The Entry With No Name

Waking of Saturday, April 22, 2017 ~ 6

The Entry With No Name

“They’re ALL DEAD ENDS??” I howled.

I sputtered, trying to think. What had I missed? WHERE WAS THE LAKE?

“No, there was still that other split,” said David, “Open your map.”

I did.

“Right here.” He pointed to some squiggle of map line north of where I was.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

(Actually it wasn’t until the next day (technically later that same day) that I realized he meant that first split: between the flow that followed the map line southward, and the flow that wandered off west between the tall cliffs.)

(I was very, very tired.)

I ran around. Somehow there was stable music. David might have steered me toward it. The Outskirt Stable. To think there were people living so close to that dread coliseum....

My head was full. I couldn’t take in anymore.

I met a guy named Trott. He was so exhausted.

Ha, me too, buddy.

He worked at the stable, but the stable meals he said were all vegetarian. He really needed some meat to help him feel better.

Gourmet Meat he asked for. Maybe we could share it he said. I think? Did he?

Did we even share it?

I don’t know.

But I did have one Gourmet Meat. The one and only Gourmet Meat I’d ever harvested. Fresh from the wolves of the Elma Knolls.

I handed it over.

I’ll just say we each ate half and felt like kings.

I like that story better. <3

Another of Staysi’s Rumor Mills was inside on a table. Volume three this time, and it spoke of the mystical creatures known as Koroks.

Hm.

That’s pretty neat.

I also spoke to a lady who stood under a nearby tree—was it raining at the time? She was liable to be struck by lightning if she wasn’t careful....

But she just clapped her hands and jumped for joy and said, “I knew the Hero of Legend would meet me under THIS TREE.”

Ever unassuming, I just gave her a bleary “What?”

“Oh,” she said, “Come to think of it, you do look a bit scrawny to be the Legendary Hero.”

Scrawny?

“And you don’t seem to have his legendary weapon, either....”

Aw geez would this broad just lay off, I was doing the best I knew how....

Another person at the stable told me about Satori Mountain, and the “Lord of the Mountain” that lived there. Hm, may have been Quince’s glowing beast....

Satori Mountain was that dun, conical mountain I had seen through my scope. The one with the occasional glow at its crest at night. I was quite close to it here at the Outskirt Stable.

And I could see there was a shrine up there, too....

Yet another person told me about some place nearby where I could find an elusive pure-white horse. He guessed it might have been descended from a horse that once belonged to the Royal Family.... and he asked me if I could bring it to him.

I agreed without even thinking.

People told me what was around. Hyrule Ridge. Rito Village? Was it here that someone mentioned a Rito Village?

Where even was I, that a Rito Village could be so close?

And what was Hyrule Ridge?

I didn’t retain any of the directions people gave me. Everything went in one ear and out the other.

I wanted to start back up the river, keep looking for Mei, trusting in David’s imagined split that I could still follow, but....

It was so late....

And I was so, so tired.

I had to think about tomorrow. I had to go to bed. I had to get up in five hours to get ready for church. The sun would be up soon anyway, oh gads....

I’d done three shrines along the way I think.... no towers, though.... But no matter, I just wanted to hurry....

But wouldn’t maps prove so useful?

“Hey what’s that? That tower down there?”

David kept taking the most transparent SUDDEN NOTICE of this tower on the plain that he wanted me to go climb.

He’d told me earlier that that one had been.... most intimidating.

Just scary.

Do I go back up the river? Or do I do the intimidating tower to get another map? Or do I climb Satori Mountain? Or do I chase a white horse?

All of Hyrule was my oyster.... I mean.... my shellblade....

But....

But I needed to sleep. I needed it....

I had to stop.

I had to stop.

I wandered back to the Outskirt Stable....

And booked a bunk.

And slept.

And in my dreams, the Princess’ voice came back to me again, warning me it was another Blood Moon, and I had to be careful....

Never slept through one of those before. Excluding the previous century of course.

And in my actual dreams, in my actual bed, I was fighting a lizalfos, and I killed it, and its awesome weapon and AWESOMER shield went tumbling down, waaaay far away from me, into this sunny little grassy dell beneath a tall grey cliff, where no fewer than FOUR Sheikah Shrines sat very close to each other amid the shallow pools of water at the bottom.

I had been hunting EVERYWHERE for that shield....

I ran down, rooting here and there to find it, batting away more lizalfos and caring nothing for activating the shrines—I WANTED THAT SHIELD.

“That shield is an army of swear words,” I grumbled in my sleep.

Oasis in the Water

Waking of Friday, April 14, 2017 ~ 3

Oasis in the Water

Well.... I did feel somewhat silly for passing over this entire little settlement for.... gosh I dunno how many Blood Moons.

But from here on out, it looked like visiting Tye and Sorelia was going to become a whole lot easier.

This was the Wetland Stable, and it seemed a laid-back, easy-going place. An older kid named Yorelo was playing swords against a dummy—except he was using a torch. “The Master Torch!” he called it, “Burning away evil with its flames of justice!” or something along those lines. It wasn’t even lit....

Well that was.... cute. Wished I could’ve pat that kid on the head, even tall as he was, close to my own height. Oh, you dear sweet child. XD

Yorelo’s younger brother Ami had somehow been resigned to assist visitors like myself, and he was bored out of his skull for it. He only let me ask of the compass directions, and gave me the barebones directions of what was nearby. East?

“Zora’s Domain. That’s it.”

North?

“Death Mountain. Duh.”

West?

“Well Mr. Perceptive, that would be Hyrule Castle.”

Or some such words from this kid. Really, this place was just charming. XD Wish I’d found the middle-brother; Ami said they had one....

When I asked him what was to the south, he said I’d just have to go there and ask at the Riverside Stable to find out.

Huh, so it seems there are more stables about than I’d realized.

I had seen disconnected snatches of roads on my map, but so far I had only been keeping to the veins whose entire lengths I could see. I didn’t go trying to make connections between the pathways—and what if I’d just kept following whatever road I came across? I’d had business I was about, and roads have a tendency to keep going. I might very well have been swept right off my feet and away.

Maybe that was why I’d never come upon this Wetland Stable. Or the “Riverside Stable”.

Just trying to stay focused.

Hm. Though now I’m wondering about how I shall approach Akkala.... I’d been thinking about just paragliding down from Toto Lake in the Upland Zorana, but.... come to think of it, I think there was a road that must have gone that way.... yes, if I go downstream from Inogo Bridge and hang a sharp right.... yeeaahh.... And I think I saw another stable through my scope along that way, too....

Well, there were a few more people about the Wetland Stable. A man named Kazul rode his horse along the road; I think he might have warned me about the dangers of the lands so close to the castle....

There was a Doctor Spoone, whose name made me smile. Seemed he was one to travel around instead of holding down a practice in one location. Seemed like a nice man.

Beedle was there again, and as we perused each other’s goods he flipped out at the sight of my . . . . well I can’t remember the name but it’s some kind of golden rhino beetle with special properties, and it’s apparently quite rare....

It’s not the first time he’s asked after it, offering to trade me elixirs and other things.

I haven’t given it to him though. Not least of all because I’d hate to trade away the only one I have of anything in my inventory. We’ll see what the future will bring.

Inside the stable, on a tabletop, was an open book belonging to one Staysi, who seemed to produce these Rumor Mills (this was volume five)—and this one made just one claim, based, from what I gathered, on some hearsay from young children: DRAGONS ARE REAL.

(David has asked me more than once if I’ve seen any dragons. Huge, HUUUGE dragons, he says. And I just keep telling him, No, no I haven’t. Has he seen any rock-monsters? Like.... Gorignak-style rock-monsters? He keeps saying No.... no he hasn’t.)

And then there was QUINCE.

Quince was standing a little away from the stable, in the company of a shepherd-dog, both of them gazing intently into some distant hills.

When I approached him, he started, “What the—seriously? Another guy?” And he lamented to me that that was all there were around here. Just guys.

And I raised my eyebrows as I recalled—he was right; I hadn’t seen any women. I guess we were quite close to Hyrule Castle. Womenfolk probably wouldn’t want to come out here....

“And when we finally were visited by a Zora,” Quince continued, “turned out it was just some manly prince guy who’s a dude.”

Oh, so Prince Sidon had come all the way out here, too....

I asked Quince about the Zora.

“The Zora? They’re like.... slippery fish people,” he so eloquently explained.

Hm, seemed I may have been meant to come to this stable some time much earlier.

But no worries.

Quince also told me about his dog. Natty, I think, was its name [it was Satty]. He asked me if I wanted to know how they met; it sounded like it was an involved story....

But I told him I’d listen.

There was a mountain, he said, Satori Mountain I think he said it was called. At certain times on Satori Mountain, animals of all kinds would appear, and so Quince had gone there to go hunting for game.

He asked me if I was bored. I told him to keep going.

Did he say the animals all disappeared at one point? Or could he just not find them to begin with? I don’t remember. He said at some point there were no animals, but there appeared before him a large, glowing beast.

“And then?” I prompted him when he paused.

He ran for it, and this glowing beast chased him through the mountain I gather, until at some point he was cornered. The beast loomed over him....

“And then?”

All of a sudden this tiny little pup comes out of nowhere, jumps between him and the beast, and starts yapping and growling, and the beast, ten times its size, pulls up short, startled.

“AND THEN??”

In that split-second when the beast took pause, Quince gets up, grabs the pup, and bolts down the mountain and he made it away to safety.

PHEWF.

And that was where his Natty came from, and they’d been together ever since.

Heh, Quince was quite a good storyteller.

....

I’ve seen a strange mountain sometimes when I scan the horizons with my scope. It’s quite plain and dun, a little lumpy but otherwise fairly conical. Something.... glows at its crest. I wonder if that’s the same mountain....

Perhaps an excursion for another day.

Kass had been the first person I had spoken to at the stable, in another life, in another save. (I’d quit the game under some intrusive buzzkill. It was only a little deviation....)

Now he was the last person I spoke to.

Because he did what he did before, and asked if I’d like to hear another song of his.

And I said Yes.

It was longer, this one, and it told the tale of the Hero of ten thousand years ago, same as Impa had told me. How the land of Hyrule had been prosperous, and advanced, and protected.... and how they had prepared against Calamity Ganon by building the Guardians, and the Divine Beasts.... and how the Champions who piloted the Divine Beasts had aided the Hero, and how the Guardians had protected the Hero, and how the Hero had struck Ganon down, and how the Princess with Goddess’ blood had sealed Calamity Ganon away with her holy powers....

Very nice song.

Seemed the Wetland Stable was just full of good storytellers.

Kass returned to his counterpoint (which I’m pretty sure included sections of Epona’s Song) as I parted ways with him.

I’d had a fine time familiarizing myself with some of the stable people, but I really did need to do that shrine. It’d be nice to have another warpable here off the wetlands.