Huppenwoop

Waking of Saturday, November 3, 2018 ~ 2

Huppenwoop

With the controller recharged I started up at the Serenne Stable again, ready to head to the colder climates of the northwest....

But....

....Was there some kind of buzzkill risk? What slowed me down?

I warped away to Cotera instead.

I had her upgrade some of my Desert Voe Gear, not that it would do me much good north of Serenne.... But....

Mmm I wanted to upgrade more things but when you upgrade things it flings them to the back of the closet; didn’t want to max out too many items before I got to my Champion’s Tunic; wanted to max that one out sooner so that all the other items being upgraded and flung to the back would push it forward onto the front page again....

Dratblast it I didn’t have any Naydra horn! I needed Naydra horn to enhance the Champion’s Tunic....

I had tried to set myself up at the perfect launch point to head into the cold northwest and finally fill in my map.

But I wanted that Naydra horn....

I warped to Mount Lanayru instead, and LOITERED.

I was waiting for the dragon, and it took forever. I paraglided down a bit, and then climbed back up and then climbed up on top of the ice pillars and then paraglided some more.... Down the slope of the mountain I stood on a pedestal of ice. Just stood. Lookin’ cool. Swiveling the camera.

“You know,” I said to David, “I’ve seen you, and everybody else, climbing around tall mountains with that friggin’ Wingaling Hat on your heads.” Just something I’d seen from further unintented glimpses.

David briefly gave me a funny look and then, “Oh,” he said knowingly.

“What do you think of me just climbing around in my Ruby Circlet and Warm Doublet?”

He thought for a moment, then said in a chiding voice, “Inefficient.”

“I killed a Lynel in this thing.” I nodded toward the Warm Doublet. “How do you like me now?”

“I said inefficient, not insufficient.”

“Have you ever killed a Lynel in this thing? It’s got, like, one defense.”

“I’ve never killed a Lynel.”

Well that made me feel right hoity-toity.

I climbed around some more, making Link jump and burning my stamina. “Hup! Hup! Woop! Huhn!” said Link.

“Careful you don’t run outta hup,” said David.

Link wooped.

“Or woop,” I said.

“Hupp ‘n woop,” said David.

“Huppenwoop—that sounds like a band. Like.... Steppenwolf. Huppenwoop.”

“Like a band?” David laughed. “Huppenwoop.”

“Why do I know that name? Didn’t they do....?”

“Magic Carpet Ride,” David supplied.

“Yeah, yeah, I knew it was something from Star Trek.” I had that soundtrack. Good one.

I made sure not to run out of huppenwoop.

I stood some more, waiting for the dragon. I scoped in to look at the layout of the land, and where Lanayru Road was, and what lay between here and there. I told David about the big gross Hinox snoring away in the place with the pristine-sounding name of Purifier Lake. “Nice,” I sneered.

I looked at the low snowfield in the foothills and the little forested area beyond.

“I could go and kill the Hinox. And kill the Lynel.” I considered.

“Gosh!” David burst, “What the heck, I mean you used to be the person that, like.... a speck of dust might move across the screen and you’d be like ‘Oh my gosh what is that run away!’”

“Or that thought a goat was Beast Ganon?” I reminded him with a grin.

“Yes!”

I paraglided down to Lanayru Road a couple of times. I was sure Naydra would make a pass there, or at least I had my suspicions....

And eventually.... HE DID! And I GOT that Naydra Horn! Huzzah! I KNEW he made passes through that valley! I knew that had to be him I’d seen reflected in the microwave door that one time....!

The Long Way Back

Waking of Wednesday, May 10, 2017

The Long Way Back

I shared a somewhat.... irksome exchange with David the other day, as I lamented to him about all the dead-ended rivers I had searched. I told him I had searched every waterway downstream from the wetlands, and that none of them led to Lake Hylia.

And in a terrible digging voice and with shrewdly narrowed eyes he answered, “Are you sure?”

Well.

I did wonder about that lake beneath Digdogg Suspension Bridge, and I hiked to the actual bridge (upon which I had never set foot) to have a look. In skirting round the sleeping Hinox and peering down over the edge, the water really did seem to come to a dead end just there.

But I wanted to be thorough. I pressed on into the desert landscape of the other side, had it out with a couple of mounted bokoblins—and one of their horses, a pretty, peach-dusty thing with a sandy mane, decided he didn’t want me on his back, and promptly jumped us both into the drink.

David lost it completely.

I just.... blinked.

....

The horse looked like a good mount, but I had no stamina for swimming after him, and so warped to the shrine just away beneath the bridge. After that it was a boat-ride back to the waterfall, a quick ascension in my Zora Armor, and.... I was still quite far away from where I had been....

But, as I was so close to the Great Plateau, I simply put on my Warm Doublet, warped to the shrine on the icy mountain, ENCOUNTERED A STRANGE TREASURE CHEST with the letters “EX” on it—for a moment I was terrified it might be a T-shirt or something.... but it was Bomb Arrows—don’t ask—and PARAGLIDED back to Digdogg Suspension Bridge.

I’d dealt with the bokoblins, and I finished off their friends in a nearby treehouse—David got quite a kick out of the Great Thunderblade I had acquired from Sheem Dagoze.

And after a good look about the place.... I decided that Yes, this really was a dead end to the river.

Ignoring my shrine-locator’s beeping, I ran all the way back to the Outskirt Stable.

It was....

It was time to start back. And set my face toward Akkala. And Robbie.

I did still decide to do this all on foot, however.

“Aren’t you gonna just.... Beam-Me-Up-Scotty?” David asked.

“I don’t wanna Beam-Me-Up-Scotty,” I said.

“You’re gonna walk the whole way?”

Well, maybe I’d Beam-Me-Up-Scotty just a little. I warped back to the Sheem Dagoze Shrine, and started north, for the Elma Knolls.

But first I came to that big toothy crack in the earth, found a shrine in the bottom of it, and completed that—I’m up to nine Spirit Orbs now; I really should find a Goddess statue....

And after that it was a very long jog past that sparse ruin over the water where I’d played hide-and-seek with the Korok—The Ancient Laboratory Ruin or something like that—aaaaall the way across the Elma Knolls with their endless wolves, and those mounted bokoblins with the fire arrows or whatever they were.... Got hit a couple of times there—

I didn’t feel like chewing through my food, but decided that, if I fell, I would just rely on Mipha.

What good is a gift avoided? And Mipha’s was a very good gift.

It was a very long trek, and the bokoblins cut me down to one heart, and a mob of giant blue chuchus cut me down to one quarter heart—but I kept running. And I kept killing wolves, never shying.

And it was raining, and I found Mils and Mina—not Nina, as it turned out—fighting against some bokoblins on the road, and I helped them out, and—

“Well there’s a split off the river,” said David.

I looked toward the castle. Beneath the unholy Calamitous Clouds, one fell fork split off and meandered away into the blackened landscape. It looked just like another part of the moat.

“I don’t think Lake Hylia’s in there,” I gestured to the castle lands.

“But.... open your map; maybe it connects with.... these down here.”

He indicated some rivers along the vein that ran between the Dueling Peaks.

“ . . . . Huh,” I said, “Maybe.” Perhaps.... this warranted some looking in to.

Also I had the feeling David was . . . . mmmm maybe nudging me around a bit.

The sun came out like a bad cliché when I finally jogged onto the friendly grounds of the Woodland Stable. It was 11:15 in the morning. I decided to take a forty-five minute nap to rejuvenate my aching one-quarter-heart body, and at noon, I took Thrice out for a ride.

We took the Thims Bridge road, over the mossy mounded hills and past the Honeydell—saving Leekah from a bokoblin on the way of course. But I stopped at one junction of the road I had never explored.

“Stay here,” I told Thrice, and climbed a bit over the rocks beside the long stretch of a T-junction. The stretch that pointed toward the castle....

“In my experience,” said David, “The closer you are to the castle....”

The farther you are from harm? I thought hopefully.

“The closer you are to trouble,” he finished.

“I’m just gonna take a little look,” I assured him, inwardly thinking how VERY like Famous Last Words those sounded....

I crept among the rocks until I was high enough to peer into the central plain before the castle. There at the base of the hill I was on.... coursed a little river. Flowing north to south. One that very probably could only have come from that split David had shown me earlier, among the big cubic stones surrounding the castle.

. . . .

Maybe....

Maybe....

I looked at my map again.

The river system near the Dueling Peaks.... the river that this one by the Honeydell may have connected with.... was called the Hylia River. And it was joined by the Squabble River from the Dueling Peaks....

But further downstream it was still called the Hylia River....

And then it ran away southward off of my known map.

Could it be . . . . ?

I came back to Thrice, and we pressed on to the Wetland Stable—saving Leekah again on the way—and I stopped.

Oh I was aching to go on. I had arced all the way north around the castle again in a great upside-down U, and I still had the drive and energy to keep going....!

But it was late again, and I did have to get up early.

But to be absolutely sure....

To see those waterways....

There was one more thing I could do in pursuit of the hapless missing Mei.

And it lay at the top of the alleged scariest Sheikah Tower in all the land.