Dark Ascent

Waking of Monday, April 22, 2019 ~ 4

Dark Ascent

I still stood on Zelda’s Bridge.

I was feeling pretty accomplished! and now didn’t quite know what to do with myself.

....

Well, I came here for the memory, and I got it.

But before I go, I want.... that. The highest tower.

....

I’m gonna go get it.

*

Okay, Revali’s Gale did not work from my position of clinging to the top of the spire—scrabbled to throw another A-press and paraglide anyway, from the spire atop Zelda’s Study to.... further in.

I couldn’t tell. Maybe I could, once, in another life. But at present I barely had a grasp of the castle’s interior, and a great deal of that was collapsing in ruin. The higher exterior was a Malice-tormented forest of spires, tiered cliffsides, battlements running from who knows to why not, and the mightiest of flying buttresses. For myself it was only a fretful, embered surreptition of climbing towers.... paragliding.... climbing towers again.... So much Malice.... the air so blustery.... and I always wondering whether a Guardian would target me at any moment....

The cross section of the roughly conical shape of the castle grounds was narrowing; I was definitely making progress. I paraglided again—Sanctum—the name of the new locale gleamed into terrible focus across my screen—“NO, I DON’T WANT THE SANCTUM!” I hollered as I sailed toward the fire-bright architecture glowing under the hellish sky. I was not ready for this.

I slammed into a wall and clung on for dear life and was afraid to touch the ground below me. Would it trigger something? Defying physics I demanded my way instead up over a horizontal battlement until I could stand again.

I did not want anywhere called a “Sanctum”.... Not now....

I kept climbing.

Oh my gosh I could see inside windows and places to go, a hole in the floor with a ladder leading down OH GOSH....

Oh, nope, nope, NOPE, NOPE! Nope, nope. Nope! NOPE! NOPE!

*

I got up on top of a tower with a busted top; the collapse was flat enough to stand on. I am so high up now. I could see the tops of those five columns.... Might even be able to paraglide to one of them, but.... NO, first....

>_<

Oh man....

Very close.... I was very close.... This seemed to be one of a handful of side towers encircling the uppermost central column of the castle’s architecture.

Okay help me, Revali....

And he did—

OH!

GOT ON THE CENTRAL TOWER.

OKAY.

WOW.

OH MY GOHOHOSH, I COULD SEE THE WHOLE WORLD FROM HERE! So narrow, so open, so little to obstruct my views anymore.

All the Divine Beasts’ lasers were pointed right at me..... oh my gosh....

I kept climbing.... up the vertical stone, up the steep shingles.... It got cold, and on went one of my warming circlets.... Who built this spire? Did they freeze too?

“Vah Rudania.... Vah Naboris....” [waitthosetwoaren’tadjacent--] I named the distant, barely visible shapes as they passed under the orbit of my gaze, the ends of their lasers so MONUMENTALLY PRESENT. I kept climbing and looking and I looked up into the raging yellow-orange-fire sky and “WHAAAAT? WHAT IS THAT?”

THERE IS A DARK BODY IN THE SKY. ROUND LIKE THE MOON. AN ECLIPSE? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

IT IS NEARLY MIDNIGHT. IS THAT THE BLOOD MOON?

OH MY GOSH.

“I GOTTA SEE IT.” I SAID LIKE IAN MALCOLM. I MEAN. UM. DAVID LEVINSON. JEFF GOLDBLUM.

IS EVERY NIGHT HERE A BLOOD MOON NIGHT?

MIDNIGHT STRIKES.

AND THEN THE DARK BODY TURNED WHITE AND SHRUNK BACK TO SIZE.

IT’S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WHY IS THE SKY STILL SO RAGING?

I KEEP CLIMBING. THE LAST SPIRE’S BASE SO TOWERING AND STRANGE, LIKE A STACK OF ALTERNATING GEARS.

WHO ERECTED THIS TOWER?

AND THEN.... I SEE FLOWING LEAVES AND HEAR THAT LIGHT WOODEN CLATTERING AS I NEAR THE TOP.

“Found you.”

I knew it.

I reached the final, heaven-piercing end of the highest spire on the tallest tower, and saddled into a hanging, one-handed cling. My gosh.

I examined the glittering dapple of leaves and woodwindwater sounds—and it was a Korok. Of course. Even here. Just between the beams of Vah Rudania and Vah.... Ruta, I think.

Oh my gosh, I could see the whole world. Everything.

Heuhuhuh! And on my map in the Castle Map, my location-indicator.... that little yellow arrow that showed where I was.... I looked like a flag on a pole.

Oh gosh....

The castle’s billowing Orchestra still blustered all around me like this hellish, hellish sky! What was up with this sky? The everpresent cloud wrack was driven endlessly tormented in unholy flames above my head. Day or night, it was always the beautiful, terrible color of fiery doom, blown on forever by forces unnatural.

So swept the Orchestra. Still pounding, still ringing, still tipping between the Ascending Organ of the Dark One, and the Lullaby of She who held him at bay. The tension between them still tautened on a rusty crank meant for torture before I realized—there was yet another theme there as well. One older even than Zelda’s Lullaby.

Those five notes ascending, springing like a flame, tonic to dominant, root to fifth—in minor this time. Preceded by those two hits that came clomping down like boots with something to say.

1__5__________1_1-2-3-4-5__________!

The Hero’s Theme.

My Theme.

And that made Three.

Should it have come as any surprise?

It pronounced its presence with a percussive flare, and swelled heroically with the string section, as though to proclaim its intention of slicing the ties and bringing this battle to rest one way or the other. Until at the cadence the Castle’s own theme cycled back round to take up the song again.

Like it does.

Should it have come as any surprise? That here in the Heart of Hyrule, here at the Crux of the Age, under the eyes of the Goddesses.... there would be Three.

There would always be Three voices in this Dreadful Dialogue.

....

I’d thought about the logging of this part, and had wanted to say that it wasn’t a Dreadful Dialogue after all, but a Dreadful Trialogue; but then I looked up the Greek roots, and the “dia” of “dialogue” actually meant “through” instead of “two”, and I was vexed by the thwartation and couldn’t bring myself to justify the pun.

The Other Side of Limbo

Waking of Friday, August 3, 2018 ~ 5

The Other Side of Limbo

The sand storm raged until—

That chime.

And my feet trod for nothing.

You can’t go any farther.

I had reached the western edge of my map.

So I turned south.

The storm continued to rage all around me, blotting out sun and moon, the wind howling, the grit flying horizontal across my path. On and on and on I jogged through the murk, shouldering off to the right every once in a while just to make sure I was still on the border, still on the edge.

My Sheikah Slate had lost functionality again; it was impossible to tell how far I had gone or how far there was left to go. All I had to guide me was that bumping chime to my right side—not that it was too difficult to move in roughly a straight line.

It seemed to go on forever.... just wind and Stalmoblins and dust and more wind and a few lonely animals and more Stalizalfos and—“NOT THE KEESE, NOT THE KEESE!”

I ran whenever I saw them.

Well.... I ran whenever I saw anything. Or nothing.

I just ran.

Was it day or night? I couldn’t tell.

There was a shape to my left. Roundish, humping obtrusive out of the fuzzy horizon. What was this....?

I slowed, and edged closer....

It was a skull-den. And there was at least one tower flanking it, with a Bokoblin on top, keeping a weather eye on—its invisible surroundings.

And I think it’s only now that I’m reminded of the morning of Thursday, January 9, 2003. But that is another story.

I traced the Bokoblin’s obscured movements through the sand, and stayed just deep enough away in the storm that he did not see me as I circled round to the back of their camp.

They never guard the backs.

I shinnied up the rear of the skull, and crouched low before sniping the two lookouts. The wind and the desert devoured their remains and there was no reclaiming them. Tsch!

Thereafter I stood to drop bombs through one of the eye-holes. The wind made this tricky, but with a little trial and error I found a good position, and watched as the life-meters below me reacted, converged, and were blown in all directions, over and over again.... I played this game until they were all dead, and thankfully, the bits leftover were less blustered and more contained inside the den.

I didn’t have room for the actual treasure inside the chest, though.

Oh well.

I harvested what I could from the Limbo Den, and made my way back from nothing to nothing; I hit the border, and started skirting southward again.

The air was a shifting array of dull colors all mashing together, darker beneath, lighter above. Somewhat.

Thank goodness for these Sand Boots at least....

I jogged.... and jogged.... and jogged....

And there was another shape to my left.

This one was.... geologically improbable. A great dark bow loomed from some large mass on the right, and arced unsupported through the air to the left, pointing north.

That had to be—BUT FIRST—

I hurried. Further southward. More creatures, more critters, Lizalfos burrowing through the sand.... I bumped to the right again—the border was still there—and then came the same abrupt chime—and I was brought to a halt.

I had come to the farthest point.

I had reached the corner.

So had the Lizalfos.

I cut them down, and the leftover bits rolled away unreachable in the gale. I might have been able to grab a talon or something....

The big shape with the bowhead still loomed darker than the surrounding grit. I could have approached it from this new angle, but.... instead I followed the western edge of the world back north, until I was even with the bow again. And I stepped eastward out of the storm....

As the air cleared, the great skull came into view. The bow-shape resolved into the enormous upper jaw, the entirety of it from cranium to nose-tip longer and thinner and more streamlined than that of the other Leviathan had been, the one on the volcano. That one had been broader, heavier-looking, more armored, like some giant horny toad.

But this one looked a proper whale. And the entire skeleton was smooth and bleached, whereas the other had been so weathered and darkened that in places it looked more like stone.

And there was another difference—round about where the scapulae might be, the long bones of some right-side limb jutted up from the spine at a high angle—sticking right up into the sky!

What in the—?

Was this . . . .

Was this a WINDFISH?

The mouth was open, the lower jaw buried deep into the sand. And—there was something—

There was a Gerudo! Kneeling directly before the open mouth as if in prayer to a deity.... she was so tiny before it....

Who....?

I approached her.

It was Barta.

“Barta!” The one who had been imprisoned before!

“Ugh,” she groaned, “Are you... a fairy? An angel? Are you here to guide my passage?”

She wasn’t kneeling out of awe or respect; she was clinging onto her spear for dear life, resting in the shade of the bowheaded jaw. “...Everything’s going hazy... This might be the end...”

“Snap out of it!” I said.

But she only moaned, “Ahh... If only I could’ve eaten a hearty durian one last time... A hearty durian... A hearty durian...”

I spoke to her again.

“Ahh, spirits of the Goddess... Before you take me from this world, if I could just taste fruit... Just one last bite of a hearty durian...”

And here I was given two choices of response, and I laughed at the cruel polarity: “Take this!” or “Good-bye.”

“Take this!” I said, and the screen blacked out and back in.

Barta stood on her feet now. “Hah... I’ve returned from the brink of death thanks to you...” she gasped, “Sarqso!”

Then she saw me more clearly—“Huh? Is that you I spoke to before? So you are actually a voe... I thought you were a bit muscular for a Hylian vai.”

XD

“But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. I owe you my life, after all!”

Ah, so many Gerudo ladies who’d found me out already. Felt kinda nice to be real.

“Hah... Anyway,” Barta continued, “I’m totally exhausted. Maybe I’ll rest just a little longer then head home.”

I was given only one response to say: “Your boss was MAD.” It was not untrue. Liana and her other subordinates.... had been quite agitated the last time I’d seen them in the barracks.

“Huh? So...they knew I snuck off...”

I nodded.

“...Oh, I am in such trouble...” Barta muttered under her breath. “Yep, looks like I’d better go on ahead. See you later and sav’orq!”

And the screen blacked out again, and when it came back, Barta had gone.

Is sav’orq another form of thanks? Or is it perhaps an expression of farewell? Someone else had said it to me when I’d turned down some business or other. But if that’s what it were, then Barta would have been repeating herself. Does it regard rather the time of day?

Hmm.

I hoped she wouldn’t catch it too bad from Liana. Then again, maybe that would have been good for her.

I turned to check out the skeleton—the shrine beneath it and near to the skull was called the Hawa Koth Shrine, and it was the awesomest shrine ever, with much electricity and GIANT GEARS to play with.... It was like the sparky younger cousin of Kaam Ya’Tak....

But that wasn’t what interested me the most.

After I’d locked down the warpable, I turned to the large, thrumming, pulsing cocoon a stone’s cast down-whale....

There was a FAIRY FOUNTAIN BENEATH THIS THING.

....

AND THE GREAT FAIRY TERA WANTED TEN THOUSAND RUPEES?

. . . .

Oh boy....

. . . . . . .

And I was.... just about skint-broke....

. .  .   .    .     .      .

I needed to go make me some cash.

Treasured in the Desert

Waking of Friday, January 19, 2018 ~ 5

Treasured in the Desert

Well, I was decked out in Gerudo attire, and therefore theoretically able to venture inside their forbidden city.... But I looked up and noticed one thing—the sandstorm against the Gerudo Highlands had abated.

And I remembered what that young man had said—there was treasure hidden somewhere over there.

It was 1:30 am.

Gerudo Town? Or sandstorm treasure?

....

I warped to Gerudo Town and took a sand seal. The opportunity was ripe; I thought I may as well go for it.

I had already semi-triangulated the treasure’s whereabouts when I had circumnavigated Gerudo Town before. One of the entry guards had told me about the statues that peppered the desert, one of which I’d seen near the town: Gerudo Swordswomen. Allegedly their outstretched weapons pointed the way toward the treasure.

Part of my circumnavigation happened to have taken me directly behind one of these statues, and so.... I’d dropped some map-markers. The treasure had to be somewhere along that line.

And so having jumped a fresh sand seal I plunged into the sparkling, starlit vastness of the sea of sand and stone—only a moment later to be clouded into an oblivious pocket of browny beige at the roaring storm’s return.

Oh for—Fine timing—

And my Sheikah Slate malfunctioned again!

It hadn’t been the boundaries of Hyrule before—it had been the storm.

I just tried to keep the insistent sand seal on a straight course—and I still had the thought to consult my map, switch the markers to beacons if need be; those would show up on my HUD to guide me—but my HUD showed only static of course.

The seal kept pulling, fast as a chariot. And there were baddies—the Lizalfos Mask leapt to my face—and rocks to dodge—this was going to throw me off course. What could I—

Another Swordswoman statue hazed out of the gloom, arm and sword outstretched, pointing.

I veered in the direction indicated. This is crazy! I thought. And nowhere near the vector I’d started with—not that I could tell for sure. Where was this going to lead me?

More rocks. More Lizalfos. Ruins looming in the dimness, and every so often.... another sword arm proclaiming the path.

It was a long and dizzying drag in the murk....

But when I swirled suddenly toward the orange glow of a shrine—

With a wrench I let go of the seal; it burrowed off into oblivion. Sorry, treasure, I thought. But this was one detour I wasn’t willing to pass up. Not even for treasure.

I trudged toward the glow through the din. The shrine was caged beneath the ruin of an ancient ribcage—this must have been the one I saw from the mountain before.

The Kema Zoos Shrine it was called. But when I approached it, the completed sidequest banner flashed across my screen—?

This Shrine was the treasure of the Silent Swordswomen.

....Huh.

Okay then! :D

I hopped inside, and beat it. And when I came back out, the sandstorm had passed, and the sun was shining.

....

I wanted to climb on top of the skeleton.

I wandered around to get on the outside of the spine, but no sooner had I done so than I began to pant in the heat!

I ran back under the ribcage. Maybe it was like the other locations in this area; if I stayed close to it I would be—I was still swaying and wincing.

In desperation I ran for cover beneath the shrine’s overhang. I was fine here.

....Was here where I had to stay to be safe? How close did I have to be to the shrine to stay cool?

I stepped out, and took a few paces. Still beneath the ribcage, and everything seemed in order. Beyond the ribcage, too hot. Back under the ribcage, just fine. No, not just fine—I was heatsick again. What in the world was—was this one of those overlapping boundaries depending on your direction—

No I was fine again. I was fine under the shadow of the skeleton. The ribs cast thick dark lines of shade across the ancient paving, slatting the scorching sunlight.

Wait a second.

No.

No way.

I stayed beneath the ribcage, but stepped out of the shadow, and into a glaring sunbeam.

—And my temperature gauge flared and I began to sweat and pant—

Back in the shade . . . . and I was better.

Back in the sun . . . . and I was in trouble—

The shade . . . . sweet cool solace—

Sun . . . . burning up—

Shade—I’m safe—

Sun—I’m frying—

Shade—It’s nice—

WAIT.

I stood still, and watched the shadow crawl beneath my feet with the arcing of the day, the lip of it slowly approaching to dump me back into the daylight.

And when the sun struck my boot and began to crawl up my leg—I OVERHEATED AGAIN.

WERE THEY SERIOUS?? THAT WAS SO BOSS I COULDN’T EVEN BELIEVE IT MY GOSH THESE GAME DESIGNERS WOW JUST WOW WOW WOWWWWuh!

THEY TRACKED THE SUN.

They tracked the sun and shade, that is just—

That is amazing.

I’ve never seen that before.

There was something I had never seen before.

HAHH.

My sand seal was still there. Or a sand seal was. But.... I was still stranded until nightfall. Hm.

Ah blow it.

I drank my first ever heat resistant elixir, and sand sealed back toward Kara Kara Bazaar!

Another Storm

Waking of Sunday, June 25, 2017 ~ 2

Another Storm

Vah Naboris was so far away now....

The desert below was vast.

Still I clung to the bottom of the frost line, high on the mountain range.

David was absolutely boggled why I didn’t just go to that place out in the desert, the one with the shrine right next to it.

But I didn’t want to.... not yet.... I felt more drawn.... to the Volcano. The breadcrumbs seemed to pull me there.

These Gerudo Highlands? This was just a lark, this was exploring....

Mmmm this was not the determined Hero I thought I’d be playing....

Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I let myself slip from being the farthest along in the game. I know it’s not a race, but.... there’s something in that, I think....

Hm.

I ventured into the freezing snow to solve a magnetic Korok puzzle. I climbed up the back of a Talus to show David how it’s done. I didn’t even know how many Talus kills that was for me. Felt like a boss.

Creeping shrinelight shone from the desert floor far below, looming out of a gigantic ribcage lost in a cloud of sand.

“Why don’t you go get that one?”

“You mean that shrine that got eaten by some giant thing?”

No, David, I wouldn’t even go get that one—

A sandstorm blustered up out of nowhere and obliterated the world. Everything was lost in a greenbeige haze.

The map in my HUD went static.

“What?”

David groaned a knowing groan.

“Have you seen this?” I asked him.

He had.

I opened up my Sheikah Slate.

Static. Blue-on-black static.

Nothing. It was nonfunctional.

I put it away.

I couldn’t see anything. Only the ground for a few yards around me.

I pressed on, forward into the raging din, but then—

That soft little xylo-cowbell tap, that chime that means No.

And

You can’t go any farther.

Words at the bottom of my screen.

“Nooo!” I howled, running against the press of nothing, feet not going anywhere.

I paused and—if my map was malfunctioning, how did I place that stamp?

I marked the spot with a Star.

And with nowhere else to go.... I headed down the mountain.... and with a new spot of ground to stand on veered hard into the west once more!

And once more I could not move any farther.

And I marked that spot with a Star.

One more drop in elevation, another press against the edge, another Star....

Could I even see these stamps on my static map?

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see. Everything was gone. Storks flew away into the howling wind. Wolves loomed out of the airborne murk. My Great Thunderblade became my flashlight.

I came to a rock ledge overlooking the desert I could not see.

“I’m at the edge of the universe,” I said.

There was nowhere left to go but back counterclockwise around the mountain. I had to jog quite far before the sandstorm let up and the air cleared enough for me to see.

My Sheikah Slate came back to life and I looked at the stamps I had placed.

They formed a perfectly vertical line near the western edge of my map.

“You should do what I did,” said David, “I just went to my map, scrolled aaaall the way down to the bottom-left corner, and put a marker, then I unpaused to see where it was!”

Ugh! “Nooo!” What a ghastly thought!

So that was the end. I couldn’t circumnavigate the Gerudo Highlands after all. The highest, westernmost plateau continued off into spaces and areas over which I could not pan.

And I felt a little sadness again . . . . but not like before.

Before, when I saw the sea, there was something more awful there. Woeful. An empty isolation.

But here on the sandblasted mountainside.... something inside me joyed to know that....

The land went on.

I don’t know, I just....

I liked that thought.

There was a kind of dread finality when the border was the sea, but when you can see the land goes on?

There’s something hopeful there.

When more is left to the imagination.

I went back round the mountain. I found more Koroks here and there. I saw the lower entrance to that Satan Canyon with all the frogs.

I paraglided to the other side of it—boggling David further still as to why I did not just go down and explore the sandy desert floor.

I did take a look at a couple of treasure chests down there. One of them was Magnesable, but the other....

“Maybe you’re not close enough,” said David.

“Oh, I’m close enough,” I said, and it was my turn to have a knowing groan in my voice.

David was confused. “What, are there things that disguise themselves to look like treasure chests?”

I only narrowed my eyes as I regarded the chest on the screen. Oh I’d love to see his first encounter with one of those....

I climbed further up the rocks, still counterclockwise back around the mountain, and found some amazing ruins haunted by three Lizalfos and an Ice Wizzrobe. I bombed the Wizzrobe from a nearby cliff, and killed the Lizalfos up close; looting the place turned over a bunch of SWEET bows, man. I left a bow stamp there for later.

A hop, skip and a jump further around the mountain and all at once the screen flicked to an interrupted connection message from my WiiU.

My controller had run out of batteries.

Well.... it was just as well. It was getting pretty late, and I had to pack anyway.

I set the controller in its cradle and set to filling my suitcase....

I’d never run my battery completely dry before. I checked in every few minutes until there was enough juice to at least put Link safe in the pause screen for a while. And there he sat while I went through my packing list.

And by the time I was done.... I really should have just gone to bed. But instead I justified myself in playing just a little bit more by reasoning that after all that packing, I really deserved a little cool-down time....

But I played much like I got ready for the family reunion: with much procrastinatory wandering.

I only wended my way back toward the Gerudo Tower, exploring some of the lower reaches of that spiral path around the Tower hole—I really think there must not be a floor there—finally just warped back up to the Tower platform, saved.... quit.... and went to bed.

I got a good twenty minutes before my alarm went off.