Dear Readers,
I get the feeling this shrine was meant to be found earlier in the game but I find it now about 400 blog posts in with postgame experience and strength.
It was all about tilting the controller to make staircases line up with the path. Very straightforward really and it felt like an early game novelty. It also retained that sense of fun that an early novelty has.
I made my path, grabbed the treasure chests while I was here and got the blessing.
Dear Readers,
I went to the Dueling Peaks Stable and took on the quest that two guys had, but they wouldn't give it to me unless I paid them 100 rupees for information. For a second I felt like Tingle from Rosy Rupeeland.
I got their information and headed to Hickaly Woods nearby. It was where I came across my first sighting of a bear in the game. I also came across a Stalnox and picked a fight with it, knocking its eye out of its socket as much as I could. To recover from the fight I climbed a cliff to the east and made my way to the hot spring I spotted on the map. I took a nice long dip! I also dived into the ring of flowers for a Korok seed.
What I really needed to do in this area was follow the smaller stream and up its waterfall and gather the treasures from the cave at the top of it. There were some nice minerals and weapons here. The guys were pretty mad when I told them I had found it. At least I get to gloat.
While I was in this area, my shrine radar went off. I explored the mountains to the south to see if I could find it. I got a bit off course and ended up fighting a Guardian Stalker. I really didn't need to be up there though, as the shrine was right next to the tiny river I had to follow earlier. I didn't notice the rocks covering the cave it was in at first. I blew them up and went into Toto Sah Shrine.
Dear Readers,
I decided to go and conquer South Lomei Labyrinth. I warped nearby and glided all the way in.
On the map it looked like it was just squares within squares, but it didn't show any gaps in walls and it didn't show any levels the gaps were at either.
The only enemies I found here were Bokoblins and Stalkoblins. All of the Bokoblins were on top of the walls of the maze, patrolling around for some reason. I wondered why they were doing that. There was no stopping anyone at the entrance.
I also came across the evil goop but I didn't find any eyeball to shoot.
I explored the maze until I got all the treasure chests. Some had weapons and some had rupees, which was nice.
I felt this was a bit easier than the other mazes I took on, but it seemed pretty mysterious. Navigating the passageways and gaps in the wall was challenging, even though it looks fairly unassuming on the map. I eventually got to the shrine at the centre of the maze and obtained the blessing.
Dear Readers,
I recall meeting someone who was clinging onto an ancient glowing orb when I was exploring the coastline and I said I'd come back to them another time. I decided to go back to her now.
Her name was Loone and she was hugging and doting on a glowing orb that she named "Roscoe". The altar that housed the orb was nearby.
I was thinking maybe the tough times in this post apocalyptic world were too much for her and she took solace in this glowing thing. The poor girl.
I talked to her for a bit and she said what she really wanted was to see a small Guardian, a walking Guardian and a flying Guardian. If she saw those then she would forget all about Roscoe and daydream about Guardians.
She seemed hardy and hopeful after all, yet still quite a bit silly. I decided to indulge her request. I wasn't able to show her the entries in the Compendium though. I had to have pictures of these Guardians in my album.
I warped to the shrine outside Hyrule Castle and found the flying and walking Guardians pretty quickly, but it wasn't as straightforward with the little one. I tried taking a picture of a Guardian Scout III, but it wasn't what she wanted. I warped to the very first shrine I did, the Magnesis trial on the Great Plateau. Inside I took a picture of a Guardian Scout I and that did the trick!
I brought all three photos back to her and it made her extremely happy. She said she burned the images of the Guardians into her imagination and decided to daydream about them instead of Roscoe. I'm glad she acknowledged the fact that Guardians are too dangerous to approach casually. I'm sure she'll be ok! Maybe it's good to just daydream about certain things! That's food for thought!
With Roscoe freed, I brought it do the altar. Shoqa Tatone Shrine burst out of the ground and I went inside. It was a modest test of strength and I smashed up the Guardian to gain access to the monk's blessing.
Dear Readers,
I decided to explore this mountain that was between Faron and Gerudo Desert. It was called Mount Granajh. I was well able to climb it with my maxed out stamina and explore it with my Rito gear. It was very interesting to be in an area with temperature extremes so close together.
I kept climbing and exploring until I found a pedestal on the side of a cliff. Nearby was the remains of a hut with a diary lying around. The one who wrote it spent many many days trying to figure out the puzzle of the place and they were running out of supplies. The poor thing must've had an awful difficult time.
They left a very big clue to the pedestal and it was something about casting a cold shadow on it. Initially I thought it was about throwing the big snowballs that were lying around the place at it, but it turns out I had to hold one and cast its shadow at a certain time of the day when it was glowing. After a short time I eventually found that it was sometime in the evening before sunset. I held a snowball over my head and got into position that made the sun cast the snowball's shadow onto the centre of the pedestal. When that happened, Suma Sahma Shrine burst out of the ground! Hooray!
Inside the shrine was a blessing. That was a pretty satisfying puzzle to solve!
Dear Readers,
This shrine had a very simple puzzle. There was a moving platform and a laser shooter I could carry around. All I had to do was put the laser on this platform and point it towards a direction where it would shoot the switch every time it passed it. This made the platforms shift up and down by themselves and I was able to access treasures and the monk easily. Nice little shrine.
Dear Readers,
While I was on my way to find Telma, my shrine radar went off, so I decided to ride her back to the area and look for it. My journey took me up a mountain that divided this area and the Gerudo Desert on the other side.
I didn't have to do any climbing thankfully and I was able to ride Telma all the way to the shrine. When we got there we found a lady who was cooking something badly. She told me about recipes that definitely wouldn't produce good food and it sounded like handy advice to avoid!
Near her was the shrine I was looking for. It was surrounded by a lot of trash with flies buzzing all around! It was like something from the real world! I went into Ishto Soh Shrine.
Dear Readers,
I took on the quest about finding the giant horse. I went to the guy who gave me the quest and made my way west to the area where the horse was found.
On the way there, I had to put on my Bokoblin mask for the big gang of Bokoblin riders, and after that I had to put on my Lynel mask for the two Lynels I had to ride past. After that I found the giant horse.
It took a couple of attempts, but I was able to tame it. Just like when I tamed Blondie, I used nearly all of my stamina.
Dear Readers,
I thought I might as well take on this maze too, so I headed to the Akkala Lab and glided all the way to this island. It took most of my maximum stamina to get there. Glad I had it topped up to the max.
There were a lot of Guardians there and it was being patrolled by scary looking flying ones above it. They didn't give me any trouble though.
I had some trouble with regular ones on the ground and in some parts of the maze but I was able to handle them easily enough.
With the main ones out of the way I explored the maze itself. I explored the whole maze, even though it turned out I didn't need to do very much at all! Still, it was fun to do though. I had to use Magnesis a couple of times to shift metal boxes out of the way of some passages. Those tall pillars in the centre had tall empty shafts in them. Some had treasure chests, which was nice.
When I reached Tu Ka'loh Shrine I went inside for the blessing.
When I came out, there was a hole in the floor with wind blowing up from it. I became curious and went down the hole, which led to a massive basement below the island with disused Guardians scattered everywhere! It was really cool to see.
I explored the area and found that many of the Guardians were still alive and some were stalker ones. I had to be careful down here. I found a treasure chest that had a diamond circlet in it. Apparently it had some protection against Guardians but I didn't take the time to see. I guess this would be a good place to come back to after every blood moon if I wanted to hunt Guardians.
This huge basement got me thinking about the lore of the place. Maybe the Guardians were tested here when they were built?
Dear Readers,
I thought it was about time to go explore the Forgotten Temple. I warped to Serenne Stable and made my way towards the entrance of the temple.
However, I decided to explore the rooftop first. It was really interesting. It was very quiet but it was a lot like when you climb on the roof of a big building and you see another side to it that you wouldn't normally be allowed see. There were a lot of weird structures up here but there was very little of anything else. I found a few Koroks around here alright but that was it.
After that bit of fun I made my way back to the entrance and parachuted down to go inside.
Immediately I was targeted by at least 3 or four Guardian lasers. I didn't have much time to hang around and explore so I moved as fast as I could through the temple, dodging lasers.
After that ordeal I came across a gigantic goddess statue and Rona Kachta Shrine. I went in the shrine and got the blessing. I'm not sure why the goddess statue was so gigantic.
Dear Readers,
I was looking for another challenge and decided to take on this one. I ran along the top of this labyrinth once before but now I decided to take the challenge head on. I warped to the area and made my way to the maze while wearing my Lynel mask. When I got there I was tasked with making my way to the end as a shrine quest.
The shrine was right there ahead of me, but it was obscured by cage bars and by purple goop. I had to navigate the whole labyrinth with help of the Sheikah Slate. There were mostly Lizalfos enemies the various corridors, and I never really got lost or confused. The path roughly made a big circle, but the little branches did look a little intimidating. I found treasures at most corners of the maze and there were corridors at the compass points leading to other treasure too. I wasn't in too much trouble at all and I had a lot of good weapons to use here.
I eventually found the goopy eye and cleared the purple goop. Then I found the way to Qaza Tokki Shrine. Inside was a blessing.
The maze wasn't too difficult at all. It just took a bit of time and it was something I was looking forward to with a while.
Dear Readers,
When I came out of the shrine, I met a Rito who was relaxing on the mountain. I had a very nice chat with them and they told me about this minigame where you fly through rings. I had a few goes of it.
It's kind of like Superman 64 or Nights Into Dreams where I had to use the glider to fly through rings and use updraughts to regain height. It was fairly challenging! On my first attempt I got about 11 and on my second I got over 30 but I still didn't get them all. I had my own stamina to deal with as well, so again I was glad I upgraded it to the max.
I only had two goes at it and the Rito gave me rupees as a prize. I earned more than what I had to pay for it. Might have another go later.
Dear Readers,
I ran out of shrine quests and decided to go all the way to Eventide Island to do the challenge there.
I was here before but I decided to do the challenge later. Now that I have maximum stamina, I was able to just glide over there from Cape Cales without running out.
The trial started and my stuff got taken away. It was nighttime so I was already to a bad start, dealing with stalkoblins. I had to blow them up with my bombs and beat them up with their own arms.
I gathered as much food as I could — mushrooms, fruit, anything I could get my hands on. I blew up some more Bokoblins partying on the beach and stole their stuff.
I gained enough supplies to attack a Bokoblin base where I found my first orb. I carried it to the altar on the corner of the island. I chopped down a tree to form a bridge to it.
My second orb was around a Hinox's neck. I had to pick a fight with it to obtain it. I'm glad I waited until I had more hearts to do this. I took advantage of a lightning storm and left a metallic weapon under the Hinox's foot so it would do a lot of damage. When I defeated it, I brought this orb onto a hill where there was another altar but also another Bokoblin camp. I attacked them in their sleep and wiped them out. I took advantage of their cooking pot and hearty durians.
The last orb and altar was on the mountain guarded by a big enemy base. I had to fight many Bokoblins and a Moblin or two as well. I had to use stasis to knock the slab off the altar and the third orb was nearby.
Korgu Chideh Shrine burst from the ground on top of the mountain and there was just a blessing inside waiting for me.
I was very happy to get my stuff back!
Dear Readers,
With the thunder helm, I felt a lot more confident about exploring the Thundra Plateau, so I ventured there.
It was perpetually thundery here, so I figured the helm would be good here, but I didn't really see any trouble I could get into without it. There's that worry gone at least.
I got to a raised mound and saw some weird structures on top of it, each with their own colour. They seemed to correspond with the orbs that were lying around the place. There were hollows I could put the orbs into.
There were four orbs and the first two were easy enough to reach as they were on the raised mound. The other two were down from there and I couldn't bring them up by myself.
I noticed there were many Octoroks around, so I figured if I could set some Octo balloons to the orbs to raise them in the air. I could then blow them towards the platform with a Korok Leaf. I tried this out and had great success with it! It took a bit of practice alright but I got it!
Dear Readers,
I had unfinished side quests with the Gerudo, so I warped back to Gerudo Town to see who needed help.
One of the guards went missing on her own mission to find the Great Fairy and I was asked to go find her. I was told about Moldugas and every other kind of hazard in the desert. When I warped out there, I prepared myself to take on another one of those creatures.
That was until I found the missing guard, half collapsed in front of the leviathan skeleton. I didn't need to venture out after all!
She was dying for a hearty durian, so I gave one to her. She recovered and thanked me before going back to Gerudo Town.
When I got back, I had all the problems in the town solved, so Riju gave me the thunder helm! Hooray!
When she gave me the helm, she got off her throne and went to see the sand seal that gives words of wisdom. Not sure why, but it is nice.
Dear Readers,
Someone at the Riverside Stable wanted to see a piece of the Royal Guard's gear, so I went to Hyrule Castle to seek it out.
While I was at the castle, I decided to unblock one of the doorways in the library. I had to go in from the other side and make my way towards the goopy eyeball so I could shoot it.
Along the way I came across a rare Stone Talus so I had a long slow fight beating it up, collecting the gems when I was done.
I went exploring more hallways in the castle and came across an armory with a Moblin inside. Inside there were several pieces of Royal Guard gear. I took the shield and brought it back to the stable to finish the quest. I even sold it to the one who wanted it.
Dear Readers,
A Zora asked me to beat up the Hinox here so I went ahead and took it on. I don't fight Hinoxes very often!
It wasn't too difficult a fight. It is annoying when they cover their eye but I was able to fight and beat it without too much trouble. I got walloped a few times but I didn't have any emergency thankfully. It'll go towards the Hinox defeat score that Kilton keeps as well, so that's nice.
Dear Readers,
I decided to help the Zora family whose wife and mother were missing. Both the husband and the poor kid looked very troubled and didn't know what to do. The husband said she disappeared when the river was flooded and that she could be anywhere along the way, even all the way at Lake Hylia.
I took the hint from that and warped to the shrine on Hylia Island. I got on the raft and went sailing around the surrounding little islands, which was exactly where I found her! I was very fortunate!
She was in great spirits, catching fish. I told her about her family being worried and she immediately went back home to them. She was very thankful too.
Dear Readers,
I headed to Zora's Domain to do some quests.
The first one I did on this trip there was the one with the ceremonial trident. I listened to the little girl's song and checked out the glowing platform at Veiled Falls.
One of the elders had the trident but it seems that he dropped it off "the bridge" by accident.
I spent ages looking for the trident in the water and I searched all the wrong bridges on the way to Zora's Domain. Eventually I found the trident which was directly under the very bridge he was standing on. I should've copped it sooner.
I used Cryonis and Magnesis to reach the trident and pull it out.
The next thing to do was to do the action described in the song. I used Revali's Gale while standing on the glowing platform at the waterfall and then pressed Y while in the air to stab the trident directly into the very centre of the platform. This made Dagah Keek Shrine appear, which gave me an immediate blessing on entry.
This took a lot longer than it should've but I did have fun finding treasures and Koroks in the river.
What'll I do with this trident though? I don't have room in the house to keep it and I don't exactly want to waste it either if it has anything else special to it. I know I can always recreate it at least.
Dear Readers,
This last trial had me facing a bunch of enemies on the way to the next shrine, using wooden weapons and equipment.
This wasn't too bad except for the stupid bow, which forced me to shoot three arrows at once. I didn't want to!
I was able to wear the Bokoblin mask at least, which helped make things less chaotic.
At one point I failed when I got electrocuted and dropped the wooden sword I was given. I also failed when I sank into the swamp. Redoing from the start wasn't too bad as I knew what to expect. I took on the annoying Octoroks one by one swiftly when I spotted them. I had enough arrows thankfully for this wasteful bow I had to use.
Eventually I survived my way to Maag Halan Shrine and I went in to get the blessing.
Dear Readers,
A Korok was worried about their little Korok doing the trial by itself, so they asked me to follow them without being seen. This was kinda nerve wracking to do.
I had to follow this tiny creature in the fog and watch out for its little movements, as well as its speech bubbles and listen to its chirps and murmurs on my headphones as it navigated aloud to itself. I was always afraid of losing them and at one point I got interrupted by a stupid wolf. A swift arrow between its eyes and I was grand again to carry on. I was glad to get rid of it so quickly!
Eventually the little Korok reached the end of the trial and there was Daag Chokah Shrine. I was able to reveal myself and chat to the happy little Korok who had finished the trial all by themself. They didn't know I was following but they knew I was the hero and encouraged me to go ahead.
I went into Daag Chokah Shrine and got the blessing.
Dear Readers,
I had unfinished business in Korok Forest ever since I got the Master Sword. There were Koroks who had trials for me to take on, each one with a shrine blessing at the end. I started with the one at Lake Saria and this one was my favourite of the three!
With this one I had to turn on Magnesis to see the metal boulders inside the scary tree mouths and follow the trail of them to the next part.
I came across signs with words narrated from the perspective of the scary trees, telling me to feed them with various objects. I simply had to put stuff in their mouths like a rusty shield or a treasure chest that was lying around. This would unlock the next part of the puzzle. At times the narration got a bit dramatic when the signs said stuff along the lines of "That tree stole my treasure chest. Bring it back to me please", which I found nice and amusing! The trees themselves didn't move or do anything. They just had mouths that made something else happen. It felt like they were trying to get my imagination going with their own storytelling, which was fun!
I solved the puzzles and eventually revealed Kuhn Sidajj. I went in to get the blessing.
Dear Readers,
I kept this guy in Gerudo Canyon in my mind and decided to just catch a random horse for him. I warped to the Great Plateau Tower and parachuted down to the road and headed in his direction. I knew there were wild horses along the way, so I mounted one and tamed it as I rode it on the way to Gerudo Canyon.
I wasn't really concerned about the size as I just grabbed the first one I could reach really. He was happy with the size of the horse and gave me a good lot of rupees for it. It's nice to see he's not stranded here anymore. It's definitely not safe at all. I always felt kinda bad for him as I rode past on Spotty.
Dear Readers,
I got pretty tired of looking for the cave with the Leviathan skeleton in Hebra, so I looked up a guide. The guide said to go to a tiny pond that can be found as you go down the tundra, situated southeast of the Hebra North Summit. It mentioned stuff like snowballs, cryonis and a cave. Truth be told, I did spot this tiny pond on the map but I dismissed the notion of going to explore it. How wrong I was!
I went to the area and the shrine radar finally started going off. There was another big door to a cave I had to open with a snowball. What I had to do with the tiny pond was create ice pillars with Cryonis. I found the snowballs at the top of the slope. I sent one hurtling down the slope and across the pillars all the way down to the doors, knocking them down. This revealed a massive cave with the Leviathan skeleton inside. I took a photo of the skull.
To Quomo shrine was inside here as well. All I had to do was go inside to receive the blessing.
Dear Readers,
This was a very simple and peaceful shrine where I had to release suspended heavy stone balls to land on heavy targets to make doors open.
I had to shoot arrows at the ropes holding these balls. The first was straightforward, the next few I had to make them swing into the target, which included getting access to the treasure, and the last one was held by two ropes that I didn't want to swing.
This made me stop and think for a small while but I copped fairly soon that I had to use stasis on the ball while shooting the two ropes. This opened the way to the monk. Nice little puzzle.
Dear Readers,
I warped and hiked around Hebra looking for the cave that may have the Leviathan skeleton in it but didn't find it yet. One of the places I looked was in Kopeeki Drifts.
When I came here before I found a big weird door at the bottom that wouldn't open. I hiked back up the slope looking for an answer and I found some snowballs. Now I realised why the area was so lumpy. It was all made of little trenches, one of which lead to the big weird door.
I had a few goes and traced the path of the trench to the door, then I got a big snowball rolling towards it. The snowball knocked the door down completely, revealing Gee Ha'rah Shrine.
No leviathan skeleton this time, but I had a shrine to explore at least.
Dear Readers,
I finally reached the Sarenne Stable where I met three guys who were arguing over how the Leviathans went extinct. Between them they wanted me to find skeletons in Gerudo Desert, snowy Hebra and volcanic Eldin.
I was able to find the Gerudo one no problem as that's where the Great Fairy is. The guy who wanted me to find the Eldin one wanted me to find the others first so he could rebut both of them.
I hiked extensively over Hebra but so far I couldn't find the skeleton. The guy looking for it imagined it would be in a cave. I found a bunch of other stuff though. I'll talk about them in the following posts.
Dear Readers,
I left Outskirt Stable with Blondie and started riding towards Serenne Stable for a quest when the shrine radar started blinking.
I went in the direction of the blinking and came to a Bokoblin camp at the bottom of a cliff. I beat them all up and picked the apples off all the trees in the surrounding area, but there was no shrine to be seen.
I looked up the cliff and saw that there was a pile of loose rocks coloured differently from the rest of the cliff. That was the ticket. The cliff was easy to access because there was a gentle slope nearby I was able to use to reach the top with Blondie.
I dismounted above the pile of rocks and floated down, getting a bomb arrow ready to blast the rocks away, revealing a little cubby hole cave with Maag No'rah shrine inside.
I went in there and there was no further challenge to get to the monk. Just getting here was seen to be challenge enough.
When I left the shrine I floated back down to the bottom of the cliff. I wasn't sure if Blondie would answer my call from the top of the cliff so I tried it and she galloped back down the slope we took to get up there. I was glad that Blondie got back to me so easily.
