Heading north from the Dueling Peaks Stable, the road forks right before the Kakariko Bridge. Turning east instead of going on to Kakariko Village leads toward a new region, Hateno. The first landmark for the new region is a Guardian graveyard before the gate of Fort Hateno, which was the line of defense that kept Hateno Village safe during the Great Calamity. A man named Garill is there to tell Link the history of the place, and various travelers and merchants pass through as well.
East of the fort, Link finds a archaeologist named Calip studying a bunch of statues. If Link indulges his request to be referred to as “Doctor Calip,” he’ll share a secret with Link – a quote from a text, “When a dark light resides in the cursed statue's eyes, pierce its gaze to purge the seal from the shrine.” This starts a Shrine Quest, the Cursed Statue. At night, Calip returns home so not to be monster food, which is too bad for him because one of the statues’ eyes starts glowing. Shooting the statue with an arrow blows it up, completing the quest and raising the Kam Urog Shrine from the ground. The trial is Trial of Passing, which largely involves navigating the inside of a giant wheel as it spins.
Even having seen the tower to the south and marked it on the map, I missed the fork from the main road that leads across the river, so I had to double back when I started getting close to the village and realized I missed the tower. (In my defense, there’s not actually a path so much as a tiny bridge over the river, so missing it is really easy.) There are a bunch of enemies around the tower, but the true challenge in climbing it is dealing with the brambles that have grown all around the grounds and walls. There are two basic options for this: Navigating through them like Magda’s protecting them, or breaking out the fire arrows and going to town. (Not recommended for Magda, by the way.) At the top of the tower, Link gets the map of the region and it’s even bigger than the Dueling Peaks region. A good deal of that is water along the edges, but still, there’s going to be a lot to do.
As Link rides into Hateno Village, the Sheikah Sensor starts pinging again. The village shrine is hosted by Myahm Agana, and it’s another apparatus/motion control shrine. The sole challenge in the shrine is a ball/maze puzzle, complicated by cutouts in the walls where the ball will go flying into oblivion if not carefully managed. There’s also a trick at the end where Link has to flick the ball across a gap, and, yes, if it doesn’t go right and the ball is lost, he has to start the whole thing over. I was never much good at these puzzles when I could actually hold them in my hand, although having it on screen while I tilt a controller means I never lost my line of sight, so… let’s call that a wash. (Apparently there’s a trick/exploit where you can flip the maze over and use the featureless underside to quickly guide the ball where it’s supposed to go.)
Not far behind the shrine, there’s a group of carpenters starting to tear down a house. Link expresses interest in buying the house instead, and after some initial reluctance, the lead carpenter agrees if Link can pay 3000 rupees along with a contribution of 30 bundles of wood. The rupees aren’t much of a problem with all the random stuff I get from daily amiibo scanning, but I had to go out and get the wood. The house is pretty bare-bones at first, with a single wall mount for a weapon Link wishes to display (showing off a cool weapon, or storing something so he doesn’t accidentally use it). Two of the carpenters hang around, and for extra rupees, will add extra wall mounts, including shield and bow mounts, a bed, a front door(!), and various decorative options. Sadly, there’s no stable anywhere nearby, and no option to add a stable to the house [1]. (Once it’s all done, they still spend their days lazing around the cooking pot.) The third carpenter is sent to a new job in Akkala, which opens a new sidequest to check on his progress.
Other features of the town include an armor shop that sells… actual armor (soldier’s armor set) that has good defense bonuses. There’s also a dye shop of certain notoriety [2] to give Link’s clothes a personalized touch, although they won’t dye the Twilight Princess set. Dyeing is done by having Link wear the clothes he intends to dye, stand on a trap door over the vat, and… yeah.
Next: Just forgotten photographs to remind me of the past / Oh, but I can still see everything just fine…
[1] This feels like a wasted opportunity. There could have been a whole quest chain: find someone in the town to manage the stable, get it connected to the stable network’s horse teleportation network…
[2] I was still half-asleep when I first read that passage, and my first thought was, “Wait, that’s six things. Link can only hold five at a time.”
