When you finally emerge from the corridor, you're near blinded by the bright light shining from above. Overwhelmed, you simply stand still for a moment until your eyes stop burning and you can actually see around you.

When your vision finally focusses, you decide to search around and get your bearings, so you approach the cliff edge in front of you. When you register just what you're seeing you stop dead in your tracks. The view is incredible.

The sky is blue and the sun warm and bright. Rich green forests sprawl far below, and where the forest ends in the distance you can just make out the spires of a castle reaching from mist. To the right of the castle and leagues further back, just a tiny silhouette against the horizon, you can make out what looks to be an enormous volcano, streaked with veins of lava and spewing a dark cloud into the sky.

You follow the distant sights further to the right: a little closer than the castle and volcano you see a grand mountain with a split right down the middle, and much closer than that, a huge chapel separated from you by what appears to be a sunken lake. Even closer, you can make out a rocky outcrop at the bottom of a grassy incline leading down from the clifftop you're standing on. There's a campfire crackling beneath. And then, finally, you notice an old man standing a few paces from the fire, his eyes on you. He leans on what seems to be a wooden staff affixed to the top with a dangling lantern. His stare remains a few moments longer before he turns and walks back to nestle by the campfire.

Curiosity sufficiently peaked, you turn to walk through the patch of trees along the clifftop, aiming for the incline leading down to the outcrop. You spy a simple branch on the ground and, feeling suddenly vulnerable, you pick it up and give it an investigatory swing. Even though it's a weak little thing, you find it's surprisingly well-balanced. Strapping it across your back with the leather hitch, you feel a little better. You're not sure why.

Moving forward, you again aim for the incline a few paces away but stop when something flashes in your periphery—blobs of orange, dotted around the bases of the nearby trees. You approach and pluck the thing, which frees very easily from the soft earth. It has a large round top and a pale stem beneath.

A mushroom, you remember. More specifically, a Hylian Shroom. Yes; you can eat these. You don't know where you got this knowledge from—you can't remember eating, or even holding, one before. Come to think of it, you can't remember anything before waking up in that strange room.

With a strange feeling that they might be useful later, you pluck a few more for good measure and tuck them into your pouch. You stand to resume walking, resolving not to stop again, when something else catches your eye.

There's something small moving about on the brown part of a tree—the tree trunk. You move closer to investigate but before you can get near it, whatever it is flies away. Luckily, you spot another on the next tree, identical to the first, and approach this one quietly and slowly. When you're within arms-reach, you snatch it and peer between your fingers to examine it.

While its body is nothing remarkable, a smooth brown that camouflages well with the tree bark, its head is blue and oddly-shaped. Yes, you remember: this is a Bladed Rhino Beetle. It's named as such because its horns are bladed and sharp, so it must be handled with care. Luckily, while digging around in your pouch for something suitable to contain it, you find a collection of stoppered bottles. You slip the beetle into one and stand, surveying your surroundings, but there seems to be nothing else of interest nearby, so you're free to emerge from the patch of trees and begin to descend the incline.

The ground beneath your feet is spattered with worn bricks. This place must have been a built-up area long ago, as the bricks are now cracked and faded, overtaken with grass and moss.

It takes you only a few seconds to reach the outcropping, as close as it is, but as you near you notice another tree growing next to it, this one with a different shape and different leaves from the ones before. It bears two small, red pieces of fruit, one of which you reach up to and pick.

Gazing at the fruit in your hands, you remember this is an apple. It has a sweet taste and affords a small burst of energy. You also seem to remember that while a common fruit that can grow at almost any altitude, they will not be found growing in the snow or the sand. You pocket the second one as well for good measure and finally approach the figure sitting beneath the outcropping.

The old man is sitting by the fire, staring into the dancing flames. As you move closer, you can feel the heat of the fire washing through your body, but when you look down you notice something resting beside the burning logs. It looks to be the same size and shape of the apples you just picked, but it has a strange colour. . .

It's warm when you kneel and take it into your hands.

"I BEG YOUR PARDON!" the old man suddenly cries, staring straight at you. "I do believe that is my baked apple! You can't just go about taking whatever you please!"

Seemingly more fog clears from your mind as you look back down at the thing. How could you not tell just by looking that it was another apple? Furthermore, you hadn't even considered cooking until now. How could you forget something as basic as that?

You hold onto the apple and gaze back at the old man steadily, waiting for another outburst, but to your mild surprise, he only laughs.

"Oho ho! Forgive me—I could not resist pulling your leg. Please help yourself! An apple and an open flame make for a succulent treat." He pauses for a moment, examining you from beneath his tattered hood. ". . . It is a bit strange to see another soul in these parts."

His voice is warm and deep—you peer closer, but still cannot see much of the man's face on account of the drooping hood. Who is this man, settled on the plains with now not a baked apple to his name?

He seems to guess your unspoken question because he chuckles and shakes his head. "I'll spare you my life story. I'm just an old fool who has lived here, alone, for quite some time now." Though you can't discern the colour on account of the shadows, the man's eyes seem to sparkle. "You are a different story, however. What brings a bright-eyed young man like you to a place like this?"

It hadn't occurred to you, but it seems that you are quite young. Younger than the man in front of you, at least. You search your brain for an answer but find none. You let your eyes flick to the old man, and then out to what you can see of the vast world beyond this temporary camp. You sweep past the sprawling forests and to the undulating hills and mountains beyond, reaching into the distance until they fade into shadows against the sky. Just where are you? Why don't you know?

"You're quite the reserved young man," the older man says, and follows the path of your gaze, before seemingly understanding and shifting to a more comfortable position. "We are on the Great Plateau. According to legend, this is the birthplace of the entire kingdom of Hyrule."

So you're in Hyrule. Why does that name sound so familiar? And why can't you recognise any of the landscape before you?

With some difficulty, the man hauls himself from the ground using his strange staff and turns away from the campfire, tilting the staff away to point at something in the distance. You follow the angle of the staff to the chapel you saw from the clifftop—the front tower and adjoining hall seem to be intact, but ruins kneel before it, broken half-pillars dotted about in the surrounding grass.

"That temple there. . . Long ago, it was the site of many sacred ceremonies. Ever since the decline of the kingdom one hundred years ago, it has sat abandoned, in a state of decay."

He turns to you, withdrawn. "Yet another forgotten entity." You can sense a sadness in his voice. "A mere ghost of its former self. . ."

With a heavy sigh, he ambles back to sit once again beside the crackling fire. You stare at him for a moment, taking in the way the line of his shoulders slump. He straightens noticeably when you draw closer, and without knowing quite what drives you to do so, you reach out and offer the baked apple in your hand to him. He laughs.

"Oho ho! You can keep that. For now, I'm just relaxing by the fireside. . . but I will have to cook myself another one at some point." He angles his head up to look at you, and this close, from the glint of the fire in his eyes, you can see they're a clear blue. He smiles kindly. "Simple foods such as apples are fine to eat raw, but roasting them on a fire makes them tastier and more nutritious. I shall be here for some time. . . please let me know if I may be of service."

You nod in thanks and step away, before you notice a long, sturdy stick behind him, leaning against the inner wall of the rocky outcrop. You approach and take it into your hands, feeling the weight of it.

Nothing seems to escape the old man's notice, because he chuckles again. "Well then, just help yourself to that torch there. And how, may I ask, are you planning to use it?"

A torch, of course. You stare directly at him, and then flick your gaze pointedly to the fire. The old man nods.

"I suppose it would be difficult trying to cook without a flame. Do be cautious with that around any dry grass, though, as it will easily catch fire."

You have a strange, nagging feeling. Why is this man of the plains so intent on sharing so much information with you? It is undoubtedly helpful, but you can't figure out why he could be chatting so amiably to a stranger.

"You know, there are plenty of monsters in this area. That torch could also make a good weapon, if need be," the old man continues, "But you could probably find something better. You can take my axe with you, if you please—assuming you can find it. It's a little difficult to handle at first, but as long as you grow accustomed to locking your sights on your opponents, you will quickly get used to it."

You give another nod and step out from beneath the outcropping, continuing down the path worn into the grass. Further along, you can see a long-handled axe embedded in a tree stump, which is undoubtedly the weapon the old man was talking about. You have almost reached it when you think you hear something.

"Dave. . ."

It's incredibly faint, and you stop, straining to hear.

"Dave."

It's stronger this time. You recognise it as the voice that woke you.

"Head for the point marked on the map in your Sheikah Slate."

At that moment, the slate buzzes against your hip, and you unclip it to see as a golden point flashes into existence over a black grid, a few dozen squares away from where it marks you as standing. You're assuming the black grid is the map the voice spoke of. It doesn't detail any of the surroundings like a map should, but it gives you an idea of the relative distance between you and the marker. You look up, studying the landscape, but can't see anything of note. The only clue is that the marker seems to be placed dead ahead of you.

Clipping the slate back onto its belt, you retrieve the Woodcutter's Axe from the stump and, gripping it with both hands, give a perfunctory swing. It's heavy and uneven, making it awkward and slow to handle like the old man said, but you hitch it to your back anyway. It's sure to provide more defence than the measly branch you picked up earlier.

No sooner has the axe settled into its latch that something shoots past your feet, and you turn to see it come to a stop in the middle of the beaten path—it's a brown lizard, unremarkable in every way but for the strange spikes collaring its head. Remembering the beetle from before, you crouch, hoping to cast less of a shadow, and creep towards it. You stop perhaps a foot or so away from the creature and tentatively reach out. Considering its previous speed, it's extremely slow to react, so you pluck it from the ground without a problem and bring it closer to examine it.

Staring into its beady eyes, it slowly comes back to you: this is a Hightail Lizard. You seem to remember that you can cook this creature—you're not sure what nutritional value it has, though, if any. You can't imagine a creature this slight would fill your stomach.

Having sealed the lizard in another jar, you continue down the path towards the marker, pocketing a couple of apples along the way. The growing weight of the satchel on your hip is strangely reassuring.

You continue on down the incline, snatching some apples from another tree on the way, and past a sunken set of ruins. Just beyond the edge of these ruins you spy a strange, orange biped patrolling the foot of a set of stairs that lead up another slope to the temple. You stop, reaching up to grasp the handle of the axe strapped to your back and you examine the thing from afar.

Suddenly, you hear a sound to your left and turn to find another orange creature, much closer to you. From here, you can see that it is short, with stubby legs, but with long, gangly arms, large ears, a snout, and glowing blue eyes. It snatches a tree branch from the ground nearby and rushes at you with a clicking growl.

You pull the axe from its hold and steady it with two hands, feeling reassured with its weight as you plant your feet and face the creature. You suddenly understand your feeling of vulnerability from earlier as you realise how much more comfortable you are with something in your hands, how familiar it feels, a sort of barrier between you and the world.

The creature is only a few feet away by this time, so you raise your arms and take a swing, hitting the thing dead-on and surprising a gravelly cry out of it. You step to the side, low, protecting your core, but the creature hits back much quicker than expected, and the force of the blow has you tipping back on the incline. You lose your footing and slip, rolling down the hill a couple of feet, axe clutched close to your chest, and when the roll finally slows you plant your hands on the ground and push yourself up, looking around for the creature, disoriented. It's right ahead of you, dancing mockingly, and you feel a sudden surge of indignance. You raise the axe to the side and run forward, bringing it around to smash into the creature—

It goes flying with a shriek, letting go of the tree branch as it arcs through the air and then impacting limply with the ground a few paces away before dissipating in a burst of green-black smoke. You see something lying in the grass from where it disappeared and approach, picking it up.

The strange, conical object in your hand is a Bokoblin Horn. It surely isn't edible, but you're sure it has a use for something, so you dig through your satchel for a drawstring leather pouch and drop it inside before retrieving the last item the bokoblin left in the grass. It's yellowed and worn—a fang from the monster, dulled through daily wear and tear, but still solid in your hand. When you go to tuck it into the pouch, you catch sight of the lizard in its stoppered bottle, and pause. There's something itching at the back of your memory, something trying to resurface, but you can't quite reach it. You decide to sit down and look through your inventory again later, once you've investigated the point marked on your map.

Crossing the worn path and sliding down into the sunken ruins, you decide to make a quick sweep through for anything useful, like another weapon. As you look around, you notice it's not much of a space; it could have been a moderately-sized room once, with a small altar at the back in front of a tall, arched glass window. The surrounding walls used to have windows too, but the glass is all shattered. Sunlight shines down on the bricks, uninhibited by the lack of a roof, sustaining a creeping moss growing over the bricks. You find nothing remarkable except two barrels in the corner, which you promptly crack open with a swing of your axe. You notice a slab of something sitting amongst the barrel debris and cautiously pick it up.

It's a seared steak—a hunk of meat cooked over an open flame, but from which animal, you can't tell. It's sure to provide more energy and nutrition than your currently pocketed apples, so you tuck it away for now. You wonder who could have sealed the meat so impractically in the barrel, with no way to retrieve it but to destroy the container.

Walking out through the crumbling doorway of the ruins, the bokoblin guarding the stairs comes into view again, and you're about to advance on it with its back turned, but then you notice a rusted hunk of ornate metal, coated in moss, sunken into the ground nearby. You dart behind it, avoiding the attention of the bokoblin, to examine it, and find something on the ground nearby, faintly glinting in the sunlight.

Plucking it from the clay, you remember that this is an Ancient Screw—you examine it but you can't determine exactly what it's made from. Looking back at the huge rusted machine before you, you wonder just how old it might be. The screw itself seems almost freshly rolled, as it doesn't show any signs of wear when you hold it up to the sun, its spirals as sharp and clean as the day they were cut.

Standing exposed like this has left you in full sight of the nearby bokoblin, who has just alerted you of its discovery with a surprised squawk. It's charging over to attack with some bulky weapon in hand, and as it does you can't help but notice the awkward, bumbling nature of its movement, arms held out like wings to keep its balance on stout legs.

You step out from behind the hunk of metal and unhitch your axe once again, aiming a full swing at the creature, and this time you defeat it rather quickly. When it dissolves into smoke, you get a chance to examine its dropped weapon.

It's only a crude club fashioned out of wood, but it's surprisingly heavy for a weapon of its size. You strap the club across your back with the axe and then scale the crumbling stone staircase to the ruins just before the temple, hoping to find a vantage point of some sort.

The walls of this once-building stand only at around your height, roof having fallen long ago. There's another bokoblin inside and you incapacitate the creature deftly, this time testing your new club, and as expected, it's much easier to handle than the awkward axe—the bokoblin evaporates after a few well-directed hits. You pick up the horn left behind and scour the ruins, finding nothing, so you check the direction of the point on your map and look out across the plain. You can see a wide, flat area ahead, and begin forward, cutting through the fallen walls of the ruins.

You've barely stepped foot on the grass "outside" when you're accosted by a blue blob of a thing, around knee height, staring dumbly up at you with two wide eyes. It's easy to dispatch, exploding with a wet squelch after a few hits and leaving behind little globules of blue matter.

You pick up the Chuchu Jelly, squishing it lightly in your hand. It seems to be unusable in this state, aside from being a source of moisture, if you're pressed. You slip it into your satchel with the others, into a jar where it (hopefully) won't explode, and make you way down through the ruins to the wide, flat area from before.

Upon reaching it, you surmise it may have used to be a wide plaza, brick foundations now overtaken with grass. A crumbling fountain crouches in the middle, dried up eons ago, half-buried under debris. The damage doesn't look like the result of neglect, as you're starting to realise about the rest of the ruins. They all seem to have been very deliberately targeted and destroyed.

You go down a wide walkway leading into more ruins, knee-height chunks of brick at this point, but you see something interesting not too far away—there seems to be something huge hidden under enormous chunks of rock, right about where the point on your map is. Starting forward, you spy two bokoblins surveilling the area on top of a small flat-topped hill nearby. Considering your recent experiences, you don't think they will just let you pass peacefully, so you approach them to fight.

When they see you, they both squawk and lift matching weapons to aim at you—these guys can wield bows? Running forward before they can aim properly, you take them out and examine one of the fallen bows.

The Boko Bows seem to be just tree branches tied with string. There's even a still-green leaf sprouting from one of them. You don't find it too hard to believe that the little monsters made these themselves, but you do wonder where they found the string.

There's also a bundle of something on the ground, fallen among the dropped monster parts. You gather the parts and inspect the bundle of arrows. In contrast to the bows, they seem rather sturdy; the wood of the shafts is smooth and slightly flexible, and you doubt the stiff feather fletching could have been crafted by bokoblins. They probably stole them, but from where, you have no idea.

Dropping the arrows in your satchel and hitching the bow to your back, you continue on to the strange pile of boulders. As you get closer, you can see that there's definitely something inside, but you can't make out what. Too much of it is obscured, but whatever it is looks to be around the size of a medium-sized tent.

When you duck inside, you find a smooth floor beneath you, adorned around the edges with strange, intricate carvings. Surprisingly, there's another pedestal inside, just like the one back in the room with the tub.

You approach it and it lights up in recognition, glowing orange.

"Place the Sheikah Slate in the pedestal."It's the same robotic voice as before. You follow the instructions and the screen of the slate lights up with the same amber colour before returning to its default blue-eye symbol.

"Sheikah Tower activated."

Where is that voice coming from? You lean forward to inspect the slate, and then the pedestal, but you can't find anything of note.

"Please watch for falling rocks."

The voice sounds again, and then the ground beneath you quakes violently and you overbalance, falling to your knees.

There's an earsplitting BOOM! as the rocks enshrouding the structure explode away and you have to brace yourself with your palms against the floor. As you look out, you notice that suddenly the green grass outside is growing further and further away. As you look around, you realise that it's you that's rising higher and higher, a prisoner on this strange platform structure.

Watching the environment around you growing smaller and smaller as you rise higher and higher into the sky, you can see other towers of the same design as yours rising from the ground in the distance, from forests, from mountains, from beyond the horizon—they're appearing everywhere. Their bodies glow with the same orange light as the pedestal in front of you.

Finally, the rumbling stops and you wait for a moment. Nothing happens; the air is still. You cautiously stand and look around you before there's a blue flash from the tower's body below. You notice three evenly-spaced accent points in the floor of the platform and edge over to one of them to find that the body of the tower now glows that alien blue.

"Distilling local information. . ."

The familiar robotic voice comes again from the pedestal, and you look around to see a huge triangular stone hanging from the tower's ceiling above the pedestal. As you watch, lines of blue, rune-like text run down the stone, like rivulets of water down a window pane. They run down into a familiar eye symbol at the tip of the stone, and as the eye lights up, a single blue teardrop forms beneath and then drips down, splashing into the pedestal, washing it aglow with the same blue light as the tower.

The slate's screen buzzes on as you watch, the middle section of the empty black grid-map lights up, colouring with browns and blues, and you find yourself gazing at what very much now looks like a real paper map, shading the dips and rises of the terrain, dotted with trees and speckled with bodies of water.

The golden marker that indicates your position is placed over the top of a cyan tower symbol in the top right of the newly-restored map. When selected, it's labelled as the Great Plateau Tower. You can see another cyan symbol in the middle of the map, atop what looks like a hill or a small mountain. It looks like a rounded gravestone, labelled the Shrine of Resurrection. You wonder if this symbol depicts the tomb-like structure you awoke in earlier. Committing the layout of the map to memory, you extract the slate from its seat on the pedestal and clasp it back onto your belt.

"Remember. . ."

. . .There's that voice again.

"Try. . . Try to remember. . ."

You follow the direction of the voice with your eyes and you land on the distant spires of the castle you saw from the entrance of the tomb. A golden pinprick of light is glowing from the very centre of it, calling for your attention.

"You've been asleep for the past one hundred years."

You feel a pang of visceral shock. No—surely not. No one can sleep that long, can they? Cautiously you approach the edge of the tower to squint at the light as it grows brighter, the voice louder.

"Lord English. . ."

A roiling mass of black clouds, streaked through with acid-green veins, rise around the castle.

"When he regains his true power, he will stop at nothing to rewrite this reality."

Some of the clouds form into a giant mass, easily half as big as the castle itself, to circle around the castle's highest spire. The mass has horns and beady, glowing yellow eyes.

It opens its jaws to roar as it passes behind the tower, and you can feel the quake from where you stand.

". . .Which would mean the death of this reality."

As far away from the castle as you are, you can still feel the imminent threat. The death. . . of this reality?

"Please hurry, Dave."

The stormclouds grow thicker around the castle, drowning out the golden light, and you catch one last thing before the voice fades:

"I'm counting on you."

Your mind goes quiet, though the stormclouds around the castle remain. The Sheikah Slate buzzes against your hip—you unclasp it to view the quest log Follow the Sheikah Slate and find it flashing, so you mark it as complete.

Still standing on the edge of the platform, you look down to the ground (seemingly miles away) and see a strange, hunched structure not too far away, base covered in snaking orange patterns, like veins of magma.

You look back down at the slate to see if anything has changed on the map, but it still looks the same. There is, however, a small symbol at the bottom of the map that looks like a magnifying glass. Following intuition, you tap it, and a new image flashes up on screen—you are looking at an extremely magnified view of the layer of dust on the tower floor, and as you lift the slate, the view accommodates, following your direction over the rim of the tower and presenting you with a much clearer and closer view of the hunched structure. You can see it has a small dark entryway at the front and a short raised platform leading up to the entrance.

As you focus the slate on the structure, your thumb slips and you accidentally press a red symbol at the bottom of the screen, which projects a rising red beam onto the structure onscreen. The representative red symbol appears on the miniature map in the corner of the screen, and you return to the full version of the map. Playing around with the functions, you find you have the option to replace the symbol with a customised pin to mark points of interest on the map. You choose the star symbol and clasp the slate back onto your belt.

Now to get down. . .

Looking around, you find there's ledges dotted down the length of the tower, spiralling like vines and spaced close together, making a very convenient path down the tower. You drop down through one of the holes in the platform floor and onto the top-most ledge and hop your way down.

With knees aching in protest, you finally hop off the last ledge and onto the hard light ground at the base of the tower. A shout, and you turn to a bizarre sight: the old man from before, flying down from the sky, holding a wing-like contraption above his head.

The man lands gracefully a few feet from you, hurriedly folding the thing away and seemingly manifesting his staff out of nowhere to steady himself against. The lantern hanging from the handle clinks against the shaft, dark without a flame. How did he carry that staff through the air without you noticing?

"My, my. . . It would seem we have quite the enigma here," the man says, shooting you a sly smile. You don't know if you trust that smile.

"This tower and others just like it have erupted across the land, one after another. It is almost as though . . . a long-dormant power has awoken quite suddenly."

His eyes shift from you to the tower behind you, travelling up the length of the shaft, squinting into the sun.

"If you do not mind me asking. . . Did anything . . . odd occur while you were atop that tower?"

You turn to follow his line of sight up the tower—it looks much taller from down here. You wonder how you would be able to climb such a structure without the ledges.

". . . Did you hear a voice, perhaps?"

You look back at the old man, surprised. He only chuckles.

"I have my ways. I'm judging from that reaction that it's a yes. Did you happen to recognise this mysterious voice?"

You pause for a moment, considering, before shaking your head. Of course you didn't recognise the strange voice—but you're not sure how far you can trust this stranger. Especially with his uncanny ability to seemingly read your mind.

"I see. . . Well, that is unfortunate."

Does he sound. . . disappointed? You quirk an eyebrow at him, but he misses it, already turning to point at the castle with his staff.

"I assume you caught sight of that atrocity enshrouding the castle."

You look out across the plains, at the looming shadow of the castle and the mist surrounding it, remember the way it smothered that golden light. You feel something clench in your chest.

"That is Lord English. One hundred years ago, that. . . vile entity brought the kingdom of Hyrule to ruin."

Though his tone remains stable, there's something barely restrained you can hear there. Anger? Resentment?

"It appeared suddenly and destroyed everything in its path. . . So many innocent lives were lost in its wake."

You think about the crumbling ruins, the overgrown bricks of the plaza, the hunched figure of the destroyed fountain.

"For a century, the very symbol of our kingdom, Hyrule Castle, has managed to contain that evil—but just barely. There it festers, building its strength for the moment it will unleash its blight upon the land once again."

The old man sighs heavily behind you, and you turn to look at him. "It would appear that moment is fast approaching. . ."

His eyes flick from the castle in the distance back to you, shining with something you can't quite make out.

"I must ask you, young man. . . Do you intend to make your way to the castle?"

You don't reply, just return his gaze steadily. You think about it. Though it spikes a deep-seated dread in you, you can feel yourself being drawn to the castle. Or, more specifically, to that golden light. To that voice.

"I can see you're thinking about it," the man muses, and gestures with his staff. "Here, on this isolated plateau, we are surrounded on all sides by steep cliffs, with no way down. If you were to try to jump off, well . . . no death could be more certain. Or more foolish."

He chuckles. "Of course, if you had a paraglider like mine, that would be quite another story."

Paraglider? Is that the contraption he glided down on?

He looks at you and laughs. "Oho! Piqued your interest, have I? Yes, I didn't come soaring down here on my own feathery wings, you know!"

He smooths his unrumpled coat and fixes his determined gaze on you. "Worry not—I will happily agree to give you my paraglider. But not for nothing."

He's wearing a mischievous smirk, a playful glint in his eyes. "Let's see now. . . How about I trade it for a bit of treasure that slumbers nearby?"