8/5 Update - The Dying World

The Dying World.wmv  

Synopsis

Immediately upon entering the frozen tundra it becomes obvious that something is clearly amiss - the game world itself seems to be destabilizing. Rocks, trees, and objects of all kinds are suspended in mid-air and bizarre warnings are littered throughout the snowy landscape to stay away. Unable to find any inhabitants, Sarah ventures to the Goron Village and encounters only one NPC from the original game - the Owl. Speaking cryptically, it mentions that while this world is doomed and breaking apart, it is still possible to follow the game's original logic to progress. With that, Sarah obtains the Lens of Truth and goes to follow Darmani's ghost - attempting to mirror the progression of the original game. 

After chasing down the ghost at the top of the Mountain Village, Sarah finds him to be extremely hostile - nothing like the original character was in Majora's Mask. Although refusing to divulge his identity, it becomes obvious to Sarah that he's either had his memories already restored by some other means or that he never lost them in the first place - he definitely is another soul that was digitized. He seems to think that Sarah is solely responsible for the collapse of his world and mistakes her for someone else as he tries to guess her real identity. He laments that not even escaping into "that mirror world" will be able to save them from this infection, as apparently that world is beginning to break apart too. 

Even more curious, "Darmani" mentions that someone else had already visited him today but refused to divulge any details about their encounter. This solidifies Circle's earlier fears that someone else is not only following them but independently navigating this world just as Sarah is. Adamantly refusing to help Sarah for the upcoming battle ahead, the ghost abruptly disappears again, leaving our hero to snoop around the graveyard to see if she can find anything of note. Fortunately - just as the Owl predicted - it wasn't a complete dead end; Sarah manages to uncover a chest containing additional items that allow her to progress outside.

Navigating the floating platforms, she makes her way to find the second Moon Child - the one she originally encountered at Romani Ranch - waiting for her. Upon talking to him, she is transported to a modified arena in order to do battle with the mechanical stampeding monster Goht. The battle begins with Rosa reinforcing Sarah's health as she did before in Clock Town, but immediately it's apparent that this version of Goht is much harder than the original game's. It would seem that the Moon Child had lured her here to trap her - without the right items to compete with the monster's speed (and having to contend with additional enemies), Sarah begins to be overwhelmed.

Rosa uses the last of her strength to reinvigorate Sarah, only able to give her a single heart back. Utilizing the bombs she acquired from the Goron Graveyard earlier in the video, Sarah manages to trick Goht into charging her as her back is turned. She delivers a killing blow to the beast and is transported to the same blank world that we saw with the first Moon Child in The Moon Children.wmv. There, she is chastised by the second child as he tells her "to go ahead and consume him too", referring to Sarah as a monster before he disappears into the ether. Back in the real world, Sarah remains the last one standing on the floating platform and can do little else but process everything as the clock ticks down to the Night of the Second Day - with only 36 hours remaining. With no choice but to press onward her next destination is Great Bay.

Patreon Rewards

They are starting to go out! They won't all come at once, but keep your eyes peeled in the future. Some of you familiar with the community might have noticed that last week CircleHunter - creator of the Jadusable Wiki (which is an amazing repository of information about the ARG dating all the way back to 2010) - has been canonized in the form of Sarah's fairy that follows her around. He inhabits the body of Tatl in this world, and with the Pendant of Memories that Sarah holds, he has "awakened" from his NPC state and has called himself Circle. 

In the interest of full disclosure this was an exceptionally special role that took into account the amount of time and investment CircleHunter and Ryan have been made in helping the community over the years and their patron tier, so I would not expect every high tier of patronage to receive the same level of "character tier" - so to speak - but this hopefully will start to give you guys some ideas of what to expect for patron rewards being implemented in the following months.  They will be in a manner that's befitting to the lore, but not so much that it takes you out of the story and it just becomes full of on pandering. As I have stated numerous times in the past, I am very conscientious of the finances of my patrons here - especially given current world events - so I want to make sure that is clear.   

Also, as an important note - Circle, Ryan, or anyone else included in the game does not have any 'insider info' of the story or has any special knowledge or hints of what to do/where to go.

Behind the Scenes 

Based on the choices made so far, and the observations of people theorizing in Discord you can almost assuredly know that the story will continue through August into September, as no "wrong" choices have been made so far. There is a chance this may not happen considering the direction the next poll goes into, but this community has time and time again proven itself to be incredibly astute and observant. For example, this was a nice catch that I wasn't expecting too many people to pick up on in the last video (The Happy Mask Salesman.wmv):

There are other little small details like this hidden throughout these videos that give hints and foreshadow future events, so it's always a good idea to dig a little deeper if you think something is a little off about a certain scene (or video).

Next weekend is my birthday - and with this Sunday (the 9th)'s upcoming cliff hanger and resulting poll I will be taking that following weekend off. Between this video being the longest in length (25+ minutes), it also took me the many long hours and late nights to script, program, film, and put together - the time investment it takes to create some of this stuff is pretty wild. While there is a ton of documentation on Ocarina of Time programming, there is not as much on Majora's Mask (which on a personal note is peculiar considering how much overlap these games have) so some of this stuff I'm having to do completely on my own.

From here on in, things are only going to get crazier so I need a bit to recharge myself and get ahead of the workload before continuing. Right now these past four updates have been worked on throughout the week and completed on the same day they premiere, and I'd like to use this time to break that pattern in order to get a healthier work schedule and get out a little ahead of the workload so they aren't all down to the wire. So to reiterate after the 9th there will be a week off, and you can expect the story to resume on the Sunday after that.

In Closing

The reaction video to The Dying World will go up for patrons (of any tier) tomorrow, and will be released to the public on Friday. This one was a little delayed because my own internet went out during recording, so I had to reach out to the community for the parts that I missed. Thank you to all of the people who reached out to help once my internet went out - look for your names in the reaction video description. 

As always if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me on Twitter.

Next Chapter: The Predecessor 

Previous Chapter:  The Happy Mask Salesman