs.... It resonated the first girl’s note an octave or two lower in an airy, bass-flute kind of tone. Quite a pleasant sound actually.

Five knobs.... Three.... One....

Two!

And on the final resonation is that even a word? No it’s not—And on the final resonance.... what should come up from a nearby spot of ground further inland but another shrine!

The girls all turned around at the commotion and reacted—“Whoa! Was that weird house always there?” “No!” “Who knew Warbler’s Nest was hiding such a secret?” And other such words.

They were adorable. ^_^ Not many people ever got to see me scare up hidden shrines. Much less children at that.

They all decided to fly back home to tell their mom all about it—“Last one back is an unhatched egg!” and such. XD And with a running start back toward the lake, they all fluttered into the sky, bright little rainbow in the sun....

Ah, those girls were sweet. ^_^

But I turned toward my LONG-CHASED PRIZE.

IT HAD BEEN SUCH A BIG DAY.

AND FOR SOME REASON I WAS STILL MOVING.

I AM GOING INTO THE SHRINE NOW.

THANK YOU GIRLS, BE GOOD, AND GOOD NIGHT.

I entered the shrine as the evening was turning the world to gold—the Voo Lota Shrine. The trial within was called The Winding Route.

I was just confronted with a ladder leading upwards out of a tight space.

Hm.

I followed it; the shaft was also very constricted, with no other opening but at the distant, distant top. And once I reached that.... there was only a narrow hallway going forward to a switch....

Not wanting to wear down my weapons any more than absolutely necessary, I simply laid a Bomb, backed up, and flicked my own switch, thank you, Ja Baij....

And right where I had laid the Bomb, right where anyone would have been standing who decided to strike the shrine switch more directly.... a trap door opened up.

Oh my.

I stepped forward and looked down.

Oh.

Ugh.

Freakin’ lava pit. @_@

It was a dicey but fairly maneuverable paraglide between the sparse structures, mostly by power of fan-drafts. But I got the Spirit Orb all right.

Okay, I really needed to get to bed.

Ran back to Rito Village. ‘Cause I liked it here.

I had 27 Spirit Orbs to my name.

I thought of all the places I had been. Kakariko. Hateno. Zora’s Domain. Goron City. Gerudo Town. Lurelin Village. Rito Village.

Mmm Kakariko Village was nice.

But this place was just calming to my heart.

I would pray to the Goddess Statue here.

The one with a crown of flowers.

But....

If I had just one more Spirit Orb....

That would put me at seven sets....

Seven.... That’s a good number....

Hmmm....

Another day.

Good.

Night.

All.

I’m sleepin’ in a Rito Down Bed from noon-fifty until tomorrow morning.

Good night.

<3

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 Desert Colossi

Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 2

The Desert Colossi

When I came out of the South Lomei Labyrinth, I skirted the hillsides all around once more for good measure, paraglided over the Champion’s Gate corridor, and headed north, continuing to comb the foothills between the highlands and the desert. More Koroks, more Violets.... and there were so many pillars to investigate.... surely there had to be a Korok on top of one of ‘em....

I stood sightseeing from the top of one of these pillars when.... PIANO. There was the Piano, and there was the laser, and a Guardian was after me, and I hopped off quick! Better to stay in motion—

I sailed wide as the bolts shot through the air, until I could reach the ground and have it out, and kill the thing.

When it was dead I looked up, saw how many pillars I had passed and left unsearched.... and decided to kiss that swath of land goodbye for the present—I was busy. Those Colossi were just ahead....

I continued north to the Land of the Goddesses—those gigantic statues so enormous they showed up on my topo—they must have been the legendary Seven Heroines....

I jogged over the sand to the break in their imposing circle.

The East Gerudo Ruins these were called.

Oh there had to be Koroks in here....

(And there were.)

It was one of the cleverer puzzles I had yet encountered, and it took a little bit of searching to riddle it out!

At each Heroine’s foot was a long extension of stone with a hollow at the end, near the center of the circle. A few metal orbs lay scattered about the area, each emblazoned with a mysterious symbol....

I found that one of the statues had a symbol corresponding to one of the orbs, carved into its foot. But most of the other statues didn’t even have any symbols.

But ah, they did, but theirs were carved into different places!

Inward from the outside, the Heroines bore symbols carved upon the Foot, the Breast, and the Hilt, while the central Heroine’s symbol was carved upon her Crown. And after an awful lot of climbing, I found out what each Heroine’s symbol was—clockwise from the break, I called them Yang, KOA, Donut, Twodots, Swipe, Flame, and Pause.

As it turned out there were seven of the corresponding metal orbs hidden all over the construct—some of them high up on the Heroine statues themselves! It was an ordeal and a half, full of a lot of Magnesing, to find them all and get them down to the sandy sink in the center. And I got quite good at scaling the large stone statues in the meanwhile, right up to the tops of their heads—Pardon me, Ladies.

!

I wonder if the Eighth Heroine has a symbol....

Oh now I must go check.

When I finally, finally aligned all the orbs in the ground-level hollows of their corresponding Heroines, WHAT SHOULD COME UP IN THE CENTER OF THE CONSTRUCT but.... the Korsh O’hu Shrine.

And it was a Blessing Shrine as well.

That was four Spirit Orbs.

Guessed it was time to pray again.

Ice and Fire

Waking of Wednesday, June 20, 2018 ~ 4

Ice and Fire

I wanted to see how the Thunder Helm looked on me, but I couldn’t equip it. Mmmm not unexpected, but.... Rats!

I had wondered, after I beat whatever I would surely face in the Death Hole Arena, whether I would be rewarded with something to protect me from the cold, as the only way to proceed from there was to climb above the frost line.

But that wasn’t the case.

Fortunately I had already accumulated just such gear elsewhere on my travels.

And so instead of simply warping back to Gerudo Town I decided to take the scenic route, and hiked further into the mountains. Remembering Vah Ruta and Vah Rudania, and how it was always unsafe to approach too near to them.... I just wanted to see if I could traverse the ridge lands before Vah Naboris took a permanent perch somewhere.

I chased my Shrine locator for a while, until I encountered the largest single block of ice I had ever seen. Two dancing Ice Wizzrobes guarded it—from a high ledge, I took the first down in one shot with a Fire Arrow. The second was a little farther away and I missed a couple of times.... but at length he went down, too.

The iceblock was huge. But I was positive that was where the shrine was. I shot a Fire Arrow into its face.

Nothing happened.

Well, the arrow burned against it for a little bit, but.... afterward there was no difference that I could discern.

David insisted it had done a little to melt the ice, but....

I didn’t have that many Fire Arrows.

I paraglided down and cleaned out the immediate area. How was I going to do this....?

I laid down some wood and flint, and struck the flint with my blade—a bright blaze flared up.

The frozen monolith stood solid.

What in the world was I—wait.

I held very still and looked carefully....

There were some subtle variations in the ice’s surface—drippings. And a tiny bit of steam clouding up into the air. But the ice—

There it was. Barely discernable, so slow it almost couldn’t be seen, the face of the iceblock slowly began to shrink away from the flames. And there on the ground! There was definitely a space growing between my woodpile and the foot of the ice.

But it was going so slow....

This needed more fire; I laid down more wood and flint partway around the side. But it was still too slow.... So I started another campfire around the back.

The speed of the ice’s melting was picking up, but....

It seemed a bit of patience was required to solve this puzzle as well.

The ice had receded so far away from my first campfire, I wondered if it was still having any effect. I didn’t want to build another fire.... though I could certainly spare the materials. I was just being stingy. I only like to splurge when I’m hunting big game and Guardians.

My fires burned all night long, and when the sun woke up soft and turned the snow all to roses, the iceblock’s mass shrank past its last vital threshold, and it steamed and melted away in a final watery sigh.

The Shrine of Kuh Takkar stood before me.

Kuh Takkar himself spoke to me twice.

Huh, no monk had ever addressed me twice before. He said something like “Offer me a block of ice and the way will open.”

Or some such words.

Well then! I had a look around. There was an—ice cube dispenser.... heh.... in the middle of the room, and all around seemed to be one long, upward ramp that passed through all manner of fire hazards before reaching the monk’s platform.

“My gosh, I feel like The Mosquito Coast!” I hollered as I made another attempt. A couple of times, there was nothing for it but to pass through the flames. My FlameBreaker Armor protected me, but my iceblock kept getting smaller and smaller....

It was just enough for Kuh Takkar when I reached him, though, and he gave me his Spirit Orb. That made seven of them I had. I needed to pray....

Even More Bad Things

Waking of Saturday, July 29, 2017 ~ 2

Even More Bad Things

The deep valley ruins were expansive.... but blessedly devoid of monster life.

I climbed all OVER looking for that shrine, my locator beeping feebly at me at every triangulation. The house was still full and the table had filled up a bit. The chatter drilling into my temples....

I asked them if they could chat in the living room instead, and they were very kind to oblige. But Dad stayed and sat by me, keen to solve the puzzle.

“Why don’t you try bombing that platform?”

I knew it wouldn’t work, but I did it anyway, and planted a bomb on one of the great stone octagons jutting from the floor. “Cool guys don’t look at explosions!” I sang as I leapt off the platform and detonated.

But the stone remained solid.

And when the sun had gone down— “Wait a minute wait a minute—what’s that up there?”

“Those are Luminous Stone deposits. They’re not a shrine.”

The beeping seemed to be coming from.... one of three large stones, between which I’d scared up a Korok. But.... there were no weak spots to bomb, no cracks to enter. Nothing I could do would upset such a huge piece of rock.

I finally said, “I’m going to go to the end of this.... construct.... and see if I can get underneath.”

Dad gave a single surprised laugh. “I wouldn’t have thought of that!”

It was a long jog. I hopped on one of the stone ribs in the architecture, making it my pathway as I ran toward the little horizon that indicated that the valley became deeper further on. I jumped over more stone octagons and ran and ran until I came to an edge.

The place was called.... the Forgotten Temple.

The valley indeed became much deeper here.

A wide patio-shelf of more stonework lay below me. I paraglided down to this second level, and had a look at the wall that held up the top.

There seemed to be a gigantic archway.... but it was blocked and filled with earth and giant standstony boulders.

But near the base was a bit that looked explodable!

Surely this would be my way inside!

I blew it up—!

A Korok hid behind it.

“Yahaha!” he giggled, “You found me!”

>_<

I walked to the edge of the second level, and saw a similar patio-shelf even further down. I paraglided down toward this third level, and was hungrily relieved to see that the archway in the wall between levels two and three.... was unobstructed.

I angled the camera as I touched down on the stone, so that I had a good look through the archway.

I registered only one thing: a number of dark mounded shapes.... like upside-down cereal bowls....

Those were Guardians in there.

I paused to flip the sensor in my Sheikah Slate to look for Decayed Guardians.

Unpaused.

Brreep-brreep! Even as I saw the nearest mounds light up red. Brreep-brreep! Their heads began to swivel. Brreep-brreep! Found me. Lasers locked on.

I RAN. Straight away. Straight toward the edge. Not bothering with any other controls. I just ran.

The camera remained directed at the open archway behind me, the horde of black shapes like spiders congregated in an overturned box, three hot red lasers boring into the back of my shirt—one of them blinking—it was going to fire, it was firing—

And BARELY I jumped off the edge in time—

The air began to rush and I caught myself with my paraglider before I hit the ground—the final rocky dirt bottom of this canyon.

“HAAAUUGH!” Dad and I looked at each other.

That was close.

“Only one thing left to do when you hit rock bottom,” I said.

“Dig,” said Dad.

“Start digging,” I concurred with a nod. u_u

I found a way to climb back up, which brought me back to the Korok level. I could paraglide down for another quick entrance this time.... Because there was something else I had noticed through that archway.... something absolutely ridiculous....

Air currents. Blasting up out of the floor. Meant to be sailed upon.

Heh, my brothers and I used to really enjoy playing a demo of a great little side-scrolling game where you controlled a paper airplane. The floor vents were your friend.

Seemed like the same story here....

Go nuts! Ben had told me at the lake.

I sailed in. The Guardians glowed red and began to swivel. I hit the ground for a few paces to regain the sliver of stamina I had spent. Jumped off the inner edge—there were so many of them in here—lasers tagged onto my shirt—the air current lifted me up—

One of the Guardians blew me out of the air and I fell in a flaming rush—too fast!—But I recovered before I hit the ground—the flames went out—oh my gosh so many lasers....

Up the updraft again, across the huge room—so many Guardians.

I neared a tall, thick barrier wall which seemed to bisect the length of the Temple—there was a hole in the middle of it. I headed straight for it, dropping a bit to get down to its altitude and inside it more quickly....!

I touched down on the last dregs of my stamina and ran to duck behind the mounded earth and rubble in this little alcove.

My gosh that was the LAST dregs of my stamina! Lucky I’d enhanced it as far as I had....

From my hidden perch I could see what that giant dark grey thing was at the far end of the Temple: an enormous statue of the Goddess.

My gosh it was like.... Skyloft....

What was this place?

There was still the other half of the room to cross.... and I crossed it, sailing through another net of pin-cushioning lasers and deadly blue bolts whizzing behind my back—how do you weave when the lasers come from so many angles?—but somehow none of them hit me—too low to make the hole in the last wall—had to drop to the floor, run through that opening down at floor level—lasers chasing me in—UHH!

I made it....

I made it.

And I found the shrine that had so MADDENINGLY eluded me up above.

And it was a Blessing Shrine.

You know, the Blessing Shrines seem to have the same muted music as a shrine you enter after it’s been beaten. Soft. Echoey. Like a memory or a ghost.

I received the Spirit Orb, the eighth I now carried with me, stepped outside, and prayed before the Goddess statue.

One Heart Container.

One Stamina Vessel.

One save.

And one quit.

My battery was out, and it was time for bed anyway.

KAAM YA'TAK

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 4

KAAM YA’TAK

The right fork of the river had been a dead end.

Drats!

I found some land to climb back up, and head back to the split above the little waterfall. The place where the bokoblins camped.

My old raft was gone.

DOUBLE drats!

But no matter, I could follow the left split of the river on foot. And I did.

Oh gosh I was covering so much ground so fast—gads it all kind of blurs together.... But with David’s guidance, and to generally increasing amusement at my sleep-deprivation.... I think this was where he steered me into the Shrine of Kaam Ya’Tak.

The Trial of Power.

What a racket was going on in that place....

“Tired is the Mormon drunk,” a friend once said to me, and I think I agreed.

I don’t know what inebriation feels like, but I’ve certainly tasted that special kind of loopy you get when you’ve missed a few REM cycles.

I don’t know why that shrine took me so long.

I don’t know how I even survived in there. Feeling so cautious and wary of crawlies and yet moving and acting on ahead with the abandon of the invincible. As if there wasn’t a deadly abyss right behind me as I skirted round a giant morningstar held off by shaky Magnesis....

And when David told me to look at the floor....

“What, that teeter-totter?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

There was a trapdoor spanning the corridor I had to move through.

“I died right there when I was in here.”

“Oh. Thanks!” I said, happy for the tip. ^__^

Poor David just must not have been running fast enough when he crossed it, I thought.

I backed up for speed, started running and took a flying leap onto it—

“What are you doing??” David gasped.

It tilted much faster than I’d thought it would! But I just kept jumping and my second footfall barely made it to the other side of the fulcrum and.... well I made it.

“Or you could just Stasis it!” he said.

“....Oh.”

I was also paranoid when I didn’t have to be—“What kind of Pokémon is that?” I asked when I saw a spinning kind of pedestal in the distance....

“Oh my gosh, you’ve seen it before,” said David.

“I think I’d remember seeing that before....”

“You know, the Apparatus thing?”

“The Myahm Agana Apparatus?”

“Whatever!”

“No....” I was positive if I got too close it would shoot lasers at me for sure.

But it didn’t. It was just an interface. And I used it to control a giant hammer to knock stuff around!

There were an awful lot of weapons hiding in chests in this shrine. And David kept making fun of me for agonizing over which weapons I should drop to make the trades.... I wasn’t going to give up my Korok Leaf! I did have a Traveler’s Sword, brand new but very weak—I’d been meaning to bring it back to somebody in Hateno who’d wanted one.... Ugh but I finally just let it go—I’d find another one later. Its final act was to fly through the air and slice the rope that held a flaming lantern above a floor littered with dry leaves.... the ensuing flames spread so astonishingly fast I almost didn’t notice the huge stone ball that nearly ran me over.... But at least I’d made my peace with discarding a weapon!

There were four treasure chests in there that gave me this fit—not to mention the weapons dropped by the Guardian Scouts—and David laughed every time.

“How much damage does your strongest weapon do?” he asked.

I thought of my Lucky Number 38—the Knight’s Claymore I believe it was called.

“Thirty-eight,” I said.

He rolled his eyes so hard he must have seen his own brain. “Thirty-eight?” he chewed in a haughty drawl.

I only grinned a glare at him.

He didn’t tell me his maximum damage.

I preferred it that way.

I did find a two-handed sword in that shrine that dealt fifty damage—handy! I used it to kill two Guardian Scouts in four strokes.

Because David had said those kinds of Guardians had a hundred hit points each.

I hadn’t known that—how had he?

Maybe he sneaked one of my amiibos....

(Yes, I have amiibos but I’m doing my first playthrough sans any extra helps.)

(Except the DLCs dang you, Nintendo....)

SOMEHOW—

SOMEHOW I CAME TO THE END.

I came to Kaam Ya’Tak, high on a platform above the giant rat race.

“YOU DID THIS TO ME,” I growled at him, and David laughed.

No, no, I tried to be nice, keep my head in the game, now—oh my gosh I was so low on sleep—

This was the best and worst shrine ever at the same time—

I collected his Spirit Orb, exited the shrine, and saw to my deepest distress—

“Oh my gosh!”

“What!” said David.

“There’s an aspen wood! Next to a body of water! With rocks in it! And the Dueling Peaks in the background!”

“You haven’t gotten that one yet?”

“NOOO!” I turned and ran in the opposite direction.

I had to find Mei.

Mind the Daisies

Waking of Saturday, March 25, 2017 ~ 4

Mind the Daisies

The last hump of grassy hill to the north bank of the river was not as bare as my map had made it out to be—a rusted Guardian slumbered there. I gave it a wide berth.

After trying and failing to sneak up on some deer through the rain, at last, at last, there was the Shrine.

I paraglided down to it, and no sooner had I run a few paces across the islet—Floret Sandbar—than an irate woman’s voice scolded me something awful.

I was ruining her flowers.

The game blacked out and put me where she was, on the south side of the island. She told me to watch my step for the love of all things holy.

Ah, I saw, it was like a corn maze. I just had to follow the bare grass winding round like a crop-circle.... which turned out to be easier said than done. Er, if you wanted to reach the handy items in all the dead-ends, that is.

And a fat blue chu popped out of the ground, and I found out quickly that I couldn’t swing my sword at it; the strokes were too broad. I needed a spear for straight thrusting.

This was more involved than I’d anticipated!

The woman brought me back to the start every time I messed up, and it was about four or five times! But eventually I made it to the shrine, and received a fourth Spirit Orb from the monk inside.

I’ve been calling them shamans, but.... when David started a game I noticed and remembered the term monk.

However, when I exited the shrine I wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to wind myself back out through the flowerbeds. But I didn’t bother. Instead, I warped to the mountaintop where Vah Ruta now resided.

I’d made a lot of friends in Zora’s Domain.... and I’d assured most of them I’d lend them a hand.

It was time to deliver.

Sirens of West Necluda

Waking of Saturday, March 25, 2017 ~ 2

Sirens of West Necluda

Long ago on the Plateau, as I went to meet the Old Man for the last time, I stopped inside the lower halls of the Temple of Time to visit the statue of the Goddess once more.

I had collected four spirit orbs by that point, and in exchange for those four spirit orbs, the Goddess offered to gift me with my choice of either stronger health or greater stamina. I chose health, and received another heart container.

I have been collecting spirit orbs and praying at Goddess statues for this purpose ever since.

But all throughout Upland Zorana, and for a long time before that, I’d only had three orbs to my name.

I knew of one shrine that I had left alone for a long, long time, back in West Necluda. It lay far to the north of the road, on the other side of a tree-smattered spread of hills I had not wanted to stray into, across a little bit of river, and on an island. I’d marked it with a marker in my Slate so long ago, but I had never gone back to it.

Considering the increasing treachery of the monsters in my path, I figured it was time to pay it a visit, and thus attain a fourth spirit orb. But I was in luck: my map of the Lanayru region, home to the Zoras, showed that I could more easily approach that island from the north bank of the river. It would be just a little dash across the wetlands I had already explored, over some mostly bare land, and it should be just right there. Easy in reach.

I warped back to the shrine in which I had weathered the lightning storm. There were still lizalfos lurking about; I killed a few. There was also one of those prancing spectres with the lightning rods—I’m sorry to say I rather ran away when he shot an electric keese at me—I couldn’t ready my bow in time to take it down, and I didn’t have any wood or bone weapons....!

But after I’d given myself some distance, I ran back in again and laid that skipping D-cell to waste.

The.... well I guess you could call it a boardwalk—was completely submerged in places, but I semi-followed it to some dry hills—and my shrine locator started beeping at me.

But.... it was in a different direction....

There were more shrines, it seemed.... very nearby.... but just off my map a bit....

I found a road as well, and people walking and riding along it! People I’d never met before. One man on a horse told me I might want to get close to Hyrule Castle thinking of finding treasure there.... but that I might lose my life along the way. It was too dangerous.

This world was so big.... No but what was I doing out here? Just the shrine. Just the one shrine and then I needed to get back to the Zoras; I still had all Ledo’s rocks in my pockets.... Though it wasn’t a bad thing venturing about for shrines, expanding my map.... after all, I had to find the other races and their leaders, and I had to find my memories....

Oh who was I fooling? —

This was a Zelda game.

The Sirens were singing.

I wanted to wander....

Maybe some of the Courage of my former life was coming back to me.