The Abomination

Evening of Wednesday, June 19, 2019 (comprised of many raw note editings from May 1 through May 10, 2023 that I really hope sound consistent because I left it alone for too long) ~ 2

The Abomination

All right, up from the Library, out the upper exit, a run past the Guardian, dodging an attack, under the pillarway, scaling the wall—required slightly more Stamina than I had....

But I made it to the top.

....

I am going into the Sanctum now.

That room. That broad, round room with many entrances encompassing, tiled and pillared and ramped and balconied and hung with crimson banners and run with crimson carpets within, no doubt so stately and handsome once, all reddened under the rupturing sky.

That room with the pulsating thing clung onto the ceiling, like one of Naydra’s gigantic Malice Eyeballs.

That room from which I had so desperately fled before.

I stepped into it now.

And I stepped further.

And further....

Mercy, Game, when would you just take me and—

Ah.... There was the blackout at last....

The visuals came back unmercifully focused on that.... thing. That ball, that orb, that wiggling, pulsing abomination, rooted to the ceiling by unholy burning tendrils, sapping who knew what life from the very stone. Its globular, blood-colored surface, bound in by sickly-looking iterations of the ancient Sheikah constellation motifs, constricted and recoiled with a slushing sound.... and then the light came.

Golden Light, ringing like a bell, beamed from the center of the mass, while the raging sky silently blew glowing hot fire and hell beyond the high windows.

I stood near the center, eyes cast upward and trained on the demonthing—

A muffled sound—

“...

Link...

Link.”

Zelda.

“I’m sorry...but my power isn’t strong enough...”

She sounded strained.

“I can’t hold him...”—A darkening, another slursh—and a LASER EXPLODED FROM THE GLOBE—bright, blinding, shrieking, it cast about so quickly, violently, stone and pillars crumbling and flaming and smoking in a ruinous wake behind its frenetic trail about the chamber—again—again—

I barely had time to react, casting up two warding forearms as the beams sliced through the stone about my feet—but it never hit me—

A second of silence, and then—more controlled this time—an entire array of penetrating lasers seemed to come from within, swirling smoothly around the globe’s surface in efficient, sweeping arcs—and then their light finally dimmed as well, as smoke poured from the sickly Sheikah stars—

I looked up from behind my warding hands.

My help—Hyrule’s help—was exhausted.

With a final obscene wriggling and gurgling, the pulsating sac ruptured with an almighty SPLURT—dark liquid exploded from within, raining putrid globlets to the floor with a gelatinous splattering—and a form—some incomprehensible, monstrous form—fell out like an unholy birth, crashing onto the stones below—the stones that were cracked and fissured by the lasers—

The dust of a hundred years had sprung up at the impact, obscuring the thing almost immediately—now the floor began to buckle under its weight with a cracking, a rumbling, a grinding and grating—

I only caught a glimpse of it for a second: a flash, a streak of red, like hair—something long and gangling—

The floor dropped out.

And I fell with it.

Stones and rubble and debris and rocks.... Plummeting, plummeting—what was this shaft?

The monster rhooshed into the yawning dimness below, still unmoving, still limp, still nondescript in the dust and rubble, I only a heartbeat behind and above it, stones big as horse-stalls raining down around my head—

The tubular tunnel opened at last onto an immense half-dome chamber, its sectioned ceiling splayed with a heaven of  Sheikah constellations.... but all still stained so blood-magenta red....

The monster dropped through and slammed into the final floor.... and at last began to move.

Peeking through the smoke and the dust as it rose, as it turned and roiled....

Oh gosh what is he, what is this monstrosity—what—I don’t—what—

Strong arm. Flaming blade. Legs. Spider legs.

I had caught myself—my paraglider—I was coming down now—there was nowhere else to go—

The demon turned in the darkness. Insect-like. Spider-like. Mismatched—Cobbled—A perverse mutation—A sick amalgamation of all that Ganon’s Malice had consumed—

I touched down and skidded coolly to a ready halt.

Blue blades, Guardian legs. Stomp went one foot.

Hair. Mane. Abdomen like a vinegaroon. MORE legs. HAND?

It turned....

Head....

Skull-like....

A man’s face?

LOOKING—AT—ME.

The demon reared—

So many grabbing, flailing arms.

Scourge of Hyrule Castle

CALAMITY GANON

We faced one another....

            ....as the scene blacked out—

But....

As the demon’s apocalyptic choir hung onto its dark caesura.... elsewhere a clarion bell rang out. The orchestra’s strings swelled in Revali’s teal glow where he perched in sleepless vigilance atop Vah Medoh—

The Champions!!

“Now my moment has finally come,” the rapier twirled as Revali threw out one wing-arm. “Brace yourself, Ganon, for the sting of my revenge!”

And Vah Medoh BLASTED the mind-bogglingly powerful laser it had been keeping trained upon the demon for this very moment—the blue-white, all-destroying column shaking the earth as it bored through the skies—all melting into white—

“This will be our final opportunity.” Mipha’s hands were gently clasped as she stood serene and beautiful on Vah Ruta. “We will not fail!” Her voice actually cracked as she thrust her arms forward—

Vah Ruta likewise emitted a bolt of such devastating power.... What on earth could withstand....? So blinding.... so blinding....

“Let’s go, little guy!” Daruk POUNDED his mighty fists together. “Now! Open up wide, Ganon!”

Vah Rudania blasted the air from its entire, open, flowered head. The center of the beam.... blacking out.... as though it were all too much and so bright that it had clipped the game’s camera.

“A hundred years in the making...” Urbosa stood cool as ever. Collected. Her waiting was over. “Hold on, Princess.” She didn’t even take the weight from her hip, but only extended her arm, her fingers ready to snap—“Our moment has arrived!”—which she did—

And Vah Naboris’ laser BEAMED out into the sky, burning shadows into the very air behind the Divine Beast....

The Choir and the entire Orchestra marched gloriously into the melting white light.

And the four giant, ancient, incomprehensibly powerful beams CONVERGED UPON HYRULE CASTLE.

They did know I was in here too, didn’t they?

Bright blue, thick, huge, thunderous blasts so violent I was afraid they would shatter the castle and blow the stones to dust and steam.... the bright white light growing and growing....

But the architecture remained undamaged.

Rather, as the demon and I stood face to face, the mere radiance of the Divine Beasts’ power came spearing down through the shaft, down into the very basement half-dome chamber, gleaming like sunrays, and drawing even the Calamity’s twisted attentions.

It looked up.... and we both saw what followed:

The energy of the four combined beams came down the shaft like a glowing blue bubble. Filling up the space, squeezing downward, pressing closer, coming for its target.

And before it had entered the half-dome, it reduced for only a split second to a much smaller, white-hot glowing sphere.... and then exploded into a divine rain of bright, piercing, penetrating, decimating white-blue light.

Down, down, down.

Pummeling.

Relentless.

The Calamity shrieked beneath the cascading downpour of bolts; the earth shook at the continuous battering of every blistering strike; gleaming blue spheres and plashes danced off the demon’s filthy hide like the impacts of raindrops, magnified a thousand times and set with a righteous luminescence.

Calamity Ganon’s life meter, there at the top of the screen already, had begun to drain.

Beneath the barrage it dropped and dropped and dropped as the monster howled, down and down and down.... until with a final blue explosion and a following cloud of charged blue smoke.... it had dropped to the halfway point.

Calamity Ganon was already half dead.

But he remained the Demon yet....

The smoke dissipated, the Calamity stirred again, raised itself from the floor.... and with an eldritch fury howled twice as loud as before, fit to rend the very air. The rippling burble of a Malicey roar gurgling somewhere beneath the scream....

That wild fiery red mane and.... beard?.... surrounding his dark-surfaced, monstrous skull-head with the glaring, glowing orange eyes.... that jewel still set in the center of his forehead, even now.... so many spidering limbs.... each ending in fire-red blade or Guardian-blue sword or sharp-clawed hand, or wielding other incomprehensible horrors.

My gosh he was terrifying.

I....

Stood Firm.

And drew my blade.

And the battle for Hyrule was on.

He pulled back enormously, and slashed at me with the giant blazing sword that was his foremost right arm. I leapt away. The numberless terrors of all his thinner, ganglier spider-legs groped creaking after me with their snipping blades and fidgeting claws—

How could I do, here?

Difficult to get close....

Arrows, then.

And there was no point holding anything in reserve anymore.

Bomb Arrows it was.

But the Demon had its own projectiles. The Piano had long since fled before the pounding Choir and Orchestra now filling up the space, and so I did not hear that most reliable of aural cues—but I did recognize that beeping. That was a Guardian laser.

I could dodge those....

I ran, I jumped....

The monster tromped and shuffled and heaved and—

“OH MY GOSH GET DOWN FROM THE WALL!” I hollered.

Ganon had crawled up onto the constellation-covered dome-wall and begun creeping round to flank me at an alarming speed.... for something so large....

I could see the whole of his.... ancient-tech.... segmented.... vinegaroon-back.... bulbous and bloated and sagging like an overfed arachnid’s abdomen. His legs clutched the wall; his dorsum was toward me—then how did—? —And yet somehow he still faced me. Somehow a putrescent shape which might in nightmares be called a torso still rose incomprehensibly from the mass to set his grinning, scowling, hateful visage toward me, its own attendant arms splayed wide in screaming violence. Crawling.... CRAWLING....

The Calamity’s arsenal was broad and varied. From his higher position he cast his glowing blue spear at me, again and again as it reappeared in his wicked grasp—Moblin’s Magic Spear, I again thought ridiculously.

The cannon fused into his flesh fired rapid volleys of laser pulses, as well as strange, warping bursts of air.

Above his wicked head he conjured fiery meteors.... and sent each one plummeting down toward me with nightmarishly slow-moving finality—these I could not dodge—the fiery blasts so all-engulfing—run as I might—

And there was always that accursed Guardian laser.

But I could dodge that....

When the Demon jumped down from the wall, he landed in a ponderous pounce of weird blue light spread over the floor—a dangerous radius in which to be caught. And I found he needn’t always come from the wall to employ it.

The giant flaming sword, however, was strictly a ground-level implement. A closer-range, tree-sized melee weapon. Its swipes were enormous and far-reaching, trailed by flame, and casting flames out wherever it swung, its terrible downward-chop blowing up infernal jets like dragonfire on the rebound.

I ran and leapt—

The Demon crept—

We harassing each the other with incendiary affronts to the face—I dropped him from the wall—he speared me to the floor—I cut him—he burned me—

Were not these the Champions’ weapons?

He had all the Champions’ weapons here, just as he had had them in the Divine Beasts....

What were they?

That giant flaming sword was surely a reflection of Daruk.

The spear for Mipha.

Those pulses for Revali.

And...

What, those grabbers? So many limbs ended in a sharp, Guardian-blue gleaming—at least one of them was a blade.... for Urbosa....

The Demon’s pulses chased at my heels—

My Bomb Arrows exploded again in his face—

His own erupting missiles blasted me to the floor and set my hair alight—

I let him feel his very Bane in the Master Sword—

We tasted every species of wrath and pain that we could inflict upon the other until—

!!

Oh no....

....

Of course he had a second stage....

Having had enough of my quiver, steel, and fury, the Calamity reared up and with a ferocious roar conjured a flaming, blazing sphere around itself—just like his Fireblight had done—

But no—the sphere disappeared after only a moment—

But the bright blazing glow remained.

The Calamity had turned golden. Its demon body shining a hot and fiery radiance.

Oh no.

Well I’d had enough of his fire as well. But now he looked hazardously hot, and so I quickly donned my Flamebreaker Armor—

However, his color seemed to have been all that had changed. No new firestorms arose, no Fireblight bomb trickery went off.... He hadn’t changed tack. He still swiped his gigantic sword, still beeped his Guardian laser after me, still body-slammed a moderate pool of flashing blue pain into the floor to catch me—

But no, that wasn’t all....

I noticed that none of my Bomb Arrows were affecting him anymore.

No....

Then that glow.... that brazen fire.... wasn’t a fire—it must have been a shield, then.

I put off the Flamebreaker and returned to my Champion’s Tunic.

Really?

I fired again and watched his life meter closely—

Really.

I couldn’t penetrate his stronger defenses.

But he could still penetrate mine—a number of hearts evaporated from my bottom row, and I chowed apples to regain them—

How could I do, here, now?

My arrows were ineffective.

If I couldn’t stun him....

And I dared not get too close....

How could I do....?

At whiles he still hurt me. The laser pulses, the giant blade with its flames, those bloody meteors—whatever it was—

Some terrible blow caught me.

“I NEED MY GREENS!” I howled, groping for another cooked Hearty Radish to eat—

Even the music seemed to recoil in horror before the invincible Beast. It was the same music that had played during my battles against the Blights, really—or it had been. Only now, some of the notes, some of the intervals.... were off, wrong, disoriented. As if the music track itself were screaming in petrified terror, only straining to channel what sounds it could manage into performing its accompanying duty to the conflict.... a tempo-increase borne of fear nipping at everyone’s heels....

The brazen, flaming Demon now stomping, now crawling, now screaming, all its hateful wickedness casting down at me in the tearing mad cackle of ten thousand years of stewing, boiling evil, as it spun round and round and round the room like a great malevolent crab....

So wrong....

So wrong....

How could I do?

That beeping came again—the Guardian laser.

I could dodge those.

But—

!

I could dodge those....

Though.... could it be?

The laser?

Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—

It was always easier at close range....

I stepped toward the Devil.... steadied myself....

Be-be-be-be-be-beeee—

Was this the right distance?

The first twining glimmer of light began to coalesce—

Now!

I pressed forward—swung my arm—the laser’s vortex charge completed, discharged already—my shield flashed at the apex of its arc—the blue-white bolt came—

AND I PARRIED IT.

LIKE I HAD TAUGHT MYSELF TO DO SO VERY LONG AGO AND PRACTICED SO MANY MANY MANY TIMES.

AND IT REBOUNDED.

AND IT PENETRATED HIS SHIELD AND HE WENT DOWN.

AND I RAN IN AND MASTER SWORDED HIS FACE!

But every stroke of the Master Sword dealt such a tiny amount of damage to his life meter....

But it was damage nonetheless.

The Mouse could bite, Ganon.

This repeated for a few cycles....

The winning culmination of so many trials prepared for and so many hardships overcome pounded through my veins like a war-drum. I was so PUMPED at the simple learning, the earned advantage, the flashing leap in understanding—that I was dreadfully tempted to say “EAT MASTER SWORD, B[let us kindly redact the remainder of this word]!”

But.... No, I mustn’t.

Besides, Mother is here with me.

Dang you, world and your catchy vulgarities.

Chip by chip, piece by piece, I whittled the demon’s interminable life meter away.... I would bring you death if need be by a thousand cuts....

Striking and slicing and slashing—until at the stroke that proved to be one too many, the Calamity reared back and away from the blow, screaming an unholy, shrieking howl that melted all into the blinding white Void....

.... Dang it I forgot to take a pictograph....

.......

....

.

.

.

.

 

Impa's Final Message

Waking of Saturday, May 4, 2019

Impa’s Final Message

It was still the waking of Saturday, May 4, 2019, but I was into the morning of May 5, 2019, because that was two years, two months, and two days since this game came out, and DANG IT if I wasn’t gonna get some time in on it today. I wanted to see Impa. And so help me after so much bloody laundry and dryers and other chores and the sucking black hole of the following circuses of self-medicinal YouTube and its inebriating memes and vines for ever I WAS GOING TO FREAKING PLAY THIS BLOODY GAME.

I was already in Kakariko.

It was 8:00 pm.

Paya was polishing the guardian deity statues.

I decked myself out to look presentable. No beast weaponry.

Now. Impa.

I went up the stairs. I went through the door.

I had all Divine Beasts. All memories.

What would she say?

She sat cross-legged on her little tower of pillows.

I spoke to her.

“I sense it... Their presence.

Daruk. Urbosa.

Revali. Mipha.”

Her old face furrowed. “A hundred years ago, I put my life on the line to fight alongside everyone. But...I could not protect them. They died without fulfilling their destinies. I have lived all this time thinking they died in vain.” She looked so downcast, and then, “But this energy I feel from their presence...” she trailed off.

“It seems they have not given up,” she smiled. “I can also sense...that they were all overjoyed to see you again,” she said, still smiling.

Heh, even Revali?

Well.... guess he can’t hide it from Impa.

That’s comforting.

And then suddenly intent! “Now you all serve the same purpose! Now it is time to attack Calamity Ganon, while he is weak! Hurry to the princess! Go, now!”

Oh, my map opened. And there was a new dinger at the castle.

“I believe you will find Calamity Ganon in Hyrule Castle.”

And I came back out of the map now.

“Even with blessings of the Divine Beasts on your side, you must be careful,” Impa went on, “Calamity Ganon will be well protected. Be prepared for anything!”

And then, “By the way... How are you faring thus far?” A bit jarring. And with a dynamic little zoom out in the cinematography, back to my person and then coming in close.... all dramatic.

Ah, on to the other quest, I see.

I gesticulated my response.

“No... All twelve pictures already? You’ve visited every place?!”

Was it really that shocking, Impa, with how long I’ve taken? |D

“Hmm... Then I suppose it’s time.” The camera zoomed in toward her face. The music had changed. An eerie, haunting, mystical version of some Sheikah tune.... “I will reveal the location of the final memory,” she said, and there was another zoom in toward myself.... in such a beautiful shot....

This is what I have been waiting for. I’ve seen the empty place for the last memory. I remember flashes of trailers. I’ve heard the stories from all the people in the land.

But will it be where I think it is?

“Here is what happened.” Impa.... got up off of her cushion!—I’d never seen her move from that spot before—and walked over to... where are we going? I followed.... “Lady Zelda asked me to wait to show you this. She gave me very specific instructions.” Or some such words!??

“This is the final picture.”

What is it....?

I looked....

The painting on the wall.... illuminated by a small standing lamp.

It was a rolling green field full of.... Guardian husks....

I knew it.

The flashing final stand in the rain beneath my hood.

Watching the lurching, gleaming beasts from the highest battlement.

The Valley of Terror.

Garill’s Haunt.

Fort Hateno.

“Does it look familiar?” Impa asked, “From this village, you should be able to get there in a half day’s time. Now go, child. Seek out what Lady Zelda has shown you.”

And the music went back to normal.

Free the Divine Beasts – Complete.

The long, long-awaited banner gleamed across my screen.

....

How did Zelda.... tell Impa.... that it was....?

....

I will go. And regain my final memory.

....

Impa still won’t let me touch the orange orb though.

How....

In The Rain

Waking of Saturday, December 29, 2018

In The Rain

I warped to the Wetland Stable, and began to search the woods near the river. I didn’t find much. Just a lot of edible plants, some Koroks I’d already encountered.... Tye and Sorelia in a jam. I stopped to get them out of it.

Nothing. Nothing on this side of the river.

So I crossed to the west side. Picked a high spot of the bank and paraglided over the current. I did not receive a warm welcome on the other shore. One Big Yiga and three Stalkoblins took issue with my presence. But once I’d told them to knock it off, and gotten the woods to myself, and looked just a little deeper into the green....

There.

There was the spot. The Glowing Memory. Waiting for me to step into it....

Link and Zelda ran through the rain. Sword out. His other hand clasped the Princess’. He led her hard and fast through the pouring grey.

They were ragged, and filthy, and dirty, and desperate, panting—

Zelda stumbled.

Link pulled up, stopped. Turned and stood. Walked back slowly.... And stopped.

The trees and the rain could keep watch for a moment.

Zelda had collapsed hands and knees to the ground in her white dress. Her poor, beautiful white dress.

She still panted, and the breaths began to rack her frame with something more.

“How... How did it come to this? Everything... the Divine Beasts, all the Guardians, they’ve turned against us,” she bemoaned.

Link sheathed his sword, and knelt down too.

“It was Calamity Ganon. It turned them all against us—” She clenched her fists against the mud. “—And everyone... Mipha, Urbosa, Revali and Daruk... they’re trapped inside those things...”

She was crying. I could see her tears even through the rain.

“It’s my fault,” she cried, “Everything we’ve done up until now... it’s all been for nothing. All because I couldn’t harness this cursed power!” Her voice was rising now. “So I really am just a failure!”

The mud only ate her howling as she blew herself out, quieting again, “Everyone... My friends, everyone in the Castle... and my father most of all...” she said, “I left them... all to die.”

And she fell into Link’s arms and just.... wept.

Lanayru Road

Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 3

Lanayru Road

When Tera had upgraded my new Barbarian Armor as much as she could, I puttered around the rest of my wardrobe like I do.... Naydra horn, huh....

I still didn’t sort my closet, but left it bungled as ever, and after that....

Kakariko. It was time to venture beyond Cotera’s Woods once again. It was time to explore that inland lake. I had a sneaking suspicion I could find the scale I was looking for there.

I hurried through Cotera’s placid stand of trees, veering only to pick a few of the finer plants and scattering the wildlife before me. In the bare, cliff-flanked road beyond I didn’t bother with the Traveler who’d told me strange stories before, nor did I take the way to Rabia Plain (save for just a little to snatch a Korok I’d somehow missed).

No, this time it was the straight fork, the rightward avenue that dipped lower, and wider, as the land sank into water and stone....

This was the Lanayru Road, West Gate.

And there was indeed a high span of weathered stone bridging the way up ahead.

It looked very much like a gate in one of the pictographs in Princess Zelda’s album. But not quite. But if there was a west gate.... then there must surely have been an east gate....

I went in. There was a memory ahead of me. I knew it. Somehow I’d known it and marked it on my map.... maybe a clue from Pikango or something.... He was always painting landscapes....

The stony corridor widened; the road clave to the north face while the water started by the south; the tumbles of rock meshed through the ancient stonework so that I could hardly tell between what had been, and what was left.

I walked on. Encountered some sleeping Bokoblins. Dispatched them under the quiet of my Stealth Suit; best not to raise a ruckus. Though sometimes it couldn’t be helped to beat them down or knock them over the burm and into the water—for the paving stones rested high on pillars and supports now. Going into the drink to retrieve monster bits would be complicated from here on out....

So much stonework rose all around me, FAR too pocked and hollowed and intricate, in layers upon layers above—to explore it all would take days.... though I tried to search a little. Some minerals here, a Korok there.

But when the day turned grey and it started to rain, I switched my Climber’s Bandana for the more covering Hylian Hood, and only continued walking.

Just walking.

I loved this feeling.

Broken pillars and carven arches with incidental alcoves, all cracked and weathered, all tumbling into ruin, splitting and parting in further holes and crevices, blossoming and burgeoning with surfaces never meant to be walked upon, and yet all the more welcoming for the shelter they provided for creatures like myself to hide in.

I climbed up a bit on the north side, vaulting the slippery stones in quick, powerful bursts for the downpour, and found a little hollow that was just receded enough to be out of the rain. The blocks were straight and cubic against the dark and leaning overhang of foundation or cliffside I did not know, where the sprawling moss joyed in the moisture as it dripped down and slicked over the stone.

It was four o’clock in the afternoon.

Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, to just light a fire and rest here for a while?

Dang I love this game.

Shortly the rain let up and I climbed further and higher until I reached the topmost northern hills where I was distracted enough to kill a Hinox. As I ran back toward where I had been, I inadvertently chased a goat before me, and—I thought I saw something—

I turned and was surprised to see that the goat’s tromping had cut a trail through the grass! And I found the thing I had seen.... it was.... Hylian Rice?

But.... I thought.... I’d thought that was a crop! That it didn’t grow in the wild—I’d only ever seen it from merchants, but—If the goat had cut down the grass—and I didn’t see how else it could have gotten here—what—was all grass like this? If I cut it would.... Would it yield certain grains?

A more placid world began to swell all around me....

I was still discovering new things. Even this far in.

Dang I love this game.

I made my way back down into the canyon to continue along the Lanayru Road, and I began to see great carvings in the walls. What.... were these.... effigies.... These....

They were cracked and worn and broken but.... these were loftwings. I was sure of it. Shoebill beaks and everything. I was sure.

Because I was recognizing shoebills before Skyward Sword was even a twinkle in its daddy’s eye.

Those were loftwings.

How old was this place?

The canyon widened and the southern cliffs and carvings bent away toward that waterfall beneath which I’d found a shrine before, and this open central watered court.... was the Lanayru Promenade.

What a beautiful sight it must have been once. The path ran down close to the water here (part of it submerged now), and a dead fountain stood in the center of the widest part of the lake. I could imagine it playing merrily as beautiful Hylian holy men and women must have strode about....

Now the only thing stirring were some Lizalfos circling around the fountain.

I drew the green one away first to dispatch it privily. But when I went back for the other three....

They were all silver.

Huh, I thought in my mask as I gathered their attentions to get them onto solid ground (they were hard to kill in the water), three Silver Lizalfos.... at once....

This would be interesting....

And it was.

I called upon Urbosa first as they all gathered close about me, and her furious lightning rained down and kept two of them screeching in frozen electrocution while I grabbed the other and started pummeling his lights out. But presently the other two recovered and they were mad—I pounded one of them into next Tuesday in time to turn and trade blows with the other up against the wall—and then that first one was upon me again—but I moved before they could surround me and slashed that one in the tail while the second one was climbing back out of the water—and then there they stood regrouped and ready but I was fast—I could take these guys....

I have since learned to try and kill silver monsters as far away from water as I can. Tails and talons and horns and eyeballs will float. But rubies and sapphires and diamonds? You can kiss those goodbye if they fall into the water. And nothing your Slate can supply will help to call them back.

They’re gone, man. Gone.

When I had quite eradicated every monster from the Lanayru Promenade, I took my time giving the area as thorough an exploration as I could, turning up treasure chests behind tumbles of stone or sunk beneath the waters around the fountain. I also took another short break away, this time up on the southern hilltops, cresting the tall mountain, the Peak of Awakening, which lay just east of the high pond that fed the waterfall. As I’d suspected.... there was a Korok.

Back down on the Lanayru Road I kept heading east.... The path was rising, and I was beginning to leave the water behind, when something possessed me to take out my Pictobox. I’d seen something further ahead, and wanted to zoom in to see what it was. I knew if my Compendium recognized it, it would flash the name of the thing across the screen.

And as I swiveled the lens around carelessly toward the east, Mount Lanayru towering in shrouding clouds in the far distance, I saw, for just an instant, the name of NAYDRA.

And then it was gone and I could not relocate it.

WHAAAAAT?

Naydra? The Dragon?? What? But!

Had it flown across somewhere? Was it even now in the air, somewhere around the bends of the cliffs further to the east? I longed to plunge ahead, but....! Did I just catch the tip of its tail as it vanished out of sight? For I could see nothing of any dragon now!

Naydra??

Where was it??

But point and swivel as I might, my Pictobox could not detect the dragon again.

But it was near.... somewhere very near....

The road continued to rise as I left the great monumental stoneworks behind me.

And then I had come to.... the Lanayru Road, East Gate.

Mount Lanayru stood in might and majesty beyond the weathered stone portal.

I stood in the light, and remembered....

It was sunset.

The Champions were waiting on the water side of the gate—where I had just been. I and Zelda were coming back from the mountain.

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” said Daruk, “How’d it go up there on the mountain?”

Zelda.... shook her head.

“You didn’t feel anything? No power at all?” said the bird man Revali.

“I’m sorry, no.” Zelda didn’t look at any of them. Just the ground.

Urbosa stepped in. “Then let’s move on,” she said, her voice strong and steady as always, “Feeling sorry for yourself won’t help anything.” She offered a seemingly tireless encouragement to keep looking for.... that thing, that.... something.... “Anything could trigger the power to seal Ganon.”

“If I may...” It was Mipha. She spoke! And she.... fumbled a bit, her voice dainty as a fluttering leaf, wanting to say something, but she was embarrassed to say it. “I was just thinking about what I do when I’m healing. Sometimes it helps if I think... if I think about—”

RRRRRRRUMBLE!

A roaring cacophany tore the air and rattled the earth.

Everyone stumbled and shook as the ground heaved beneath them, until Revali regained himself and SHOT into the sky.

A hundred feet up he maintained a steady flapping as he looked into the glowing, flaming western sky and the sinking sun.

Ganon was erupting out of the castle.

“He’s here,” said Urbosa as Revali touched down again. The earth had stopped shaking, though the roaring remained.

“It’s awake,” said Zelda.

“Are you sure?” said.... probably Mipha?

“Positive,” said Revali.

Daruk rallied everyone, “Champions! To your Divine Beasts! Link, you get to Hyrule Castle—” He barked their long-laid plans. It needed to be a unified assault. “Link will need to meet Ganon head-on when we unleash our attack.”

Revali scoffed quietly at this last and looked away. Even now.

What did he have against me?

“Come, let’s go,” Urbosa addressed Princess Zelda, “We need to get you somewhere safe.”

But—“No,”—Zelda pulled away. “I may not be of much use on the battlefield, but there must be something I can do—”

She wanted to help.

She wanted to be useful....

OHHHH MUUHHHH GUUUSHHHH....

Friendly Neighborhood Hylian

Waking of Saturday, July 28, 2018 ~ 7

Friendly Neighborhood Hylian

I came back down just outside Gerudo Town.

They could all rest easy now that the Hero had subdued the imminent danger stomping around out in the desert.

But they still wouldn’t let a voe come into town.

....Eh. I had wondered.

I changed clothes right in front of them and jogged through the gate.

Actually all the townsfolk kept talking about how Chief Riju had been the one to put the danger down.... which.... I guess I was okay with. She had been right out there with me, surfing behind Patricia. Right under the Divine Beast’s feet. And I had been in disguise after all. Just some lowly common Hylian vai, assisting the Chief....

I had just imagined some moment when I would be recognized and accepted and able to walk around freely in this place.... No exception even for the Hero of Legend....?

Nope.

Still no boys allowed.

Ah well.

Chief Riju was waiting for me in her throne room. She gave an outpouring of gratitude at my appearance—her people were happy again, and relieved. Stress had been reduced all through the town—“Stress”. Lol, women. XD

As thanks for my help in calming Vah Naboris and saving her people, she offered me the Scimitar of the Seven, along with the Daybreaker, the sword and shield wielded by the Champion Urbosa herself. Riju could think of no more appropriate use for them than to be wielded by the Hero of Hyrule against the Calamity that had claimed their original owner.

Unfortunately there was no room for them in my inventory.

There was something else in the room, however, which rather caught my eye....

Mounted handsomely on a pedestal a little to Riju’s right was the Thunder Helm.

When I examined it, and Riju reacted, there was only one unbecomingly brazen option I was given to say: “I want the Thunder Helm.”

Both Riju and Buliara voiced a polite but firm opposition to this—well, maybe not so polite on Buliara’s account. The helm was an heirloom of the Gerudo; it belonged here.

But.... considering all that I had done for them.... and all that I had yet to do, for all of Hyrule....

Riju agreed to lend me the Thunder Helm. If.... I could continue to live up to the title of Hero, and resolve all the town’s ills. The Divine Beast was no longer a threat, but that didn’t make life automatically perfect. If I could solve the whole town’s problems, and bring the smiles back to her people.... then and only then would Chief Riju lend me the Thunder Helm.

Well....

Hero work was what I did best.

I left the palace and heard from the garrison that Barta.... was in trouble again.

But I had seen her! She had escaped from the Yiga Nest since I had last been there, and I had seen her here in the barracks! Getting raked by her superiors....

But now.... her fellow warriors told me she was in Dragon’s Exile. Home of Moldugas. Mmmm but I was more confident against Moldugas.... but.... Well I had gathered she was kind of reckless, but.... what in the world was she doing down there? Part of me could only wonder, and part of me was.... hungrily delighted at an excuse to venture down to investigate the Great Skeleton....

Wandering further around Gerudo Town I drifted into the canteen, but could still find no clues about the password, and so threw the barrel at the ladies again.

What other ills were there around town for me to solve....? I was quite out of ideas, but at length I did find one little vai to rescue: a child named Dalia.

Dalia wanted to plant an orchard in an unused, obscure corner of town. But so much litter kept flowing down the aqueducts into the water trough....

!! D8<

“CalybaaAAANN!” I huffed as I turned to crawl up the wall.

I found her, and I told her what her face-stuffing rind-waste was doing to poor little Dalia’s orchard plans—the kid had been crying....

Upon hearing of the child’s plight, Calyban agreed to quit chucking her rinds down the stream—but she wouldn’t do it for free. She wasn’t that kind of person. She enjoyed her Hydromelons for sure, but what she really wanted to taste were Wildberries. The kind that grew high up on the freezing cold steps of the Gerudo Highlands. If I could bring her some of those—like ten—then she would quit from her little rind-chucking hidey-hole.

Fortunately I just happened to have enough Wildberries in my pockets; I gave her some.

“Oh! Oh they’re so delicious!” Calyban remarked, or something like it. So juicy and flavorful, sweeter than anything she’d ever tasted.

Evidently it put her in a very good mood, for she then decided that, in addition to stopping her littering, she would even go help little Dalia clean up!

Well that was just dandy. ^_^

The screen faded out and back in, and I was alone on top of the wall.

Time to check up on Dalia!

I followed the course of the aqueduct back the way I had come—there were so many paths.... But I found the one path I was looking for, and dropped down into Dalia’s little shaded corner.

I have to admit, it looked much nicer than when I had left it!

And Dalia was smiling again—she was so happy that her ground was now properly prepared. And she was delighted to relate to me that a vai she’d never met had come and helped her clean it up! And given her some Wilberries to boot!

For my help, Dalia gave me a Hydromelon she had gotten from the other vai as well. Aww.... ^_^

And then.... she said I could come get Wildberries from her little orchard whenever I wanted! 8D

And I did, later, when her bushes were planted and growing—three bushes of two berries each. I plucked the bush on the right clean, but.... I left the rest for Dalia.

It was her orchard, after all.

Urbosa's Fury

Waking of Saturday, July 28, 2018 ~ 6

Urbosa’s Fury

The quiet was exquisite.

It was broken by footsteps.

The spirit of Urbosa walked down the steps of an inner strut, coming toward me as if from that same exterior deck where we had met one hundred years ago.

I liked her. How straightforward she was. How sensible and matter-of-fact.

How could a spirit like hers ever be confined or burdened down....?

Unless.... as indicated by his many physiques.... Calamity Ganon really had....

. . . .

Done to them what he did to the Guardians.

“This is just the way things had to happen, and no one is to blame,” Urbosa said, “Tell the Princess not to worry.”

Gosh I liked her. She was so strong. So sure. Straightforward.

And when she assured me that Vah Naboris was once again under proper control—when she said Vah Naboris, she flipped her R.

There was something.... awesome, about that. It didn’t feel out of place. Especially considering the different words the Gerudo used for things anyway. Very possibly a whole other language they spoke only among themselves.

The accent was striking. Charming. And her switching to and from it so easily intimated a special kind of intelligence.

I had never thought to be picking favorites among the Champions. And certainly not someone so mundane as a Gerudo. Really, what was so sensational about overly tall women who were basically the same as myself, just with rounder ears and a longer nose? And a few heads more in height?

They couldn’t spear through the waters or fly through the skies or punch through rocks and walk through hot lava unscathed.

They weren’t cool.

. . . .

But Urbosa was.

Gosh I liked her.

Mm, but I could never see myself picking favorites....

. . . .

She imparted a few more words to me before bestowing upon me a gift she said I would have use for—Urbosa’s Fury.

This was different as well. The Champions always parted their blessings to me with great will and flair. And so Urbosa did just now. But this time, as the sphere of empowering light connected with my chest . . . . I only regarded it with a solid expression—maybe gave one meaningful blink through a deep nasal inhale. I was not thrust into a closed-eyed, overpowering serenity. My feet did not leave the ground. Urbosa had demonstrated the motion, and now, I only mirrored it right back—

In a swirling rush forward, stepping strong four-to-fives, I threw out one hand and snapped my fingers and—

WHAT THE LIGHTNING??? WITH A SNAP OF MY OWN FINGERS WHAT?????

It came down in a cacophany all around me, multiple strikes like an aura of DEATH in a dangerous radius from my person!

OH MY GOSH!!! 8D

I just had to hold down my melee-strike button as if for a spin-attack—a mad Kaitengiri with THOSE FOUR-TO-FIVES and—Krak-ka-BOOOOMMmm—

Oh my gosh, this was too awesome.... X-)

Mipha and Daruk had been there to get me out of trouble but this....

This was for aimin’ to misbehave.

And after only a few more words spoken, it was time for me to leave the Divine Beast, and I teleported away in the same shimmering white light like gleaming snowflakes floating up into the sky....

And Urbosa led Vah Naboris TO....

Spectacle Rock I CALLED IT.

“Nabooru, legend of the Gerudo and revered for generations, for whom you were named, Vah Naboris...” Urbosa went on in some such words as she led the Divine Beast.

She was proud of her people, and rightly so—they were strong, and descended from powerful heroines.

But Urbosa had a vendetta.

Beneath her cool collectedness you could feel it. Something seething just beneath the surface.... something you didn’t wanna mess with.... something you didn’t wanna touch.

“It is said that Calamity Ganon once adopted the form of a Gerudo.” Her eyes hardened. “I relish the chance to make this personal.”

Again hinting that to be something she didn’t normally do.... The indignation felt righteous, and appropriately waited for.... Gosh I liked her....

“I’ve been waiting so long for the time when Link would finally rush Hyrule Castle.... and for the time I could blast Calamity Ganon to ashes....”

Vah Naboris’ six-eyed face locked on to the distant castle; part of it opened up and two rods extended to emanate the giant, focusing red beam, which shot out and blazed against the writhing, swirling Calamity....

“That moment,” Urbosa savored the thought as she stood atop the Divine Beast in the red, red sun, “will be so delicious.”

The Collected Hero

Waking of Saturday, July 28, 2018 ~ 5

The Collected Hero

This was different, too. I’m sure of it.... I think in other Divine Beasts I had never been able to make actual contact to the main control unit with my Sheikah Slate. But now I stood and placed the Slate against the console with a definitive clack.

Nothing.

Link doesn’t need a voice. He has eyes.

You could see him anticipating the rebuff.... and it came, with its repellent explosion of swirling blue light, which coalesced into . . . . a most hideous and grotesque apparition, like the others.

Lither than the Fireblight Ganon had been. Tall—like Urbosa....

And only now I wonder if there will have been a correlation in all their physiques—OH HYLIA, he didn’t—

Their spirits had been trapped?

. . . . . . .

I will not pursue the thought.

There is no time.

Thunderblight Ganon was come for me.

One cruel, sullied-magenta hand was free, the other limb bore a large and vicious kind of Thunderblade—it crackled hungrily.

Urbosa’s voice came to me again—this was the thing that had ended her life one hundred years ago. It was powerful, and fast. She told me to be very, very careful—“Don’t let this place become your grave,” she said, or something like it.

I was ready.

But first, as soon as I was able, I raised my pictobox and took a shot.

My Compendium registered the subject....

But the image was a blur.

Oh dear, what would happen when I unpaused....?

I couldn’t stay still forever. I was the Hero and I had a job to do.

When I came back there was only a very rapid Whoosh-whoosh-WHOOSH-WHOOSH—sha-WHACK! and I was tumbling through the air off the platform—the blow had come from somewhere behind me—a few hearts gone—

Blurs. That’s all he was. A flurry of rushing sounds, streaks of dark color, and then SHRACK! the slice would come and send me sprawling. But I saw that though he was fast, his blows were relatively weak, and electric shock never made me drop my weapons—that was a blessing.

Sometimes—rarely—I was able to dodge it, and come back and get a few hits in.

Sometimes I was able to pelt him with a Bomb Arrow to the face.

Urbosa spoke strongly in my ear time and again, spurring me onward—Be cautious. Stay strong. Fight! Some such words—

Rush-rush-rush-POW! I spun through the air.

“Oh my gosh, what does he WANT?” I howled to David.

“Block it with your shield!”

But I didn’t want to waste Daruk’s power....

Some beloved weapon shattered and I swiped through my pockets for another....

The Master Sword glowed stronger. Sixty damage.

Why did it do that? Why was it sometimes stronger and sometimes weaker?

Was it stronger now because it sensed the evil around it? Did it only manifest its power when it was most needed?

Then again why did I keep refusing it? It was there for me to use. And I couldn’t ignore it forever. This was what it was made for. To be a Bane against Evil....

I switched to the sixty-strong Master Sword—Daruk gave me an opening—and sliced-sliced-sliced against Thunderblight Ganon while I was close enough—

And then came the point when he had had enough. What would he do now? I wondered as I peered from behind a distant strut.

And a glistening metallic tablet like an overly tall tombstone appeared in the cracked surface beside me so suddenly that I was unsure whether it had slammed down from above or sprung up from beneath. It gleamed with a sharp electric charge....

Then more tablets fell—I could see the trailing lightning now—they were definitely falling, one after another in perfect succession, chasing me at a crisp hundred and twenty beats per minute as I fled from their rhythmic onslaught.

When Thunderblight Ganon had laid enough of them into the bulkheads, I gather he must have set an explosive current arcing through the lot of them to fry anything caught in their web—I gather. I couldn’t tell exactly because I was too busy putting distance between myself and that trap.

And so Thunderblight Ganon had another go—and I had another run. These crude lightning rods were more dodgeable than his rushing attacks. But.... I had to gain some points of my own.... Urbosa urged me on.

I claimed a higher spot and, as the monster detonated another web of electric death, sent him my love in the form of a Bomb Arrow.

There was no effect.

Great.

What could I—?

I thought, as I ran. My arrows were now ineffective. I couldn’t hit him. And I couldn’t get close enough to him to try any melee weapons either—that might bring me too close to those lightning rods.

What could I do?

Well, what did I have at my disposal?

What had this Divine Beast given me?

Nothing. Only the weapons from those Guardian Crawlies.

But I couldn’t use my weapons.

What else did I have?

Well.... I had a Sheikah Slate.

Those lightning rods looked like they were metallic.

Oman Au—Magnesis!

Oh great, I thought, this is gonna be tricky....

But I turned around in my flight, and as the lightning rods were planted but before they could be charged, I activated the Slate’s Magnesing power—the nearest lightning rod glowed pink in indication—I could grab that.

And I did, the Magnesis rippling out of the Slate far too slowly for my liking—it latched onto the rod with a clean electrical snapping—Where was Thunderblight Ganon?

He was up there to the left—

You can’t run as fast when you’re holding something in Magnesis. I took a few steps, turned, raised the rod higher, shot it forward, casting all my hopes into the trajectory—

I had worried for my aim, but somehow.... the rod connected! And Thunderblight Ganon came tumbling out of the air at the counterattack!

Now—

I paraglided from the platform and sailed in—the Master Sword glowed so bright—and I gave no quarter as I swiped and sliced and cut—

The monster leapt upright again—was I hit?

“Link!”

It was Urbosa. Only calling my name.

None of the Champions had done that before.

Their words had always been urges and suggestions and hints and encouragement, but this brave Gerudo Warrior only calling my name in the heat of a terrible and ferocious battle....

I appreciated that.

Of all the Champions thus far she seemed the most.... real and invested.

Thunderblight Ganon’s one evil eye glared at me fiercely.... and then began to glow.

The laser settled over my heart.

I backed up.

“What are you—?” came David’s voice.

I only had a few seconds—was everything in order? It seemed to be.

The laser glowed hotter, began to beep.... and beep....

. . . .

And beep . . . . . . .

. . . . . . .

The shimmer appeared in the air, and I swung my shield as the blast came—

Khing!

Time slowed as the bolt rebounded off my shield and flew back into Thunderblight Ganon’s face!

“You parried it??” says David.

“Well I’ve had a lot of practice!” says I and my heart was a bold roaring lion as I ran back in and walloped away on Thunderblight Ganon where he slumped against the curving wall—Slicing and slicing and slicing as his life-meter dropped—

He spent his all in a final cinematic leap from my last attack—and he writhed and shriveled and died in the air with the same piercing scream as the others had done. High and keening as an exploding kettle.... but no more horrific in my ears.

Only wretched.