Give the Lady What She Wants

7/14

In an effort to get the Commerson’s Dolphin in the Cavern of the Gods to be my new partner, I looked carefully through Nancy’s catalog for two things that might be symbols of protection. It wasn’t easy—I wanted to find just the right thing for my lady. I finally settled on a charm and an amulet, and bought them with Pelagos I’d been saving from my little part-time job in the islands. Then I flew halfway across the world back to Zahhab, found the Echoing Terrace, entered the Stone Cavern, up the stairs up the Pillars of Light into the Celestial Mausoleum, to the god’s golden chamber to lay the symbols of protection lo! at my lady’s feet…

And now she wants something else.

Poof! go all my chivalrous notions. Oh, I can see where this is going—I’ve been there before. If I bring her what she wants now, next she’ll want something more. Guys: Women—amiright?!

So rather than use my frequent flyer miles going back and forth to Nineball Island with giftboxes on my knees, I decide to buy everything from Nancy that comes with a bow on it (after all, it’s not like I need that money for anything now). Then I return to the Cavern with the whole papa’s brand new bag. I gave her everything I had—it took a few minutes of automated demands and exchanges, during which I got up and got a beer from the fridge. Finally, she was satisfied enough to allow me to be her partner. When it came time to name her, I was tempted to call her something like “Miss Fussy,” but, perhaps softened by the grace of our friendship dance, I decided to call her Kee Kyu.

Dolphins Can’t Talk!!

7/13

We’re back again at the Cavern of the Gods, and this time we’re in it for the loot. First though, I stop by Mushroom Rock to get a good picture of Big Boeing the whale shark, at the request of mystery man ML. Then we turn on the mulitsensor and pick up everything we find (except the Pacifica Treasure in the Celestial Mausoleum—that’s off limits). There’s a lot to pick up: nearly every room in the temple has salvageable material in it, many yielding lucretive lightning bolts. The bag fills up super fast.

Then in the Celestial Mausoleum, something weird happens. One of the Commerson’s dolphins swims right up to me and starts shouting,  “Kee kyee kyee! Kyu! Kyu! You must make an offering to the lady! She requires two symbols of protection!”

"Kee! Kyee! Kyu!! Kyu!!!

Jean-Eric is flabbergasted by this, and recalls us back to the boat straightaway. In the pilothouse, he’s throwing his hands up and shaking his head in disbelief. “It’s impossible! Dolphins can’t talk! I mean, you’re a trustworthy fellow and all; I believe you, but…you must be crazy!”

“But boss,” Hayako puts in, “we all heard the voice on the transmitter. It’s got to be true!”

“And beside,” I wish I could say, “You believed in singing dragons, and moving islands, and magic balms and all kinds of other nonsense—why not talking dolphins?”

More hand throwing and head shaking.

“Hrmmm…I-I…just don’t know! Let’s all go back to Nineball Island and talk this out.”

Okay. Back on the island, another confab around the table.

“Two symbols of protection, huh? What could that mean? Well…let’s see what Nancy’s got.”

So the upshot of all this overheated drama is that we’ve got another animal companion to recruit, and it involves buying those Christmas gift boxes Nancy’s got in her catalog.

Meanwhile, our treasure haul was enormous, including an orichalcum ingot worth 13,000 P and a flask of Amrita ointment worth 11,000. Orichalcum, as  you armchair Platonists might know, is the mythical metal found only in the Lost Continent of Atlantis. Amrita ointment conveys immortality on the applicator.

In other news, ML was happy to get his whale photo, and in appreciation, gave us a new photography gizmo—the ability to develop pictures in Black and White! Because as everybody knows, underwater photography is much better in shades of grey.

What a weird day in EO!

1 Million Pelagos!!

7/2

I made it! Monaymonaymonay! One million pelagos, baby!!! For a few seconds there, I was a millionaire. And the best thing was, it was those cheapskates at the aquarium that put me over!

First things first—I returned fr0m a long vacation in the Southwest and needed a few days to get settled back home. The first thing I wanted to do when I got back to Nineball Island was paddle around Gatama Atoll awhile saying hello to some old friends. Then I had to finish recruiting Violet, the Pacific white-sided dolphin. I really wish there was another way to get to the Deep Hole, because I’m sick of crawling through the Kelp Tunnel—three weeks off did nothing to change that. It took two more dives for Jean-Eric to break his silence and announce that Violet was a companion. We had a very nice play date together, then I brought her back to her new home in Nineball Lagoon.

Next I took a nattily-dressed fellow named Matthew down to the Zahhab Region Depths so he could see popeyed grenadiers. These are especially good tour fish, because they glow, and as you know, when it comes to client payoffs, glow means dough. We toured the depths, did some salvaging, spotted the oarfish and the giant squid, swam all the way back to the surface and topped it off with a grey whale ride for dessert. Matthew paid out 3956  P for the tour. The salvage yield was poor, but it still brought me within a few thousand pelagos of the million.

That was enough for me to call it a night, but over the vacation, the fam and I visited a nice little aquarium at the Albuquerque Zoo, and I wanted to compare it briefly to EO’s. Really, the biggest drawback of the Tokyo Aquarium is that the main tank is far too big. There’s so much room, even with a couple of fully grown whales in it, that it seems stark and uninteresting. And there isn’t enough junk on the bottom—fake coral, rocks, pirate skeletons, to liven it up or make it look natural. The fish seem lost and depressed, and I can’t blame them. Honestly, when I have  ‘real’ oceans to swim in, why would I want to waste my time in what amounts to a city-block-sized holding tank?

Well, the word from the visitors wasn’t very positive either, as Hayako wearily informed me. On the other hand, receipts were steady if not spectacular, and so far no one had taken to relieving themselves in the tanks or dropping fishhooks over the sides, so so what? I was about to breeze out the door again when Hayako reminded me that I got paid for this gig, whether I put in any work or not. She presented me with a grudge-check for 2,400 P and with a tip of the hat and a smirk I was gone.

Back on Nineball Island, Jean-Eric immediately comes up to compliment me on my money management skillls. He wishes Oceana could be so frugal, spending all her dough on sea pig purses and fancy fins and whatnot. While I’m expecting this to lead to a not-so-subtle hint that she needs a man to help keep her in line, he suprises me by saying that we’ve got a big salvage job waiting for us…in the Cavern of the Gods!

I guess the paycheck from the aquarium put me just over the 1 million pelago mark—the irony! Oh, and we get a 50% discount from somebody for some reason, so that 1 million pelagos? Didn’t need it—we can keep 500,000 of it. The Cavern of the Gods is open whenever we want to return to it.

And that was that. No fireworks. No streamers. No cakes or balloons. Just another job waiting.

Time to get back to work.

Terra Incognita

5/15

Cortica River—Today I got a salvage request for the Medieval Staff, and what do you know, it’s been located within that unexplored region of the Cortica River. Now I’ve got the perfect excuse to recruit an Amazon River dolphin and take a peak at the new world. We go immediately to the river, but as usual in this game, there are some conditions that must be met. First, I have to bring a female dolphin partner with me. I’d been randomly assigning male or female names to my dolphins without considering the gender (monstrous parenting, that), but helpfully Jean-Eric reminds me that Pinky Tuscadero is indeed a female and can accompany me. Now that I’ve got Pinky, we head up King Amaru’s canal into the courtyard of the Twilight Temple, where I see a pink dolphin standing out from the rest. Jean-Eric informs me that I’ve got to approach the dolphin on Pinky’s back. I look for my Pinky, but my wingman’s nowhere to be found. I have to retreat back down the canal to find her lollygagging at the entrance. Meanwhile, J-E is yelling in my head that I need my partner, need my partner! Alright, I’ve got my partner and ride her into the courtyard, now what? We have to chase the river dolphin while she and Pinky get acquainted. Basically, I have to keep her in my line of sight, but if we lose her, J-E helpfully tells us when we’re getting closer. This goes on for several head-spinning minutes until Pinky and the dolphin are completely simpatico, after which I’m introduced as a really cool friend.  We dance, and without much thought, I name her Dora.

Dora, the Explorer

Now that she’s on the team, it’s time to enlist her help clearing that dam. After we clear it, I take a reflective moment before breaching the threshold. 

This is it—weeks of waiting and hard work have led to this day, and I’m finally going to see this final, completely new region of the Endless Ocean. I wonder, did Cortez feel this way, gaining at last the peak in Darien from which his eyes would behold the limitless Pacific for the first time? Resolutely, I press through, the gap widening around me to reveal…

Queen Lake

Eh, not much. Queen Lake, so it’s called, is basically a murky brown watering hole. Its sole inhabitants are some indolent manatees mindlessly grazing on hydrilla near the surface. Aside from the Medieval Staff, there is no limitless treasure, no sunken ruins. As I leave, I notice a few tambaqui that weren’t there before, so there’s that. Maybe by removing an obstacle, Dora and I have invited in a new community of fish. This at least will make it worth visiting in the future. Until then, I guess you can call me disappointed.  

Will the True False Killer Whale Please Stand Up?

5/11

Valka Castle—I returned to the castle with Oceana to search for the false killer whale with the ‘x’ on his head. Stubbornly, I once again tried to find it in the ballroom, without any luck. Back to Nineball Island to read that clue again: It only says it’s in Valka Castle. I keep thinking that the whale in the ballroom will transform into the one we want, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. There’s another false killer whale in Valka Castle, and we’re going to have to look all over for it.

Fortunately, on our next visit, we find its silhouette circling at the top of the Spiral Tower. It’s a cagey bugger, though—as we approach, it runs off to the Collapsed Gallery. Just when we think we’ve got it cornered, it sprints past us into the castle. 

Jean-Eric tells us it went north, but that could be anywhere. We swim up the hall to rooms near the Treasure Vault, searching from the ceiling to the floorboads, chasing after every large shadow. Then to the Kings’s Chamber, then down the Underwater Gallery all the way east to the compartment behind the ballroom before we double back in confusion.

Confound it, where are you?!

Turns out we went too far north—we passed right by it in the Armory. When we suprise it, it takes off again. And again. And once more. By now I’m getting seasick from all the turning and looking up and down (this is not a good time to have the 1st person view on). I consider calling off the search. Finally, we chase it into the ballroom, where Jean-Eric tells me I’ve got to tase it. The problem is now there are two false killer whales—which one do we zap? It’s that classic conundrum from countless sci fi episodes.

"Shoot him, he's the imposter!" "No---shoot him!"

I decide to hedge my bets and zap them both. This calms down the smaller of the two whales, which bows to reveal the ‘x’ mark on his head. I name him Felix, because he’s black and he’s full of tricks. We dance a long pas de deaux in the ballroom, very special.

Felix

Back at Nineball Island, we learn through Finley that, because the FKWs disrupted the local fishing grounds, they were hunted nearly to extinction. Felix narrowly escaped from a seine net—that must be what left the mark on his head. Another reason to call him Felix: He’s lucky to be alive. After Finley confirms he’s in good condition, he sits down to tell me something. I must fulfill his dream, he says. “You must befriend the whales and dolphins of the world!”  Specifically, there are 11 whales and dolphins in all I’m supposed to befriend. I’ve got six so far, five to go. Mr. Finley sir, I’m honored, truly.

However, in all honesty, the only one I’m interested in is the Amazon River dolphin, who I’m hoping can help me break through that roadblock on the Cortica River. Of course, Finely doesn’t know this. He exits the stage, confident he’s just passed the trident to the next King of the Seven Seas.

Finley’s World

Raffi

5/9

Nineball Island—I’m beginning to feel a little sorry for Finley. Sure, it was fine when I was making fun of him, but now everybody’s in on the act. As I was talking to Hayako this morning, she leaned forward conspiratorially and said, “Do you think Finley is…” What? Gay? Cute? Presbyterian? But before she could finish, he showed up. When he sat down with us to talk with us about Raffi, Oceana said, right to his face, “I don’t like you, but…” But how do you really feel? I’ve heard Jean-Eric grumble about him, and I’m sure GG if he cared would have something to say. If we held a seance with Matthias and Finley’s name came up, his spirit would groan, “Oh, not THAT guy!”

Nobody gives him any respect. Respect he’s probably due.

Sure, he lacks in social skills what he doesn’t lack in self-confidence, and he needs to clean the crumbs out of his three-day growth of beard, but maybe he’s just one of those dudes who gets along better with animals than he does with people. I know some people like that myself, and in real life they don’t do cool things like give you tips about where you can find  dolphin friends—lucretive ones, at that. You got to give him his due—he blazed a path in EO  long before we even preordered Blue World, and he’s got his imprint on odontoceti in every region of the game. It’s Finley’s world, we just play in it.

So no more teasing Finley—he’s…tolerable in small doses in my book.

Anyway, Finley was here to tell us about a false killer whale in Valka Castle.  We’d know him by an ‘x’-shaped mark on his head. There’s already a f.k.w in the Castle, in the Mermaid’s Ballroom, but I never noticed the mark before. After he left, I picked up a tour out to the castle, hoping to find and befriend it. “Chloe”, alias for a certain avant-garde pop diva seeking to escape the pressures of fame (and get costume ideas) wants to see a sea robin. Nothing simpler—you trip right over them as you enter the castle.

We wind our way to the Mermaid’s Ballroom, but by now I should know that you can’t complete a quest while you’ve got a client in tow—the ‘x’ on the whale’s melon won’t show, and we have to content ourselves with feeding and pulsing fish and treasure diving. Chloe went “gaga” over the glowing sea slugs (look for her to be wearing one on her face soon), and we stuffed the bag with loot. We also discovered a mauve stinger and the weirdly poised largehead hairnail, an eel that floats vertically with its head pointed to the chandeliers. I made sure I showed her the window where Thanatos cruises by, eyeing us hungrily.

I'll be luuurking...for youuu...

Back at Nineball Island, “Chloe” paid me 5308 P for a 1500-P tour. She has to shock people, even when she’s on vacation. The salvage tally was also massive. I’d read on one of the message boards that you could pull up 25,000 pelagos on each visit to Valka Castle. That didn’t sound right to me, but sure enough I made over 20,000 with only 15 items in my bag. With GG I would have easily cleared 25 grand.   

An Expotition to the North Pole

5/6

North Canada Coast—We fled to Canada to find Finley’s beluga* and stayed awhile.

We found our pod of belugas under Ice Hole B4. We were looking for one with a spot pattern in the shape of a flower—easier said than done, as there are a lot of belugas, they move around very quickly, and the markings we’re looking for don’t exactly leap out at you. It’s a bit like the quest for the red-tusked narwhal—it takes sharp eyes and a quick clicker-finger to catch the right one. Eventually, I latched on to him and, using the whistle, engaged in a duet. Considering his gift for song and, well, the fact that he’s a beluga, I can’t think of a better name for him than Raffi, after the kid’s folk singer whose hit  “Baby Beluga” was in very heavy rotation in our house when my son was a toddler.

Bay-bee be-loo-ga! Bay-bee be-loo-ga!

After bringing Raffi into the fold, Hayako and I continued to investigate the other ice holes. Looking at the Marine Encyclopedia the other day, I noted that a large number of the undiscovered species in the book were located in the Arctic, so I thought this would be a good time to get familiar with a region I don’t visit very often. We dive at sunset.

At Hole D1,2 we found our narwhals again, but the Greenland shark who usually harrasses us here was hanging back. Once we got north of the hole, he was up to his old tricks, charging us, running away and circling a few minutes before making another charge. There are more Greenlanders in the open range between holes along the northern border of the map, in C1, A1 and A2. Unlike the great whites, they’re solitary nomads. I guess I need to draw up another Know Thine Enemy for Greenland sharks.

Greenland sharks are solitary nomads

Topside at Hole D1,2 we find a suprise—sea otters diligently dining on their tummy-tables.

On the rim of Hole A1 we find  Atlantic spiny lumpsuckers, which I wasn’t able to find on one of my recent photo requests. Why anyone would want a photo of one of these things is beyond me—they look just like—well, look at them:

Atlantic spiny lumpsuckers

At Hole AB2 we found the legendary Ice Cupid—a kind of large sea angel, which loads an unsettling cut-scene where Jean-Eric tells me the Ice Cupid is a love charm and did I know that Oceana reallly looks up to me (wink-wink, nudge-nudge)? Uh, Jean-Eric—did YOU know that your granddaughter’s right there in the boat next to you and can hear every word you’re saying as you blatantly try to set us up? Maybe your imagination should get a room.

I had originally wanted to stay and do an around-the-clock survey of the life of the North Canada Coast, but we were out of film and hey—when was the last time I made any money? Before leaving we check out the topside around Hole CD3. The sky is clear, there are bearded seals lying around like drunks at the end of a party. The sun has disappeared behind the horizon, sending out a strange vertical ray that points like a beacon towards the darkening sky. I’ve heard of the green flash at sunset, but not this. I’d take a picture of it, but I haven’t any film left.

*By the way: Why do they call it “beluga” caviar, anyway? Belugas are mammals and don’t lay eggs. Caviar comes from sturgeon—and they look nothing like belugas. What’s up with that?

The Ballad of Pinky Tuscadero

4/6 (70th hour)

Nineball Island, daybreak—Over the past few days, I’ve been filling out the schedule with a bit of dolphin training. This isn’t the most exciting work in the world, but I did discover a couple of tricks to make it less mind-numbing. First, if you press “2” on your Wii remote, it will change the angle of view from the standard facing-the-rubber-boat, affording some interesting views of you and the gang on the docks reacting to dolphin antics. When the thrill of that wears off (after about 3 minutes), I set things to free training (the little icon in the bottom right of the screen), and iron my clothes, make a sandwich, or see what else is on TV. Do this for about 1 hour and your dolphin should have learned all its tricks and is breaking its own records. Then run through the routine with your star, make sure Oceana exclaims it can’t do any better, work on the tricks that aren’t there yet and you’re ready the next time Hayako offers to test them. I’ve trained up Lilly and Frodo this way. It’s cheating, I suppose, and not exactly fair to the other characters, but hey, I’m the only one with a life outside the game.

After I gave three dolphin shows, one with each cetacean, our talent scout Finley made another appearance to tell us there was a narwhal that looked like it just might be the next Paoulian Idol. A performing narwhal? This I’ve got to see!

Weddell Sea, later that day—On our way to the narwhal polo grounds, we run bang into a new legendary creature, the Ancient Mother. I guess this is the thing Jean-Eric said we might find at the north or south poles. I’m kind of disappointed because a.) it’s just an albino blue whale, and b.) we found it without even looking for it. Ah well. Never seen such large, kind eyes, etc., as the game enthuses. 

Ancient Mother---such large, kind eyes.

At the narwhal breathing hole,  I show the greenland shark who’s boss by pulsing it and go in search of our next star. A series of cut-scenes tells us we’re looking for a narwhal with a red tusk. This turns out to require some patience and quick reflexes. We have to go to the surface and wait for a red tusk to breach the water. Okay, but it’s whiteout conditions topside, and I can barely see any tusk, let alone a red one. When I think I see it I have to quickly find my equipment and dive. It takes about three or four tries to get the right one, a  piebald beauty with a long spiraling tooth that looks like it’s been painted with pink nail polish. I name her Pinky Tuscadero, after Fonzie’s girlfriend on “Happy Days.”  That time Pinky almost bit it in the demolition derby, and the Fonz got down on the track to declare his undying love and Pinky gave him her scarf to remember her by, that is true love, man. You say Romeo & Juliet, I say Fonzie & Pinky.

Anyway, we take Pinky back to Nineball Island and immediately put her in training, just so I can watch a narwhal do flips.

Pinky Tuscadero

The Ultimate Vinegar

3/28

Ciceros Strait, daybreak—Following a tip from Finley, I headed for the East Undines to look for the white dolphin. Somewhere in the Cross Rift, I found a pod bottlenosed dolphins, one of which was trapped below by a tiger shark. I dove down and drove away the bully, earning the undying gratitude of the dolphin, a rare albino. I decided to call her Lilly, after Dr. John C. Lilly, the visionary scientist/crackpot who began his strange career trying (unsuccessfully) to teach dolphins to speak English. And because she’s white. And because it’s almost Easter. And because Lilly Munster was my surrogate mother.

Lilly

Right away I decide to put Lilly to work as my chauffeur to the Wreck of the Flamingo to find that bottle of vinegar Jean Eric wants. It was really unfair to bring an untried (not to mention shark-traumatized) dolphin into this, as the wreck is swarming with great whites. It’s agonizing, because I can see the sparkle of something alluring far down below, but the sharks are in our way, and Jean Eric advises us to return at another time of day. When would that be? I thought sharks got even rowdier at night.

Just for kicks, I watch the sun set in Ciceros Strait.

Nevertheless, I return at sunset, this time with Pha. The great whites have cleared out, and in their place are the not-so-handsome but relatively harmless sandbar sharks. I easily retrieve the bottle (you can always tell a salvage item is part of your quest because it has a red gleam), then return to Nineball. Jean Eric is ecstatic that I found the bottle—he’d been asked for it by a friend who’s in a cooking competition, and this here bottle of vinegar that’ s been lying at the bottom of the sea for who knows how long is the ultimate vinegar that’s going to be his top secret cooking ingredient! I don’t make this stuff up, folks.

Anyway, for finding this condiment I get a sweet 5,000 P and a pair of sparkly swimtrunks. I also salvaged a flamethrower, but unfortunely I can’t use it—I’m told it’s an antique Chinese flamethrower from the Song Dynasty (ca. 10th-13th c.). Together, that brings my tally up to 263,822 P.

At the end of the day, the Fabulous Finley shows up to snark about my finding the albino dolphin, then challenges us to put on 3 more dolphin shows. “You must put on shows and keep people of my choosing entertained,” he says. Can you believe that guy?