Finding yourself alone yet again, you check the location of the closest unopened shrine on your map and, bracing yourself for the uncomfortable sensation, you select the option to teleport you to the opened shrine on the ground nearby and close your eyes.

. . . Nothing happens.

Opening your eyes and looking down at your map, you tap the shrine marker again.

Nothing.

Closely examining the device, you finally notice a matching shrine symbol in the bottom right of the map, paired with an empty rectangle, flashing red. You tap it and a short explanation appears:

Teleportation
Battery: Depleted
Teleportation allows you to fast-travel to previously registered markers.
Fit for one use until battery recharges.

. . . Well. You suppose that would be too easy.

As the sun sinks below the horizon, you again descend the tower, hopping down from platform to platform until you finally land on the cracked dirt below, and begin to head towards the next closest shrine. Magnifying that area of the map, you can see that it seems to be located in what looks to be some sort of maze or collection of ruins.

You hear a sound in front of you and look up from your map, just in time to find a skeletal creature with glowing orange eyes actually dragging itself out of the soil, wielding another familiar-looking wooden weapon.

You take a swing and, to your surprise, knock its skull clean off—which the bony body promptly goes bumbling after. You follow, bashing the body away before it can reach for the head, and deliver a swift blow to the skull. The brittle bone cracks almost immediately beneath your weapon and the eyes snuff out like candles. The body clatters to the ground behind you, and then both dissipate in a cloud of purple-black smoke.

You catch something pale out of the corner of your eye, writhing on the ground, and you approach cautiously.

It's . . . a skeletal Bokoblin Arm, still thrashing and grasping despite your having defeated the monster moments earlier. It's spiderwebbed with cracks, and as it moves it leaves white dust behind on the ground, seemingly already disintegrating on account of its age. It appears to be quite fragile, so you decide to leave the potential weapon behind. With the limited space you have, you don't want to waste it on something so flimsy. You check the other weapon, a Boko Spear. That doesn't look of much use either. It looks more like a rotisserie stick than a proper weapon.

You quickly approach the ruins, now glowing eerily under the moonlight, and scale one of the broken walls and drop down inside, onto a carpet of grass. Lying in the grass ahead of you is another rusted hunk of metal, and you begin forward—but as you watch, it whirrs, and then its carved channels light up with a purple glow. A blue eye flashes into sight from the "head" of the thing, and after swinging around a bit, surveilling, it turns to you, and suddenly you find a red point of light on your chest.

Your brain screaming danger, you rush behind a nearby crumbling wall, and the beeping from the thing stops. You poke your head out from behind the wall to find that the red beam of light has disappeared, but as soon as it notices you again, you're blinded by the beam, this time apparently focussed on your face. You duck out of sight again.

You observe the map and then the surrounding ruins from your hiding place. You still need to go further into the ruins to find the shrine, and there's another sectioning wall not too far away. You can run across and hide before the thing even notices you, no problem—and you won't have to find out whatever happens if you linger too long in its beam.

You rise from your crouch, orient yourself, take a deep breath and break out from behind your shelter, booking it for the arched doorway in the opposite wall—just as you would have passed through, you hear an ominous rumbling and jerk back, just in time, because the tip of the arch has come crumbling down, surely having crushed you if you hadn't stopped, and now blocking off the opening.

You hear beeping behind you and throw a quick look over your shoulder to find the blue eye turned towards you, red beam focussed once again. You shoot a look towards the top of the wall in front of you—it's not terribly tall. Without stopping to second-guess yourself you launch yourself at the wall, fingers digging hard into the brick cracks, and you haul yourself upwards, skin splitting. The beeping behind you grows more erratic and you each up for the top of the wall, clamping down—and your arm swings back down with force as you accidentally tear off a patch of wild-growing ivy. You drop the clump and reach up again, finding real purchase on rough brick, the beeping growing louder still—arm muscles burning, you haul yourself up and vault over the top of the wall—

There's a BOOM! and you hit the grass below in a roll, heat flaring against your back—when you stop rolling you look up to see the remaining ivy along the top of the wall alight, the bricks beneath scorched. So that's what happens when you're not quick enough.

You push yourself up, brushing off your clothes, and then whip your head up at a screeching sound nearby. The source of the screeching looks to be a one-eyed, fanged, batlike creature barrelling towards you on taloned wings, and you quickly whip out a boko bat and hit it squarely out of the air.

Like everything else, it also dissipates in a burst of smoke, and you bend down to assess what's left behind in the grass: a Keese Wing. The bony arm is covered with very short, sharp fur, the talon is yellowed, and it overall looks extremely unappetising. You still decide to pocket it in case it turns out to be useful later.

You continue advancing through the ruins, picking up an Ancient Spring from another broken-down husk while keeping an eye out for any more live ones, and finally reach the dividing wall to the plot containing the shrine. This wall also has an archway, but it's blocked by more debris, so you elect to scale the wall and drop down inside.

No sooner have you touched down on the other side that another skeletal bokoblin claws its way out of the earth to confront you, and now knowing its weak point, you aim for the fragile skull and quickly dispatch it. Checking the shrine in front of you, you pull out your map and delete the pin, and then step forward the activate the pedestal with the Sheikah slate.

As before, the Ja Baij shrine lights up and reveals an inner chamber, which you enter and stand atop the descending platform, delivering you into the belly of the structure.

As soon as you step off the platform, you're greeting by another similar ghostly voice.

"To you who sets foot in this shrine. . . I am Ja Baij. In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I offer this trial: The Bomb Trial."

The room is designed in the exact same style as the one previous, with a pedestal to the left, and a ramp leading down into what could be a tunnel but for two giant, cracked stone blocks closing off the entrance.

You register the Sheikah slate with the pedestal and receive the same message: "Sheikah Slate authenticated. Distilling rune. . ."

The menu from before flashes onscreen, two boxes having lit up this time, one with a circular icon inside and one with a square icon.

Remote Bomb
A bomb that can be detonated remotely.
The force of the blast can be used to damage monsters or destroy objects.

Equipped with the new ability, you advance down the ramp and, standing in front of the blocks, select the square icon. A blue cubic bomb materialises quite literally on the top of the Sheikah slate, attached to a clasp that pops out from the device, and you take it and set it down in front of the blocks. You retreat and select the icon onscreen again and the bomb explodes, shattering the blocks and clearing the way. Without nothing attached, the tiny clasp from the bomb picks itself up and whizzes back to you, inserting itself neatly into the slot at the top of the Sheikah slate.

The tunnel forks into two, so first you explore the left branch, which is also "block"ed. You deposit and detonate a bomb, clearing the obstruction, to find hidden behind a ladder leading up and out of the tunnel, so you backtrack and investigate the right arm before leaving.

Predictably, the chamber at the end of the right arm is also obstructed, so you detonate the blocks and find a chest inside, decorated with glowing orange runes. Approaching the chest, you can't see any sort of obvious lock mechanisms, but you do see that same eye symbol on the front—following your intuition, you hold the Sheikah slate up to the symbol, and there's a flash, the runes turn blue, and the chest opens.

Inside is a Traveller's Claymore—you can tell by the length and heft of it that it's a two-handed weapon, and even though awkward to handle in comparison to smaller one-handed weapons, you could use its weight to knock away enemies' weapons and shields, so you take it and strap it across your back in your growing collection.

You return to the left path and climb the ladder to find a pit before you, so deep it drops into darkness before you can see the bottom, with a square platform moving back and forth across it. As you watch, the seemingly levitating platform moves further back across the pit and disappears under a wall of cracked stone blocks obstructing the way before appearing again and gliding back over to your side of the pit.

You hop on and as it begins to cross again, you change the option on your Sheikah slate to materialise a rounded bomb. The platform is simply too small to escape the blast radius if you were to set the bomb down like you had before, so you have selected the rounded bomb for its ease to throw. You unclasp the bomb from the slate and lob it at the blocks before you reach them, detonating the sphere in the air. The blocks crumble and your path is cleared—you reach the other end of the pit without incident and step off the moving platform.

This time, you're faced with a set of catapult-like contraptions: cubic columns aimed diagonally up and across, periodically pulling back and then shooting forward, as if to launch something into the air. One of the catapult-columns is positioned across from another set of stone blocks acting as a barrier to a platform which leads directly to the final monk-shrine. You deposit a bomb on the catapult, and when it shoots across the room you detonate it within blast radius of the blocks, crumbling most of them and clearing your way. Before following suit, you use another one of the catapults to launch yourself to a chest sitting on a high platform on the other end of the room, which you unlock and find a hunk of fossilised Amber inside. Being the first thing of inherent value you've found, you pocket this immediately and drop down to the first catapult, launching yourself across the room to the monk-shrine.

You ascend the steps as before and scatter? dissipate? the outer walls of the shrine, and are greeted again by a ghostly voice.

"Your resourcefulness in overcoming this trial speaks to the promise of a hero. In the name of the Goddess Hylia, I bestow upon you this Spirit Orb."

Though this mummified monk is seated in a position different to the one before, his fingers are steepled in the same way, thumbs below completing that strange triangular shape. The spirit orb appears and flies to you from his connected hands, and you stand your ground this time, knowing what to expect. The orb sinks into you and you can't help the shiver that sweeps through you.

"May the Goddess smile upon you."

The monk dissipates, just as before, and you're transported again to the surface. Upon rematerialising on the warp pad, you pull out your map once again to check for the location of the next shrine. Orienting yourself to the north-west, you scale the nearest crumbling wall and go about trying to find your way out of the maze of ruins.

Though you encounter another one of those urn-shaped machines, it doesn't pose nearly as much as a threat this time as you know what to expect. You duck and weave between walls and arches and successfully avoid its gaze, and eventually exit the ruins. Looking up, you can see the target shrine perched on the top of a set of snow-capped cliffs not too far away, so you continue in that direction.

There's a cluster of trees not too far from the base of the target cliffs, and as you approach, you notice a small, one-room log cabin crouching among them. Drawing nearer, you find clustered around its base a collection of Stamella Shrooms, which you pluck and pocket in quick succession. You also find a Farmer's Pitchfork leaning against one of the walls, which you consider for a moment as a potential long-distance weapon. After a moment's hesitation, you pick it up and hitch it to your weapons strap.

Heading around to the front of the homely cabin, something draws you inside—you enter the low-hanging doorway and find a modest set-up: dirt flooring, crudely-cut holes in the log walls to serve as unprotected windows, a bare bed in the corner, and a table off to the side, holding a tattered open book and a collection of small red fruits. You approach to examine the Spicy Peppers, but the somehow-familiar handwriting in the book draws your attention. You drift over and begin to read.

ON THIS DESOLATE PLATEAU, THE ONLY PLEASURE THAT BRINGS ME COMFORT IS COOKING. I DO SO WISH I HAD AN OVEN TO BAKE WITH; BUT I SUPPOSE ONE SHOULD BE THANKFUL FOR WHAT HE HAS.

MY YEARS ALONE HERE HAVE ALLOWED ME TIME TO EXPERIMENT WITH THE NATIVE VEGETATION—AND I HAVE FOUND THAT EXPOSING CERTAIN INGREDIENTS TO HEAT AND OPEN FLAME HAS THE POTENTIAL TO AMPLIFY THEIR MANY CURIOUS PROPERTIES. THOUGH I HAVE HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF BAKING OCCASIONALLY IN THE KITCHENS, THE INGREDIENTS THERE WERE COLLECTED AND PROCESSED BY MERCHANTS, WHICH DID NOT ALLOW FOR THIS RANGE OF EXPERIMENTATION.

FOR INSTANCE, SPICY PEPPERS SIMMERED IN A POT WILL AWAKEN THEIR STRANGE HEAT-PRESERVING PROPERTIES. DEPENDING ON THE STRENGTH OF THE DISH, ONE COULD POTENTIALLY TRAVEL THROUGH THE NORTH-EASTERN SNOWFIELDS WITHOUT NEED OF PROTECTIVE CLOTHING. WHAT A MARVELLOUS DISCOVERY—BUT I DO SUPPOSE THE PEOPLE OF THIS LAND HAVE CARRIED THIS KNOWLEDGE FOR CENTURIES. I AM ONLY JUST DISCOVERING THIS ANCIENT KNOWLEDGE AS A RESULT OF MY OWN SHELTERED LIFE. I WONDER IF JOHN WOULD BE JUST AS INTERESTED IN THESE ADVANCED CULINARY ARTS? MY BOY. . . I DO MISS HIM TERRIBLY.

Intrigued, you turn to the next page, only to find it blank. Flipping through the book, you find no more personal entries, only hastily-scribbled recipes. Faintly disappointed, you turn and leave the hut, but not before pocketing the peppers.

Emerging from the cabin, you find a small cooking pot not too far from the entrance to the hut, with the campfire still burning beneath. Seeing the dancing flame makes you realise that you are indeed quite hungry, so you decide to sit by the pot and simmer a few Hylian shrooms. It doesn't take long for them to brown and soften, and you eat them straight from the pot with little regard to etiquette.

Looking up towards the nearest shrine, you notice a figure among the trees at the cliff base—it's the old man. So this is his hut? That was his diary? You wonder about the John mentioned in the entry. John. . . That name tugs at something deep inside of you, but you cannot link the name to anything in your empty memory bank.

Trying to ignore the niggling feeling, you stand and approach the old man, who you find to be swinging at a tree with another axe. When he notices you, he slings the axe to rest over his shoulder and turns towards you with a smile.

"Oho! Fancy that! So we meet again. You have a curious look about you, son. Find anything interesting on these plains?"

You stare at him blankly, and he chuckles. "I suppose your plate may be full with those remaining shrines. As for me, I thought this tree here might make for some good firewood." He glances over his shoulder and you follow his gaze, to find to your chagrin there's a sizeable chasm separating you both from the base of the target cliffs. It's certainly too large to jump; how are you supposed to cross it?

The old man seems to notice your expression and hmphs. "Quite the nuisance, eh? I myself have been trying to get across to those larger trees for quite some time, but even my paraglider can't help me here. My old joints are too feeble to scale smooth rocky walls like those. I suppose a bridge might be helpful?" He looks at you a little closer, and his eyes twinkle. "At any rate, I must get back to chopping this tree. I must pay close attention to the angle of my swing, or it could fall in the wrong direction and batter the other trees."

He resumes his work, whistling jovially, and you eye the chasm. There's a single tall tree growing right next to the edge—you wonder if it would be long enough to bridge the gap. You approach, unhitching your axe, angling yourself, and taking a powerful swing at the trunk. The tree shudders, bark gashed, but does not fall. You swing again, and again.

Eventually, the tree topples over with a groan and the splintering of wood, and as you watch, the mass of forking branches at the top catches it on the other side of the chasm, the base anchored firmly on your side, providing you with a way across. You glance back at the old man, still chopping and whistling away. Either he hasn't noticed you—which you highly doubt, given the amount of noise the tree made as it fell—or he is purposefully not showing any reaction. With no longer any need of it, you swing the axe once more, straight down this time, burying it in the remaining tree stump, and turn to balance your way across the makeshift bridge.

Reaching the other side and stepping carefully over the snapping branches, you crane up to once again pinpoint the shrine. It's still there, by now tantalisingly close—all you have to do is scale the cliff face and you'd be there.

Drawing a deep breath, you take a running start and leap onto the rock wall, toe- and fingertips stinging as they clamp down into the cracks for grip. You begin hauling yourself up, one lunge at a time, eyes trained on the glowing shrine.

You're barely halfway up, however, when your body starts to shake, your muscles fatigued. You can feel sweat dripping down your face and back—your nerve endings are screaming in needle-sharp pain. Determined, you reach up again for another handhold, and try to pull yourself up—but the strength in your arm cuts out and you slip, sliding a way down the cliff face, straining with all your might to keep your grip.

Breaths coming laboured, you look up once again to the shrine leering above you, taunting, and suddenly the rest of the cliff seems like a dozen miles. With your muscles starting to spasm, you know you can't make it all the way up, so you sigh, concede defeat and let yourself slide back down to the base. It looks like you will have to take the long way around.

You unhitch the Sheikah Slate and open the map once again, examining the topography—it seems the easiest access point to the mountains is a few paces almost directly east, so you clasp it to your hip again and make your way across the tree-trunk footbridge, shooting the still-chopping old man a withering glare. He doesn't acknowledge you, but you swear you could see the corner of his mouth twitch in a smile.

You head due east, almost hugging the base of the cliffs, dispatching a camp of bokoblins along the way and scavenging the cooked steak they had speared over the fire. Ripping into the meat immediately makes you feel the tiniest bit better about your failed escapade, if only for the renewed energy and the comfortable weight in your stomach it provides you.

You finally reach the access point to find it marked with a crumbling stone arch and guarded by another camp of bokoblins a few yards away. You elect to sneak past them and through the arch, stepping foot onto crisp, white snow that stretches out and up into the nearby mountains.

You're barely a few strides in when the sudden chill hits you quite abruptly and leaves you shivering. You can feel your muscles locking up, not dissimilar to your experience on the cliff face, and you hurriedly check your map—it's quite the trek to go for both shrines, so you will need some fortification. You sigh and turn back, walking back under the arch and breathing another sigh of relief when the warmer air envelopes you.

Looking around, you find a pair of conveniently-placed spicy pepper bushes growing right at the gate. What was written in that book again? "SPICY PEPPERS SIMMERED IN A POT WILL AWAKEN THEIR STRANGE HEAT-PRESERVING PROPERTIES. DEPENDING ON THE STRENGTH OF THE DISH, ONE COULD POTENTIALLY TRAVEL THROUGH THE NORTH-EASTERN SNOWFIELDS WITHOUT NEED OF PROTECTIVE CLOTHING." So. . . all you need to do is find a cooking pot? You pluck the peppers and head towards the shrieks of the bokoblins guarding the nearby campfire. As you approach through the trees, you find that miraculously, this camp seems to have foraged itself a decent-looking cooking pot. You unhitch your weapon.

A few flying bokoblins later, you have cleared the camp and claimed the pot for yourself, so you drop the peppers into the puddle of oil still bubbling at the bottom. It takes only a few minutes for the fruits to brown and wrinkle, and when they're ready you store them in a spare vial in your bag. Then you return to and walk for the third time through the gate.

Feeling the icy air bite at your skin, you take out a pepper and pop it into your mouth. The taste is sweet and there's a bite at your tongue, but as you chew and swallow you can feel a warmth blooming in your body, starting from your stomach and spreading outwards throughout your torso and into your extremities. A single snowflake lands on your arm and immediately melts. You crouch down and touch your hand to the snow beneath you, and you can barely feel it. The cold is no longer clawing at you, so you are free to move onwards.

Just to your right, almost hugging the base of the cliffs dividing the snowfield from the rest of the Plateau, you find the lower foundations of a wooden hut, long fallen, scattered with the remains of a once-comfortable outpost: strips of animal fur, a stack of wood, and an abandoned storage crate, all dusted with snow. The rusted hunk of a machine is perched right next to the ruin, spidery leg curled over one of the lower walls and clamped into the snow carpeting the floor. The sight gives you an incredibly eerie, foreboding feeling. You turn away.

The trek up the lower mountains takes you maybe an hour, continually checking your progress on the map, and the snow hugging onto your feet every time they sink in, sapping your energy little by little, and by the time you've reached the shrine atop the edge of the cliffs you can feel the chill beginning to settle in once more.

You decide to forgo a simmered pepper refill in favour of escaping into the respite of the insulated shrine, but before you touch the Sheikah Slate to the unlocking pedestal, you cast a glance down at the edge of the Plateau. You can see the old man's cabin below, and the clutch of trees, but the man himself is by now nowhere to be seen.

With the same setup as before, the Owa Daim Shrine grants you the Stasis rune: a yellow padlock icon flashing into the fourth of the six empty cells on the Slate.

Stasis
Stop the flow of time for an object.
Stops an object in time while storing its kinetic energy. The stored energy will act upon the object when the flow of time resumes. Making good use of the stored energy can move even the largest of objects.

The puzzles the shrine presents you with are pretty simple; you must freeze a turning cog in order to still a platform you may walk across, and you freeze a large ball rolling towards you down a slope. You find a Traveller's Shield in a chest (which you gladly equip), made of wood and animal hide, and you also find an Iron Sledgehammer resting against one of the shrine walls, which you take up for the next puzzle—to freeze a large ball blocking your way, strike it with the sledgehammer, and then unfreeze it, sending it shooting away and clearing your path. You decide to leave the sledgehammer behind and approach the monk shrine, receiving the spirit orb and being transported once again to the surface, where the unpleasant chill hits you immediately.

"Wow, pretty impressive, wise guy!"

That voice from before. You freeze, glancing around for the source of the voice, but find no one.

"Hehehe, you won't see me, silly. I'm in your head."

You shake your head to clear it and gulp another simmered pepper, fortifying yourself against the snow.

"Wow, you guys really are sensitive to the cold, aren't you? My Dad and I used to go walking in the mountains all the time. It's not even that cold up there!"

You wrinkle your nose. Just who is this nosy guy in your head?

You hear a soft laugh before the voice speaks again.

"Sorry, I guess I am being a bit nosy. But it's just been such a long time since I've been able to talk to anyone! It's nice to have another person around."

But what about that man on the Plateau?

The voice sighs.

"Yeah, well. . . uh, I can't really . . . talk with him. Not like I can talk with you. Well. . . talk at you. You don't really have much to say, do you?"

You find that a very strange question. What is there to say? Should you be saying something?

"I. . . I suppose not." The voice sounds disappointed. "I just thought—nevermind. Talking like this is just fine too, I guess. I've just. . . been lonely."

Lonely? Where is this person to be so lonely?

"Hah, that's a long story. I promise I'll tell you later. After you complete the shrines."

He knows about the shrines?

"Yeah, of course I do! I've been watching."

. . . And that's not creepy at all.

"Aw, it's not like that! I promise! I, uh. . . well, I can just hear some of the things that go through your mind. So it's kind of like a picture. I can almost see some of the stuff you're doing. And I know that m— that old man told you to go to the shrines."

Hmm. You're quite sure that's not normal. But you suppose your entire situation isn't very normal, either.

"Heh, you can say that again. Now, where's that next shrine? It shouldn't be too far off, right?"

He's right. You check your map, and. . . well, it looks to be about an hour, two hours off to the north-east.

"Aw, bluh! It's alright, I'm sure you'll make it there in no time! And I can be here to, uh . . . you know, keep you company. If you want it."

Now that you think about it, that might be kind of nice.

"Oh— really?! I mean— of course! I'll keep you company! Heheh. . . heh." That laugh sounded a little nervous, but you suppose this situation is novel to the both of you. You orient yourself towards the next shrine and begin trudging again through the thick snow. It's not long before you're slowing down again, a little out of breath.

"Wow, you really are unfit! That Sheikah tech really did a number on you, didn't it?"

You raise an eyebrow. Sheikah tech? Like. . . the Sheikah Slate? Or the shrines?

"Oh, I mean. . . the place you woke up in."

So he really was that same voice. He's been aware of you since you woke up.

"Yeah! Heheh. . . uh, yeah, it was kind of weird. I just got this feeling, and then. . . I guess I tried to reach out to you, and suddenly I could tell what you were thinking and know what you were experiencing."

So. . . he knows what happened to you? Why you woke up in that strange place?

The voice becomes a little strained.

"Well, uh, I mean. . . Yeah, but. . . Uh, I'll tell you later."

This guy in your head is very strange.

"Hey! You're one to talk! Didn't you try and eat a bokoblin horn yesterday?!"

. . . Oh. Of course. He saw that.

"Yeah, I did! Gross, dude!"

Without much means to defend yourself, you shrug it off. At least you didn't properly eat the thing.

"Just as well! Ewww, I can't even imagine what that thing would do to your stomach!"

And how would he know?

"Oh, c'mon! Even if I didn't used to cook with my Dad anyone could tell you it's a bad idea to eat monster parts. Ew!"

Hm, that's a fair point. You wonder what he used to cook with his Dad.

There's a lightness to his voice when he responds.

"Oh, all sorts of stuff! It was mostly baked goods—those were his favourite. We didn't get a lot of time to cook together because of how busy he was, but. . . it was still nice." He sighs. "I miss him."

You're sorry to hear that his dad isn't around anymore.

"Oh, it's okay. I—things. . . life happens. I guess. It's no big deal."

He says that, but the heaviness of his tone contrasts with his words. You think of something else to talk about.

Did he know before about ingredients with special properties? Like spicy peppers?

"Not much, actually! Um, we were pretty sheltered, so. . . we didn't know that much about the native vegetation. We just cooked what tasted good. But before I. . . Um, before I got to where I am now, I started noticing unusual things about certain ingredients in the wild. I didn't really have that much time to investigate them, though, or show them to Dad."

Well, you suppose he can investigate by looking over your shoulder when you cook next.

"Oh, really?! Dude, that would be great! Thank you!" You can almost hear him beaming. "Oh man, I'm sure you'll find so many cool things we can cook tog— I mean, that you can cook and try!"

You feel the tiniest smile quirk at the corner of your lip, before you remember something. He said he was sheltered right, wasn't there something about that in the old man's recipe book?

"Oh. . . uhh. . ."

Didn't the old man write that he used to cook with his son, too?

"Uh—"

And what was that son's name again? J something. . . Joseph? Joshua? Jooo. . .

"Uh, look up there!"

You look up to find a tall rocky outcrop before you, almost smack in the middle of your path. What about it?

"Um, uh— I mean, wouldn't it make a great vantage point? To look for the next shrine? And make sure you're going in the right direction?"

Huh, he's right about that. That's a very good idea.

He chuckles. "Heheh, well, thanks. Happy to help."

The outcrop proves to be rather easy to climb, provided its slopes aren't at all steep and there seems to be a makeshift trail snaking up to the summit. When you reach the top you're near blinded for a moment by the glow of a lantern—the old man.

"Oho ho!" the man chuckles, and bows slightly to you. "Sorry about that, young man. My eyesight isn't what it used to be. I need this lantern now to navigate in the dark."

The candlelight reflects off the shimmering frosted surface of a strange structure nearby, made completely out of stone. The centrepiece of the structure is a single large, tall stone standing on its end, kept in place by smaller squat stones around its base. It looks to be a marker of some sort. But what for?

"It's a grave." The voice sounds morose.

A grave? For who?

"Someone. . . important. I'll. . . tell you later."

You would like to push, but the voice sounds heavy, saddened, so you decide against it.

"The fierce cold atop these mountains can take quite a toll as the night sets in," says the old man from behind you, and you turn to face him. He smiles. "This may be the best place to get a full view of the entire Plateau, you know. Very useful if you're on the lookout for certain. . . structures."

You know what he's hinting at, but you leave your expression unchanged. He chuckles. "At any rate, you did well to make it this far without proper clothing. Why don't you take this warm doublet as a reward for your tenacity?"

He hands you a folded pullover made with sturdy, slightly itchy fabric, complete with sewn-on animal-hide gloves.

"I can see your cheeks growing pink, young man. Do take care to put it on before the effects of the peppers wear off."

You obey, pulling it on right over your threadbare shirt. It staves off the cold well; and you can feel your heat being retained underneath. You shoot him a questioning look, to which he just chuckles.

"How else would you have made it this far, in that poor clothing? Your type are not suited to the cold. You would have needed some form of protection."

There it is again: "your type". What does he mean?

"Have you found the remaining shrines?" he asks, smiling mysteriously from beneath his dark hood. You look out over the snowfields and immediately your eyes land on the final shrine, orange markings starkly contrasting against the blue-white snow. The old man follows your gaze and chuckles. "You best get a move on then. Linger too long in this cold and you may catch cold."

You nod at him, a gesture he returns before turning back to survey the Plateau below. While you're up here, you take out the Sheikah Slate and scan around for any more previously hidden towers or shrines from this vantage point.

You find another tower directly behind you, and you mark it before reclasping the Slate and staring down at yet another new biome far below you, below even the artificial walls of the isolated Plateau. This new environment is dry and desert-like, dotted with fat, water-hoarding trees, and protruding cliffs of red-brown rock.

"Isn't it incredible?" the voice tells you. "All these different biomes in the one kingdom! And the fact that they all exist so close to each other, but don't affect the surrounding temperatures and soil quality! Jade loved that kind of stuff. She and Roxy would argue about it though. Jade thought it probably had to do with magic. Roxy wouldn't listen to her about that, though—she's such a science nerd!"

Jade? Roxy? Who are they?

Another sigh. "Oh. . . they are. . . were. . . just old friends." A beat. "I miss them, too."

You sympathise with him. You can't imagine what it would feel like to lose all those important to you.

He laughs bitterly. "I'm sure."

There's something strange about his tone, something icy, almost sharp, but you decide not to press. Instead you reorient yourself, descend the rocky outcrop, and progress onwards towards the final shrine.

Slogging through snow, you have to fight through a flock of keese and a camp of bokoblins along the way. The voice in your head has gone strangely quiet.

It's a surprisingly long trek across the snowfields, because when you arrive at the next shrine the sun is just beginning to rise over the horizon. Feeling anticipatorily grateful for the warmth the rays will bring, you enter the Keh Namut Shrine, and obtain the final rune, symbolised by a snowflake symbol on the Sheikah Slate's rune menu.

Cryonis
Create a pillar of ice from a water surface.
Builds ice pillars that are very stable. These pillars can be used as stepping stones or as obstacles. Use Cryonis again on an ice pillar to break it.

Even with the addition of Cryonis, the last cell on the menu, however, remains stubbornly empty. You wonder if it may be a malfunction with the machine, or if there's another rune out there somewhere.

You progress through the shrine, predictably full of shallow pools of water for you to test out the new ability, and eventually you gain the spirit orb from the final monk, and then emerge into the cold air outside of the shrine on top of the mountain.

You hear a deep shout, and turn to find the old man gliding down towards you on the paraglider, presumably from the rocky outcrop from before. He touches down surprisingly gently on the snow before you, tucks away the paraglider, and faces you, beaming.

"Well done, young man! You've got them all!" He chuckles heartily. "Extraordinary!"

Your breath mists in front of you in the cold air. Strangely, you don't notice any mist lingering before his face.

He calms down before he fixes you with his gaze once again, this time startlingly serious. "That means it's finally time." His pale blue eyes shine in the light of the rising sun, clear and resolute. "Dave, it is finally time for me to tell you everything. But first. . ."

He turns and points towards the Great Plateau below.

"Imagine an X on your map, with the four shrines as the end points. Find the spot where those lines intersect. I shall wait for you there."

He turns back to you, and when he does, he begins to glow with a ghostly blue light.

"Do you understand?" he says, and his voice sounds faintly distant. "Where the two lines connecting the shrines would cross. There. . ." His eyes sparkle, and his voice takes on a dramatic tone. "I will. . . be waiting. . .!"

And then he dissipates in a cloud of blue flames.

It's all you can do but stare at where he once was, now an empty space, snow blinding under the rays of the rising sun.