Breath of the Wild, Part 22: Thunderbolt and Lightning, Very Very Frightening Me

A new region to explore is always exciting, and this one is expansive, even noting that a pretty big chunk of it is unexplorable water on the southern coast. And that's not even counting the equally large Hateno region.

Before I unlocked these regions, I started using the pot symbol to mark region borders that aren't equally recognizable. It's one thing if the region ends at a cliff, but sometimes they end in the middle of a field, and that makes it hard to cover ground without accidentally ending up in an uncharted region or re-covering ground I've already seen. But Faron Tower is in the south, so instead of starting in the north where those marks are (so I can take them off the map) and making my way south, I did the opposite. But that's all right because it means I'll be spending a lot of time around Lake Floria, giving me plenty of chances to get Farosh's scale.

This part of Faron is a red clay plateaued area with a rainforest on top. In short, beautiful. The first thing I noticed were statues in a South American Indian style of bird people. Are they Rito? I can't say. And they don't seem to have any purpose except flavor. 

Below the plateau this statue was on is Lakeside Stable, and the stable had a book inside called "Traysi's Rumor Mill volume 6". Traysi's rumor was about a blue bunny that leaves behind lots of rupees if you hit it with an arrow, and she rated the rumor 5 stars...until she realized she didn't have any arrows. Then she changed her rating to 1 star. Traysi's awesome and I cant wait to read more of her work.

My sensor started pinging and I climbed a cliff looking for it...until I realized I was climbing a bomb wall and the shrine was probably behind there. It was. The shrine was called "Halt the Tilt" and it involved Stasising see-saws to get across them. There was a chest inside that I'm not sure how to get, and I kind of think that it involves using a see-saw to launch me somehow, but I can't figure it out and that may not even be right.

On another plateau, there was a pond with a metal door at the bottom. What is the door for? I didn't see anything it could be used for or anything under it, but I might go back and look at it again because it's driving me crazy.

I came across another lake called Rassla that had four chests inside it. That seems to be a common thing in this part of the world. One of the chests contained a Knight's Shield, which is my new best shield.

Soon after that, I finally defeated a Stalnox! I lost my royal bow and royal claymore, but it was worth it because I got a Knight's Broadsword and a...Great Flameblade! It's like a Flameblade but stronger and spikier. Whereas Hinoxes have weapons hanging around their neck as a necklace, Stalnoxes have weapons sticking out of their bones, which is metal as hell.

Also metal as hell? Fucking Farosh, a giant electric dragon who hangs out at Lake Floria all the dang time, but I cannot fucking figure out how to get a damn scale. I know it involves hitting him, but I've tried that and it didn't work! Plus, touching him is pretty much instant death, and if you somehow run out of stamina or fall into the water, you're pretty much done. You won't get out of the water and back in the air near him before he disappears into his portal thing. Think teleporting will help? Absolutely not. If you try that, he flat out disappears, no matter where he was when you tried it. It sucks.

Related to that, though, I got a new sidequest: Thunder Magnet. Someone at the stable is really afraid of lightning and wants to know why it happens all the time around here (she's right about that; it's pretty much constant). I haven't made any headway on that, but I did discover that you can feed a dog and it'll follow you around. It didn't do anything beyond that, but I've heard that sometimes they'll lead you to secrets. Must investigate further.

I also noticed that near the stable was another one of those diving platforms, but I learned it's actually called a watchtower. An NPC told me to climb it to get a better view of a strange formation on top of a waterfall. It looked like a shrine, so I decided to check it out, which involved going through a lot of places I've never been before and being greatly hindered by the rain and lightning. But I eventually made it and Kass was there! Good ol' Kass. He played me a new song that gave me a new sidequest: A Song of Storms. I somehow had to call down lightning to strike this rock. I stood on top of the rock and drew a sword - the only way I know to call down lightning - and it worked! But I died. So I tried again and tried to jump out of the way this time. No luck. Finally, I dropped the sword on top and jumped off, and that did the trick. The lightning blew the rock apart and there was a shrine inside. That shrine was thankfully "Qukah Nata's Blessing", so instant spirit orb for me. Also inside were Rubber Tights, which help protect me from electricity.

Other quick things of note:

1. I found a Korok seed on accident because I saw something weird in the eye of one of the bird statues. It was a luminous stone, and pulling it out caused the Korok to appear.

2. In Riola Spring, on the way to the Qukah Nata shrine, I found three...stations for lack of a better word. The first one was a Korok puzzle. The second one required me to use Magnesis to move a boulder and then Cryonis the two wooden chests below so I could reach them. The final one required me to Cryonis a boulder so that it was withing reach, then Stasis it to hit it out of the way, and then Cryonis the two chests below it. I really appreciated the mixture of Shiekah apps to solve the puzzles.

My final stop for the night was going to be the Great Fairy so I could update my Rubber Tights, but I figured I should stop at Hateno Village on the way. The game already expects me to have gone there and therefore have whatever clothes were in its shop, aka Ventest Clothing. What I found was a whole set of armor! I also noticed that Hylian in this era is based on the English alphabet, so I'm able to read the signs (with some work). Nothing particularly enlightening has jumped out so far, but it's fun.

After that, I upgraded all my new clothes, and was going to visit Hylia to turn in some of my spirit orbs, but I forgot about it. Tomorrow, then!