Pardon me: are you not a demon able to conjure lightning, endless fire and powers yet more exotic? Ganon is not of such flesh and blood as we are—were—but older incarnations of the Calamity were quelled by weapons made of Hylian hands.

Vah Medoh was one such instrument, once.

The air rustles.

I am not inclined to simply let you loose on all of Hyrule. Promise that you do not intend harm on the innocent people of her greater lands, and that you will pursue the obliteration of Calamity Ganon with due haste to prevent the destruction of Hyrule once and for all, if it is indeed the threat which I claim.

"I can conjure many things but lightning and fire are not actually my central capabilities? I don't want to hurt innocent people, that's not what I'm about at all. I guess I might get distracted if I find some other disaster in progress before I can verify the Ganon thing."

The last time the Calamity rose, one hundred years ago, Hyrule Kingdom suffered four or five weeks of harrowing by legions of monsters and corrupted Guardians before Ganon was somehow silenced—but not, it now seems, rightly sealed. It has been less than a month since the Calamity's reemergence, and its throes of power today are... lesser.

By the legends, Calamity Ganon requires six months and six days of waxing to unleash its true form upon the world, upon which it is still possible to beat back, but at far more unbearable cost.

I do dearly hope that you can manage to not be distracted for most of half a year, or we are all truly doomed.

But not lightning and fire, you say. If you find Calamity Ganon to be worth your attention, the voice says with a slight sneer, the most emotive it's managed to be yet, what power do you bring to smite him, then?

"I can conjure material objects." He makes a little wooden sphere, and then: "And most of those can be wrecked by more of the same." Interpolates it into sawdust.

Can you conjure a Sheikah Slate?

"If it's not magic or anything sure." Sheikah Slate?

He gets something that vaguely looks like a metallic Wii U Gamepad in the same black and gold motif as everything around him. There's an eye symbol on the back with a cyan iris and orange tron-lines. It's pretty heavy.

It doesn't seem to do anything if he pokes at it, though. Its screen stays black. The cyan-and-orange patterning looks like it might be supposed to glow, but it doesn't.

"Is this possibly magic?"

It's... inactivated.

Purah always said Sheikah artifacts weren't magic. I suppose we got the last laugh after all. The voice is dull, despite the words. Her people may still be alive, in their village secluded by the Necluda mountains. I wonder...

The air seems to congeal with a sort of thickness. The evil purple growths strewn around the space and making up his summoning circle seem to pulse. A haze of blue and violet sparks in an arc in front of him. The screen of the Sheikah Slate—fizzles. For a split second, a blue print of the eye symbol on the Slate's back flashes on the screen, but then it glitches into orange and blue lines, and then it goes black again.

The Sheikah may be able to restore it. There was ever only one working Sheikah Slate found. If your conjured copy works, you may be able to return control of Vah Medoh to me. If Calamity Ganon saw it necessary to disable the Guardians and the Divine Beasts, he must have feared them—this may be key to destroying him. If the other three Champions' souls are also bound to their Divine Beasts, and we are all restored...

The Divine Beasts were created as ultimate weapons to seal away Calamity Ganon, once upon a time, together with the Princess' divine power and the Master Sword. Link and Princess Zelda are long dead, most likely, but with four out of six, and Ganon seemingly weakened, there may be a chance.

"Okay. Well, where are the Necluda mountains?"

Can you not conjure a map?

"I can conjure a scale model, but it won't have labels. You could tell me about a good map and I could make a copy of that one."

The War Room on the third floor of Hyrule Castle had the most detailed map of Greater Hyrule I've seen hanging on its wall, the last time I was there.... though it is likely destroyed now. There is one in the Cheftain's roost in Rito Village, which ought to be intact.

"Destroyed now doesn't matter." Map from the War Room!

(The map is not quite as detailed as this one, but the main features are there. Labels are as shown.)

"Cool, cool. And we are now where?"

We are in the skies above Rito Village. You are looking for Kakariko village, to the south east. Avoid the Hyrule Field and Hyrule Castle—why are the Castle and Castle Town unlabeled? They've been reduced to smoking ruins, obviously, but to go to the trouble of erasing—the corrupted Guardians in central Hyrule have reactivated, and some variants fly. It is unsafe to approach.

I'm hoping those wings aren't cosmetic. We are a long ways up, and it will take very long to get to Kakariko on foot.

"Oh, yeah, they're not and if they were I could make a flying vehicle. Might anyway, it's faster, what's the scale on this map?"

The distance from Rito Village to the castle is about 50 miles as the Rito flies.

So the depicted landmass is about the size of Ireland.

"Oh, that's not so bad, I'll get there in about an hour on the wing."

Us with wings are thus privileged, says the voice in a tone that almost reaches "smug".

I propose the following: in exchange for you verifying whether Calamity Ganon is the threat I so claim within five weeks, and if so pursuing his annihilation or sealing to prevent his destruction of Greater Hyrule for at least another ten thousand years, you are permitted to leave your circle and make war on Calamity Ganon and his agents in what way you see fit that does not unduly harm innocents, upon which satisfaction you must come to me for renegotiation, else return whence you came.

"Oddly comprehensive dream you got. 'Unduly' is not a great word to put in this kind of negotiation, though, and you also can't make me come back - that's not an unsafe wording exactly, it'll let you dismiss me when the time comes, but it won't happen all by itself. This also leaves pretty unspecified how diligent I have to be about checking the duration of a sealing, which I don't currently know how to do at all anyway."

Clearly not comprehensive enough. To an extent I must resort to trusting your goodwill and reasonable judgment, or this is a doomed endeavor.

Revali sounds irritated.

You appear to have your feathers in order. This is—setting expectations, you can say. Ceremony, at best. How do you expect me to quantify what level of civilian casualties is acceptable collateral? Do I look like I know how to check the duration of a sealing? Hyrule Kingdom has been in worse hands, I am sure.

"I am going to aim for zero civilian casualties, failing that minimal, and failing that at least fewer than would die anyway without my best available intervention."