I picked up on the townsfolk talking about the crypt, but its a very weak hint for ‘you should go here first’, when there’s townfolk complaining about all sort of issues. I had loosely had the crypt in mind, as I was exploring, but I never found it before getting pulled forward by the Spark dropping into Septembersburg, and I just figured ‘if the game didn’t want me here, then it shouldn’t be possible to be here’. Which, I think is a natural assumption, considering how Zelda coded the game is visually and mechanically.

Its just, the game isn’t structurally a zelda game, so that was a bad assumption on my part. I just wish there was a bit more communication, that the game is structurally Elden Ring, not Oracle of Ages.