Every morning near the path that leads up into the mountains, one of Impa’s guards tells his two daughters stories that always seem to be about how the mountains are scary and they shouldn’t go up there. He confides to Link that there’s a shrine and the village’s guardian spirit in the mountains, but also monsters, which is why he doesn’t want his daughters exploring, but Link should be able to handle himself. After storytime’s over, the girls are free to run around the village. Cottla runs around town, bored, so Link offers to play hide and seek with her. (She hides behinds Impa’s house.) Koko instead finds a cooking pot and tries to recreate her mother’s recipes, but she’s short one ingredient she asks Link to provide. Of the ingredients she wants, the only one I didn’t have on hand was Goat Butter, which is sold at one of the stores nearby. As thanks for his help, Link gets to keep the thing Koko cooked.
The shrine above the village is the Ta’loh Naeg Shrine (Trial Name: Ta’loh Naeg’s Teaching), in which Ta’loh Naeg summons a Guardian to teach the player… er, Link some advanced combat moves. Dodging an attack at the right time allows Link to Flurry Rush, getting in several free hits before the enemy catches up. A well-timed shield deflect leaves the enemy stunned. And Link can use his stamina wheel to charge up attacks; for swords, it’s the familiar spin attack, but spears have a series of thrusts. After the spin attack, the Guardian is dead and the trial complete.
Up the hill from the shrine is a pond with several small fairies flying around (if Link catches them, he just stores them with the rest of the materials; no need for bottles anymore). There’s a large bulb; when Link investigates, the Great Fairy Cotera speaks to him from inside. Ganon’s victory means things are more dangerous, so fewer people come to see her and offer rupees, but for the low, low sum of 100 rupees, her power will be restored and she can help Link. Link gives her the rupees, the bulb opens, and Cotera emerges from a pool inside. (Awakening her power also cause the Great Fairy theme to start playing.) The help she can provide is not healing, like other fairies have offered, but armor upgrades in exchange for materials.
Speaking of armor, there’s a shop in town that sells the rest of the Hylian armor set as well as the Stealth armor set which increases Link’s stealth. (As a tradeoff, it’s not as strong as regular armor, but switching armor can be done mid-battle, so Link can wear the Sheikah armor, sneak up on his enemies, do as much damage as he can before getting noticed, then switch to a more defensive set once the actual fighting starts.) Another shop in town sells arrows; the shopkeeper asks Link to light the torches around the Goddess Statue. She sells fire arrows, but Link can just use normal arrows, dip the bow in a campfire near the statue, and light the torches that way. She’s apparently on the outs with her husband over his Cucco obsession. Said husband apparently is having trouble keeping the Cuccos in their pen, because there’s a sidequest to round them up. One of the Cuccos is in a plum garden whose tender won’t let Link in when she’s around, so he has to wait for her to go home.
Throughout the village, Link would sometimes hear mentions of the Yiga Clan, a group of Sheikah who turned evil and serve Ganon. Now that Link’s heard of them, Yiga Clan members appear near the road disguised as Travelers. They lure Link in with generally innocuous questions (although the very first one I met asked if Link wished to join them), then attack. They teleport around, making it hard to get hits, but they only have two attacks (a charging slash and a falling strike), and both are easy to dodge. Simply avoiding attacks, taking full advantage of Flurry Rush opportunities, and scoring the odd strike here and there while they’re stunned is enough to beat them. And they’re generally easy enough to avoid, especially if you talk to everyone else, because the people you’ve talked to display their names over their heads, while the Yiga Travelers don’t. (Alternately, don’t avoid them, because they drop rupees and Mighty Bananas that, when cooked, boost Link’s attack power.)
Next: Why I’m now #TeamLoki.
