Old Friends

Waking of Thursday, May 11, 2017 ~ 4

Old Friends

Beyond the tree was a little gully running up over the hill of the shore. It looked like I could shinny up there....

I did, and came to a wooded land, indecisive between forest and marsh, for it seemed as much flooded as not.

This was Faron Woods.

The sun rose again as I wandered into the trees, the framerate keeping a valiant pace amid all the wood and water and floating leaves. I thought of the Yiga Clan. Would I run into any of them here? The place seemed quiet for the most part; I only encountered one Octorok I think, hiding in the ground, and I blew him up easily enough.

The silence otherwise was.... disquieting.

I pressed on into the woods, but.... was there any point, if I was getting so far away from the water? Or were these little pools and puddles remnants of Vah Ruta’s flooding? Dared I hope?

Where was Mei?

Had she been kidnapped by the Yiga?

Oh gads was this like a Kafei-type quest, that I wouldn’t be able to resolve until nearer the end of the game?

My mind drifted through what Yiga Clan minibosses might look like....

The land twisted through the trees; I found some huge crumbled statuary—of the dragon, I think—and another shrine. But.... I was getting too far.

I had to consult my Sheikah Slate to head back toward the water. There was no map, but the compass still worked, and I could register the direction of the Ya Naga shrine. I wended back between the trunks—

And a commotion played in the dappled water ahead.

There was a man.

And a bokoblin, a blue one.

“Come get some!” the man yelled bravely, even as he splashed a few steps back from his foe.

I ran in—what confusion was the sun through the trees in the splashing, shadow-spotted water!—and cut the offending brute down.

I turned, and spoke to—

“Tye?” I gasped.

He stood panting, gripping one arm. “Oh Sorelia please be all right—” he grunted.

Oh no.

I whirled around—there a stone’s throw away, a red bokoblin capered over her as she lay collapsed in the shallow water.

I bolted forward, hopped a fallen log in my way, and a few sloshing strides later collided with the monster, beating him back.

When the bokoblin was dead, Sorelia staggered to her feet—Tye joined us—and we moved to a dry spot where we could catch our breath.

Those two do seem to get around.

They were still searching for their elusive Silent Princess flower. But they hadn’t seen any Zoras along the way.

Satisfied they were at least out of harm’s way for the present, I bade them goodbye, and continued back toward the lake.

My raft was gone.

Hhhh, I’d known it would be, when I first ventured into the trees, but....

Well, there was nothing for it but to start sweeping the coastline. The ridge of big rolling hills to my right seemed an easy place to start. I hiked up to their crest and started back along the lake.

This proved largely uneventful, until very late into the night, when I came upon the ruins of a Deya Village, in a shallow little valley just over the other side of the ridge.

A chill stole over my soul at the sight of its rickety remains, the overturned wagons, the charred and splintered house-frames.... but my heart leapt to see that it was all flooded.

Would Mei be in there?

I moved in—cautiously. There was a very large dead tree beside it—I mean VERY large. I’ve seen these blasted hollow stumps here and there in my travels, especially along the road near the Honeydell. I’m not quite sure yet what they portend, if anything, but they give me the willies.

But this one near the Deya Village Ruins just had a few baddies hiding around it—and a Korok inside the adjacent fallen log. And that was all.

One end of the great hollow log lay near the flooded valley floor; I walked quietly down through it until I stepped out into the water. The village was big....

But in the end, after an extensive search, I found only two poorly-equipped Lizalfos lurking about. And a few well-hidden treasure chests.

But Mei wasn’t there.

I climbed all over the surrounding cliffs, stole a Flame Rod off a Wizzrobe, found out just how ineffective it was against stal-creatures, paraglided back into the village....

No sign of her.

Then I saw a cleft in the hills surrounding the Deya Village valley.

The water snaked away through it.

Follow the water, I thought.

I’d been following the water for weeks.

Just keep following the water....

But the water in the cleft ran dry after only a few score paces.

The only thing left was another camouflaged Lizalfos. They’re pretty talented, the Deya Lizalfos; they produce a most convincing mottle....

But there was no sign of Mei.

What was left?

I moved into the area beyond the cleft. Wound my way through a few more trees. Came upon a campfire. Saw a man there. Spoke to him and—it was—?

“GIRO?” I gaped.

My gosh, I hadn’t seen him in forever! :D Giro! Buddy!

Wait where the heck was I?

I opened my map.

I had wandered back into West Necluda.

It was the selfsame campsite I had cooked so many dishes at, long, long ago with Giro, before the night of my first Blood Moon.

The very same.

To think that I had been so close to the lake back then.

But I wasn’t looking for Giro, I was looking for Mei.

And I couldn’t find her.

I couldn’t find her.

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.

Hateno Village

Waking of Saturday, MARCH FOURTH, 2017 ~ 16

Hateno Village

Much of the end of the road was taken at a gallop; Hateno Village could not come soon enough, but come it did, under the dreary downpour. It was a weary end to a long journey.

Tired and wet, I rode straight through the village proper, walking Brown slow beneath me, sufficed only to glance numbly about as we moved. There were so many people, so many buildings to inspect and see what they could offer me—

But there was a shrine here, and, wrung out by the long road, I wanted to stick first to the essentials.

The Myahm Agana Apparatus gave me absolute fits.

I came out of the shrine in a higher part of the village where it was less crowded. A signpost stood nearby.

It advertised Bolson Construction homes, with an invitation to look at their model homes.

I turned to my left.

They were IKEA houses.

That put a tired little eye-rolling grin on my face.

I went inside one of them.

Unbelievable.

These were definitely IKEA houses.

My gosh.

Across a small bridge over a grassy little ravine, there was a nicer, more traditional-looking house.

As I drew closer I saw a man hammering away at one corner of it.

His name was Karson and he told me this house had been abandoned for some time, and that he and his fellows were demolishing it.

I went around back and found Mr. Bolson himself. He told me much the same thing; the empty house needed to make way for more of his live-inable lunchboxes.

The option arose to say.... “I’ll buy it.”

What the hey! I thought.

“I’ll buy it.”

50,000 rupees he said.

Now, rupees were scarce here. I hadn’t even seen so much as one blessed green one until after I had left West Necluda!

“Impossible,” I said.

“All right look....” he said again, and he offered to slash the price to 3,000 rupees IF I could also bring him thirty bundles of wood. Building materials, you know, he said.

So I said I’d do it.

And we parted ways.

I did speak to the third and last man first, though, and his name was Hudson. He told me I looked pretty strong, and that maybe I could work for Mr. Bolson too. But when he found out my name was Link, he said that was too bad, and they couldn’t take me on anyway. When I asked him why not, he said Mr. Bolson only hires people whose names end in “-son”.

“‘Builds team unity,’ he says,” said Hudson.

The Second Tower

Waking of Saturday, MARCH FOURTH, 2017

The Second Tower

I cooked a lot of dishes with Giro before I finally moved on. I tried to avoid the road when there were bokoblin camps nearby. And as I was climbing the rocky hills south of the road, I looked up.... and realized with a start that I was crawling over the foothills of the southern mountain of Dueling Peaks!

I was here!

I couldn’t believe I made it here.

I had finally made it. And that meant....

For I had seen another tower. I had seen another tower, an orange Sheikah tower, looming closer with the peaks—

But as I swiveled to see it, I saw that it was on the other side of the river which ran between the peaks. The north side.

I was on the south side.

I traveled on, and getting higher I realized with a jolt that the tower was not actually on the other side of the river—it was grounded in it. I could see its glowing orange light beneath the water's surface. Its foundation must have been somewhere deep on the riverbed.

But there were tumbles of rock all around it, leaning up against it—had the tower perhaps erupted these into the spiky, ringing formation they were in? Had it been buried beneath them, beneath the water?

Maybe I could climb the rocks to get to the tower....

I paraglided from the south mountain to a lower track on the north mountain, and thence to the biggest rock that leaned against the tower.

A skeleton popped up in front of me on it.

I kissed it goodbye to the left with one heavy swing of my sledgehammer—I didn’t have time for it now!

I scaled the tower as fast as I could, activated the pedestal at the top with my Sheikah Slate, and the tower turned blue. Moving parts at the top furled upward like a crown, and a new rune distilled and dropped down into my Slate: a map of the area.

This was West Necluda.

And it was vastly larger than the Great Plateau had been.

My gosh . . . . just how big was this world?