And that has made all the difference.

Afternoon of Tuesday, July 2, 2019 (plus several finicky editings through July 16 because I couldn’t leave it alone) .... (and just one note from 2023)

And that has made all the difference.

It’s been about two weeks since I’ve beaten the game.

And I guess.... I can’t help but feel a kind of letdown.

I’ve experienced it before; I’m sure many people have. You draw near the end of an epic adventure, and you can sense the finality impending somehow, and you almost don’t want to proceed.... even though the Hero in you knows he must.

You don’t want it to be over.

But I guess, for me, here and now at least, it’s not really over. Not really. There are still two shrines to get. More Koroks to find. My Compendium to fill.... And of course the faraway dread terror of the option to Start A New Game, which would overwrite the present. Dratblast it, Nintendo, why couldn’t you make multiple saves....?

But then, they’ve never really done that, not for Zelda games. You were always allotted one file, and that was it. And it sufficed. I think some other JRPGs must have spoiled me....

At any rate it doesn’t have to be really over. There are new files to play, old sequences to break, and beyond a new game.... another new game. For I have seen the new Zelda trailer. Or another old game, for there are some Zeldas I haven’t played yet. Or another different game, for I’ve been hankering after Tales of Symphonia lately for some reason. Or maybe the Final Fantasy 10 and 10-2 I picked up for Switch. Always heard good things about those ones....

So I guess this kind of adventure is never really over. But it does come in seasons. And seasons still have to sleep. And that does leave you feeling.... kind of empty. Though like a bygone feast you can still taste it on your lips, and there is great satisfaction in the memory as you finally recline to digest.

I would make a terrible Buddhist.

....

I still have not moved from where I left my saves two weeks ago, but I’ve decided.... not to go back and play from the save before I entered the Sanctum. I won’t overwrite where I’ve been. I don’t want to dishonor the very first ending of my adventure, or vanish my initial slaying of the Great Beast of Malice.

Things experienced for the first time are different. They’re special.... How did I put it....? “....Initial playthroughs are always special, because the secrets and surprises are all fresh, the twists and turns jarring....”

So long ago I said that, back at the head of this very log.

Good thing I wrote it down. The shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory.

And speaking of things written down, I found what I thought I had remembered—I did experience that same conundrum of choice before, at the end of Skyward Sword. The abominable saving quandary. I had journaled about it. Of course I had. Because I am the Journaling Fiend. In case you hadn’t noticed by now:

“Sunday, June 10, 2012, into the very early morning of Monday, June 11, 2012

I stood stock-still, fearful of accidentally pushing any buttons that might kill the buzz. But as everything finally faded to black, I was presented with a choice.

Do you want to play in Hero Mode?

The affirmative answer read, “Bring it on.”

The negative answer.... well, I can’t remember.

What pause this gave me.

But I never wanted to play this game again, so.... no. No thanks.

Are you sure you want to return to the start menu without saving?

Augh, but I did enjoy the feelings of those cinematics. Although they’re never as good the second time....

Um, no, not sure. Yes. Save.

Your progress up to this point will be deleted. Are you sure you want to save and do Hero Mode?

Deleted? Oh dear. Wait. No, don’t save.

Are you sure you want to return to the start menu without saving?

.... My eyes bugged in flummoxation.

Cinematics, viewed often, lose their charm. I’d negotiated the same turmoil at the first savepoint after Groose crashed my skydiving.

I couldn’t go through those again. No. The adventure I’d just survived, the shattering of my shield in some godforsaken phantom realm of turmoil and lightning.... that insistent little fairy I had forgotten....

No, I wouldn’t go back there again. Among the million different stories told for the million different players, my own version of this adventure had come to too satisfying an end.

This story needed to be saved and put to rest.”

So even then I couldn’t bring myself to erase what had already been done, I see.

Maybe it comes from a journaler’s need to record. To save. For better or worse.

Save file linearity notwithstanding, I ought to be grateful that Breath of the Wild seems to end Ocarina of Time style, rather than Skyward Sword style. That is to say, I can beat the game and have the ending under my belt, and then play the end again without having to start from the very beginning.

And still have time to play in between.

The whole world is open to me now, all of Hyrule. And I am strong. I want to find those shrines.... and then storm the castle again....

....

Did I write down all of Skyward Sword, too? No. No I didn’t. Just bits from the ending, as they struck me so deeply.

Heh, so deeply I could feel their reverberations even here, as Fi still sang her song from a bleeding blade on the battlefield, deep in that last rainy memory....

Did you hear that soundbyte?

Hahhh!

It has always pleased me to write down that which strikes me. Or if not always, then for a very long time at least. It’s therapeutic. It’s insightful. It’s often surprising and inspiring! They say you don’t learn much when your mouth is moving. But I would dare to say it’s the opposite case when your pen is scrawling or your keys are ticky-ticking. In writing down what strikes you, you might just strike yourself in turn.

And in this case of logging down the entire video game of Breath of the Wild.... well, it’s true that it has pleased me, yes.... It has pleased me, bothered me, tickled me, TORMENTED ME, DELIGHTED me, INFURIATED ME, ENRAPTURED ME, and driven me STARK, RAVING and GIBBERING BONKERS.

The entire game.

I wrote the entire game.

I have journaled my way through an entire video game.

What an intriguing notion.

What an exciting project.

What a gargantuan undertaking.

I knew I should’ve set all my affairs in order before I started playing.

Five megabytes this document weighs now. Five megabytes!?

Have you ever written for five megabytes straight? 614 pages of solid twelve-point Times New Roman inside one-inch margins? Though there are some dregs below this down to page 630.... and a lot of material preceding this that remains unedited yet as of this writing; that’ll push this part further down.... And it’s all been slowly shoved ever lower by the ever-expanding CONTENTS section anyway.... I knew the confluences would never last whenever I remarked on what page I was on.... Where’s Revali now?

....Heh, looks like he’s been pushed to page 501.

Poor sod.

Five megabytes....

279,000 words.

[And I’m sorry to say, as of the deep waking of Thursday, May 11, 2023, that I can calculate the final size no further, due to much of the latter portions of this work being completed in segments post-computer-failure. But maybe some day.]

I wrote the entire game.

I’ve scripted a searchable Let’s Play.

I’ve birthed a mutant metafanfiction.

I actually made it through.

....

It’s been a different experience for me than for anybody else, I think.

Well, of course it has; that’s how Zelda games are, and especially this one. But.... I mean a very different experience. Very far from.... normal.

And I cannot deny that it has affected my playing.

It takes time to write. And being tied to the log.... I couldn’t move as fast as I might have otherwise done in the game.

I remember playing Twilight Princess for the first time, plunging ahead, hurtling forward through the frays, into the woods, into the darkness, breaking out of dungeons, stalking in fearful yearning through lonely shadows, running in desperation and longing for stolen friends, staying up late into the nights, losing sleep and geeking all over my friends the following days, lamenting that I COULD NOT FIND THE CHILDREN.

How invigorating, how all-consuming it was! What a RUSH!

....

But I couldn’t do that with Breath of the Wild. I couldn’t plunge ahead.

Or I didn’t let myself.

I had to move slowly.

Or I chose to.

I chose to put the game away for weeks at a time and force myself to catch up on logging when I really wanted to keep playing.

Wary of spoilers, I chose to shut myself out from certain internet groups. I chose to stop watching certain art circles—oh, that was the hardest. I chose to interact only cautiously with other Zelda fans whilst I floundered behind in the game.

For two years I shied away from the jabbering Zelda community, to keep the discoveries and twists and turns safe for me to discover on my own. And whenever I did find something incredible or unbelievable, all I could do was wonder.... Have people already talked about this? Did they discuss it all in a flurry, months ago? Were there funrowdy times of tightly localized exploration or experimentation, with bursts of forum posts and YouTube videos? ....Or am I the only one in all the world who knows about.... this? And I too isolated to ask aloud.

It felt very.... solitary, a lot of the time. Even when I’d caught up to David, and could finally relieve him from keeping his mouth so faithfully, painfully shut for me. He was heroic, really.

Do I regret any of this?

No. I don’t. I can’t. I chose this.

And besides, the experience was not without its own kind of reward and fulfillment. Chewing and stewing for so long over every point in the game, giving myself time enough for writing, time enough for deepest thought upon every last person and creature and bug that stepped into my path, has granted me a finer and more flavorful vision of the myriad denizens of Hyrule than I could ever have expected. Like Pi drifting slowly over the ocean, seeing and knowing every fish and turtle and whale, instead of only the spray of a rapid wake.

I really did care for Leekah and her poor unlucky happenstance. How could I not, when I barred myself from leaping headlong into so many other multitudes of things to worry about? I really rooted for tender young Kabetta, and seeing his efforts made me both proud and worried. It was heartening and encouraging to see Mils and Mina standing their ground so bravely. Calyban’s turn to generosity truly warmed my heart. Benny’s brave curiosity was endearing and inspiring. I wished Tye and Sorelia all the happiness in the world. I couldn’t bring myself to blame Jerrin.... too much. But I could Zyle; OH who raised that man....? I sometimes felt sorry for murdering hapless red Bokoblins far below my level, while I was under the guise of my Mask. Fronk’s bowed and weeping gratitude made every second of the outlandish pains I took to find and bring back his wife Mei absolutely worth it. Seeing Kass come home to be with his family and make beautiful music with his daughters was so utterly fulfilling, especially to my musician’s heart. And hearing lessons from Sesami’s friend Palme—the man with the unflattering haircut, the poor lost wanderer, the softest and most unable man in a fight—as he delivered the truest, deepest, and most unexpectedly powerful words of wisdom for a meaningful life... is an instance I will treasure.

It’s been a different experience for me, playing this game. Different than it otherwise might have been.

But I don’t regret it.

....

There’s a strange catch there, though. When you think about it, I really can’t regret it. If it was a choice between playing it through for the first time normally, and playing it through for the first time with a journal in tow.... there is no way I would be able to experience both of those. I can play it through for the first time only once.

And so unable to compare the two, how could I know which would have been better or more enjoyable?

I couldn’t.

It’s like that Robert Frost poem about two roads. You are only one traveler; you can’t walk them both.

But I suppose such fractaled pathways are what make life interesting. It’s all right to favor one horizon over another; there are enough to go around.

And from what I have observed, in myself and in others, I think I can rest on that.... as far as The Legend of Zelda ~ Breath of the Wild goes.... I think any pathway would have proven to be good, beautiful, beloved and fulfilling.

But I think I really did take the road less traveled.

I can’t know what it’s like to play Breath of the Wild like I’ve played other Zelda games. And that’s all right. But maybe.... if I’ve wielded my words right.... you reading this can glean some small taste of what it’s like to play the game with Contraltissimo’s very fine-toothed comb. Maybe the experiences are similar after all. I wouldn’t know.

But you might.

Looks like you have the advantage here.

And in truth.... I am glad to offer it, if you’re willing to take it.

After all, it’s dangerous to go alone.

Now, I think I’ll finally have a listen to that Breath of the Wild ~ Sound Selection disc that came with the statue and the Switch case and everything else in that super-mega-deluxe-or-whatever-it-was version of the game I bought.

Hey, music can be spoilerish too! Of course I put it away for later. It was only recently that I actually took off the shrinkrap and loaded the tracks onto my original black iPod Nano, Sylphie. Named for a mermaid.

And now.... I think I’ll finally let myself enjoy it.

As well as the complete soundtrack I bought more recently. Hm, which includes music from the DLC....

Guess I’d better play that, too. I did purchase it, two years ago. I’ve just never booted it up. But in the sparse visits I allowed myself into the Zelda circles of the internet in the meanwhile, I received some very high recommendations for it.

Think I’ll play with my amiibos too at some point. And maybe.... see how the game feels on the Switch.

Man. I’ve put off a lot these past two years.

I just wanted the pure experience first.

Well, I got it.

Boy did I get it.

Turns out anything worth doing.... really is worth overdoing.

That’s why all Heroes are called Fools.

This is Contraltissimo, signing off.

 

Never The End

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) ~ 5

Never The End

Credits.

It was really the Credits.

The game was done.

The game.... was done.

I let them wash over me.

And as they rolled, Mom asked, “Are there going to be any more Zelda games?”

Ah-heh, well.... I knew just the thing to show her.

But for whatever reason I kept it inside and only probed what she knew....

“Why do you ask?” I said, letting just a little tightness into my voice, and wondering what she suspected.

“I don’t want you to commit suicide.”

Oh.

Oh Mom—

I don’t remember if—I don’t think I responded, but only.... went back into the credits.

We were looking at the pictures, and I was identifying them.... And I saw the American’s name! Wow! He was one of only two programmers for the wildlife! They did such a wonderful job. ^_^ And I was so happy for him for going so far to follow his dream....

....

Mom.

....

I guess if someone who loves you sees you wounded, and hears you name your salve, even in dark jesting.... they don’t forget it easy.

I don’t even know if the cure is real or psychosomatic.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

These were the most relaxing credits I had ever seen in my life. At least, that I could think of just then. Slow through the serene iterations of familiar musics.

I gave a little cheer at the name of Eiji Aonuma! And did some up-and-down worshipful bowing from the couch. Mom laughed.

And I gave another at Shigeru Miyamoto!

And at.... Satoru Iwata.

I told Mom that he’d passed away.

Still glad to see his name in this beautiful game.

The Legend of Zelda ~ Breath of the Wild

Copyright 2017

Or some such words.

This last segment came to a stop and hung still in the middle of the screen.

2017.

Two years ago.

I can still remember standing in the cold outside the GameStop. I was first in line. And that employee with the glasses and the handsomely-trimmed scruff had been so friendly. Despite that he almost forgot to give me my amiibos as well.... See the preorder receipt.... ?

It’d been a long journey.

The serene credits finished into a breathless black.

And then.... the Castle....

I had never seen it so still and sunlit before.

Birds even chirped.

Zelda and I stood before the ruined gates in the sunlight. I in my blue Champion’s Tunic, she still in her beautiful White Dress.

The malice was gone.

And the Castle was in ruins.

But.... it was quiet now.

It was at peace.

We looked on it.... and then turned our backs to go.

....as high above among the spires, the spirits of the Four Champions.... and lastly of Her Father....

                                                                                    ....departed from this world.

Seeming to sense something, Zelda stopped and looked back.

So did I—

A blue breeze was blowing through the air....

The sky was full of Silent Princess petals.

But the Princess only gazed up at her once home, the sun beyond beaming it into a silhouette.... into a line.... into a memory....

The Piano that had softly accompanied us, having had no real aim for the spotlight anymore, now turned the final notes of its wanderings to the familiar ascending Theme of Legend, as the view arced up into the blue, blue sky....

The End

But it wasn’t.

We were on a hillside. Zelda and I.

Somewhere southeast of the castle, seemed like....

Zelda once again wore the blue tunic and dark trousers in which she had so often traveled in my memories. Boots and all. She held the Sheikah Slate in her hands.

“We’ll make our way to Zora’s Domain. Divine Beast Vah Ruta...looks like it stopped working. Let’s investigate the situation.”

There was something there, I thought. Something in that last sentence. A kind of spark.

The Princess was still a nerd.

And confident, and brilliant, and determined.

She was going to make it.

But her glittering eyes softened after a moment, and she looked up.

“Mipha’s father...” she murmured, “I believe he would like to hear more about her. The least we can do is visit him and offer him some closure.”

The Piano and the Pipe courted about the hillside on the simple Hero’s Theme, as the sun shone so brightly on the rolling grass.

“Although Ganon is gone for now, there is still so much more for us to do.”

Some clouds still rolled between, though.

“And so many painful memories that we must bear.”

The Princess took a few steps forward down the hill, standing confidently.

“I believe in my heart, that if all of us work together... we can restore Hyrule to its former glory. Perhaps...even beyond.” Right on that hopeful secondary dominant, Pipe, you dastardly genius.... “But it all must start with us,” Zelda finished.

The dancing pair on the grass invited the rest of the Orchestra to the theme.

“Let’s be off,” Zelda said. And started walking straightaway.

Like she did.

And.... I followed. That gilded sheath still bearing the Master Sword on my back.

Ah.... our horses. Grazing higher up the hill.

And hers so white—was that Memory she was riding, then?

It suited her.

....

It suited them both.

Zelda came near to them, but.... stopped before she got there.

I was once again faced, as I had been many times before, by only her unreadable, lovely blonde mane of hair....

It wasn’t long before she spoke.

“I can no longer hear the voice within the sword,” she halted again.

I knew that she had yearned for some connection, some awakening. To lose it again....

“I suppose it would make sense if my power had dwindled over the past 100 years...”

Princess Zelda turned then and looked at me, and even the Orchestra took pause.

The wells of her eyes ran for a thousand miles and looked.... tired of it.

But she allowed the sorrow only a moment’s heaviness on her gaze before softly blinking it away with a little turn.

“I’m surprised to admit it...” she started, and something else shaped her lips now. Something brighter, as she faced me directly. “But you know? I think I’m all right with that,” she said.... and smiled.

And the Deku Tree was right.

She did have a smile like the sun.

And I jogged just a few paces to come even with her, and follow her to the horses, as the camera swept back from the beautiful, sunlit hillside, up the slope to where the Silent Princess flowers grew all over, in the lofty heights overlooking the ruggedly beautiful kingdom of Hyrule.

The End

.....

There’s a star by my last save file.

....

I’ma look at it.

2 Spirit Orbs

118 Shrines

534 Koroks

2089 Rupees

In the castle.

And I have the pictograph of Ganon’s butt.

So.

Do I go seek shrines from here?

Or from a previous save?

If I wish to maintain this choice....

I cannot move.

....

Hm.

I quit for now.

.... Soon.

If I were to go back to a previous save, wherein I had not beaten the game yet....

That would do no justice to the adventure I just completed.

.... I feel as though I faced the same thing in.... Skyward Sword.... somewhere....

Yes. I quit for now.

....

I’m still short two shrines.

But.... should I say....

You know?

I think I’m all right with that.

 

 

 

The Promise Of Ages

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) ~ 4

The Promise Of Ages

The Calamity howled his thousand-dragon-howl, bracing his monumental hooves and throwing up his neck, his putrid tongue lolling between his jaws—the Eyeball in the nape roved and twitched—

And a Light—that Light again!

A White Light SHOT UP from deep beneath the muscled crest of the Beast.

It was her....

It was Zelda.

It was Princess Zelda.

She gleamed like a Star in the Heavens, hands clasped before her as if in prayer, eyes serenely closed, golden light gleaming from her person and leaving a spray of diamonds in her wake.

She was free of the Demon’s grasp.

Everything had stopped. Only the holy resounding ringing of her appearance chimed ceaselessly, cyclicly, like a heavenly glass armonica, humming and shimmering to eternity.

The Calamity snorted, the sound shrunken, roomed in without an echo, as his eyes beheld the Princess.

She hovered back down, haloed as if by a holy golden flame, alighting in the grass so softly she did not even bend. Gentle as a flower, soft as a sigh, she opened her eyes, and no fear marred her brow.

The Demon collapsed onto its chest before her, crashing massively at her feet, its all-rending tusks coming close to crushing her on either side—

—and yet never close at all.

Still blazing, still heaving, still rumbling, the wind of its throes sweeping the grass and casting up the Princess’ hair—

And yet all about her person still was only that serenity, and that gentle ringing.... and perhaps.... as her brow betrayed the slightest furrow.... perhaps.... a little sorrow.

Her eyes looked on the Demon then, purposefully.

And that was the only sign to be seen.

The holy light around her pulsed into renewed ringing, the golden flames moving, growing stronger, no longer at rest, the little glimmers breathing about her person now casting forward like embers in a wind.... toward the Demon.... toward the Calamity.

The Beast chuffed, roared, gnawing the air, its jaws working—what it couldn’t grind to a pulp with that defiling tongue, the foul teeth....

Its eyes still gaping....

But for only a moment more.

For in the next breath the Princess’ shining and ringing redoubled, tripled, overflowed beyond themselves all at once into a radiating brilliance. She was become a tremoring golden sun made flesh, as waves of holy light washed outward and over the Demon.

Beaming spears of golden light shining outward in every direction from her person....

And this final insistence could not be denied.

With a last descending groan, the Calamity mourned out its defiance as its body, the horrible, writhing, Malice-bound mountain of itself, began to recede and wither away, evaporating beneath the Princess’ holy light.

An almighty sizzling electrified the landscape as the hot magenta flames were purged from the crumbling form, licking up into the sky, until all the was left.... was that ghostly form I had first seen of it so long ago.

It mounted into the air, coiling from the cloud of its corporeal death and twining like a snake—its terrifying jaws still roaring fit to swallow the world—

It swooped and stooped like an enormous bird of prey, unable yet to take that woman in its jaws—

But Zelda—her eyes still calm, her brow even, her lips not yet even parted—indeed her face as set and still as one holding her breath underwater—Zelda raised her hand with a final renewed gleaming, and—

SHEEEN-RING!

The sound was like the resonance of an everlasting church bell, mighty from a cathedral tower, resounding and warming and booming and golden without fading and without concussive instigation. Just.... ringing.

The Princess conjured an ever expanding sphere of holy golden light against the Demon’s last lunge. Its wickedness could not stand before her Power, falling to dark shreds and nothing before the divine glow, the sacred Triforce ringing at the center.

The sphere continued to grow, as if to cast a shield around all of Hyrule....

But its only aim was the Calamity—the fleeing Calamity Ganon—and it engulfed him, even his ghostly form then deforming, the jaw unhinging one last time as the Light consumed him and he vanished. His terrible, terrible eyes....

Zelda stood, her right hand still raised, the mighty, flaming, burning, golden sphere of her holy Sealing Power still ringing upon the earth.... until with a final rush like a whipping flag, the mighty sphere shrank with a subito sudden silence, and—Vvp!—

—!—

Blinked its bound captive out of existence.... and back into planes of darkness.

The world faded out to white.... for a looong, loong breath.

And then....

DESTROY GANON

COMPLETE

I exhaled, and Mom and I gazed and gasped in wonderment at each other.

“I didn’t think I would do this on a Wednesday!” I growled in happy exasperation.

The world faded back into view—the battlefield faded back into view.

The sky still raged crimson beneath a Blood Moon.

But.... no....

Light was beginning to shine through.

The racing cloud-wrack, so fitfully tormented, began at last to still, its nightmare finally ending....

The Castle pillars in the distance—they were blue now.

The Piano was the first to step back onto the grass. And it tenderly held the hand of the Lullaby, and led it childlike back to she to whom it belonged, where she stood in the grass. Even as the last dusty maroon in the sky was giving way to lavender.... to the shadow of blues waiting to be born....

“I’ve been keeping watch over you all this time...” the Princess halted.

Her back was to me. That beautiful white dress. The very same? The one with a Grecian grace....

The fiery glow left her hair as the sky cooled further still.

“I’ve witnessed your struggles to return to us as well as your trials in battle.”

I stepped toward her. The Bow of Light still slung across my back.

But she still didn’t turn.

Under the foggy blue of the sky, she had returned to her proper honey-blonde now. The trees in the distance beyond her now green again, no longer clawing nightmares....

“I always thought—no, I always believed—that you would find a way to defeat Ganon.”

The sun beamed brighter still. Haloing us both.

“I never lost faith in you over these many years...”

As at last her feet stepped—swiveled—and stood.

She was a lily about to bloom under the radiant sun’s light, shining new on the world.

“Thank you, Link...”

Hands still clasped so elegantly over her heart.

“...the hero of Hyrule.”

And her green eyes shone. No longer burdened, no longer so solemnly set in power so great and terrible.

Just.... smiling.

But the little furrow came back, as her shoulders rose yet.... and a gentle uncertainty tugged at her brow.

“May I ask...” she started breathlessly....

And the Music held its peace.

“Do you really remember me?”

As we stood apart, together, in the sun.

—A timeless piping took my hand, though, singing the Ancient Song, as it drew the curtain on the Orchestra’s soft cadence, and faded the scene to black.... the Piano voicing the final tremulous laughter from my quivering throat.

 

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....

.......

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