Divine Beast Vah Medoh

Waking of Sunday, January 6, 2019 ~ 4

Divine Beast Vah Medoh

“Well now,” said a well-polished voice as I stood on the Divine Beast, “I think I’ve seen that face before.”

Revali!

“I had a feeling you would show up eventually. But making me wait a hundred years is a bit...indulgent.” The rapier glimmered in deigning to even prick me.

“You’re here to wrest control of Medoh away from Ganon, correct?”

I was.

Revali pointed me toward the interface and Sheikah Stone from which I could distill the local map, asking at the last if I thought I could make my way there.

Huh, didn’t sound like he thought any more of me, after all these years.

I made it to the map terminal just fine; it was in the bird’s head, seemed like. Two large, circular windows—Vah Medoh’s eyes—were set into the walls on either side of the chamber, which was surprisingly smaller than I’d have thought.... this being a Divine Beast.... I feel.... like I’ve written this before....

Once I’d distilled the map into my Slate, Revali ran down the control terminals, stating that I would need to activate them all. And then, again, “Think you’re up to it?”

Even now, his voice bore a tinge of.... snideness.

Well.... Better start makin’ my way around, I thought.

I checked out the Divine Beast’s controls. Tilt? It looked like I could rock the wings....

And I regarded the inside of the torso. I’d seen it getting to the head, but now studied it more closely in light of how the Divine Beast might move.

A number of large blocks were suspended in the central space, far removed from both floor and ceiling, but all on the same horizontal plane parallel to the ground. The two metal blocks were attached to two rails that spanned the space from fore to aft. The three stone blocks ran on rails crossing between starboard and port.

I could see—the metal blocks I could move with Magnesis, but the stone blocks would slide according to the tilt of the Beast.

OH this could really screw things up. I hated disrupting their discovered orientation, and knew I probably wouldn’t be able to restore it, but I wouldn’t let that stop me now! Besides, it looked like different orientations would give access to different areas. So I started moving, Vah Medoh cried out at my commands, and I made my way into the port wing.

With the bending of the world inside the Beast, I found that the tilt of the inner decks was at a steeper grade even than my paragliding angle. This meant I could fly farther and longer, but it was dizzying—never paraglided up to something before....

Inside the port wing—MALICE MOUTHS?

OH GOSH WHAT—THIS WAS UNHOLY!

I KILLED IT.

Ugh. ._.

Also, the music sounded.... poisoned.

This place did NOT want me here.

I came to the first terminal and activated it.

“There are four terminals remaining,” came Revali’s voice, “Still a ways to go.”

And that was when it all.... turned.

Oh my gosh, this music was so freaking.... the strings....

THE STRINGS. I CAN’T.

THE DESPERATION.

THE HOPE.

As the music of the early Beasts had been open, and neutral.... and then turned dark and insidious once it caught on to me activating the terminals....

And as the music of the following Vah Naboris had started out in seething anger at my presence.... only to give way to a brighter, stronger sound as I claimed more territory, returned hope to the ancient contraptions....

Now the music of this final Beast—what the harmonic minor....—at first poisoned in the wretched wrath and fury of a cornered, dying thing.... at my DARING to move forward for the kill and the entire reclamation, was now running, now flying, now clinging and willing and praying in the desperate heat of a final bid for freedom from the darkness. Undauntable not by choice but by necessity. Surely this music had to be the culmination.

There is hope for the world, I thought.

There is hope for this world.

I found the second terminal behind a gusty, howling puzzle involving a very large, round porthole in the wall that I’d had to open.... and activated it.

“There are three terminals remaining!” Revali’s voice echoed, “Keep going.”

And Hey! I could see Shatterback Point out the window! And Death Mountain! As we wheeled through the sky....

I can’t take this music, it’s.... it’s too amazing.

I couldn’t find the lower terminal in the port wing indicated by my map, so I went to the starboard side and locked down the third terminal there. Paragliding upward to find treasure chests was so strange....

“There are two terminals remaining. You’re almost there.”

He sounded.... surprised.

I looked out another porthole I’d opened, and I could see Mount Nero! And the Tabantha Tower! Clear as day.... Right there.... As if I were only paragliding very, very high.... All the world stretching out before me.... So many familiar landmarks.... all close enough to fly down and touch....

The music was not changing anymore with the different terminals.

It was still just that strong, determined, indeterrable, indomitably swelling string section.

There is still hope for this world.

My Compendium already had pictographs of Cursed Bokoblins and Cursed Moblins.... Now in the lower part of the torso, down on the floor, I finally got a pictograph of a Cursed Lizalfos.

Gross.

There was a Malice Mouth down there, and it would occasionally spit these undead floating skulls out into the room.... It was.... really alarming, when the Cursed Lizalfos saw me and just.... rushed me in this distorted flying lurch—

I prefer the live ones.

After I’d gotten the pictograph and killed the skull, I found and accessed an outer deck via a large open hatch on the starboard side. This deck wrapped around to the fore in a broad and happily uniform kind of walkway. The arc of it passed beneath Vah Medoh’s neck and continued round to the port side, where a similar hatch led back into the central chamber.

That was where the eyeball was. The eyeball to that mouth what’d been spittin’ out gross things.

I shot it.

That cleared up the central chamber all right, or it cleared it up enough—there were always little rogue Malice Pools you couldn’t get rid of, and which you just had to watch your footing around.

But after that I went back outside, for I had seen something else along the outer walkway....

There were launch points out here. Like grandiose diving platforms, complete with ornate little railings leading up the steps to nowhere. I could imagine the ancient Rito who must have manned this thing diving off them into the sky....

And beyond the port side launching platform, I could see, there, in the belly of the port side wing.... there was the next terminal. Standing in an open belly hatch near the wingtip.

I would have to fly to get there.

Oh my gosh.

So—I tilted the bird—rocked the port wing down into a dip—the Rito Rock was RIGHT THERE below—I had stood on that rock—the angle aligned and the port wing was down—and—

I flew.

Oh my gosh this music COULD NOT be more.... appropriate.

I did not want to let go of my paraglider until I was WELL inside the little hollow of the belly hatch. I landed on the pedestal itself, in a deep recess far away from the door, and ACTIVATED.

“Just one terminal remaining!”

And he laughed a little huff.

“What do you know?”

Still sounded surprised.

I rocked Medoh’s wings the other way and paraglided back to the main deck. Now I’m dropping the Vah....

Starboard side? The last terminal was in that wing, but.... I hadn’t been able to reach it via the inner decks....

I jogged through the Beast and out onto the other external walkway.

There. It must have been in the same, opposite belly hatch.

And that was guarded by a Malice eyeball.

The last terminal must be in there....

It took a few arrows, but at the proper tilt, I was able to shoot the eyeball at long range. And once its attendant cluster of Malice had evaporated, I scoped in and could see....

There was a gondola!

The track ran above, attached to the underside of the starboard wing!

I tilted the Beast, brought it to me.... and rode it.

I stepped inside, rocked the wings back the other way and it started moving my gosh I was.... I was in the air with so little to hold me.

“Don’t fail me, Gondola....” I murmured.

The apparatus seemed so spindly. Somehow I didn’t trust it as much as I did my paraglider....

But it held firm, and took me well into the starboard belly hatch. At the far end was an upward ramp leading back to the inner deck. The last terminal was up there....

I’m here, Revali.

I activated it.

“That was the last terminal! Now you just need to start the main control unit!” Revali’s voice echoed in what sounded like impressment. But he quickly brought the rapier under a fine-tuned control again, “I want you to take a good look at your map. There should be a new glowing point on there. Well?”

Still condescending a bit.

But I don’t mind.

“Flap to it!”

And the aforelocked door between this last terminal’s antechamber and the rest of the starboard side wing-deck opened. I was free to move back into the interior of the Beast, bypassing the gondola.

The music has changed.

This is desperation. This is some kind of wire.

Have I gotten all the chests? I think I have....

I feel like I need to hurry.... This music....

This is it.

The Last Frontier

Waking of Saturday, January 5, 2019 ~ 2

The Last Frontier

From the Ancient Columns and down the gentler, grassier back of the hill, I sported with a few Moblins and a lily-Korok before striking toward the Sheikah Tower.

The tower stood at the crest of a rocky hill to the north, across an empty gorge where the road bent and twined. Malice crawled all over the stones around the tower’s base. It was at a lower altitude than where I was, but I could tell I wouldn’t be able to paraglide directly onto the tower. The best I could hit was partway up the slope on the gorge’s far side.

Mom was with me during this part. I enjoy.... just being with my Mom. Even when she still starts and warns and cautions whenever I run along the edges of cliffs or take flying leaps into the air.

She is a Good Mom. <3

I floated over, scrambled up the far slope, and came to where the tower was. Malice completely encompassed its base; I couldn’t access it. There were a few tall stones standing here and there; I thought perhaps if I could get on one of those.... I could paraglide from one to the other.... maybe paraglide onto the side of the tower, but.... No, the distances were too great. I’d fry in the slime.

“Gooped. Ya got gooped.” –PBG

I couldn’t climb a stone and float over to the tower, but....! There!

I found an eyeball. :)

I shot it, it poofsploded and evaporated, taking a lot of the Malice with it, and the column it had been surrounding collapsed against the tower! Access!

And a long climb through the fargazing music later, I was at the top.

This was my last Sheikah Tower. The Tabantha Tower.

I set my slate into the pedestal, distilled the rune, and.... ♪You get the thing!♪ ....The last blank space on my map populated. This was the Tabantha Frontier.

Complete Map of Hyrule Extracted, said my Slate.

Wow! ^_^

The Rito Rock—that tall, oddly-shaped spire—Heh, Oddly-shaped indeed—it looked like a bird!—Although.... that Oddly was probably a mockingbird or a grackle; this rock spire looked more like the neck and head of some kind of crane or stork....

*AHEM*

The Rito Rock, I could see from the tower, was so close now, standing tall and straight, its neck hewn all up and down with odd angles from erosion, and its “beak” jutting out at a stark perpendicular angle at the top. I could see, both from the tower and on my map, that the spire actually stood in the middle of a sizeable lake. Huh.

Okay!

I considered, as I was so high up and could see all the world laid out before me. I could have struck out on a more direct route to the Rito Rock, but.... I decided to follow the road instead. Rather unlike me, now that I think about it.

It was rife with Lizalfos.

But after cutting and dodging my way through so many belligerent hoodlums I came at length to the Rito Stable. This was the one I had seen from the edge of Hebra.

Kass was there.

After talking with some of the other people there, I approached him.

He was happy to see me in one piece! The feeling was mutual as always. ^_^ And here so close to his hometown of Rito Village, he said he was feeling terribly homesick, and confided to me that he’d had to leave his wife and children back in the village.

Kass has a wife and kids? I thought. My goodness!

I never knew.

“But I can’t go home until I fulfill my promise to my teacher,” he said.

“Promise?” I asked. It was my only option.

“My promise to... No, perhaps now is not the time.”

He said he would tell me, in Rito Village, once he learned all the ancient songs.

So mysterious, Kass.... I’d heard him talk about his teacher before.... What promise did he mean....?

I decided to sleep the night at the stable before moving on. And in the morning, I headed toward the village.

The lake—Totori Lake—was different from most other lakes I had seen, in that its “shore” consisted mostly of two-hundred-foot dropoffs all the way around. The water shimmered distantly below in the enormous, sunken, beigestony pit. A few other rock spires stood attendant to the mighty bird-shaped one in the center, but none it seemed were half so tall. I could see the occasional updraft blowing here and there as well, in the event I should paraglide around and sink too low, but aside from those.... there didn’t seem to be much down there....

Not that I had reason to worry: well kempt, handsome bridges of dark wood spanned from shore to spire to spire to spire, high above the water. It was at the beginning of the first of these bridges that I met Gesane of the Rito as he patrolled the path to the village.

He introduced his home and kin for me: “The Rito of Totori Lake. Where the men are fine archers and the women better singers.”

Heh.

^_^ I liked it.

The tops of the spires were grassy, and pleasant, with birds and flowers and pine trees and even the occasional little water pocket pond. This really was beautiful country. Breezy and beautiful.

As I crossed the third bridge after the second rock, there were.... Malice drips and a sudden blackout? Would I meet the Divine Beast? I’d forgotten these bits! But it was.... a BLOOD MOON CINEMATIC?

“The Blood Moon rises once again,” came Zelda’s voice.

BUT IT WAS DAYTIME.

“Please be careful, Link.”

THE SCENE ENDED. It was six-something in the morning.

What the heck?

Afraid I had missed the proper cinematic on a glitch, I reloaded from the stable, and went toward the village again. I stopped to pick the same peppers or berries or whatever it was I had grabbed before. I moved forward at the same pace, had the same talk with Gesane. Began crossing over the water and came to the same bridge and....

Nothing.

Huh.

But.... I had reloaded.... Was the game acting like I had saved?

I kept moving slowly and shoot that was a bear over there, didn’t want to get its attention, what was a bear doing on one of these rock spires—

But nothing else happened. And.... I.... finally just kind of accepted that.... the game had somehow deprived me of the cinematic.

I resigned myself to just find it on YouTube later.

I sighed, relaxed my guard, and just continued on AND THEN THAT TERRIBLE BIRDLIKE SHRIEKING FROM THE SKY.

Then came the Divine Beast introduction cinematic.

. . . . Whoof.

That was alarming. I told David about it later and we laughed.

On into the village, and I was really liking the look of this place. Lush grass, sweet flowers, breezy pines; the dark, comely wood of the bridges-turned-staircases and -boardwalks intermittently broken by soft earthen paths under the gentle sun; the wilderness on all sides and above and below....

And the music. Rito Village’s music....

*-!-*

And in a soft jolt, I was both surprised and not:

It was DRAGONROOST. <3

It was the musical theme from Dragonroost Island.... only settled cozily in a cabin in the woods, instead of flying fiercely about a wild island in the bluster of an untamed sea.

Of course it was Dragonroost.

Ahhh. <3

The handsome boardwalk continued straight inward and upward, ending directly against the base of the central pillar of the Rito Rock, the Neck of the Crane. At this landing, the wooden path continued to the right, winding upward and away around the Neck. But for a moment I was more taken with the sight just in front of me.

At this juncture, a gentle alcove had been carved into the light stone of the spire, and a small Goddess statue erected in the hollow. The little shrine was laid with decorative cloth; offerings of flowers lay thereon at the statue’s foot, and a crown of similar blossoms rested gaily upon its head. All bright and fresh-looking as if they’d just been picked.

Of all the shrines to the Goddess I had seen, this one was surely the fairest in its happy simplicity.

*

The pine trees smiled and the wind and wood breathed.

The earth and the sun had never been as content.

The world was at ease here.

*

Well at this point I was pretty sure I’d finally done it. I had seen every major habitation Hyrule had to offer. Just in case.... Just in case....

Just in case of that notion I well knew by now to be only fancy, but which I had still decided to humor through to the end: I had made sure, or sure enough, that there were no other houses to be bought aside from that one in Hateno.

So that was the only place.

Hahhhh.

But if I had had a choice.... the pines, the grass, and open air, the open-walled homes in cozy simplicity, village full of flyers and all musically inclined....

Yes.

I think I would have lived here.

I think I would have lived here.