I decide to try to follow Impa’s advice and make my way toward Hebra. I must be able to find enough to keep me warm to at least take a quick scouting mission up there to see what I can see. Either I’ll find it along the way, or perhaps I’ll be turned back and have to come up with a better plan.
The terrain is uphill, but not much climbing. I traverse open fields and slopes, some grassy, but getting more rocky and barren as I continue. Along the way I encounter a few small groups of 2-3 Bokoblins, who are no problem for me to defeat, although at the same time it’s mostly pointless to do so, apart from farming some arrows and body parts from their corpses.
Further into the unknown territory on the map, I make a discovery (Discovery!) of a cave, and mark it on the map. This cave looks like it goes way down deep, and I am worried that it will lead me to the underworld where I won’t be able to get back up easily, and it will end up being a wrong turn. Or maybe I’m meant to go this way, who knows. But I opt to continue moving toward the spot marked on the map as the next stop in the Dragon’s Tears quest.
The mouth of this cave is concealed beneath a ridge, and it gives the appearance of an gigantic, empty eye socket peering out over the land. The area is called “Lindor’s Brow” on the map. Looking up at the ceiling of this natural bridge, I see what looks like a Korok tree stump, growing down out of the ceiling. I try shooting it with arrows, hoping to trigger a Korok, but nothing happens. So then I try positioning myself directly under it, and tunnel through it using Ascend. This works, and I collect another Korok seed.
I’m near the location of a map tower, and I really would like to get into it so I can set up a fast travel stop and get the map data for this region. As I get closer, I discover that this tower is built on a rocky island in the middle of a small lake, making it particularly difficult to reach. But perhaps I can construct something to help me get across.
There’s some construction material nearby, platforms and posts and wagon wheels. I just glue several platforms together, creating a long span that I use as a bridge. This works perfectly, and I gain access to the tower, activate it, and do a scan of the region to update my map. I’m in the Hyrule Ridge area, south of the Tabantha frontier. I recall that Tabantha was terribly cold, as cold as Hebra, in my previous journeys.
I try to take a quick 360 view of the landscape to see what looks interesting. As I start to descend from the sky, I notice a tiny skyland floating in the air a short distance away, and decide to try to glide to it. I make it easily, and from there I can take my time looking around. Off in the distance, to the north, I see what looks like a massive vortex of storm clouds swirling, like a gigantic tornado. It looks dangerous, with flashes of lightning, and there must be massive updrafts, based on the movement of the clouds. I think it’s too far for me to reach by glider, but it’s in the general direction of the Forgotten Temple, and that’s the direction I need to go, so I try to fly as close to it as possible. It is an incredibly long way off, but I am also incredibly high in the sky. My only limitation is my stamina, which gives out, and I drop like a stone. Fortunately I deploy the last-minute save move with my glider at exactly the last second, and avoid dying in the plummet. I’ve shaved a huge distance off of my travel to the Forgotten Temple by doing this, so it was well worth the risk.
During the last moments of my flight, the air temperature dropped and became cold enough to damage me, so I’m down a bit of health. The ground is snowy around here, and I pull out a few flame affiliated items to hold in my hand, hoping that they will keep me warm. I discover though that at ground level the temperature isn’t quite so bad, and I don’t need them. I can get by with my snow pants.
I trudge onward, I’m on the north rim of Tabantha canyon, and the Forgotten Temple is still a long way off. The area seems empty, devoid of life and little to hold my interest, so I just continue heading toward the point on the map where the Temple is located. After a bit of a run, I come to what looks like a large fortified Bokoblin camp. I notice a small cave in the wall of the hill that the fort is built on, and I go inside to seek shelter. There’s nothing here, but I’m able to use Ascend to get into the fort without being noticed. It’s night time and the bokoblins are asleep, except those on watch, but they’re looking outward, and can’t see me. There’s a few blue bokoblins and a bokoblin boss sleeping here among some treasure chests.
I’ve traveled a long way without making a save point, and I don’t want to risk getting killed, so I avoid waking the bokoblins up, so I stealth sneak to the chests and open them, stealing some better weapons and arrows, then climb up the wall and paraglide away, completely unnoticed.
This is cool; I like that I can do this.
Further on, I get nearer to the Forgotten Temple. I’m still up the side of the canyon, and I need to glide down, which I now do. I land outside the Temple, and it looks like the entrance has been completely filled with rock. I’m not at the bottom of the canyon, yet, so I descend a bit further, hoping to find another way in, and at the next level below, I see a Hylian man standing next to a balloon. I glide toward him, landing right next to him, and we talk. It’s a man I’ve talked to before, and he says he is with Impa, who became impatient and went into the Temple without him.
That’s a concern, so I head in after her, and quickly make my way to the back end of the ruined temple. Inside the temple is vast, but not very dangerous and quite empty, except for a couple of bokoblin camps, which I’m able to get past completely unnoticed.
I reach the back end of the Temple and find Impa standing next to a Shrine. I talk to Impa, who says something must be nearby, but she can’t find it, then enter the Shrine.
The Shrine is a building block puzzle, which I solve easily enough. There’s a combat in between two puzzles, with a soldier guardian who is armed with a flame thrower, but I manage to take him out with a bomb arrow. He drops some decent weapons, and I’ve been finding some better quality stuff in the Temple, so my weapons are now pretty buff. I still need to armor up and get some more hearts on my life meter, before I can be any good at fighting, though.
After emerging from the Shrine, Impa still says the same thing as before, that there must be something to do with the Geoglyphs nearby, so clearing the Shrine wasn’t it.
I continue forward, end find a hall leading to another vast chamber. Deeper into the Forgotten Temple, I’m starting to notice that sections of floor appear to have a raised surface, and some of the sections are different colored, in a way that looks deliberate, not natural. I think maybe these are clues of some kind, they almost look like a map of part of the world, but I can’t really see how these fragments would be useful to me as they are.
I proceed still deeper into the Temple until a final (?) room opens up, a large round chamber with murals on the wall, identical to the Geoglyphs we’ve seen, and on the floor in the center of the room is a map of what looks to be the surface level of the Kingdom of Hyrule, with the positions of the Geoglyphs marked at various locations on the map.
This is clearly a big clue. I climb down to the floor of the room to get a closer look. This triggers a cutscene, as Impa and the other guy from the balloon have caught up to me, and are in awe of the discovery. Impa tells me to visit each of the locations where these Geoglyphs are indicated on the map, and try to find more memory triggers that will give us more clues about the Princess’s whereabouts.
I like that I’ve been able to somehow keep the main storyline advancing as I’ve been going through these adventures and side quests. I think compared to BOTW, in TOTK it somehow is easier to get back on track after doing something non-essential. I think the quest log is more useful, but also the way the game seems to guide me without effort in the right direction is really impressing me right now.