Looking to where I can go next, the closest pin to my location is a short distance north, across a river. I head there to check it out. Before I get close enough to see what it is, I find another Korok looking to find his friend. It seems these guys are ultra common in this area. So far they’ve been easy to help, give me two korok seeds, and I have a working theory that they are there to lead me toward a nearby shrine that happens to be within a short distance of where the friend is camping. I’d like to clear another shrine, so I take the Korok to his buddy.
This time, I have to cross two rivers to get him there. I see a bridge, it’s a bit out of my way, but easiest way to go given that I’m carrying the Korok with Ultrahand. So I walk down river, carrying the Korok with me, and get to the bridge, cross it, and run into Addison. Addison wants help too, and this too is generally pretty easy, so I stop to help him. I put the Korok down, and go find a large rock that I can use to help him prop up his sign. He thanks me, and gives me his usual rewards.
I go back to my first task of helping the Korok. I tried assembling a little cart for him to ride on, thinking that might make it easier to cross the river with, but so far I haven’t needed it. I’ve just carried the cart with the Korok riding on it, all using Ultrahand. But there’s one more river that I need to cross, and this time the cart comes in handy. It floats, and I put it in the middle of the river, as far as I can reach with Ultrahand. Then I go swim out to it, and get on the cart, floating down river a ways. Then I pick up the Korok, unglue him from the cart, and put him as far out into the water toward the shore we’re trying to reach, and swim to shore, then pick him up from the shore with Ultrahand, and from there is just a little walk to get him to his friend.
At this point, an Octorock floating in the river wakes up and starts trying to kill us. I snipe it with the bow, and take it out, then grab the Korok and get him ashore. Fortunately the river current isn’t too fast and doesn’t take him far off downriver.
I get the Korok to his friend, but there’s no shrine nearby for me to discover. So there goes that theory.
I note that I’m in the area of Hyrule that I recognize well, the road from the Great Pleateau that leads to Kakariko Village and Hateno Village, through the broken mountain with its twin peaks. I feel like I’m at home in Hyrule for the first time. This area is one of the first parts of the map that I explored in BOTW, and feels more “home” to me than Hyrule Castle does, which in TOTK is so distorted by the changes to the map that it feels very different.
I look around, and spot a flying creature. It is large and looks a bit like a fish, not so much like a bird or a dragon. I spot another one, a bit further off, and it seems to be carrying something. I look at it with my Purah Pad telescope, it’s a bokoblin. Wow, so that’s something new.
I decide that I want to go back to that area that I had pinned on the map, before I got distracted by the Korok, and the most direct way is basically right under the zone this flying creature is patrolling.
I am feeling brave, so I just go for it, and when I get close enough that I’m spotted, I nock an arrow and loose at the creature, which drops the bokoblin. I’m hoping the fall will injure the bokoblin, but it seems that enemies are very resistant to falling damage in this game, just as they were in BOTW, and he survives the fall with almost no damage taken. The flying creature dies, however. I don’t like the look of the bokoblin, it is blue and seems to be a more powerful type, so I opt not to bother fighting it, and sneak away through some ruins that hide me from its line of sight, and I’m able to break off from the combat easily. Somehow I come across the dropped monster parts of the flying creature, and learn its name, it is called an Aerocuda. I guess kind of like Barracuda.
I re-check the map to find the pinned location I wanted to check out, and it’s still a ways off but not too much farther. I head that direction, and when I get there, it’s a tall stone pillar that I had spotted. Nearby is the same river I crossed with the Korok, and I’ve now crossed back over to get to this location. There’s a large, hollow tree stump at this point in the river, and I go in to check it out, and find a korok puzzle, a block that I have to re-assemble with Ultrahand, which is much easier to manipulate than the similar puzzles in BOTW were with the Magnesis ability.
I turn my attention back to the pillar, and try climbing it. I only have one Stamina wheel, and it gets me about 4/5 to the top, but I need to take an Elixir to get all the way to the top. I happen to have one, so I use it. On the top of the pillar I find what looks like a huge dandelion. I try picking it, but that doesn’t work. So I try hitting it with my weapon, which cuts it down, releasing one large, glowing seed. It falls slowly toward the ground below, and I jump off, intending to use the glider to land right next to it so I can pick it up. When I land, however, a chu chu blob spawns and attacks me, I turn to face it, and lose track of what happened to the dandelion seed, which disappears. I slay the chu chu, and look around for it, and it’s gone. I am annoyed.
Nothing I can do about it, other than reload the game and try again, but I decide to just accept it and proceed forward. The next place on the map that I had pinned is a bit of a hike, but I plot a course and run straight over the terrain, over hills and through trees, until I get to it. It’s a shrine, and I am interested in getting one more Light of Blessing so I can get another Heart Container or Stamina Wheel when I return to Lookout Landing.
But before I get there, I find something interesting. On the ground, there’s a circular pool of water, perfectly circular, about the diameter a humanoid would take up standing. It’s right in my path, and so as a get close to it, I check it out. It triggers a cutscene, much like those random map points in BOTW would trigger memories of Link’s amnesiac past.
This time, I see a vision, of Ganondorf summoning a large herd of Molduga, who stampede through a valley, apparently to attack the Hylian people. Rauru, Zelda, and another Hylian woman stand at the edge of a high point overlooking the valley, watching this happen. Rauru uses some power, which unleashes a massive blast of energy, which destroys the entire stampede of Molduga. Ganondorf recognizes this as a Zonai power, and muses that brute force alone will not be enough him to win, and he considers what his next plan should be.
OK then. That’s all the time I have to play tonight. Guess I’ll find that shrine next time.