I guess while I’m waiting for the Blood Moon so I can stand on Washa’s Bluff naked and bring forth a new shrine, I guess I should check out the Illumeni Plateau.
I glide over from the highest nearest point of Washa’s Bluff, and climb up the rest of the way to the top. It is dry and barren compared to Washa’s Bluff, no plant life but a few tumbleweed and dried out shrubs and some trees that died before they grew taller than Link. I walk over to a rock formation and it comes alive. Another Stone Talus fight.
I’m not carrying an iron sledge hammer, and it’s night, and suddenly three moblin skeletons pop up, and some kees, and a few chuchus to boot, and it’s a lot more than I was looking for, so I decide to transport out. I teleport to Hateno village and go to my house, where there is always a free sledge hammer for the taking. I swap it into my inventory, and then go to bed to sleep until morning, wake up fully refreshed, and teleport back to the shrine by the cherry tree on Satori mountain, and glide back to Washa’s Bluff, hop over to Illumeni Plateau, and fight the Talus in the daytime. I have a pretty good fight, and it drops a lot of gems, as usual, but I score at least two rubies from this one, so it’s a pretty nice haul.
Scouting the rest of the plateau, I find nothing of interest, so I bring up the map and use my telescope to see what else is in the general area that might be worth checking out while I wait for the next Blood Moon.
Past the Tabantha Tower, the most recent tower I’ve activated, the one with the evil goo, there’s a road leading further north, and I haven’t gone down it, so I decide to do that.
I glide down in that direction, and as I get closer I spot a stand of pine trees and a treehouse hideout, and I come in for a landing to check it out. I’m expecting bokoblins, but see no one around. This one is looking abandoned. But suddenly, before I know it, three lizals are on top of me. They have a chameleon-like power that allows them to blend in, and these ones are green as the grass, and I never noticed them until they were right on top of me.
I quick-equip sword and shield, and manage to take them out without getting too badly injured myself. There seems to be no way up this treehouse, so I climb a nearby tree to jump off of it and glide down, and there’s a rusty halberd, a rusty clayomore, and a chest with a Solider’s Bow, which is a decent bow if nothing special. I could have skipped this encounter.
Back to the road, it passes through a narrow gap between two tall rocks. I smell ambush, and I can already see a lizal standing guard on the road leading into the pass. I glide down to the rocks above, and follow them along the road, and spot a second lizal, down below. I decide to take this one out, and drop bombs on him until he’s dead. I glide down to pick up the loot drops, and then three more skeletal lizals pop up out of the ground and surprise attack me, but I quickly take them down, and now I have even more loot. A couple bows, a spear, a couple boomeranges, body parts for brewing elixirs, and a couple of skeleton arms. I can’t carry all the weapons, so I make my choices and continue on.
The road curves around to the left, and then continues west, going downhill. Up ahead, I see yet another stable, and decide to check in.
This one is called Rito Stable, and is close to Rito village, home of the bird-people. Most stables have a shrine right nearby, but this one doesn’t seem to, although I can see not too far away at Rito village there is a shrine, and there’s another shrine visible a short distance away to the north uphill.
Kass is here, and sings me the song of the battle against Ganon from 10,000 years ago. There’s a few other people to talk to, but not much especially interesting.
I continue down the road, and come to a small foot bridge, cross it, and I’m in Rito village. It is the tall stone structure that I had spotted from Tabantha Tower that I thought looked like a skyscraper-sized magic wand. A path spirals upward around the stone tower, and all along it there are little shops and homes, and I talk to many Rito there. They tell me about the Divine Beast above us, Vah Medoh, and how it appeared recently and is threatening. They sent their warriors to investigate it but some were injured and some didn’t come back. They are safe on the ground, but Vah Medoh attacks them if they fly too high in the air, and it’s demoralizing to be a Rito and not be able to fly very high. The Rito are mostly reluctant to talk to me about their troubles, since I’m Hylian and an outsider, but they seem to recognize that I’m a warrior, and of good heart, so they seem to warm up to me a bit as I talk to more of them.
I go to the shrine here, and it’s a wind puzzle. There are fans, which blow turbines if they are pointed at them. The puzzle is to arrange the fans so that they turn every turbine. There’s also a treasure chest, which I grab, and after a little trial and error, I solve the main puzzle and claim my spirit orb.
I talk to the Rito elder, who asks me to help them deal with Vah Medoh, and in order to do that I need to find one of their soldiers. I’m not sure where he is.
I try climbing up further, but the walkway ends, and then there’s a lot more stone towering above me. I try to climb it and get nearly to the top, but run out of stamina and fall. I catch myself and land on a part of the village where there’s a launching point that will take me to close to the other nearby shrine that I had spotted, so I decide to check that one out.
I glide over, and it’s very cold, but with my warm doublet, ruby headband, and snow shoes, I’m comfortable. I fight a few monsters, skeleton moblins and bokoblins on horseback, all well-armed, and then get to the shrine. This shrine is another wind puzzle. It’s a very tall shaft with platforms hanging in space, and each platform has a fan blowing upward, creating an updraft that I can ride up with the glider to make it to the next platform. I nearly get to the top, and then get stuck, as there’s no apparent path to get to the last platform where the shrine master waits. I pause the game and it displays the name of the shrine again, which gives me a clue about how to find a hidden path up to the very top, and I solve the puzzle.
A little further on the road out of the shrine, I come to a small building. There’s a sign outside of it that says “flight range” which looks like a practice course for flying creatures to do archery. I can see a number of targets from where I stand, and shoot 3 or 4 of them. I expect I’ll receive something for this, but nothing happens. Upon looking a bit further, I can see still more targets. Apparently, I’m supposed to glide out and fire arrows while in mid-air. This is tricky, but when you shoot an arrow while gliding, you have to put away the glider, and you begin to fall. But time slows down, and you get a chance to aim. But this burns up a lot of stamina. So I guess the idea is to glide, see a target, quickly take aim and destroy it, then switch back to glider and get back to someplace safe to land. There’s a lot of updraft on the course, so it should be doable, with practice. I am not very good at this yet, and screw up, but it’s night, and so maybe if I come back later someone will be here, who can talk to me about the challenge and give me some tips…