Wandered around the Great Plateau a bit more. Hiked around the perimeter of the plateau, and found a ruined wall that reminded me a bit of the Great Wall of China, in that it was wide enough to walk on top of. I discovered a chest hidden up there, which contained an opal. I’ve found some amber elsewhere in other chests. So far no clue what to do with it.
In a high altitude area of the plateau, there’s a couple of bokoblins living in a treehouse. I couldn’t figure out how to get up there at first, so I just killed them at range with arrows, then looted their little camp area, and picked up a lot of ingredients. I went back there again today, and noticed what looked like a draw bridge tied up to a tree branch. I shot the ropes with my bow, and it fell down, and then I could get up there, and finish clearing out the area.
I managed to catch a butterfly, and killed a boar that I ran into at night in a wooded area.
I went back to the old man’s house, and it was a different time of day, I saw him walking home for the evening, talked to him a bit. That’s really cool to realize that depending on what time of day it is, that there might be different things going on in a particular place, or with a particular character.
Another time, I ran into him and he was chopping trees, and invited me to help. I cut a tree down and it fell across a ravine, creating a bridge. I walked across and encountered some more bokoblins, killed them, and found more ingredients foraging. I chopped tall grass down with my woodcutter’s axe and it seemed like it uncovered something that I could pick up, but I don’t know what it was, and it seemingly disappeared.
At one bokoblin camp, when they spotted me, they lit their weapons on fire and ran after me. So it seems that they get tougher as you get experience fighting them, which I like. I still took them out easily.
I continued exploring the area, and tried climbing further up the mountain, discovered a series of ledges, picked up some mountain mushrooms, and got up to the top, where I found my second shrine.
Clearing the shrine was disappointingly easy. The setup for these makes them seem like they’re very special, and they should be more challenging than they are.
I walked in, the shrine gave my tablet-thinger a new power. I didn’t have to do ANYTHING to earn the power, just walked up to the tablet kiosk by the entrance and it added the power for me, like I was withdrawing money from an ATM. Then there was a “challenge”, which required using the new ability that I had just obtained, which I did with ease. These were “puzzles” but the challenge level was 0. It’s really just a tutorial level, to teach you a new mechanic, not a challenge. I gather the challenges will be to come, but dang, they could make this a bit more interesting to start off.
I do like the dudes you encounter at the end of these shrines, they remind me of the self-mummified buddhist monks that I’ve read about, who die while meditating and somehow don’t decay. Google that if you haven’t heard of it before.
The new power is a time-stopper, which freezes an object, and allows my to impart kinetic energy into it, which will apply all at once when the time-freeze expires, launching the object in the direction I imparted the kinetic energy with.
It’s cool, and seems like it has potential to be pretty fun. After clearing three very easy, basic “challenges”, I was awarded another Spirit Orb, and then I left.
Outside the shrine, there was a large boulder that I had noticed before, but couldn’t move. Of course, now I can. I time-froze it with my tablet, slammed it with my newly-obtained sledge hammer, and launched it like a golf-ball off the mountain. I hope I find where it landed later, and see a path of destruction that it wrought. Under the boulder was a chest.
I decided I should try climbing up even higher up the mountain, and was rewarded by finding a ledge with another chest, where I found a spare sledge hammer.
Oh, I now think I have a way to defeat that Stone Talus monster I woke up in the wooded glen. That’s going to be a fun fight, I can tell. I might be able to take out those Guardians in the ruins, too.
I climbed still higher, reached the top of the mountain, but it’s snowy, too cold up there for me, so I couldn’t stay up there very long. I can tell there’s more to explore in these cold regions, and I have some clues about how I can do that. I’ve crafted some foods that give me cold resistance for a limited time, which I can use. The old man told me he would give me a warm doublet if I figured out how to cook a dish he can’t remember how to make. So if I keep experimenting with cooking and give it to him, that will be my best bet, I guess.
I still only have 3 heart containers, and haven’t seen any way to increase that so far.