Wherein our travelers investigate the meaning of their dreams
Previously: Before the Journey (pt. 2)Next: Fortunes Told
Having determined that she needs to journey to Castle Town, Nuruli bids her mother and grandmother behind. She is hesitant to leave Gerudo territory on her own, so takes a detour of a few hours to go to Gerudo City and see if anyone else is traveling to Castle Town. As Nuruli travels across the desert, a group of Tektites surprise her, and she barely scrambles away, taking a swipe as she retreats. The effort to avoid more Tektites leads her to take a longer path, and she doesn’t arrive in Gerudo City until the afternoon.
Although Nuruli asks around, she is perhaps slightly out of practice socially, and only a merchant with a single pack animal says she is going that way. Injured and disappointed, she spends the night in the city, and wakes feeling much restored.
It takes two more days for Nuruli and the merchant, a taciturn old Gerudo, to travel out of the desert and through the wetlands of central Hyrule. Thankfully, they avoid any roving ‘blin bands or other monsters, but occasionally have to take the long way around a particularly boggy area or an encampment, and it takes a bit longer than expected to arrive. They approach Castle Town around mid-morning. Nuruli stares up at the town wall, which seems to go on forever to her eyes.
Across Hyrule, Impa, Karin, and Salari made their way through Necluda and into Central Hyrule. Since there is only one horse, Karin gives Linkle a bit of a rest, and walks along with Impa.
As they walk, the two humans make light conversation, but Salari seems withdrawn and incurious– he is nursing disappointment that Impa does not know what’s going on, trying to decide how much to reveal, and disturbed by the portents of the womens’ dream.
On the first day of their journey, Impa attempts to show off her chef skills and fashion their rations into something a little more palatable, but can’t do much with travel rations. When they taste the same as always, there is a brief spat between the two humans, as Karin ribs Impa a bit about the failure to fix them.
After a night spent sleeping a bit far apart, the party wakes (although Salari does not require sleep) and continues to pick their way across the wetlands. Despite the smooth travels of the first day, the wetlands prove slightly trickier to navigate. Impa woke up feeling quite poorly to start with, and sustains a minor bite from a Rope that darts forth from a boggy patch, and later in the day, Karin gets her foot stuck in some mud while investigating a patch of reeds for hidden items, and manages to twist her ankle in the process. Still, she come away with 25 rupees that had been stashed amongst the plants.
By mid-morning, the small party has arrived at Castle Town. Hyrule Castle looms on the Horizon to the north of the city, which stretches across nearly the entire large river island on which it is situated.
Town-Building: Together, the players tell us that Castle Town is known for exquisite rugs and the availability of spices and goods from across Hyrule, given it’s central location. One things –there must be a special drink due to the nearby swampy wetlands, and another says, it must be a bog whiskey. They decide that of course there is gambling and games of chance, and the GM clarifies that in certain portions of the commercial district, the music coming from such buildings is considered quite obnoxious.
Castle Town is arranged in a semi-circle, but very orderly and regular. Since the capital was intentionally relocated to this area, there is clear city planning at play. The buildings are stone and wood with actual slate roofing, which is either grey or blue. The Hylian is everywhere in stone work, including the pavement. There are a few parks around the fountain square, and a somber but gracefully decorated temple.
It seems that somehow, although Marah just had her bad dream this morning, and the others have had to travel for several days across Hyrule, everyone who had this dream arrived at the gates to Castle Town at the same time. Still, they don’t know they’re there to meet, and the disparate parties enter the town together, but separately, paying each other no mind.
Nuruli marvels to herself that the guards outside the gates are not challenging travelers at all, and in fact look somewhat bored. The merchant she is with goes on her way without so much as a fare-thee-well. However, Nuruli is so impressed (and perhaps intimidated and perplexed) by the scale of the city and the decadence of the decorative fountain in the central square that she barely notices. She spends some time studying the signposts to figure out where she might find guidance and trying to figure out if any specific details seem familiar from her dream.
Impa must take care of the favor she promised to that shopkeep in Necluda Villaga, and does not want to delay.
“Meet me at the fountain around noon,” she tells Karin, and heads off to resolve that task. After swiftly locating the correct shop, Impa drops off the order and the requested payment without any fanfare — or attempt to bargain or check whether the invoice was accurate.
For her part, Marah heads straight to the temple of the Goddesses, determined to give warning and get answers.
Distracted by the sights and sounds of the city, and not wanting to investigate on her own, Karin decides to find one of those games of skill she’s heard about. There’s a Shooting Gallery game, which is right up her alley. It costs 10 rupees for five shots, which is a dear price, but she’s eager to try. The game consists of signs attached to two tracks moving in opposite directions, and the object is to hit octorok signs and not other signs.
She makes her first and second shots with ease, but the third pings off of another sign. She breathes in, and manages to just barely hit a third octorok on her fourth shot, and misses again on the fifth and final shot, going wide.
“Well, that’s three points. You can have fifteen rupees or a small stuffed octorok!” The man running this shop quips in a cheerful tone. Karin takes the rupees, and with renewed determination, answers in the affirmative to “Would you like to try again?”
Unfortunately, she misses with one, two, three, four — all five shots! on her second go around. Perhaps a lever was pulled to change the timing, or perhaps the persistent and fast tempo’d music is simply an effective distraction when trying to concentrate.
“Aww, that’s too bad? Would you like to try again?” Karin puts down 10 more rupees, commenting that she wants to try and win her rupees back.
The first shot is a complete miss, going so far off that it hits the wooden rafter above the gallery; the shopkeeper winces, knowing he’ll need a ladder to retrieve that arrow. Karin breathes in, and then out, and makes three amazing shots in a row. Perhaps overconfident, she misses the third.
“Ah, three points again. Do you want the rupees or the stuffed octorok?” This time, Karin decides to take the prize, which is a cute stuffed octorok, and very much resembles the cartoonish octorok signs moving along the tracks in the gallery. It is nearly noon now, so she heads out toward the fountain square.
The temple is a solemn place, with a high, vaulted ceiling and for large stained glass windows. The first three each show one Goddess, enacting her part of the creation of Hyrule, and the fourth shows Hylians receiving the Triforce in jubilation. There are a few people in the temple today, but the priest is not currently occupied. Marah heads straight toward him.
“How may I help you, child?” Although she is an adult, the priest addresses her as such out of habit, and Marah doesn’t seem to mind. She tells him of her dream, with the dark shadows coming over Castle Town, of the Poe who tried to drag her into a tree, and of the increase in undead activity as of late.
This information disturbs, but also perplexes, the priest. He isn’t sure what it could mean, but believes he may have some ancient texts that reference similar events, and he promises to do research and forward his findings to Marah. She lets him know she’ll be staying in town — at the Cackling Keese, the cheapest inn available.
Beyond that, the priest is not much use. This is not great news for Nuruli, who approaches the priest as Marah leaves. They exchange some pleasantries about her journey — after all, it isn’t every day that a Gerudo comes to town! — and then she begins to ask about her dream.
“Ah — excuse me, miss!” the priest yells after Marah, who is on her way out, passing Impa and Karin on their way in. He beckons her to come back. “It seems that you both have had the same dream.”
Marah is startled, and asks Nuruli with anticipation, “Do you have anything to do with graveyards?” “Oh… no, I’m a Cucco farmer.” Although the connection Marah was expecting is not there, the two discuss the shared aspects of their dreams, and discover both of them had a strange encounter involving a tree. The priest listens, a bit out of his element.
Finally, he reluctantly offers, “Perhaps… I hesitate to recommend such a charlatan, but some people report her fortunes to be accurate. There is a fortune teller adjacent to the Bomb Shop… while I conduct my research, perhaps she can provide some insight?” He is visibly uncomfortable making this recommendation, but isn’t sure where else to send them. And if the fortune teller is genuine, then surely she could interpret the portents in a dream?
The two resolve to go to her together, and on their way out of the temple, Impa stops them. A practiced eavesdropper, she has heard the pertinent information, and explains that she and Karin have also had the same dream.
Again, Marah asks, “Do you have anything to do with the dead, or corpses?” “No, I’m a chef,” is Impa’s confused reply, and Karin offers, “I make corpses for a living?” referring to her work as a hunter.
This isn’t what Marah is looking for, unfortunately, but she and Nuruli say that the priest has told them to visit a fortune teller. Karin briefly tries to explain to the priest that she was also sent here due to the same dream, and the “ghost thing” with her. He cannot see Salari at all (“He can’t see me, he has no imagination whatsoever,” comments Salari), and Impa decides to pull Karin aside and mention it may be best to practice some discretion about something others cannot see.
The troupe determines that they will explore the fortune teller as a possible avenue to information.