Shrine for a Rainy Day

Waking of Saturday, December 8, 2018

Shrine for a Rainy Day

It was time to fill in another unexplored spot in my network of shrines....

I warped to the Tabantha Bridge Stable, and set out east, away from the bridge, to explore the Seres Scablands—the land of those gigantic, anomalous, strange, otherworldly.... treeshrooms. And the land over which I had always—ALWAYS—seen a dark and pouring thunderhead, flashing from within with lightning.

The sky was actually clearer in the Scablands near the stable and the ensuing road. The eternal rain only really seemed to hover over the deepest heart of the enormous treeshroom sprawl, in a place my map called Ludfo’s Bog, back where the land flattened into a broad valley surrounded by tall mountains on all sides.

The topo had always seemed to indicate a kind of artificial rise in the middle of that valley.... I was positive there would be a shrine there....

I had traveled the road past the Seres Scablands a few times before, and I had seen the alien treeshroom forest. But for the first time I now indulged myself in plunging headlong into it in earnest, searching about its cracked and erupted earth, scaring Koroks out of the large, odd pocks in the ground, rainwater pooling in their bottoms.

What had made the ground this way? The land looked like it had boiled and then been left to sit, full of hardened bubbles like crusty cheese. But the rampant grass and unworrying flowers with their butterflies still left a gay feeling in the air. And the only beasties about were Chuchus, Keese, and the occasional Octorok.

I chased out a few more Koroks until I came to the Thundra Plateau—where the rain started.

A monk’s voice sounded: You who have come to this thunderous plateau... When the four spirits are settled in their places, the way to the trial will open. Or some such words.

Upon entering the darkness of the thunderhead I had caught sight of these strange, small, beacon-lights of differing colors, shining steadily through the gloom between the treeshrooms. Bright as lamps and somewhat above ground-level. Were those the “spirits”?

As I pressed on deeper into the storm, I saw that a couple of these beacon-lamps—orbs, I could see now, with strange emblazoned patterns on them—were perched atop imposing columns of more dragon-headed statuary. I also found the artificial rise indicated on my topo; it seemed to be a great, walled barrow of some kind. A Great Plateau in miniature, its raised surface upheld and bound in by an encompassing wall of dark stone.

I circumnavigated it first, like I do, the lightning crashing down on my Thunder Helm at whiles; I couldn’t be bothered to switch out my gear. The barrow was so big around that it took a good few minutes to complete one circuit. The wall had worn and crumbled down in a couple of places, leaving exposed slopes of rock and earth that gave easier access to the top. These were handy as it was difficult to climb the walls in the rain. Not impossible. But definitely hampered.

But first, I went after the red orb. It gleamed atop a relatively short dragon-totem, which stood beside another one of the Scablands’ jutting ruptures—a perfect stepping stone to give me a leg up. It took some hard climbing and leaping up the surface between slippings down, but I made it to the top in fairly short order. I picked up the orb and chucked it down to the plain before paragliding down after it.

However, when I tried to carry it up one of the crumbled slopes and onto the barrow.... well, the slope wasn’t quite so smooth as that. One jutting lip of hardened earth impeded me yet from reaching the top without climbing, and I could not climb while carrying this orb. Nor could I simply throw the orb over the lip and up on top—it was just high enough to prevent that.... and it knew it too....

Try every angle and starting point that I might, I could not get this orb up onto the grassy top of the barrow.... A couple of times I only succeeded in accidentally dropping it on my own head. ☆☆ -_- ☆☆

After a while I decided to leave off the red orb for a bit, and I climbed up on top of the barrow to just go and see about the other orbs up there, for I was sure I’d seen some....

A purple orb was just sitting there, in the midst of the four inward-facing dragon-totems. Each of these totems had a colored symbol on its neck, and a waiting depression in front of it. So I picked up the purple orb and set it in its place before the dragon with the matching purple symbol.

Nothing happened. Just as well; there were more orbs to get.

Some rusting weapon or other was stuck into the wet earth up here, and it too drew the occasional lightning explosion. But after a time even I got tired of all the fireworks, and just put off all my metal trappings.

The green orb was a little trickier, as it sat up on top of one of the dragon totems, and there were no handy stepping stones of ruptured earth to give me a boost here. However, I did have almost three full wheels of stamina, and a lot of Climbing Gear.

I knew I could climb seven or eight steps or grips before the rain would send me sliding back down. And so it was grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, JUMP! Sliiiide.... Which would have produced a net gain each time if I could just rinse and repeat that pattern. But sometimes I could only make a couple of grips up the stone before slipping back down to the ground. The results to my efforts were annoyingly random, but I kept trying....

And all the while the rain lashed and the wind blew and the thunder kept up a constant grumbling overhead, the Piano lazing all over the sodden grass, contentedly picking its nails as it watched me work.

I scrabbled and slipped and hit the ground repeatedly, panting and out of breath. But with much persistence, I eventually did make it to the top of the totem. And the green orb was mine to toss down onto the grass.

The green orb went into its place before the green-marked dragon.

Now for that red one....

I hadn’t wanted to use Stasis, as I didn’t like wearing down my weapons. But I could see no other alternative. Back on the crumbled slope to the barrow-top, I found a bit of earth that looked like it could serve as a ramp.... and there was just enough rock for the orb to sit without rolling down, too.

I tried a Bomb first, to see if that would do it.... then two Bombs.... But Ja Baij had neither the force nor the aim to get the orb where I wanted it.

So I picked a single-handed weapon to sacrifice....

I set the red orb down once again in the nook above the rock, positioned myself just downhill, Stasised the thing, and started whackin’....

This approach was much more controlled, and I had soon imbued the orb with enough force to send it rocketing up the ramp and high over the barrow like a golf ball.

I scurried up once again, was relieved to find that I hadn’t whacked the orb clean over the barrow, and set the red orb down in its place before the red-marked dragon.

One more.

The final orb, orange, was set atop another dragon-totem down on the plain off the barrow. The tallest totem yet....

I got to it, jumping, climbing, scrabbling, grabbing, slipping, falling, panting, running out of energy again and again and again.... until my persistence paid off and I got on top.

I cast the orange orb back down onto the plain, and went to position it on the makeshift earthen ramp....

Huh.... this corresponding dragon’s motif looked yellow, not orange....

I wondered for only a moment, and then placed the orb.

And in the flat grass in the midst of the dragon-totems on top of the rainy barrow.... the Toh Yahsa Shrine came rumbling up out of the earth.

The trial within was called Buried Secrets. And WOW that was a lot of big blocks to knock around and blow up. Much fun.

SNOW DAY 3: WRESTING THE BEST ERE THE QUEST TO THE WEST

Waking of Friday, November 16, 2018

SNOW DAY 3: WRESTING THE BEST ERE THE QUEST TO THE WEST

FOR A TEST PER BEHEST OF THE GODDESS MOST BLESSED.

That’ssss a little carried away.

BECAUSE I DO NOT JEST WHEN I SAY I’M HER GUEST

‘CAUSE THIS WORLD IS ALL MESSED; I’VE KILLED MANY A PEST—

I don’t even like rap, what am I doing—

*AHEM*

I put on all my cold clothes and was ready to go back to Hebra to try out shield surfing and I warped tooooo.... Mount Lanayru.

I sailed down to the Lanayru Road; couldn’t see a thing on the way down for the snowclouds....

But I was gonna get me some hornshard.

It took forever. The dragons never show up when you’re looking for them. I ran around looking for other useful things in the meanwhile, and found the most enormous Korok circle I had ever seen. By which I mean the circle itself was typical, and not extraordinary in shape or pattern. It was just made of BOULDERS. BIG rocks! I grunted and huffed and puffed to roll the one from the center over to the empty spot in the ring.

Whoof.

Well played, Korok. Well played.

I also took the opportunity to kill a Blue Hinox, and that so quickly that it was dead before its music even started! By the time its life bar showed up, only a tenth of it remained, if that. Two more hits with whatever dragon-bone Big Stick I was wielding, and he was down. It’s astonishing what Urbosa’s Fury can accomplish when I wear my Barbarian Armor....

But these my diversions were not without their own frustrations—like HOW does a 300-foot dragon sneak past you? TWICE?

I tried to be more attentive, and was rewarded with some scales, but EVENTUALLY.... I did get a hornshard!

That was two hornshards. I could have upgraded my Champion’s Tunic if I wanted to.

But....

I didn’t.

I just went to the Plateau to pray.

I went all the way to the Temple of Time again, before I remembered that I only had 11 Spirit Orbs and I wanted to wait until I had 12. Just one more....

I went back to Pepp’s. I almost went straight into the Deku Tree’s Navel, but I stopped to actually talk to the Deku Tree first, as it had been a while.

And the Deku Tree told me something most illuminating—he said that the Master Sword glowed when it was near Ganon, or those touched by his Malice.

Well that explained it.

And that meant that.... the Guardians must have had the Malice in them too.... judging by my encounters in Ordorac Quarry.

It was 4:55 in the morning when I went to check in with Pepp, and so I slept five minutes until the morning proper, and then quit for a while.

When I came back, I warped to Hebra again, and continued my Snow Day! :)

I didn’t go shield surfing after all, but continued south from the northwestern corner of the map, where I had climbed low down the cliffs nigh to falling off the edge of the world.

Saw many things along the way! Found a bear and killed it—and it was a much more drawn-out fight than I would have thought! I could see now how David had once been killed by one of these. Found a Hinox and killed it—Urbosa’s Fury in the Barbarian Armor once again brought down the house! Found a Lynel and.... skirted it. They’re all White-Maned now.

I kept meandering southward until I found, hidden deep within the black stony cliffs beside a deadly icy lake brooding with malevolent Octoroks and planked by pointless and rickety boardwalks to nowhere.... the Maka Rah Shrine! Whose resident challenge was called Steady Thy Heart.

DANG.

If Hawa Koth were like the sparky younger cousin of Kaam Ya’Tak.... then this Maka Rah was surely.... like the sadistic older sister who punishes you for intruding on her CLEARLY-boundaried privacy.

That was my one-hundredth shrine.

I was ahead of David now.

The Lamb

Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 5

The Lamb

I was brought back to the top of the mountain, to the Spring of Wisdom.

The Goddess statue spoke again.

“Thanks to your efforts, Naydra, the spirit

of Mount Lanayru, has been freed from

the grips of an evil power.”

The dragon was once again coiled atop the mountain, but he looked much better, the arching curves of his long body more alive, less weighed down, his great taloned feet strong on the snow and ice beneath him. His great head he held, low and docile, above the spring. Eyes so bright....

“But a single ceremony remains. Now...

Loose your arrow through the body of

Naydra to free the spirit of this region!”

What?

Naydra still lay.... stood.... coiled, there, head hung low beneath his beautifully arched neck. I’d never seen a dragon still as this before. And getting a chance to actually look at him, he was.... just....

His eyes so bright and yet so calm, wells of peace, outward facing as a deer or a horse, such long beautiful eyelashes, drooping, funneled llama-ears hanging down, and his flexing, moving, unsplit, camellike muzzle.... Was he really a scaled creature? It looked almost like a fringe of fur, hanging down from his upper.... lip. Whiskered. Fuzzed. So that the mouthline could not be seen. Like a grazing creature. Patient. Peaceful.

In that moment especially, the blue spirit Naydra really did seem.... as a lamb.

And I held the knife.

I did take a few pictographs first, some of them, I’m only a little sorry to say.... somewhat irreverent. Like standing as if in deep and oblivious thought with his man-sized, all-rending claws behind me....

It was funny.

And I tried to touch him, too. But, even when he was still, the force and chill of his body sent me sprawling back, taking a tiny bite from my health each time.

All right.

I went back to the platform. If it was to be a bowshot, I wanted to try for a hornshard. Giving the honors to the Phrenic Bow that had served me so well, I took careful aim, and landed a shaft in the crystal-blue horn a third-way up from the dragon’s brow.

At the contact, Naydra took off, this time rearing straight up into the grey, grey sky, and for a worryingly long time, or what seemed like it, nothing happened. But after a moment, a gleaming something broke from the glittering mark I had left on the horn, and came streaking back down to earth, landing on the platform before the Goddess statue.

It was a dragon scale.

Well.... that was good enough, I thought.

“That is the spirit Naydra’s scale.

It fell when your arrow struck.

It serves as proof of the courage you

received from the one who served the

spring since ancient times.

Come... Offer a scale from the blue spirit

Naydra to the Spring of Wisdom.”

Naydra....

He was flying away. Up into his vortex in the sky.

Like they do.

I picked up the scale. The first and only one I had ever held from the blue dragon Naydra. So precious and wanted a thing, but.... I needed to sacrifice it to another, first.

I stepped down into the spring, waded forward to where I could see the royal family’s crest engraved upon the submerged stones, and let fall the scale into the water.

A plash and a golden light.... and a door opened behind the Goddess statue.

“Your path has shown itself. Now go forth.”

I glanced into the sky once more before entering the cavern. Freed from the shackles of evil, Naydra flew away in peace.

And I crossed over the threshold, and entered the Jitan Sa’mi Shrine.

And when I stepped back out of it, it was noon, and the mountain knew it.

And the high, cold music was playing again.

Clarion as ice.

The Erhu Profane

Waking of Friday, September 21, 2018 ~ 4

The Erhu Profane

The obvious next destination after passing through the East Gate of the Lanayru Road was the grand and imposing Mount Lanayru.

But I didn’t quite pass through the gate after all, because there was a Lynel out there, stalking through the aspens. White-maned no less....

Rather I skittered up into the hills to the south, to see if I could bypass it, in the process climbing above a landmark I had long regarded with awe and reverence on my map: Purifier Lake.

A fat red Hinox snored in the spray of its waterfall, occasionally scratching its moldy bellybutton. How putrid! OH how I longed to kill the offending brute—but with that Lynel so close....

....

I didn’t feel like tangling with it just now, but at least decided that this was as good a time as any for a certain.... field-test....

I climbed to a prominent part of the hillside where the Lynel would just be able to see me, and started jumping up and down to get its attention.

And it saw me all right. And as I’d hoped, at this range, it drew its bow, nocked an arrow, and pulled back the string. On went my Thunder Helm....

The Lynel at Shatterback Point had nearly zapped me into flash-fry with its Shock Arrows. The one down in the Lynels’ Corridor had shocked me into dropping my items with the same. But here.... I’d be able to see what the Thunder Helm was really capable of....

Or I would have.... if only this Lynel hadn’t been using.... ICE ARROWS?

Fortunately the projectiles came up short, spawning wicked but harmless frosted stalagmites that erupted out of the rock with a rumbling.

I booked it, retreating higher up into the hills. No arrows connected. I was safe.

But....

....

Well.

Another time.

With another Lynel!

I trudged over the hillsides and down into the Naydra Snowfield in the foothills of the mountain, safe and barriered from the Lynel by a sharp ridge of stone. Snow lay thick upon the ground here, and the Chillshrooms grew everywhere! They seemed to spring from the base of every stark or naked pine, and there were quite a few of those.

I only wandered and swept from side to side for a bit, checking for Koroks and other interesting things while heading in a vague, forward direction. The clothes I was obliged to wear—my Ruby Circlet and Warm Doublet—together protected me from the intense cold, but offered me poor defense against Ice Chuchus, Ice Lizalfos and wolves. Well, the Ruby Circlet was strong enough. But the Warm Doublet only had one defense point. Whereas my Champion’s Tunic currently had fourteen.

I suppose I could have saved myself an awful lot of trouble, and monster encounters, if I had only climbed the mountain the way I had climbed up Death Mountain for the first time, when I’d realized there was that memory up there.... That time, I had gone straight up the side, caring nothing for the road, for I hadn’t even realized there was one. But here in the snowfield, as I neared the other end, and as the land began to rise, I looked at the ground I was heading to tread on and—

“Stairs!” I thrilled to David, “There are stairs!” There was an old road beneath the snow! The ancient architecture enthralled me as ever.

The land was so blanketed here that the road could not be discerned, except for the sharp corners of stone stairs peeking through the snow at the occasional sharp rise.

And I remembered the Lanayru Road, and how the path had continued, and wound away through the aspens where the Lynel prowled, and how there was even that cut through the natural stone barrier to the snowfields—the road must have come through there as well, though I hadn’t. And now here, at the foot of the mountain, and seemingly for a great distance yet, fine stonework showed through the frost.

That it should be so developed! I flicked to my map and found where I was and looked and.... Yes, yes! There it was in the topo! The road led all the way to the top! And if it was like this all the way up the mountain....

Augh, the ruins would be fantastic.

And I could only imagine it in its prime glory days.

Of course, it wasn’t until I had already come a long way along it, batting off wolves and Chuchus and Lizalfos all the while, that I recalled how few monsters I had encountered while climbing off the beaten track toward my first recovered memory back in Eldin. That is to say, almost zero. And here on the icy road, against the more populous foes, my clothes could not protect me very well....

But there wasn’t really anything for it now. I supposed I could have veered off and started climbing the walls, but.... No. I would be all right. I had meant to come this way.

Besides, partway up the mountain, I was distracted by something so chilling it made me forget my road-woes entirely.

Night was falling. Though under the cloud cover of the high mountain, it made little difference to the light or the visibility. The Ice Lizalfos hunkered thick along the trail. I was paragliding round to duke it out with one camouflaged one, when—

....Strange music?

Upon landing I turned. Another Lizalfos I hadn’t seen was behind me, likewise camouflaged. Neither of them made a move, but I still didn’t care for being surrounded.

What was that.... music? It sounded like that music that heralds a dragon, but.... no, this was something else. What was going on?

The tune was the same, but the music, the chords, the intervals had changed. Why did it sound so diminished? So distorted? It felt sick and ungodly. A perversion of the sublime erhu I had heard before.

I reached a broad point where the road switched back and a few pillars stood sentinel or leaned in frozen tottering. I checked them for Koroks, and in climbing to the top of one of them, paused for a moment and looked up toward the mountain’s top—closer now. And there among the jagged crags and icy protrusions I thought I could see.... something....

And I gasped when I knew. MALICE? HERE? No!

But it was worse. It was.... heaving. And I saw the bluish horn coming off of it.... never seen blue Malice before.... And I saw another horn, and another, and more slowly rising and falling curves of a serpentine body, and.... No! It—it couldn’t be!

I grabbed my Pictobox. Aimed it.

....Naydra....

This was Naydra. Naydra was.... something was on it.... a parasite.

A Malice Parasite.

Naydra....

I hurried.

And of a sudden I was there. The final switchback had been so abrupt.

Naydra.... he looked.... horrible. The Malice was globbing so huge and heavy onto his head, like a cancerous growth. I could feel the weight of his wilting neck, his eyes forced near to closing beneath the drooping mass.

The long coils of the dragon’s body looped heavily among the topmost crags of the mountain. Further globs of burning, cruel Malice clung onto its scales, the magenta bleeding into the deep blue, staining it, tainting it, infecting it....

And then the Goddess statue—or the Goddess, through the statue—spoke.

“You have done well to find your way to this spring.”

The statue stood at the back of a spring of water, templed and paved with stones as the Spring of Power had been. This was....

“You who have overcome numerous trials

and obtained the Spirit Orbs...

The one you see before you is an

attendant to the Spring of Wisdom.

This is Naydra, the blue spirit of Lanayru.”

This was the Spring of Wisdom. I knew it. I knew it from my map and from Sanadin Park memories and from all the hearsay of Hateno.

“This servant of the Goddess has looked

over the spirits of this land for ages,

unknown to the world of man.

However, the dreaded Malice unleashed

by Calamity Ganon has possessed its

body and reduced it to this state.

You who have received the Spirit Orbs...

Free Naydra from this Malice.

Show what your power can achieve!”

And at the statue’s last words, an enormous, popping yellow eyeball OPENED UP and swiveled ponderously from the heart of the mass on Naydra’s head.

I was free to move and Naydra had not stirred, except for the lumbering of its panting breaths as its head bowed and wept. The eyeball still gaped all around like a demonic blinking baby.

A large target.... and fairly stationary.... Would it really be that simple?

I took as many steps forward as I dared, and reached for a Phrenic Bow I had been keeping in reserve for a long, long time. I hadn’t really known what for. But if not for this, then nothing.

“Don’t fail me now....” I crooned as I took aim at the distant, house-sized globe....

The arrow struck true, and the eyeball-mass mouthlessly screeched before dissolving in a pruff of evil. Naydra’s head seemed to come alive—it pulled heavily, strongly upward, his eyes opened, his indigo skin was free and open and cold and—

He kept rearing. Higher and higher he arced, and then the coils of his long body followed him. Slithering through the air between the cracks, he mounted up into the sky and twined and writhed as the remaining Malice globs burned still upon his skin.

Uh? Was he coming back? It didn’t look like it—I hoofed it up the one remaining trail to the right, the one that led right up to the mountain’s crest—Naydra twined in the sky above the cap—

But he was so big and he moved so fast and there was so much of him—I tried cutting beneath an arc of his body as it slid over the path, so low.... But I must have made some contact, and the force bowled me off my feet and back down the track.

The Malice masses were being pulled along so quickly and so sinuously through the air—it was hard to take aim—but my Phrenic Bow did not fail me—I pierced another eyeball! Giant as the first had been.

But Naydra’s flight did not slow or calm. He began to twine away from the peak, lower down the mountain. And I was hesitant. Such altitude would be difficult to regain, if I followed him down there only to have to chase him back to these heights....

But he wasn’t coming back. Only rolling and weaving and twisting in monumental agitation further down the slopes. And there was nothing else for it, and so....

Uhhh—

I steeled myself and leapt from an icy crag to sail down after the poor beast.

Then as I exited the cloud cap and came into clearer airs, I saw I needn’t have worried—every crag and crack and dell and glen thrust a powerful updraft into the night. They were far below me now, but the sight was comforting.

I sailed closer and attempted to head the dragon’s twining—and one of the Malice globs. But Naydra’s course and speed were impossible to predict. How many masses were there? Five in all? I took a chance when a glob passed close, drew my bow, time slowed, had to watch my stamina.... carefully, CAREFULLY....

I struck the eyeball, but had expended too much strength to do it and my stamina wheel was empty and I was falling toward the black earth and the updrafts wouldn’t help me but no—somehow—SOMEHOW....

How did I catch myself?

Where had that stamina come from when I was able to just deploy my paraglider right above the crag to keep myself from becoming a greasy smear on the rocks....? And I touched down and—

Where was I?

....

Somewhere low. Down the mountain.

It was a big playing field tonight.

It seemed that, like the glowing and strengthening of the Master Sword, sometimes, if you executed things just right.... you could regain your strength, and sail safely away from the point of exhaustion.

I climbed to the point of the black rock where I stood, and leapt off into an updraft. The valley was alive with wind.

“Naydra!” I chased after him. “Naydra!”

And still he twined so massively in his circuitous writhing.

He flew around, I rode the airs, I chased him all the way back down to the Naydra Snowfield where he tore up the trees with his passing.

“Naydra you have to hold still!”

I took careful aim.... thank goodness for this Phrenic Bow....

Two more globs....

One more glob....

And I shot the last one.

The indigo Naydra huffed, breathed.... and blinked its big bright colorful eye. He flew up into the air again and with a strain or a stretch, burst from the last darkness that I hadn’t realized was still holding him—the indigo exploded from him and turned to dust—that was not his true color? He arced and reared higher, and as he rose he glowed and gleamed brighter, brighter, BRIGHTER, into an astonishingly brilliant ice-teal the color of a frozen Caribbean bay, his crown of many horns shining the blue of an ancient glacier.

Oh he was beautiful now....

He was glorious.

Into The Dragon's Maw

Waking of a Saturday, February 3, 2018 ~ 3

Into The Dragon’s Maw

I pressed forward through the jungle again, as the rain-haze came and went. And the foliage and brush were still so thick that it came once more as a surprise when the leaves suddenly parted and I was presented with a wider view of the valley.

It took me a moment to understand what I was seeing.... I could see on my HUD that I was very near to the riverhead—I thought I should be able to make out the shape of the toothy mouth.

But that wasn’t what caught my eye first.

Looming in the dimness—was it daytime or nighttime?—a large, very large shape of stone thrust from the deepest wall at the back of the box canyon, thick, and heavy, and greened with atmosphere or moss. It was enshrouded and entangled by the sprawling plants, and hazed by distance and mist, so that it was difficult to say where the stone ended and the canyon wall began. Everything was so dim....

But even in the darkness, the shape was unmistakable—mountaining over the last grinning lake of the dragony river, flanked by two taloned paws of the same immense scale, stood the masoned head of a dragon.

Dodongo’s Cavern, I thought, seeing the enormous lower jaw there like a ramp into the Inferno. The Lizalfos that guarded it were so tiny....

Surely this must have shown up on the topo—I checked my map and could see it now, even the claws. How had I never seen—?

But it had always stood just adjacent to the gaping, bright blue mouth of the ribbony dragon river. Of course. How could anything stand out juxtaposed against that?

I decided to pick off a Lizalfos or two with my bow before venturing too far from the shelter of the trees. The range made it tricky, but I couldn’t have them alerting any of their friends to my presence.

Scoping in to examine the dragon’s head further, I saw part of a cubic Korok puzzle standing on the back of the big right paw.

Well, I could do that at least, I thought, and moved ahead through the gloom.

But as I drew near, something beyond the puzzle caught my eye—something.... glowing.

A MEMORY?

I bypassed the puzzle—the light was coming from behind—inside—the dragon’s neck. It seemed much of it was hollow. That made sense, with the gaping jaw-ramp.

But as I clambered closer over the mossy, sloping terrain, I could see it was not a memory.

It was a Goddess Statue.

IN—? WHAT?

—the name of the place gleamed over the screen—

IN.... THE SPRING OF COURAGE.

THIS WAS THE SPRING OF COURAGE.

I HAD FOUND ANOTHER SPRING.

I killed the Moblin keeping the inside of the Dragon’s Head—and waded through the water to pray before the Goddess.... I think.... Oh, was there some kind of sign in the stonework or was it.... Her?

Whence came those instructions?

Hhhh, I must not put off the keeping of the log for so long.... -_-

Said to offer Farosh’s Scale to the spring.

I had two scales on me, and I parted with one.

Light shone where I dropped it into the water, right in the center before the statue of the Goddess. Golden light shooting straight up from the tiny concentric ripple....

And a mighty stone door opened in the grey canyon wall behind the Goddess.

Inside was a Blessing Shrine. The Shae Katha Shrine.

After collecting the monk’s Spirit Orb, I came back out and proceeded to climb the Dragon’s Head—a gigantic tree rooted among the springwaters inside came bursting through the top of the neck. The views from its upper boughs were excellent, and aside from that I found a Korok!

But.... it was getting late.

From the treetop I saw the other half of the cubic puzzle I’d seen on the right paw—it happened to be on the left paw, and that one held the Magnesable piece.

I paraglided down, and studied the structure very carefully before removing the spare block and trekking back behind the Dragon’s Head to the other side again. After inserting the block correctly into the first puzzle, the Korok appeared, I got a seed and....

I called it a day.

I climbed back onto the Dragon’s Head for a safe perch, settled down somewhere near its right ear, saved, and quit.

I was done.

Fooling Myself

Waking of a Saturday, February 3, 2018 ~ 2

Fooling Myself

There were too many people around.

I tried to figure out the password to that place behind the clothing shop again. And who was Pokki? Nobody in town that I could find.... or at the Ice House.

And why wouldn’t that other Gerudo in the bar wake up? I wanted to talk to her....

I went to the Ice House, I went back to town, I went to the Bazaar, and somehow.... found that I could take the heat in my Gerudo clothes now? I thought I couldn’t before.

I couldn’t find out the password.

Mmm not all my clothes were enhanced. A trip to Cotera remedied that.

I didn’t want to do anything important with all these people around.... and so decided.... to just look for Mister Hestu.

I rode Memory from Dueling Peaks to Faron Woods, and walked him cautiously in among the trees.... But after a while of encountering a few too many Bokoblins and other nasties, I rode him back to the Highland Stable to board him—No more endangering the horses.

After that I warped back to that shrine in the woods I had unlocked so long ago—the one near which I’d saved Tye and Sorelia in the shallow, dappled water—it was near to the path—and continued into Faron Woods on foot.

I wandered around and onward, meeting a few other travelers, some of whom claimed to hail from a nearby village. And I was sorely, SORELY tempted by the prospect of discovering a new, friendly habitation, but.... Hestu.

And I could see on my map—there was something about this forest that had piqued my curiosity every time I looked upon it: the river which twined through it in great looping curves and which ended in (or sprang from; I wasn’t really paying attention to the direction it flowed) a box canyon....

It had always looked like a dragon to me. The long course of it like a serpentine body, and the last distant pool of it shaped like open, toothy jaws. Perhaps more akin to a typical charicature of a venus fly trap than anything else.... but drawn there in the geography and hinted at all the same.

I had often imagined myself traveling into this forest, wondering what I might find at the dragon’s maw. But now that I was here, my intentions of being so straightforward began to melt away, and I was longing to maintain a stealthy distance from the road as is so my wont.

The deciduous trees gave way to palm trees, tall and thick, and a racket of birds and bugs began to fill the air. This was the jungle I had always seen from the Talus’ sporting field on the slopes of the southern Dueling Peak.... but never ventured into.

There were a few more Bokoblins; a lady called Meeshy, whose words and wants I didn’t really catch because I was giggling at her name—it’s the name I call the neighborhood cat (an Anglicized variant of the Spanish for “Kitty”) when she comes around and wants something to eat; and—

That accordion!

Kass!

He treated me to a song about a dragon’s mouth, and I was sure of it then—something important had to be at the end of that river.... And I wanted to find it for certain, but.... the road to get there twined among the trees in almost as circuitous a route as that of the river. Great place for an ambush or three....

I was wary of roads.

Leastways those upon which I’d never traveled.

But then again.... what else was new?

Pausing only to solve an INFURIATING Korok Puzzle involving metal balls tethered together by a chain like enormous bolas—infuriating!—I plunged into the foliage to the left and kept well off the track, clinging to the hills on the edge of the giant jungle-bowl instead.

The whole valley seemed to be nestled between the foothills of the Dueling Peaks and an appreciable red mountain of steps and buttes which I had never explored. Or at least, that’s what I had always surmised by the view from Talus Junior’s Field.

I set the high rim to my left and the cascading, sweltery depths to my right, and crept forward, ever cautious. Tropical rain came down in sheets to claps of thunder and lightning, and I quickly found myself having to unequip anything metal. The palm trees rattled in the din. They really were huge, and they grew more and more thickly as I pressed on.

And then of a sudden I emerged from the leaves and was confronted by a level clearing set with a weathered old square of foundation ruins.

It positively stank of Korok to me.

A number of large, flat paving blocks made up a hollow square shape on the ground, with grass and foliage filling its wide center. On three of the cornerstones of this formation sat three very large stone boulders. Where was the fourth....?

And at each corner of the grassy central space, a huge pillar towered out of the earth. Three of these were empty, but atop one of them—SOMEHOW—was the fourth boulder.

Oh boy....

Stasis and arrows didn’t make it budge. And I didn’t want to spend any specialty arrows.... Or maybe I just didn’t have any left after that last Lynel encounter. I would need something more powerful....

I didn’t want to throw any of my heavier weapons and damage them in the process. A Bomb would do, but.... I couldn’t throw them so high. Mm, but I could drop them....

I set myself to climbing the pillar in the rain, slipping again and again, but forcing myself onward. This course was made even more difficult by the fact that the boulder was so huge and the column just thin enough that there would be no place to stand until I had scaled the boulder itself, crawling up around to its top like a spider!

It took a few tries, but I made it, standing at last in sodden triumph at the top. The view from up high was nice, even in the rain. I could see over some of the trees and deeper into the valley....

But now for this boulder.

What I did next also took a few tries, to get the timing right. But fortunately Ja Baij is a gernerous chap, and I had an infinite number of Bombs to play with.

I Stasised the giant boulder beneath my feet, took out a Bomb, rolled it over the edge, and detonated it while it was close enough to exert some force upon the boulder, but far enough away that it wouldn’t blow me up!

And when the Stasis let go.... over the boulder keeled and finally fell to the ground (I paraglided down after it) where I could manage it with a bit more ease.

Ha, yeah—ease. Surely. The thing was still huge.

I tried pushing it toward the empty cornerstone. No good; it was too big. So I tried Stasis and another Bomb. Not enough force. Stasis and two more Bombs.... got it on the square!

And the Korok appeared!

YES! ^_^

That had to be the heaviest Korok I’d ever chased up. Epic.

There was something supremely satisfying about that one.

Really made you work for it.

Afraid of the Dark

Waking of Saturday, July 8, 2017 ~ 3

Afraid of the Dark

As I continued around Death Mountain I offhandedly scoped out a few of the mountains in the distance and saw.... my blue marker? But I had left that far northwest of the Elma Knolls!

It seemed I was already north of the volcano.

Well, I had followed Dinraal’s course, and that was the whole reason I had come this way, to track where he went. And I did get a piece of him out of it, too.

I’d wanted to go to find.... that Kilton fellow....

But this place had its sirens, too.

Could I reach my blue marker and pick it up? I didn’t even remember what I had seen out there....

I kept going west, and passed another White Lynel my gosh.... Maybe this was the place Joseph meant when he said he knew where all the Lynels were....

And beyond the Lynel, a single, solitary Korok—the first I had seen in ages—hiding at the top of a dead and blasted tree in a dead and blasted ruin that shone like Eden for the starkness of the encompassing wasteland. Even the puzzle it offered seemed tired. But its presence was refreshing.

A little further and more blessed vegetation began to appear—including what seemed to be an epic treehouse in the distance. But I didn’t want to go play with any bokoblins just now; I was more interested in.... what looked like an enormous, fat black boe.

A strange, large dell was before me. Water filled its bottom and tree branches bloomed from its middle, but—

Everything was obscured by a thick blackness.

Perhaps it would have been less maddening if it were only mist, but—it was so black. The sheer unnaturalness of it made it just . . . . Augh how I wanted to see! The laws of nature demanded that daylight, even moonlight, penetrate those depths and yet . . . .

All remained concealed.

I considered trying to paraglide in, but was glad I didn’t when I came closer and found the water to actually be a bog.

However—I was back on my visible map, now, the Woodland Region, and I could see if I just circled a little bit farther around the dell, there would be a bridge I could use to access the center.

So I found the bridge, crossed it, entered the blackness, and....

A monk named Ketoh Wawai invited me to find the shrine in the middle of the darkness if I could. The Shrouded Shrine. It was a Shrine Quest.

Remembering David’s island off the Hateno coast, not wanting to be trapped, I immediately backtracked and—

Found that I could easily come out on the bridge and back into the light.

I went back in again.

Ketoh Wawai did not address me this time.

Mmmm maybe that was lame of me. It definitely killed the drama, that’s for sure. But.... that’s okay.

I walked on ahead.

It was so dread dark in here. Two lit bird-shaped torches flanked the inner end of the bridge, but beyond that....?

Nothing. Just blackness.

I couldn’t even see my own person.

An unlit torch rested nearby, but.... I had no more room in my inventory. Not caring to enter another which-weapon-do-I-discard fit, I walked ahead using the light of my Great Fireblade, step by step into the darkness.

Barely-discernible shapes loomed in the shadows, punctuated at long whiles by glowing mushrooms or ore. I tried following one boundary, hugging weathered stone and bubbling shore to see where it would lead me, but.... the place was a maze.

In truth I was reminded of Faron Woods, and the crumbled dragon-head statuary I’d seen there, for there seemed to be more of it here. Was this a similar kind of place, or the ruins of one, just.... dedicated to Dinraal instead of Farosh?

There were also more bird-statues standing here and there, unlit, and I realized.

Hahhhh, and I decided I’d better go back and get that torch; it’d be easier.

I don’t remember what I dropped in order to pick the torch up, but the bird-lights were handy. The beak of every one I lit pointed the way to the next one.

Heh, thanks, Zelda. X-) I turned off my HUD just to make it more interesting....

It was a bit alarming when I heard a wolf howl from the darkness—I ran back to the last torch I had lit and readied a sturdier weapon....

My gosh their unseen forms prowling the black just beyond the edge of the fire’s light.... the wicked shine of their hungry eyes.... I couldn’t see them—

There was something primal there. That encounter.

That was a well-conceived encounter.

But it wasn’t what struck me deepest.

What I thought most wondrous and beautiful.... was the Piano.

In the darkness of the shrouded island, like a frightened dog the Piano came at once to heel and repetitively pattered only a tiny spread of notes in my wake. Key of G with the eeriest high pedal points lost in the dark.... it was so dark....

Beautiful, beautiful music befitting the range of my sight.

I’d heard the Hinox snoring now and again as I crept through the black. Maybe that was worse than when I actually came upon it. Waiting for something is always worse than the thing itself.

Then I saw that the orb I had to plant in the pedestal across the way was strung up around the Hinox’s neck.

Dandy.

My tactics were.... varied. It’s one thing to shoot arrows at a Hinox from a high and clear vantage point. It’s another thing entirely to do it on level ground at close quarters in the dark. At least its single, huge eye glowed in the dark. Its movements were still deucedly difficult to lead, though. Retreats were frequent.

I tried scaling a row of columns by the light of an Ice Rod—it worked better than my Fireblade—and shooting arrows from this higher point.

It seemed the Hinox had better eyes than I did, though; it pelted me again and again with huge boulders it scooped from the dirt. Dead on. I couldn’t keep this up....

Ice Rod? No. Stasis? That worked, but I didn’t want to stay too close to the thing....

At length, to the left of the main path, I found a slim crack between two tall pillars that I could fit through, but that the Hinox had no chance of penetrating, which opened right onto the Hinox’s clearing. Excellent.

I lured it in close to this crack and then backed up quick; I didn’t want that thing’s giant mitts coming after me! Roarings and rumblings would ensue from the far side of the thick, thick pillars.... and then the Hinox would finally show its bulbous yellow eye peeping through.... closer, closer, closer.... very close.... and I’d fire.

The pattern worked! And I was safe behind thick stone, keeping arrows tightly nocked and reminding myself irresistibly of an art piece by Katsuya Terada. The Hinox roared and stamped and snarled—what was it doing? I could hear it scratching, grabbing, swinging, smashing—was it ripping trees out of the ground, as my Compendium had said was its wont?

During one such obscured wind-up-and-attack, I even saw its life-meter go down a smidge. Did it accidentally smack itself in the face with a tree?

I could only imagine.

A few more carefully shot arrows, and the Hinox was down. I killed a Hinox in the dark. Oh my gosh. And I collected the orb—and all the Hinox’s goodies—placed it in the pedestal, and the Ketoh Wawai Shrine rumbled out of the earth a short way away.

Kinda wanted to call it the Ketoh Wha-WHY? Shrine.

I received Ketoh Wawai’s Blessing, exited the shrine, watched the game auto-save.... and quit.

GUT CHECK

Waking of Saturday, July 8, 2017

GUT CHECK

On the Great Plateau, King Rhoam had advised me to go see Impa.

In Kakariko Village, Impa had advised me to go see Purah.

In Hateno Village, Purah had advised me to go see Robbie.

On the way to Robbie’s, people had whispered about Kilton.

Those were the breadcrumbs as I tasted them.

That was why I wanted to stick to Akkala for now.

And that was why when I left the Spring of Power I headed straight for the Skull Lake, which Kilton was said to haunt. I could see the shrine high at the top of one of its ridiculous islands, even at this distance.... Perhaps I’d snag that first; it looked like there was some higher ground I could climb to in order to paraglide in....

I started in a somewhat northward direction through a high valley full of beautiful aspens in fair colors, the highland cliffs of the coast on my right, and the foothills of the volcano on my left.

But I did not get very far before I was interrupted—by an erhu.

I swiveled madly around, searching.... Where, where? And finally looking straight up.... I saw it, high, high in the sky above my head:

A Red Dragon.

I snapped the distant creature’s pictograph, and my Compendium told me this was Dinraal, a spirit of fire taken the shape of a dragon. The rest of the entry was very much similar to Farosh’s. But, benign as he might be, I somehow didn’t think if I rode on this dragon’s back that his flames would be so . . . . forgiving.

I didn’t take but a few steps more before I was interrupted again—by a Lynel.

That’s what that moving shape in the distance was—and when its head jolted in my direction I quickly got behind a tree trunk!

A Blue-Maned Lynel.

Tougher than the Reds. Tougher than that one on Ploymus Mountain.

Dear me.

So I backtracked around and up into the high eastern hills, giving it a wide berth. But there was a Lynel up that way, too.

It was a trick to tread between them! But I fared well enough until I got high around the east or northeast part of the cliffs surrounding Skull Lake. It would be an easy paraglide to the shrine from here....

But I saw something further to the west. Another orange glow beside an immense pillar of rock.

But it was so faint and so distant.... Was it really a Shrine?

I considered: If I paraglided down to the Skull Lake Shrine, it would be a long climb back up here to investigate that other orange glow....

And so I put Skull Lake on hold and plunged on ahead, up into the dread forbidding foothills of Death Mountain.

The land was bald, the trees scorched and dead. Not even any Koroks gamboled around here. It was an awful place to wait out another Blood Moon....

I saw as I drew closer to that great rock spire that the glow did not come from a shrine, but from fire. Campfires, torchfires. Something else anyway. And soon I came upon some walkways crudely plated with metal sheets, and jagged fenceposts and an archway. This led onto a narrow part of a wide and many-chambered pool of water so crystal blue....

And bubbling, I saw with a closer look.

Some rocks sat half-submerged in the water just after the archway. For jumping across I imagined.

Would I boil alive if I fell in there?

How brave was I feeling about jumping over those rocks?

“Andrea,” David piped up as I hemmed and hawed.

“Yeah?”

“This is about Zelda.”

Huh. “....‘Kay?” I said.

He hesitated and then said, “The water won’t hurt you.”

Oh, I thought.

“It’s a hot spring,” said David.

OH! 8D “A hot spring?” I smiled, and walked right ahead and into it until I was treading water.

But I already had full hearts. And then some, thanks to Mipha when I’d run into that treehouse north of the Lynels. It had been full of bokoblins with bomb arrows, which I harvested, as they were firing in the rain.... but then the sun came out and they’d blown me up before I could kill them all.

Never could figure out how to get up onto that treehouse....

Anyway I’d heard hot springs could fill you up some hearts. <3

I got out of the water, and headed for that giant rock. There was a signpost. It read:

GUT CHECK ROCK

WAT. ò.Ò

A couple of Gorons were at the base of the rock pillar, one standing, the other flat on his back. I went to check on this one, a bit concerned for his wellbeing.... and it was—

“KABETTA?”

“So sweaty... brother...” he groaned.

Heehl was the Goron on his feet.

It was those same Gorons. Accompanied by that same drunken Skyloft Trombone no less.

They both recognized me as “that guy who backed out of the endurance challenge”.

But here was another challenge for me it seemed. I ascended to the top of the rock pillar via air current, and found Bayge at the top—and a Shrine after all!

Bayge also recognized me as that quitter from before. Dang it, Gorons!

I asked him to move so I could get in the Shrine, but he said first I had to pass the GUT CHECK CHALLENGE.

“THIS IS WHERE GORON BOYS BECOME GORON MEN, BROTHER!” and oh so many other manly encouragements he spouted. XD

Well, I wanted in that Shrine, so I did their challenge, climbed the pillar, got enough rupees, and made it to the top before the time ran out. I really wasn’t sure I’d be able to make it! But I gave it a try and lo! it worked. And they made me their sworn brother to boot! ^_^

And the Shrine was mine.

And I received Gorae Torr’s Blessing.

Cool.

I think there might also be a Korok hiding up on top of that pillar but I’m not sure.

But with how high I was, I had quite a view! And I could see Dinraal twining through the sky.... It seemed he came down to a lower altitude as he bent westward, around the north side of the volcano.

Mmmm perhaps I really should have gone back and just gotten the Skull Lake Shrine, but....

I followed the dragon.