Link lands in some ruins, where a couple of people are being harassed by Bokoblins. Link takes care of the Bokoblins, and the woman says she could’ve handled it on her own, and neither of them seems inclined to cut Link in on any treasures in the ruins. The only treasure I found in the ruins was a Traveler’s Bow, which does crap damage, breaks if you look at it funny, and takes up an inventory slot that can be used for better bows until that happens, so they’re welcome to it. I’m not sure what led me to head north rather than follow the road east, but on the west bank of the Hylia River near some bridges named for Skyloft instructors (Owlan, Horwell, Eagus), there’s the Riverside Stable. Inside, Link finds a couple people with gossip to share about treasure in Hyrule Castle, and that’s a way off for me. Beedle is also here, willing to relieve Link of anything he doesn’t want.
As for horses, this is where I finally used my amiibo, and I got two horses from them – somehow both Epona. I’m sure the guy who actually runs the stable was wondering how Link had two clones of the same legendary horse, but he was even less amused by the mess of broken crates and barrels and empty treasure chests and discarded weapons Link left all over the stable grounds. (I’d think the discarded weapons might be profitable, but Link can’t sell weapons for some reason, so maybe not.) Aside from the horses, my favorite things I’ve gotten from amiibo so far have been Sheikah katanas and the Twilight armor set so I can have Link wearing a version of his traditional outfit (although one that looks kind of out of place in Breath of the Wild’s art style).
Near the stable, there’s a shrine, this one hosted by Wahgo Katta. The challenge of the shrine – Metal Connections – is to use Magnesis to move a stack of three blocks, first to a corner pillar where Link finds a metal plate, then near the platform where the monk is, and use the metal plate to bridge the gap. I’m not a huge fan of Magnesis, and having to stack the three metal blocks so they don’t fall over and Link can climb them is tough enough without also having to get the metal plate on top where it can bridge the gap. Oh, well, another shrine, another Spirit Orb.
Now on horseback, Link headed south and found the bridge he was meant to take in the first place, Proxim Bridge. A man on the bridge directs Link’s attention to a couple nearby features. First, he’s keeping an eye on an inert Guardian in the river, having had a close call with a Guardian near Hyrule Castle, and in case the player didn’t pick up on something during Rhoam’s cutscene, they’re apparently not all broken-down immobile rustbuckets. Second, there’s another shrine nearby, the Bosh Kala Shrine. The trial is The Wind Guides You, a simple tutorial on using wind to paraglide farther and faster.
As Link rides on, he sees a tower across the river. Unlike the river on the Great Plateau, Link could try swimming across, and if he’s got enough Stamina-boosting food (not only does Link not have to wait thirty minutes between eating and swimming, he can eat while swimming without the food getting soggy and gross), make it, but there’s a better way. There’s a Korok trail leading across islands a manageable distance apart from each other that will guide Link across the river, and he gets a Korok seed for doing it that way, to boot. The tower’s already up, so there’s no free ride to the top, just a long climb with balconies to rest on when Link gets tired from the climb. At the top, Link puts his Sheikah Slate in the pedestal, activating the tower and revealing a map of the Dueling Peaks region. (Which, as hinted by the quests pointing at Hyrule Castle, does not include Riverside Stable or Wahgo Katta Shrine.) Filling in the map reveals the road to Kakariko Village.
While the tower’s usefulness as a vantage point is limited by the mountains immediately to the east, there is one shrine Link can spot off to the north. The shrine is surrounded by flowers, and the woman who planted them is… protective of them. Violently so. Let’s… ah… let’s say it’s a good thing I chose heart container rather than stamina vessel when selling the Spirit Orbs. So, Link has to navigate the flowers without stepping on them to reach the shrine, and I wouldn’t care if it’s the only useful point for a hundred miles around, I’m never quick travelling here. (It’s actually a side quest, in its own special category since it technically leads to a shrine.)
Compared to the flower maze above, the shrine itself (Hila Rao Shrine / Drifting) is pretty easy. There are three watery areas to cross, each with a current. The first two have floating platforms to help Link across; the third doesn’t, but Cryonis (which in hindsight could have gotten across the river) can make them. There are exploding barrels in the third stream, which Link can blow up to blast open a path forward, or he can use his own bombs. Oh, and just because Link’s gotten to the shrine doesn’t mean he can step on the flowers. So Link leaves the woman to her beloved flowers, warps back to the tower, and jumps off toward Epona, and I am very gratified to learn that if you manage to do it right, you can land in the saddle and ride off into the sunset.
Next: Er, except Kakariko’s to the east.
