I’m standing at the highest point of the Ring Ruins at Kakariko, and decide to take in the view for a full 360 degrees and figure out where I ought to go next.
Logically, I’d probably want to explore the other Ring Ruins and try to solve the mystery at Kakariko. But everywhere you look in the world, there’s unexplored areas with loads to do everywhere between here and there.
I had pinned a shrine on the map which is nearby and seems like it might be just within reach of my glider. I decide to see if I can reach it, and take off. Unfortunately, my stamina meter runs out well before I reach, but still tantalizingly close to landing there. I die in the ensuing fall, and respawn back atop Kakariko.
I wonder, can I use a Zonai wing, to get there without using up the stamina, and then glide the rest of the way down? I try this, but I can’t seem to get the Wing to take off. I mount a fan to it, but the fan won’t blow it off the precipice, and just runs down the battery until it shuts off.
The wing seems like a useful device, or should be, but I’m finding it frustrating. Apart from the time when I had a ready-made rail to launch off of, I couldn’t get it to work for me worth a damn.
In the end, I opt to simply glide out as close to the shrine as I can; it’s not that far from the ground, and in fact there’s a root extending from the tiny skyland the shrine sits on, to touch the ground below, just barely. I figure, I can climb this with little problem, and get up there.
So I glide out as far as I can, and when my stamina meter is up, I use the last little bit to slow my fall just before I would have hit the ground and died, the glider acting like a parachute, and I survive without injury.
I walk to the hill leading to the little skyland with the shrine on it, and try to climb up the root. But it turns out that climbing the root also would use more than a wheel of stamina. So perhaps I am meant to come back here when I have powered up at the prayer statues, or with a stamina potion.
Just to be sure, I try to Ascend through the skyland to its topside, but it’s a little too high above where I can stand to use the ability, and I can’t make it work.
I’m not giving up yet, though.
But suddenly the sky darkens, and something horrible comes up out of the ground nearby. It’s a mass of Gloom, erupting out of the ground, and it appears to be mobile. Looking more closely I see what appear to be several dark, horrid, arms reaching out of this mass. It seems to slide around along the ground, as though alive, and searching for something. It turns out, it’s trying to get to me.
I dare not go near it, fearful of the Gloom sickness and those grabbing hands. I knock arrows and tip them with brightbloom, thinking that might be especially effective against them. I manage to score several headshots, and after hitting it a few times, it seems to shrink and recoil, and then dissipates into nothing, leaving behind not a trace that it had been there, save for some unidentified monster parts on the ground, which I pick up. It’s called a “Dark Clump” and the description says it may be useful in creating Gloom-resistant meals or elixirs. Perhaps that’s the cure for the old woman back at Kakariko village?
This is one of the coolest encounters I’ve had in the game so far, and out of all the new enemies I’ve seen so far, this is far and away the most interesting. Could these hands pull me down into the underworld again? I did get grabbed one time, and “all” it did was take me down to a half heart of health, and give me Gloom sickness to temporarily make me incapable of healing. It moved quickly and seemed like it could always catch me if it wanted to, unless I was high up on a different elevation that it couldn’t ascend. I’d have to run or glide to get away from it otherwise.
I am down to just 17 arrows remaining, and I still can’t get up into the skyland platform where the shrine is. I spot a bokoblin camp downhill a short distance away, and decide to raid it to see if I can farm some arrows from their archers.
This goes remarkably well, I manage to dive bomb the bokoblins, killing one straight away, and dispatch the second one quickly, leaving one more still on his watch stand, to try to hit me with arrows, which he cannot do as long as I keep moving around. I pick up a bunch of arrows, before I am noticed by a nearby Aerocuda, which bombs me with casks of TNT. Fortunately I am moving erratically enough that it doesn’t score a hit, although it does wake me up. I take it down with an arrow — it seems they do not have a lot of health — and it falls to the ground. Then one of the nearby trees wakes up, and I hit it with a bomb arrow, destroying it in one hit.
The dead tree leaves behind some nuts and a log. I pick up the log using Ultrahand, and drag it back up the hill to the floating shrine, and try to get the log to stand upright, so that I can use it to boost myself partway up the climb without using my stamina. All I need is a short distance, and this should help.
I have to use one of my Zonai Uprighter devices, but this ends up working.
Annoyingly, just as I get this set up, it rains for hours and turns to night. I can’t climb in the rain, so I stand by and wait for hours while the lightning crashes around me.
I see wizzorobes have come out, and are dancing about nearby. Electric-charged, too. I wonder if the storm brought them out?
I also spot a glow a distance away, downhill from the place I’m standing, and using my Purah scope, I zoom in to see what appears to be a young Hylian woman. I imagine it’s dangerous for her to be out, at night, in the rain, alone, but I suspect she may be in disguise and dangerous herself. She doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger, so I watch and she eventually reaches a large tree and seems to take shelter beneath it, waiting out the storm.
I’m more interested in getting the most out of my Uprighter device so I am not about to leave the area and risk it disappearing just to check on her.
At midnight the rain lets up, and I try the climb. I get up to the level of the log, and stop to stand on it, resting until my stamina bar is full again, then resume climbing. I just barely get to the top with the very last of my stamina, leaping the last little bit, but the plan works perfectly.
I’m here, I’m ready, I run into the shrine.
This one is a challenge for bouncy blocks. These are spring-loaded platform boxes of Zonai origin, which I can trigger by hitting them. I learn all about how they work.
First, there’s an automated platform that just pumps up and down like a high speed piston, launching me into the air. I use it to get up to the next level, where there’s a movable (with Ultrahand) spring loaded box, which I use to get up to a still higher level.
At this point, it gets more challenging. There’s an inclined platform which I have to position a spring box on, to launch me across a gap, to an area where I find another spring box and a ball. I use the springbox to launch the ball back the way I came, where there was a bowl shaped depression for it, and then reset the spring box and use it again to launch myself back across.
Once the ball touches the center of the bowl, it triggers a gate to open, where I find a double spring block, glued together. I discover that hitting either of the blocks activates both of them, giving an extra boost effect.
I use this to jump up, but the room it’s in isn’t the way forward. I have to drag the contraption out of the locked room, back into the room where the ball-bowl is, and here I can jump up to the height of the next level, which is where I find the Light of Blessing.
I now have 9 of these saved up, and it seems that the challenges I’m dealing with would be easier if I had a little more stamina wheel, so I think it’s time to head back to Lookout Landing to cash them in.
As I emerge from the shrine, I take a quick look around to see if there’s anything else of interest here; I notice a climbable wall surrounding a small chimney-like structure, inside of which I can see a treasure chest. I climb up and get the treasure chest, it’s a Big Zonaite. There’s a spring box inside the chimney, so I use it to launch myself out.
Looking around I see that toward the way back to Lookout Landing, there appears to be another Stable and Shrine nearby that it doesn’t look like I’ve been to yet, so I decide I’ll glide as far in that direction as I can, and visit them.