I restore the game from my save point and look around from atop the citadel, scanning below with my Purah Scope. Off in another direction, I see far below at the base of the citadel mountain there is a bridge, which is partially collapsed, leading to what in all likelihood was once the main entrance to the fortress. Leading away from this, there’s a deep gorge with steep rocky walls, with another, longer bridge crossing it. This bridge seems to be mostly intact, and I spot a large group of monsters — at least three Moblins and I think about six Bokoblins — apparently camped out, guarding it. I decide to glide down to attack them, and as I get close enough I fire bomb arrows at the Moblins, trying to score headshots, and hoping that the blast damage will take out the bokoblins.
This attack is fairly successful, but it does blow two of the Moblins clean off the bridge, and either destroys the monster parts dropped by the Bokoblins, or blows them off the bridge as well. I’m left fighting two remaining Moblins — I guess there were four — but the bombs seem to have destroyed the Bokoblins outright, and the fight isn’t too bad. I take out the Moblins, and then drop down into the gorge to finish off the remaining two Moblins, in order to completely wipe out the group. The group has its own life bar, so it seems that there may be some special reward or mission to be accomplished by destroying the entire group. But when I succeed in doing so, nothing much happens.
I have a long climb to get back out of the gorge to the top where the bridge is. I’m just barely able to get to the top using all my stamina, the climbing suit, and un-equipping my weapons and shield. Looking back at the bridge, one of its main support columns is broken in half, and I see a korok puzzle in the hollow of the column. I swoop back down to solve the puzzle — Ultrahand glue a heavy rock to a cork on a chain, and drop it off the column to pull the cork and the Korok appears.
Then I climb back up the bridge once more, and look around trying to find any clue as to what else I was supposed to have done. I don’t see whatever it is I’m missing.
I’m very low on bombs now, I think I have fewer than five in my inventory. And this means it’s time to brave the depths once again, and go on an extended foraging session.
There’s a chasm to the underworld nearby, in the bottom of the gorge I just climbed out of. So I drop back down into it, and land in a new area of the underworld map that I haven’t been to previously, beneath Akkala.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, the ground down here is as rugged and steep as the terrain on the overworld above. It seems that there is some connection, a mirror like connection, to the worlds above and below. I don’t know everything there is to know about this, but I’m starting to notice some interesting connections. It’s an old Zelda trope that goes all the way back to Zelda III: A Link to the Past, where you have a dark world and a light world that you had to travel between, and which were linked together in numerous, subtle ways. So I bet there’s something like that going on here in TOTK as well.
The first thing I come to in this part of the underworld is a bokoblin mining operation. I put on my Boko hat and try to fit in, hoping to mine the Zonai ore in front of them without arousing their suspicion. But they get too close to me and when I swing my hammer at the ore it hits one of them, angering it, and it triggers a combat. Very well, then, fine. I fight the bokoblins pretty well, and defeat them without much trouble, loot the place, mine the ore, and move on.
It’s very dark and I seem to be moving along the top of a steep ridge, and I can see a Light Root off a ways. Distance is deceptive underground and stuff that looks near in the Purah Scope is often much farther than it seems. I mark the Light Root and look and it doesn’t look that far even on the map, but in reality it’s fairly far. I try throwing brightbulb seeds to see what’s in the space between us, and observe the brightbulb falls way, way, way farther than I had expected it would. So there’s an incredibly deep chasm below and this Light Root I’m looking at is on the far end of it, on another high ridge.
Looking down into the ridge, I see that there is actually a Light Root right below me, easily within reach, all have to do is drop down to it. This will sacrifice a lot of altitude and mean a big climb back up, but I can’t pass it up. I drop down and open up the map by activating the Light Root, and then make my way in the direction of the first Light Root that I had spotted, hoping to find my way to it.
I’m making pretty decent progress, and not really running into any problems. Some Lizalfos skeletons pop out of the ground, but I dispatch them quickly with a thrown Dazzlefruit seed. It’s the quick and easy way to deal with skeletal enemies, they die instantly from the burst of light if they’re caught in the radius of it. I climb a bit further, and encounter some flat, man-made looking stone platforms, fight another Lizalfos, this one not a skeleton, but a Blue Lizal. I climb to his level and am right there in front of him when I get to the level ground where I can get my footing. He doesn’t attack right away, surprised to see me I guess, and I hit him hard enough to knock him down and disarm him, which makes the rest of the fight go easily.
I’m almost to the next Light Root, and the way is very dark. I spot one of those mysterious pedestals with a shadowy statue atop it, holding a weapon. I figure I should take it, so I move in that direction. It’s very dark in the nearby surroundings, and there’s a bit of gloom off to the left, which I’m trying to avoid. The way to the right looks open and flat, as I can see a lot of Poes in the near distance, which give me some idea of the topography without burning a Brightbulb seed.
As I get close to the weapon pedestal, I’m spotted by a Lynel. I quickly duck and hide behind the pedestal, hoping that he doesn’t see me clearly and turn hostile. The Lynel comes closer for a better look and I sneak around the base of the pedestal, trying to stay out of sight.
This more or less works, but when the Lynel is what looks like a safe distance away, I need to use a Brightbulb seed so I can find my way. The Light Root is very near, but the ground is very steep, and there’s a lot of gloom around. Unfortunately when I throw the Brightbulb, it alerts the Lynel, who runs over and starts roaring, and move in to attack me. I try to run for it, pressing through Gloom that saps my life strength, and then I catch fire. I’ve stepped into a region of extreme heat, but with the combat underway I misinterpret this as the Lynel hit me with a flame based attack. I don’t realize what’s really going on, and before I know it I’m dead.
I respawn, and wait a bit longer this time for the Lynel to get further away, and am more careful about how I get to the Light Root this time. I manage to avoid the Gloom spots, and don’t trigger the Lynel to attack me, but still catch fire, and realize that this Light Root is in a very hot zone. I put on my Flamebreaker armor suit, and even that’s not putting the flames out. I equip my sapphire rod, and still I’m burning. Down to my last heart.
There’s a third Light Root nearby which I had spotted, and marked with my Purah Scope, but I’m too near death to try to make it there. I need to fast-travel to safety, and it seems like a good idea to go back to Lookout Landing and replenish some stocks, cash in some Korok Seeds, and see what else I can do before I go back into the underworld again.
At Lookout Landing, I have enough Korok seeds to expand my weapon, shield, and bow inventory slots by one each. I talk to a man at the armor shop aboveground, and he mentions he wants to add another shelf so that the merchant can offer more wares. I wish I had rupees enough to buy some of the armor suits. It seems like there are a lot more of these suits in TOTK than there were in BOTW. I don’t even know how many there are in total. There’s one called the Fierce Diety, that I can get by finding more of the Legendary Bandit’s stashes, and the Frog Suit one for completing the Lucky Clover Gazette missions. And most of the armor suits from BOTW, and probably more that I haven’t learned about yet.
While I’m in Lookout Landing, I talk to Purah’s two assistants. One wants me to go back into the underworld to look for these statues that seem to be leading to some interesting discovery; the other wants me to go to Hateno Village to use their research lab to expand the powers of the Purah Pad. I have yet to go to Hateno Village in all my travels in this game so far. So I think that is what I should do next.
If I want to go back to sub-Akkala, I’m going to need to complete the Fireproof suit, which I might be able to do if I go back to Goron City and sell off some diamonds. And if I’m there I might as well complete the quest with Yunobo. So that’s something I’ll be taking care of soon, as well.