A mirror-sheen bubble appears for a fraction of a second before disappearing. In it's place is a man wearing a white jumpsuit patterned with intricate but designs in subdued colors. He's ever so slightly in midair when he appears but he lands with a practiced ease. On his back is a similarly colored backpack that lacks any visible straps. He takes out a small device from a side pocket of the backpack without looking and fiddles with it for a moment, "Translation Online." Then he starts walking purposefully towards the steeper path.

It's a snowy mountain trail. The wind is rather harsh. It's beautiful in that spare way mountains are, though.

Suddenly there is a reptilian screech and that pile of snow is instead some kind of creature barreling down on him with a spiked club.

zabna is surprised but he keeps his wits and remembers his training. The creature is now holding a short handle and a fairly large mirror sphere is rolling down the mountain.

It looks around in confusion.

Then it stamps its feet and quickly lashes out a long tongue at him like some kind of frog.

"Why are you attacking me?" he shouts while dodging backwards. He moves a hand and suddenly his fingers get longer and are wrapping around a silvery sphere. He tried to get it between himself and the tongue in case he didn't dodge fast enough.

He successfully dodges. His computer will report 'unknown language' at its continued sounds. The lizard thing tries to close to melee again - it's fast.

And suddenly there's a field of glittering spheres underfoot between the two of them. They are very slippery. Zahn continues moving backwards, he isn't quite as fast as the creature but he's not much slower.

It stumbles and tumbles and starts rolling down the mountainside, falling off the cliff edge.

It stands back up at the bottom, but it doesn't seem to be trying to climb back up at least.

At least it didn't die from the fall, that seems plausibly a good thing. He isn't really clear on whether it was a person or not. He pulls out his translator and fiddles with it but it refuses to yield more languages. "Great, so either it's inhuman enough that it's language centers can't be parsed by magic or it's a tool user that doesn't yet have language." He puts his translator away.

He pulls out a different device and a small softly glowing map of the surrounding area appears above it. He pans and zooms until he gets a look at the area where he can see the alien creature, it has some magic, zabna doesn't look into precisely what magic that is for the moment. Then he zooms out, there don't seem to be more waiting along his path in ambush.

"Minimap it is." He attaches it to his shoulder and then fiddles with the surface of the device. The glowy map changes shape and size and position until it's floating at the top right corner of his vision. He resumes his hike down the mountain.

As he comes around the next bend the falling snow clears a bit.

He can see something flying above and to the south... Something big. Looks person-made. It's flying in a slow circle, high above that towering lake village.

He stops and stares for a moment. He doesn't really have the resources to try to get up there at the moment though, it's flying too fast for an impromptu hot air balloon and he doesn't have the parts to build a quick ultralight aircraft. He keeps walking down the trail.

He comes to another one of those flags with a pile of stone stabilizing them.

At its foot is a roughly built wooden chest, unlocked, unlabeled.

Well that's strange. He opens the chest.

It contains paper-wrapped packages of food (mostly meat), a stack of firewood, and a bundle of arrows with red metal tips that register as magic.

He doesn't really have a use for any of those at the moment but he'll take some string out of his bag and bundle the arrows to one of the sides. The rest he'll leave.

He has to detour off the path a bit to avoid a bundle of magic signatures like the lizard thing.

Soon, the downslope gets much steeper. The path fades from being a coherent trail and picks up again about a quarter mile down this steep, dangerous-looking slope.

His feet will undergo a curious transformation. Small holes will open in his jumpsuit around his ankles and small trees of metal will emerge digging through the snow and gripping onto the underlying rock. With this transformation he'll be able to manage the treacherous slope just fine.

It's getting warmer as he descends. Still below freezing for now, but less bitingly.

He's traveling down a narrow gully that seems to be a trailhead now. A lizard-thing-like magic signature is ahead, and doesn't look easily avoidable unless he wants to backtrack.

How bad are the walls of the gully, he can do the same thing with his hands as his feet so maybe he can climb.

...He could probably manage that.

Yeah, he gets past the signature just fine. There is a reasonably well-built log cabin with smoke coming from the a nearby campfire and another trail flag after another few miles. Someone who looks like a human from this distance is sitting nearby.

Past that, he can see that the lake is actually a deep crater. Tall rock structures like sea stacks dot the place, with a particularly towering one hosting a few dozen wooden buildings built onto and around it. It's still a bit too far to confidently make out many details, but the fact that it's a village is clear enough.

He walks over and says "Hello" trusting his translator to help him pick the right language.

Up closer, it's clear that he looks human - except for the long, pointed ears. "Hello, fellow traveler! Isn't Hebra such a beautiful place? Worth the dangerous journey, I think."

"It is quite beautiful. I had a little trouble with a lizard thing holding a club, but once I knew what to look for I managed to avoid fighting any others. Do you happen to know if they can be reasoned with?"

"Oh, Lizalfos... You really have to run far enough away they lose interest, or drop bait, or kill them, or avoid them entirely. Monsters like Lizals are why moving around is so dangerous these days. Where are you from? Your ears and clothes are strange. Here, come closer to the fire." He adds another log.

He takes another couple steps and crouches down. To be on the man's level. "I am from somewhere very very far away. It would take lifetimes to travel as far as I have on foot but I have magic that lets me travel faster, and in directions that aren't available to those travelling on foot. It seems a shame to kill anything smart enough to carry a weapon, but if necessary I can."

"Monsters are a complicated, touchy subject. I understand your view, and scripture does not make clear declarations about their status, but many people fear and detest them for their violent and brutal nature. Are you a Sheikah?"

"I'm not familiar with the term, as I said I come from a very long way away, I am not familiar with local customs."

"I suppose not then. Welcome to Hyrule. You're about a hundred years too late to really enjoy it, I'm afraid."

"Well, that's a shame, but part of the reason my people explore is to help others reach new heights. Perhaps the good times of long ago can be superseded by even better times in the future."

"So you might be like a Sheikah after all. I don't know about big things like that, friend. I'm just here to see the mountains. Calm down Vah Medoh and maybe people will listen." He gestures to the giant construction flying high above.

"That's an interesting sounding challenge. Is there some path I might pursue towards accomplishing that end?"

"The Rito would know, perhaps. You have to go around the great caldera to get there unless you can fly like them, though, and there's more monsters much of the time."

"Interesting, I may well pursue that path. In the meantime, is there anything I ought to do or anyone I ought to speak to in your village?"

"Oh, it's not my village. It's the Rito's. They sell excellent warming clothes if you have the rupees for it."

"I'm not greatly in need of cold weather gear, nor do I have the local currency. Is there anything else you'd recommend I do in their village?"

"Take in the views, visit the old shrine, maybe try a glider course, or practice archery. Or you could find the Rito interesting enough, if there aren't any wherever you're from."

"Well, most of what I'm here for is meeting new people. I hope you have a pleasant day, thank you for the conversation." He gets up and continues his journey towards the village.

"Wait, before you go! I'm sure I know the answer but I still wish to ask... Would you like to hear about the teachings of the Yiga Clan?"

He pauses for a moment then turns around and crouches back down. "Sure."

Smile. "So the old legend that... Huh, I suppose this will need to be more of a history lesson. One hundred and thirty years ago, Hyrule was a peaceful and prosperous land by most measures. Travelers could move safely across the land. Monsters were kept away from roads and so on by armed patrols. Trade thrived. The various peoples of Hyrule lived their lives peacefully, for the most part."

"Then the king's hubris showed. The royal family ordered massive excavation projects of relics from times long past - things we could pretend to control, but which were waiting to destroy Hyrule from within. These are the Divine Beasts, like Vah Medoh you see above us, and the unfeeling metal Guardians who you will surely encounter sooner or later. At first they seemed peaceful and useful, but they turned on the citizens of Hyrule. Vah Medoh shoots down anyone who tries to fly above a certain height. The Guardians swarming around the old castle make it all but impossible to travel across central Hyrule. We Yiga believe the great spirit Ganon attempted to rise up to destroy these menaces, to return Hyrule to its peaceful state, but he was stymied by the distant and uncaring goddess Hylia, trapped inside the old castle. We do not dispute that Hylia created the world, but Ganon is her most hated rival, everything he tries to do for us is declared evil, misunderstood, blocked by the gods or destroyed by the so-called 'Hero of Legend'."

"Our ultimate goal is to free Ganon from his divine prison so he can scrub all evidence of Sheikah technology from this world and return it to peace. It sounds a daunting task but I'm sure Master Kohga has a plan."

Zahn's face turns to a frown. "So it is your contention that technology is somehow inherently bad? Could you explain why you have that perspective?"

He frowns in return. "Oh, it's not the technology itself. It's how it was used for everything, recklessly, and granted free reign, and this led to a big disaster. I'm sure if they spent a century or two dissecting inactive Guardians, instead of waking them all up, things would have turned out better. Our philosophy is really more about how it's impossible that Ganon is 'evil' as others will tell you."

"Oh, yes using technology you don't understand can be a very bad idea. One in eight people died during a major technological revolution on the world I come from. Of course, that world has no gods that we know of so it was technology that saved us, even as technology endangered us in the first place."

"Hm. Well, I'm going to head up the trail. Good luck on your travels. You'll want to go around to the west of the caldera lake. It's tough terrain, and no road, but it's faster. Also, more monsters come out at night. Many more. If you wish to learn more about the Yiga clan later, I'm sure one of us will find you." He stands up and picks up his pack and starts putting snow into the fire, putting it out.

"Thank you for the conversation. I wish you well on your travels." Zahn sets out as the man recommended, running along the ridge, only slowing down when the terrain becomes particularly treacherous.

As he walks around he can see that the Rito, while still humanoid, have a number of avian features. A few of them are flying around, using the large wooden platforms built around the village to take off and land.

There's a crossroads and a stable near the start of the bridges that lead into the village, and a number of people are milling around, doing work, sitting by a cookfire. Children playing. One Rito playing music of some kind.

Zahn walks towards the crossroads. He says "Hello" when he gets close enough to the cookfire if nobody addresses him before he reaches it.

There's a big, strong-looking woman with a hiking backpack and an elderly man, both with those characteristic pointed ears that the humans here seem to all have. The first one says "Yo! You look like you're here to climb the mountain."

"Not particularly, I'm here to visit the village and learn about the people of this and other nearby places. I'm also curious to hear more about the enormous flying machine in the sky."

"You're going to get a lot of hikers and tourists, at least in terms of non-Rito around here."

"Vah Medoh," the old man sighs. "What a mess 'e is. Used to be a defender of Hyrule before Ganon made 'em evil, they say."

"I'm interested in meeting all kinds of people, travelers are likely to have lots of stories to tell. I have heard more or less the same from other sources. Is there some way it might be fixed or disabled?"

"I hear one of the Rito nearly died trying to do just that."

"I'm harder to kill than most people but I'm in no particular rush to make an attempt. What's your story how did you find yourself here?"

"Oh, I work for the stable. It's decent money even for old bones. I don't suppose you have any Goron spice on you? I miss curry, is all."

"I'm afraid I'm not carrying any, sorry."

"Eh. I'm sure some trader will have some eventually. If you want to meet lots of different kinds of people... Hm, all the big villages... Rito village, here. Goron City's where my favorite spices come from. Kakariko village and Hateno town over in the Necluda. You got Zora's Domain. They're fish-folk. Then there's Gerudo Town but they don't let any men in. And I heard of some fishing villages down in Faron."

"Thank you, I'll keep that list in mind. Is there somewhere I might be able to look at a map?"

Old man looks at the traveler, who shrugs. "I just went by the trails. Avoided the dark castle, though. I could draw a really rough one, maybe?"

"I'm alright, maybe someone in the village will have one. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss before I start heading in?"

"Gets cold at night. If you need a bed to sleep in later, they run only twenty rupees here. But you're welcome to sleep by the campfire if you don't want to pay."

"I can take it being cold but I might take you up on the offer anyways."

"Don't have a horse, do you? I guess there's nothing else then."

"Like I said, I can probably handle the cold on my own, and some nights I don't bother with sleeping I don't need it as much as most people."

"Convenient for you. Have fun in the village."

He walks across the closest bridge and into the village. He looks around for where to go next.

He meets a Rito holding a spear that lands in front of him halfway across the bridge. "Good day, traveler. You look like you're from further away than usual. How do you like the place?" He(?) gestures behind to the tall, terraced rock spire. Wooden buildings and platforms crawl up the rock formation, sometimes branching to nearby spires but mostly staying vertical. None of them are really enclosed.

"It looks beautiful. It definitely looks like it would be easier to navigate if I had wings though."

The guard laughs. "Well, we put in stairs. Even we don't want to fly all the time, it's exhausting. Shame about Van Medoh, though. It's screwing up the air, we can't get very high before it becomes impossible to fly straight."

"That's a shame, I hope that some way of fixing that will come up."

"Old stories say you just need to get to the control box. Harth... Well, I told him trying that was a bad idea, even if he is one of the best flyers here. Turns out it has the same weapons as Guardians..."

"I haven't encountered a guardian yet, could you describe this weapon?"

"This one traveler I met described it as 'explodey light arrow'. That... Pretty much sums it up, even if it sounds a bit silly. We just call them Guardian beams."

"I suppose I'll have to find a guardian and run some tests at some point."

He winces. "Uh, maybe find a weapon and try to take one with you if you're that suicidal..."

"Perhaps, I'm not quite as unarmed as I appear."

He looks uncomfortable now. "Kinda wish you hadn't said that, now I have to ask."

"Sure," he pulls out a couple sharp knives made out of a black material out of his backpack. "These are all I'm carrying."

Rito guy raises an eyebrow in a surprisingly similar expression. "No, really. What other weapons do you have?"

He chuckles, "I have some magic of my own." And a silver sphere appears in his upturned hand.

He claps a bit. "There we go. Don't frighten people or attack anyone with it and I won't have to show you Rito magic. Have a nice day." And he takes off again after a running start.

Zahn nods and continues along the bridge. He looks around once he gets to the other end.

There's a little stone statue of a figure with wings. It's pretty worn-down, hard to tell if it's meant to be human or Rito. Some apples, a bunch of flowers, and a cooked fish sit in a tray in front of it. He's on a wooden track that winds up and up counter-clockwise with occasional wider platforms. The first building along it bears the sign 'Rito Winter Wear'. It's also pretty solidly magic, or at least contains magic items.

...The statue is magic, too.

Hm, that statue looks interesting. He'll take the sensor off his shoulder and switch it to an analytic mode. What sort of magic does it have?

Processing and metamagic. A little sensing. And definitely hooked into something, though what is not clear at all.

Huh, it doesn't look like there's a clear UI, he'll ask someone about it though. He sets his sensor back to being a HUD and then walks into the winter wear store.

It contains mannequins! Wearing clothes that exude a curious mix of TK and metamagic! Including several pairs of earrings with the strongest magic in here. And a salesrito who welcomes him warmly.

"Hello there. Could you tell me a bit about what you're selling here I don't recognize most of it?"

"Of course. We carry an array of fine warm clothing made right here in Rito village, ranging from simple wool sweaters to fine greatcoats like this one here. Why, many items even contain Rito feathers, which hold an elemental warmth that lets us fly high in the sky without fearing the cold. You will need not fear the mountain's bite if you shop here, traveler."

"What about the earrings over there?"

"Ooh, good taste. That's our finest item. They're made with rubies and gold from Goron City, imbued with the elemental magic of the volcano. They will warm you more than a heavy sweater without restricting your movements, and can even do the same for your friends if they stay close, and start fires without flint. Pretty swanky, right?"

"It sounds useful yes, does the person who makes them live in the village? Also, I don't think I have the money to afford something that fancy, how do people tend to earn money around here?"

"My supplier lives here, but they asked to handle custom orders and the like through me, actually. You could go hunting, gathering, or mining in the wild. Most shops will buy lots of things, we sell them to whoever needs them in turn. Hunting monsters and especially Guardians is pretty profitable if you don't mind the risk."

"I do intend to track down at least one guardian at some point, I'm less sure about whether I feel comfortable hunting monsters. I can definitely gather materials from out in the wild though. What resources do you tend to find valuable?"

"Minerals and ores sell well. Meat and seafood good too. There are plants and animals with magical properties around, those are good too. Weapons. Especially actually good ones."

"Alright, one last question before I go, is there some sort of village council I might be able to speak with?"

"You mean the elder? He'll talk to anyone who will listen to him ramble about the good old days. Right at the tip of the track."

"Thanks." He exists the store and goes looking for this elder, asking directions if needed.

He passes an inn, a general store, children playing, what looks like two humans having a honeymoon sitting on a ledge, a communal kitchen, some kind of workshop holding an injured but strong-looking Rito working on a bow, some rooms full of hammocks, and on and on. It's a reasonably big place.

He'll keep going towards the tip of the track, he has plenty of time to circle back around but it would likely be better to have something to sell before he starts spending much more time in stores.

The Elder is apparently a much larger than average Rito.

He also seems to be napping.

Zahn will wait patiently for a few minutes what's around here?

The Elder's house has a lot of books and scrolls and art. He can scan titles? Some standout examples: Ancestry Records marked with year numbers, at least half a dozen volumes. Revali's Tale. The Book of Law. Hylia's Mercy.

Alright, is the Elder awake yet?

No... Wait, yes, He is observing Zahn neutrally. "Welcome to the humble home of the Rito, visitor. I'm Kaneli. What brings you all the way up to the peak of our home? Surely not simply to speak with an old bird like me, hm?"

"I was told by the shopkeeper for the winter clothing store that you're the leader of the village."

"Hah! I suppose I am, if only by tradition. Everyone helps each other well enough without my beating their wings about it. I suppose they see me as the wisest. I used to be a librarian of sorts, even only a few years after the Calamity... I could tell so many stories about that time. Everything was lively, even as terrible news flowed in from closer to the center of the kingdom..." Sigh. "People kept coming to me and asking for advice and information about more and more things. And now here I am, the 'elder'."

"I come from very far away, not anywhere on this world. I'm here to learn about your world and it's people's and to offer my help and the help of my people in improving your world."

"Oh? We would be doing well enough, if not for Ganon and Vah Medoh. What would you like to learn?"

"I am curious about Ganon and Vah Medoh I have heard different stories about them."

"Our oldest scripture says there cannot be light without darkness. We cannot have the loving Goddess Hylia without an evil force appearing. That evil force is Ganon. It returns eventually no matter how it was sealed, an endless cycle. Tales talk of Vah Medoh being an ancient weapon, designed to destroy the recurring threat of Ganon, were written on the walls where the Divine Beasts were excavated. 'Brilliant light to sear the scourge of Calamity, will not suffice to seal it alone, hero of legend rise once again, heiress of wisdom guide his hand, champions four strengthen his blade, the calamity will be sealed in battle'. So goes a prophecy of Nayru. I have seen no sign of a legendary hero yet, alas. I heard he was slain trying to fight Ganon when the calamity first began, almost one hundred years ago..."

"Interesting. The cycle of light and darkness sounds frustrating, my world doesn't have anything like that. I wonder if others could fix the divine beasts without waiting for such an individual."

"Perhaps. Scrolls say to wrest control of them from Ganon would require a device known as a 'Sheikah Slate'."

"Hm... I don't know anything about that device. I wonder whether I could improvise a replacement."

"Alas, Sheikah technology was poorly understood even before the Calamity. I can't help you with this one."

"That makes sense, can you tell me about the people's of this world? I've seen people who look mostly like me, and your people, are there others?"

"Ah! There are the Gerudo, though it is worth debate if they really are different from Hylians who 'look mostly like you'. The Zora are aquatic. Gorons have a stone-based physiology and live near Death Mountain. Koroks are rarely seen out of the Great Deku Forest so little is known, but they are definitely people. And the many varieties of monsters... There is debate there too but I would contend that only Lynels are truly intelligent in any credible way, among those."

"I'm reluctant to treat anything that uses weapons as not a person, possibly leaving aside the machines. Could you explain why you don't consider the other monsters people?"

"Hm. There are plentiful and well-preserved historical records that monsters fought with tooth and claw, no shields, bows, or swords, before the Great Calamity. And if you are sensitive to magic, you can feel the Malice coiling around them when they die. The scholar at Hateno Village I spoke to about this years ago also believes that they are simple animals, elevated by Ganon with enough instinct to wield weapons which are also provided by Ganon."

"I have ways of sensing magic so I'll have to examine one or more of these monsters more closely. Thank you for the information. Do you know if anyone in your village sells gliders of some kind? I think I might be able to improvise more general flight with one of those."

"Flying is notoriously dangerous for non-Rito, I must warn you. But if you insist... Ask people to find Eras. He sells and rents and provides lessons as well. It's a useful practice since it shows more people the joy of flight."

"Thanks, I'll look into that. Are there any aspects of your culture that you think it might be important for an outsider to learn?"

"Hm... Be careful when speaking of Ganon. Someone might think you're with those bandits, the Yiga Clan. And do not be alarmed if someone challenges you to tests of skill, especially if you ask for favors. Aside from that, I believe we are much like Hylians."

"I believe I spoke to one of the Yiga Clan, they are the ones who teach that Ganon is not evil correct?"

He makes a 'skree' noise. "Yes. Ironic when they frequently act evil themselves."

"I will take that under advisement, the individual I encountered was quite polite."

"I'm sure he was, to a mysterious stranger who looks rather powerful! But to lone travelers they will remove one's possessions or one's blood..."

"I acknowledge that people's behavior can vary depending on who they're interacting with. I suppose to some eyes I may look intimidating."

"You look a little bit like a Guardian, even. Or Vah Medoh. Compared to the usual garb of this land, at any rate."

"Interesting, that could certainly be to my advantage, thank you for making me aware."

"It is not a precise resemblance... But our subconscious minds can say many things, no?"

"Indeed. Is there anything else you think I should learn before continuing on my journey?"

"Nothing comes to mind. But feel free to visit me again if you have time. I would like a philosophical and magical debate, which you seem capable of."

"That does sound interesting. Another time, thank you for the conversation." Upon exiting he remembers the fire arrows tied to his backpack and resolves to go try selling them at the general store. He walks in that direction.

 A Rito child asks if he knows how to bake a cake, looking proud of her(?) self.

"I haven't ever tried to be honest. Why do you ask?"

"Because I figured out how without help from mom!"

zabna looks more puzzled than impressed. "That's interesting how did you figure it out?"

"...Experiments." She looks more chagrined suddenly.

He smiles at that. "What sort of experiments?"

"I knew how to do pancakes cause it was in a book, and I tried changing things to be more cakeish until it worked."

He blinks then smiles even wider. "That's really impressive. I don't think I ever would have thought to experiment with that."

She nods vigorously. "Just too bad I have lots of not-cakes now."

He laughs. "Well, I'm not sure what to do about that."

"Anyway I just wanted to tell someone. I'm eating first cake all myself."

"Mkay, enjoy your cake."

"Bye, Mr. Weird Clothes." She runs off.

He laughs again then resumes his walk towards the general store.

Nobody else interrupts him.

The general store's most populous item is foodstuffs. They also have (regular, nonmagic) arrows on display, some salt, what appear to be medicinal herbs, miscellaneous stuff like cutlery and candles, etc.

"Hi there, at the clothing store they said that most places will buy weapons? Would you be interested in buying magical arrows?" He takes out the bundle of arrows.

The shopkeep inspects them. "Fire arrows, eh? Hm... Let's say, twelve rupees each."

"Sure why not." He hands the arrows over.

And he receives three red hexagonal things. "Pleasure doin' business. Why not look around while you're here?"

"Will do." He looks around is there anything magical?

Some of the foods do! Particularly a few strange varieties of mushrooms on display.

He turns to go, before he leaves he tells the shopkeeper, "Nothing is catching my eye today, thank you though."

"Have a nice day! Feel free to sell me more stuff!"

"I'll keep you in mind thanks."

Where does he go next?

Seems to be getting close to sunset.

Given the time he thinks he'll set up his stirling generator near a campfire, try to recharge a little.

He'll have to go back out to the stable unless he wants to intrude on the busy and crowded (but lively) communal kitchen.

The hiker is gone but the old man is sweeping inside. After a minute he comes out to ask, "What in Hylia's name is that contraption?"

"It's a generator, it makes power to keep my technology working."

"I think it's unsettling the horses. Does it have to be here?"

"I can put it away if it's bothering you." He rolls his eyes a little and walks off to find somewhere he can be out of sight. If he isn't going to have a fire he'll bury one of the probes and generate some power from the differential of crossing the permafrost layer.

If he's leaving on his own, alright then.

Too bad what his magic minimap thinks is a monster approaches two hours after sunset.

How big is it compared to the lizard creatures he was avoiding?

Tiny. But... A sizable swarm of tiny.

Well then, he'll just bobble them all for a good eight hours.

They look like bats.

Other monsters are wandering around the general area, but they seem to be avoiding the road he's camped out near.

Well then, come morning he'll have recovered most of what he used the previous day. Still a little bit short. He'll go looking for a relatively flat area a bit off the road to lay out some solar panels and top off his charge.

...About an hour after sunrise lots of magic is approaching from the south at a walking pace. Not nearly as much as is bound up in Vah Medoh, but probably a slightly alarming amount to be in and on a single Hylian. It contains complicated, hefty doses of all the categories he can detect, though less metamagic than the rest.

Its bearer is walking along in some probably-armor, armed, singing cheerfully. "O ancients' shrine of power, 'twill be revealed when three stone eyes be threa-ded by a single arrow..."

"Hello there traveller." zabna calls out.

"-Over mountain- Oh, hi! How are you?"

"I'm well, you're very magic. Who might you be?"

"Hmm. Good question actually. I don't remember!"

"That sound exceptionally distressing. Is there anything I could do to help?"

"Well, I'm going to sound stupid or narcissistic or insane if I explain."

"I'm sure some would think me insane if I told my life story too."

"Hah. Okay, so... I woke up on top of the great plateau - the one nobody can get to, yes - in a place called 'Shrine of Resurrection'. And then some things happened and the ghost of a king explained how I'm the hero of legend and have to go turn the four Divine Beasts back from Ganon's control and regain my memories and find the Master Sword and then seal Ganon again."

zabna blinks. "Well that's an interesting coincidence. I was planning to look into the issue of the Divine Beasts myself."

"Don't think you'll get far without this." She waves a small rectangular magic magic thing that was on her belt. "I got it fixed over at Hateno and now it'll talk to Sheikah stuff! Pretty cool."

"Ah, that would make things easier, I'm not a senior explorer so I don't have the ability to modify magical magic artifacts. I wasn't sure if just interfacing with the technical components would be enough."

"Yeah, I don't know about tech. The slate has been enough for what I needed so far though so I'm hopeful."

"That's good, do you have a plan for getting up to the flying beast? Apparently it has some sort of advanced weapons system. I was planning to find a guardian to test with but I haven't yet."

"Augh. Don't! Go! Near! Guardians! A half-broken one that couldn't move nearly killed me five times over! ...I was hoping someone in Rito Village could help me get up there. I haven't found the other three yet, but this guy was obvious from how he's flying around and stuff."

"I have some abilities that might let me fight them and will almost certainly keep me safe. If we need a way to handle those weapons testing with a half-broken one would be a good start."

"Oh... Too bad, I killed it eventually. There are probably more over near Fort Hateno, but that's like all the way on the other side of Hyrule from here."

"Hm, I'll walk back to the Rito village with you for the moment. If it turns out there isn't a trick we can go looking for a Guardian then."

"I know where to find Guardians, just not already-half-dead ones. And how do I know you're not actually part of the Yiga Clan or something?"

"I suppose you don't, although I doubt they can do this."  A trio of silvery spheres appear hanging in the air for a few seconds before vanishing.

"...Fair enough." But she'll be watching him. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure my name's Link. Nice to meet you."

"Oh right, I never introduced myself. zabna tsani, I'm an explorer working for the Starlight Institute and its Edge of Eternity project. I'm from a very very long way away."

"...That even in Hyrule? You look a bit like the Gerudo, except lighter skin."

"I'm from another world entirely. One where no one has ever heard of Hyrule."

"...Huh. Well. I guess it's not too weird for that. There's at least one other world we know about already, the ones spirits and gods inhabit."

"Interesting, I'm pretty sure I'm not from that one."

She snickers. "Yeah. Ooh, I got to see Din up close once if you don't believe me. Here..." She shows it on the Sheikah Slate. "Isn't this 'camera' thing so cooool?"

"I have cameras of my own, that's a nice picture."

"I guess cameras are a natural feature of tech. What else can yours do?"

"Well we have to use magic for the first trip to a new world but after that our technology can let people travel back and forth. We have the ability to fly higher than any bird or rito ever could, where the air is too thin to breathe. We can talk with someone across the world in an instant. The list of things we can do is pretty long. Those little bubbles were pockets of frozen time."

"This thing can do frozen time. Sorta. Flying like that sounds cool. And it'll teleport me to specific places - but only me, I tried it on others."

"It is, unfortunately the tech to fly that high isn't something a person can carry. I can teleport if I know where I'm going, probably. There are some constraints to my teleportation that make it hard to use effectively on a planet's surface."

"Hm. I guess we'll have to use horses. Or maybe I can scare up a second glider for you, it's useful sometimes."

"Apparently they sell them in the village, I haven't bought one yet not having very much local currency. Before you showed up I was thinking of going scavenging to find more salable products."

"Yeah, scaring up ingredients is good money. Treasure hunting too. Lots of abandoned places. I actually cook up the ingredients into useful magic stuff though, you kinda need it for tough fights."

"I have noticed that some of the food has magical properties, I haven't experimented with the matter though."

"You probably want to earn some money. I'm leery of spending mine on you unless it's crystal clear you're going to be useful."

"Fair enough, if there are guardians closer I could run my experiments now? I'm pretty sure I can take one down without too much difficulty and I got the impression that their parts are valuable."

"...If you insist, the nearest Guardians are about half a day's hike south of here. Watching a mountain pass - I climbed the cliffs rather than fight 'em, but a fast horse can get past too."

"Do you want to take the detour with me or should I meet you in the village in a day or two?"

"I could do a detour. Ganon's defeat is not urgent on a scale of hours. Even if things will be a lot neater when he's gone."

"Alright, give me a minute to pack up." He busies himself refolding his solar panels. "Lead the way then. I can run pretty fast so I can probably keep up."

About face. "Afraid of heights?"

"Not really no, why do you ask?"

"There's a pretty rickety high bridge with a really gorgeous view along the way."

"Ah, that sounds fun."

"As long as you don't cuccko out when you see it..."

"That metaphor didn't translate, but I don't expect to suddenly become afraid."

"Cuccko are cowardly livestock birds. Stay behind me if we run into monsters, okay? Not likely if we use the trail, but..."

"Sure, can do."

She starts jogging back the way she came, singing what seem to be folk songs again.

zabna easily keeps up with her. The songs and the landscape are pretty.

They first proceed up a long upward slope covered in grass and a few saplings."What exactly does your institute study anyway? Everything?"

"Pretty much yeah. The full name is The Starlight Institute for Advancing Studies. There is some focus on science and technology but the history department isn't neglected just not as heavily emphasized."

"Sure sounds fancy. I bet Purah would like to talk about it."

"Who's that?"

"She lives near Hateno at an old observatory or something. Calls it the Hateno Ancient Tech Lab. She... Well, you'll see yourself if we visit her."

"I'm kinda used to eccentric academics."

She snorts and laughs. "Maybe I should just tell you. It's... I shouldn't be laughing, I really shouldn't, but it's funny to me."

"Alright, up to you. So do you have any line on recovering your memories? I feel like it would be disconcerting to wake up and be told you're a legendary hero."

Small sigh. "That's... Well, I remember bits and pieces. I met an old lady who was young when I was frozen, and she's vaguely-familiar enough that I trust what she says. There were old pictures in the Slate that tickled my memory too. If I can find the places they were taken, maybe I remember more... Found one already. An old park. Remembered a surprisingly philosophical conversation about horses with the princess."

"Interesting, so you haven't totally lost the memories they're just disconnected. I bet a specialist from my world could help you, but I'm likely the only one who will be here until the world is declared safe or the military types get involved."

"...Yeah, it seems like a terrible idea to, uh, even look like I might be giving permission to foreign armies to come here. I love Hyrule, what of it I can remember and what of it remains. So. As much as I am a representative of it - and I was a royal Knight - I don't want foreign military here until and unless the King or the Princess or whoever I can find approves it."

"The military types are pretty reluctant to get involved in most things anyway. They only really intervene to prevent genocides, or deal with threats to the metaverse at large."

"Uh huh, sure... Monsters aren't really smart by the way. Ganon's doing it. They fought with fists and claws and throwing dirt before Ganon started rising again."

"The Rito Elder said that. Do you remember that personally or do you have it from another source?"

"I remember it personally. The only monsters that used weapons were Lynels and Hinox - Hinox pick up whole trees and use 'em as clubs, Lynels made crude bows and swords even before Ganon."

"What do Lynels and Hinox look like?"

"Hinox are giant one-eyed creatures that look - kind of Hylian - two arms, two legs, knees and elbows and head, just only one eye. But seriously Hinox are big. Big as a house. Bigger. And Lynels... Are horses, with the arms and chest of a Hylian and the head and teeth of a lion."

"Good to know, I'll try to avoid killing them if I can and take your word for it being moral to kill the less intelligent ones."

"Sure. Hey, what can you tell about all the magic you say is on me? Do I have any to myself or is it just my gear?"

"Alright, the Sheikah slate is a rainbow of colors. If I had a day and access to a better analytics lab I might be able to tell you what it can do. It's also hooked into you with the yellow tendril that marks an active link, and to some other places in the distance. You, and your clothes have the pearly armoring and reinforcement that tends to be present in magically hardened creatures and materials. You also have the orange white currents that tend to indicate some sort of healing power. And then a subtle there's a subtle green gold wispy effect that's wrapping you like a cloak. I've never seen anything like it. Green is the color of metamagic and gold is the color of raw magic. That's the kind of mix you'd see running in currents through spellcasters."

"Neat! I was actually really worried I would literally have to beat Ganon with nothing more than what any Hylian could get! Seems like those Heart Containers are legit."

"Heart containers?"

"The old Sheikah shrines let me in and do these silly tests... They give me spirit orbs, and the goddess Hylia can take those orbs and turn them into Heart Containers, which make me stronger."

"Interesting, I'm not really sure what to make of that."

"Maybe she'll tell you about it if you pray? Hylia's pretty important, if you're studying stuff from here."

"I'm not sure if she could hear me. I have pretty through anti-magic so it might subvert her detection systems."

"Hm. But she can, you know, hear. If you find a statue-shrine and pray aloud maybe that'll work."

"Maybe, I'll consider it if I ever think of anything specific to ask."

"I wonder if I can make magic stuff. Someone does clearly enough, there's magic stuff around, but I haven't figured out who."

"The shopkeeper at one of the stores in Rito says she knows who makes her stuff, but she also said they didn't want to talk to customers."

Shrug. "Bet bribery could fix that!"

"If you want to try that feel free, I am sadly lacking in currency at the moment."

"Yeaaah I don't have enough to go spending it on nothing either. Stay sharp, Lizals like places like this." They have progressed from grassy slopes to a path that seems to have been partially carved out from a craggy large hill/small mountain.

"Will do." He looks at his HUD, are there any around?

Yep! Three or four. Only one directly in their way.

He passes this information on to Link.

Sigh. "Well, let's get this over with, eh? You know how to use a bow?"

"I've never learned, what parts of the Lizals do you need intact?"

"Horns, claws, tails, their weapons would be nice." She draws a sword and a crude-looking shield and advances, looking for where the Lizalfos has hidden itself.

zabna reconfigures his arm to expose one of his lasers and follows. From the outside the laser likely looks like a blue tinged cylinder extending a bit above his wrist and appearing to emerge from inside his arm through his sleeve.

And the fight is on! She dodges the Lizal's lunge from hiding, deflecting its spear off her shield. "Oh great it's a black one. Tough bastards, black ones!" She lunges back at it, but it jumps back before she lands a blow.

He tries to bobble unimportant areas but the generator reports a suppressor field is in effect. He powers up his laser and brief bursts of blue light sear into the Lizal's head at least one striking it directly in an eye.

The Lizalfos screams in pain and tumbles over backward. "Gyaah!" Link spins and brandishes the sword at him. "-Stop being surprising! That looked almost like a Guardian beam!"

"Sorry, I should have warned you. It's resistant to my usual weapon so I had to switch to a backup."

The monster stands back up, roaring, and charges again. Link turns to it without saying anything, dodges the next stab and dashes in, a blur of motion too fast to be normal, and nearly cuts its head off. Then she stabs it another half a dozen times almost as quick. This time it stays down.

She takes a few deep breaths. "Okay so. That happened. No harm done."

"You can move pretty fast. I think I might be able to use a sword effectively, I'd need a bit of time to practice otherwise I'm mostly using my lasers, the blue beam, and bobbles, the silver spheres, where they work."

"Huff. Yeah, I get like - adrenaline rushes, sometimes? Where everything seems to be moving slower. Guess I'm actually faster. Maybe that's the gold magic you saw. We should maybe practice coordinating if we're going to travel together for very long. I haven't fought with other people helping for a while."

"Yeah that makes sense."

"Anyway, let's keep going." She extracts the relevant Lizalfos parts efficiently, and with a pulse of magic the Slate's inventory picks them up.

"Sure thing. Neat trick."

"Yeah, the Slate is super super handy."

"It looks it."

"Let's keep going. We're close to that bridge I wanted to show off. Wanna learn some songs?"

"Sure, I don't have much practice singing but I have a pretty good memory so I'll at least be able to hold onto the words."

And she sings while they jog down the craggy mountain path.

The bridge, it comes to pass, is little more than a row of logs laid on top of each other over a high canyon gap. Not even handrails. "Mind the wind!"

He laughs. Then somewhat carefully he picks his way across.

She jogs across. It's wide enough not to be truly dangerous. About halfway across she points back toward where they came. "Great view, huh?"

"It is, this whole planet is really nice, at least what I've seen of it so far. Do you know what those glowing orange buildings are?"

"Oh, those are the Sheikah shrines I told you about. Let me mark them on the map..." Apparently the Slate has a map too. It doesn't show much about this region except what she's filled in manually.

"So they're the places you get spirit orbs? That sounds interesting."

"Yeah. I don't actually know if they'll let you in. What's that thing?" She points at the scanner.

"It's a magic sensor system. It detects magic near me. I can also do some degree of magic analysis using it. That's where I got the descriptions of the magic you have on you from."

"Neat, I bet you can find valuable ingredients much easier than me."

There are some in walking distance now, even.

"Sure, let me fiddle with it a bit." He takes the scanner off his shoulder and expands the display to be bigger. "I don't know which patterns correspond to which ingredients but here's what's close by."

She uses the picture to fetch several bundles of spiky purple mushrooms from the cliffs they are at the peak of, as well as catching a peculiar salamander. "Rushrooms, nice!"

"What do they do? Most of these plants are just various patterns of metamagic so it's hard to interpret."

"If you don't screw it up, rushrooms make you move faster!"

"Well, that's interesting."

"Oh, want to try it later? Or just sell 'em?"

"I don't eat food, so I don't think they'd work on me, thanks for the offer though."

"I'll give you 'bout half what these are worth as payment for helping find them. But for now, onward we march."

"Works for me."

On they go. The next significant landmark is a tall hill with an orange-glowing tower on it. Black goo with strong metamagic-wild magic covers much of the path up.

"Do you know what the tower is, or for that matter the goo?"

"That's a beacon tower. If I get up there it gives me more map. But the goo is Malice. Kills about anything that touches it. So I haven't tried to tackle that one yet."

"Hm," he takes out another device like the magic scanner and turns it on. The display shows a maze of glowing lines traveling this way and that. "If you give me a minute I think I can teleport up there. If it works I'll come back and take you."

"And your teleport is safe? If you manage to get up there wave at me for a bit so I can see."

"If it works once it will work twice. There is a slight chance I won't end up where I'm planning but I have fail-safes." He walks slightly to the left and forwards, then jumps up a couple feet into the air before vanishing in a slight flash of silver. If Link's eyes are very good she might catch a brief glimpse of him in midair far above her before he vanishes again. Then he'll reappear on top of the tower. He waves.

She waves back, grinning. "Nice trick!"

And then he's a couple feet in the air beside her. He lands neatly. "So, it's cleanest if we jump but we don't absolutely have to."

Jump!

There's a brief split-second of falling through the air with nothing around them and then they're landing on the platform at the top of the tower.

She has to catch her balance. "Trippy." And then she's going over to this giant - console? - hanging from the roof of the upper platform. She puts the slate on it and it lights up visibly and magically.

Well that's cool. "Is there a way to get rid of the goo?"

"Sometimes there are eyes in the goo. If I can nail one with an arrow or the magic bombs the 'slate will do, that'll get rid of some."

"Do you want to look around and try it or should we just go back to where we were?"

"We might as well try. Malice is nobody's friend."

Data installed, chimes the terminal. She peers at the newly revealed section of map.

zabna looks around to see if he can see anything that looks like an eye.

There are several! And now Link is lining up a shot on one of them with an impressively shiny bow!

Well, he'll just stand back and watch then.

Right in the eye!

And then another one, and then, "Want to try the blue thing on that last one?"

"Sure," he extrudes his laser and fires at one of the eyes.

Poof! She claps politely. "I could glide down from here, make things go a little faster, think you could get over to that plateau with the bubble thing? So finding a Guardian takes just another hour or so, not four?"

"Hm, alright. Longer jumps are slightly riskier but I think I can do it. Same as before I'll try jumping alone first and then come back for you if it works?"

"No offense but I'd rather glide 'n climb. Unless we need to run away very fast or something. The falling-without-falling thing is weird."

"How long will that take you? If this works I'll be over there in a couple seconds."

"Flying is fast! Ten minutes. And I like the breeze anyway. If we were going much further I would use the Sheikah teleport."

"Alright, I'll wait for you on the other side then I guess." He fiddles with his thread scanner for a few seconds then he jumps in the air and disappears. If she's watching closely she might notice three different silver flashes before he appears on the plateau.

She's too busy unfolding a glider and then leaping into the air with a whoop to notice that!

Then he'll spend his time looking around the plateau. He'll stay close to the edge just in case.

It's kind of a boring plateau. There's some wildlife.

There's a large concentration of magic to the south, in the canyon at the far end of the plateau...

And soon enough Link more or less smacks into the cliff wall, then starts climbing the rest of the way up.

He watches, she's a pretty skilled climber, especially for doing it without any technical equipment.

The guiding hand of fate and that vigor-inducing magic doesn't hurt either. 

"...Ah, that was refreshing! On we go, then?"

"Works for me."

They walk. It's not a super wide plateau 

"...That seems like it might be a korok hiding place," She says of a rock that might have been a sculpture at one point. "I'll have a look around later though."

"Alright. What's a korok?"

"They're these cute plant people, like little kids. Just wandering around and exploring and stuff."

"Huh, why are you looking for them?"

"One of them, a big brother type, asked me to."

"Ah, that's nice of you then."

"Yeah, right friendly. Look out, there he is. This guy's been menacing travelers for months apparently. The flying ones are even harder to kill than the other kinds."

It's... Menacing. Glowing red, like an urn with the wide part pointing to the sky, three helicopter blades humming to keep it aloft. It seems to be patrolling a narrow pass between cliffs, and the long bridge over a canyon just to the east.

As a start he checks whether he can bobble it, it seems unlikely but it's worth a try.

How about... No. Or not quickly, at any rate. "So what do you think?"

"I'm still brainstorming. It looks like this needs to be done indirectly." He does some calculations and then a bunch of dirt disappears beneath the machine and reappears directly over one of its three rotors.

It more or less ignores the dirt. Wobbles crazily, then rights itself. And resumes its patrol path. "Careful not to make us obvious, you'll tick it off at this rate..."

"You said you can make some sort of bombs, want to see what one does exposed directly to the rotor?"

"Ooh!" Fwoomp. A cuboid, glowy blue object about head-sized, full mostly of bound-up force. She hands it over - it weighs almost nothing.

He hefts it and eyes the Guardian. He tosses it up a little ways and then it disappears only to reappear nestled just under the guardian's rotor a second later. "Now."

THOOM! "Hey it worked! Wait a sec, recharging, then two more, two more!"

The Guardian is attempting to climb, in wide dangrous lookong swoopy circles thanks to the unbalanced lift.

"It's going to be tricker aiming that, might take a few tries. Can you set them for timed detonation?"

"I can set them off whenever, or they go off when they burn or get hit like that blade."

Whoomp. Here's a other one.

"Hm, I can probably work with that." He watches the guardian for a little bit then tosses the bomb and it reappears just a little bit off. It starts falling to the ground and disappears again this time right in the path of a rotor blade.

WHOOM! And it's heading down, not up. "Sweet! Once it's grounded, let's disassemble this thing."

"Sounds like a plan to me. I assume that stalk thing is it's main weapon? I think I can block that. I'm less confident doing so at close range though. Do you know what the warning signs for it being about to fire are? If it has any that is."

"It glows, pretty obvious. Makes a weird chime when it shoots, too."

"Hm, I wonder how it'll react to having its line of sight broken. Oh well, we can figure it out as we go."

"Ground-Guardians hold fire and try to run around the obstacle, or fire randomly if they get stuck and blind and confused."

Down, down it goes in a slow spiral.

"Hm, so it's better to break the line of sight on each shot or block them when it's firing than to try to blind it? I'm pretty sure I could try burying its weapon while leaving other surfaces exposed."

"Breaking line of sight and running away is always a good idea with these things! I've never actually killed a flying one."

"Do you have any guesses as to what would be a good choice? I can try a lot of things but if there's a safer way to do things I'd prefer to do that."

"Attack its eye. And if in doubt, run. Last bomb..." Fwoomp. She hands it to him.

He waits until the Guardian is on the ground then sets the bomb to take out another rotor just in case. Then he approaches from the side that the eye weapon isn't on.

Link is scanning the surroundings and the sky as they approach. "I don't think the other one's patrol can see this spot... Good."

"Do you think we can destroy it from this side? Or do we need to go around to the side with the weapon?"

"Either one." The sword reappears as she stalks toward it.

It looks rather pathetic, stuck on the ground like this. She keeps the fat part between her and the cannon and starts smashing in the top.

He raises an eyebrow at this, hitting metal things with swords repeatedly doesn't usually work in his experience but apparently it does here. "Do you want help?"

"If you want to!"

Hitting the metal thing with the sword is having a slow but tangible effect on all the magic inside! Mostly, scrambling it into an unrecognizable mess.

This world is so weird. Zahn starts examining the exposed surfaces of the machine for seams.