Gargravarr
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Three days today. Again, you'll find out why below.
Day 7 The opening fly-over of the area just before the ship landed revealed the prescence of some Yellow Pikmin to me, but before I went looking for them I decided to scout the immediate area with Olimar. The Perplexing Pool consists of a central land mass with large pools of water on either side that are connected by a stream running along the top. The landing site is situated on a walled platform at the edge of the land mass with part of one of the pools behind it. I didn't get far with my scouting however, in fact I'd just left the platform, when the Ship pointed out the wild Yellows to me. They seemed to be watching from on top of a high branch (well, from Olimar's perspective) in the middle of a hollow stump. Further exploration showed me some winged creatures that emerge from the ground (Shearwigs) and an un-built bridge in one direction (the sticks were on the opposite side to me), and a longer path in the other direction right next to the connecting stream. This led me past some Yellow Wollywogs (one on the path and some others in the stream), a Burgeoning Spiderwort with red berries in the middle of the stream, some fast insects under leaves that ran away from me (Skitter Leafs), an electric fence on the opposite bank and a hole that the Ship said was making its sensors give off "foreboding signals", concluding that it was full of "wretched, nasty bugs". At the end of this path was a set of see-saw blocks, so I headed back to the landing site and took out 15 Purples & 50 Reds and headed out. I need to refine my strategy for taking on Wollywogs, because the one on the path managed to kill one of my reds in one of its leaps. Maybe next time I'll throw in the Purples first instead of trying to swarm it, although that won't help me much with the ones in the stream... Anyway, after getting my army (save Louie and two Purples for weight) past the see-saw blocks, I was immediately set upon by a Swooping Snitchbug, which hovers around and dives down to carry off some Pikmin. Now, I've heard that this nuisance doesn't actually kill the Pikmin it takes, but it could still be very annoying so I made sure to bring it down before it got too carried away (arf!). The path to the Yellow Onion was blocked off by a wall with poison spouts and a sleeping Fiery Bulblax (basically a black Bulborb that's on fire), so I sent Louie to get the Whites out while I killed the enemy. I was about to sent Olimar's forces around to start building the bridge but was distracted by a Fiery Blowhog and a nasty-looking mold-like growth on the ground, which the Ship claimed was "suffocating" other plant life beneath it, so I killed them both and set about building the bridge, leaving a pair of purple Spiderworts to grow where the ground mold had been. After the bridge had been finished and I'd beaten up the Shearwigs that were on the other side, I got the Whites and set them to work on the wall, while I had the other Pikmin harvest some purple berries. BTW, I was saving the corpses of all the enemies I'd killed so far so the Yellows could take them. Finally the wall was broken down and the poison spouts disabled so I could enter the stump area and whistle the Yellows down from their perch for a proper introduction, during which the example Pikmin sparked and the Ship said its static electricity sensors were reacting violently. Guess I've found a means of getting rid of electric fences. However, the wall and everything else had taken so long that I was forced to end the day with just a meager 14 Yellows, since there was no way I'd be able to get all those enemy carcasses to the Onion in time. *sigh* Still, at least they didn't all go to waste as some were close enough to the landing site that I was able to get some more Reds out of them. And from tomorrow onwards both Onions will be in the same place, so I won't have to choose between them because one's too far away.
Day Summary Treasure None Day Total: 0 pokos Overall Total: 3,225/10,000 pokos
Pikmin Red Pikmin Sprouted: 44 Killed: 1 Day Total: 43 Overall Total: 272
Purple Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Killed: 0 Day Total: 0 Overall Total: 33
White Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Killed: 0 Day Total: 0 Overall Total: 14
Yellow Pikmin Obtained/Sprouted: 14 Killed: 0 Day Total: 14 Overall Total: 14
Total Pikmin: 333 Total Deaths: 9
Day 8 This day is a serious contender for the title of least productive day in this playthrough. In hindsight it was probably a mistake to kill all those enemies yesterday, because as a result today the area was almost deserted save a few enemies that I can't even get to, like the Yellow Wollywogs in the stream. I even went all the way to where the Yellow Onion had been to see if there were any Pellet Posies there but no such luck, although I did see a treasure behind that electric fence on the opposite side of the stream. No idea how I'm going to be able to knock that down... And if either of my readers know, don't tell me. Anyway, I cracked some eggs open for some nectar to mature my Yellows and also got a free Bitter Spray, then headed over to the Spiderworts to harvest some more purple berries. Looking around the immediate area, I saw a treasure (Impediment Scourge, 50 pokos) up on a high stump so I threw some Yellows up to grab it while the other Pikmin were busy. On the opposite side of the Spiderworts was a large group of stone blocks and at the top of a particularly tall sloped one was another treasure, but when I finally got into the correct position to get the Yellows up there I discovered I was one Pikmin short, and since there was no way to get any other types up there I had no other option than to comb the whole area in the hope of finding an enemy I hadn't killed yet. Eventually I remembered the Skitter Leafs that I found yesterday but didn't fight, so I immediately killed them and spawned a couple more Yellows so I could finally get that treasure. Or at least I could if I'd been able to get any Yellows on top of that block before time ran out. Tomorrow I'm heading back to Awakening Wood to properly build up my Yellow forces.
Day Summary Treasure Impediment Scourge (bottle opener) - 50 Day Total: 50 pokos Overall Total: 3,275/10,000 pokos
Pikmin Red Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Killed: 0 Day Total: 0 Overall Total: 272
Purple Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Killed: 0 Day Total: 0 Overall Total: 33
White Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Killed: 0 Day Total: 0 Overall Total: 14
Yellow Pikmin Sprouted: 2 Killed: 0 Day Total: 2 Overall Total: 16
Total Pikmin: 335 Total Deaths: 9
Day 9 The first thing I did was take out 15 Purples and 40 Reds and kill all Sheargrubs and all three Bulborbs in the landing area. Then I put away all the Reds, took out all 16 Yellows and set about gathering up the corpses and harvesting the pellets, making sure to assign at least one Yellow to a Purple as for some reason the Purples kept trying to carry stuff to the Red Onion. All this brought my Yellow numbers up from 16 to 54. Next I left some Pikmin to pull up the grass for nectar while I took the others to destroy the ground mold that had grown over the two red Spiderworts. After it was cleared up, and I'd used the nectar to mature some of my new Yellows, I killed a couple of Cloaking Burrow-nits (just beyond the Spiderwort area and near the White Flower Garden) and Creeping Chrysanthemums (near the first Burrow-nit and where the poison wall had been) and sent their corpses back to the Yellow Onion. While this was happening I was finally able to get that bottle cap treasure (Hypnotic Platter, 100 pokos) on top of the high stump after throwing some Yellows up there. After maturing the Yellows with some nectar dropped by a Honeywisp (and killing some Whiskerpillars that had apparently wasted no time in attacking the Spiderworts after they'd just grown back), I decided to quickly head through the White Flower Garden again to get some more Whites, so I put away all the Yellows, took out all my Whites and enough Reds to bring my army up to 95 and headed in there. The journey was, thankfully, uneventful as a path around the side of the boss arena I hadn't noticed before meant I wouldn't have to fight the Burrowing Snagret again, so that was good to learn. I spent the last few hours of the day boosting my Yellow numbers a little more.
So yeah, I now have a proper Yellow force, I've doubled my number of Whites, I was finally able to get a treasure that had been irritating me whenever I passed it, and I learned that it's not too much trouble to get more White Pikmin if I need to. Tomorrow I'm heading back to the Perplexing Pool to get that treasure and explore the first cave.
Next time: Crawling through the Citadel of Spiders.
Day Summary Treasure Hypnotic Platter ("Vitamalz" bottle cap) - 100 Day Total: 100 pokos Overall Total: 3,375/10,000 pokos
Pikmin Red Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Converted: 15 Killed: 0 Day Total: -15 Overall Total: 257
Purple Pikmin Sprouted: 0 Killed: 0 Day Total: 0 Overall Total: 33
White Pikmin Sprouted: 15 Killed: 0 Day Total: 15 Overall Total: 29
Yellow Pikmin Sprouted: 95 Killed: 0 Day Total: 95 Overall Total: 111
Total Pikmin: 430 Total Deaths: 9
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