[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

He is sniffing it please, as my Overgrown Furret is a male exemplar.


Truth to be told, the intrigution for Mr. Finder and his precious Slurpuff increased already upon seeing how he can distinguish the tunnels without even seeing where they may lead to. She will follow and to some degree trust him and to a big amount trust that Slurpuff of his unless there's a good reason to do otherwise. Naturally, dear and loyal Azumarill also gets a few pets and thankful hug for her cooperating to clear the path, not that Shiva has expected her to do otherwise.

Expect her to ask for more information about these 'tarot' cards also due to growing interest in these, maybe during a break or so.

The mentioning of Shinx came as a mild suprise for her, as she would have not expected Electric Type Pokemon down here, but then agains she has seen a dragon, Nuzleaf and an elusive Chandelure within Mount Sentry already, she somewhat only waiting both in shy interest and hidden fear to discover what other weird and unusual Pokemon they'll encounter further down this trip.
Gemstones are cool as well, but she's not up for digging at the moment and would not use up all of her limited strength at the beginning of this quest.
Crustle is a Pokemon she's familiar with as it's Unovian origin, but the secondary Bug Type makes it dangerous to face it with her Grass Types.
That's why, in the end she does carefully turn to Valder/@Nylon, having mixed feelings about Nathan having spoken out what she was silently thinking to herself already. "Fine. Valder, are you...fine with loaning me that Starmie you're carrying with you at the moment, please? Given how I'm not having my fierly fox with me at the moment, I'd appreciate this Pokemon's Illuminate Ability to enlighten that stony Puzzle for me. Eh... It'll probably be different than solving such a thing on screen in a safe game, but... I'd be happy to try it out! I'll let you have Furret for the time being, or anythingselse that you'd rather take care of temporarly."


With that said, up she goes in direction of that stony puzzle, motioning the Infiltrator-Absol to please come with her and keep his danger senses alerted while she's busy with that thing with...Gothitelle's help - she's intelligent and might prove useful in such a thing. Starmies is respectfully asked to illuminate the scene for her.

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

(...)

"Alright, I'll go handle Shinx since Heart's handling Crustle.  However...gems you say?"

(...)

"...well, you're a Sableye right now.  Sableye like gems, and you did a pretty good job digging back there.  Maybe that Keen Eye of yours will come in handy, and keep Geodude from leaving behind any gems while he digs."

Because Geodude is totally gonna go do some more digging for sure.

"...but who's going to go do the digging, though? Hmmm...someone has to do the puzzle as well, and they'll probably need Starmie for that since that path looks particularly dark..."

Nathan's thinking out loud for the most part, not really addressing anyone in particular right now.

Ventus, who had been patiently waiting in silence while everyone else deliberated on what they needed to do at this juncture before he made his own decision, took the young scholar's as the opportunity that it was and stepped towards him and speaking, motioning for Valder to follow him too. "Since neither myself or Valder have decided upon a course of action yet, how about we excavate this tunnel with your Ditto's assistance? With our combined Strength and aid from our Pokémon (Michael for Ventus, Theo using Metal Claw for Valder) , we should be able to clear this path in short order, and having them help search for gems  while assisting with the dig in their Sableyes form would be a great boon indeed! In exchange, any gems we find we'll splint equally among ourselves, and I'll loan you back Grid so that I can look after Ditto while you are away. Is that acceptable, Nathan?"

The researcher clasped his hands together and gave them a friendly enough smile, while Valder does whatever Iron wants him to do/eventually swaps Starmie with one of Shiva's Pokémon. He's eager to see what this Ditto is capable of while Transformed, and finding more wealth to horde away appeals greatly to his inner Dragon, so hopefully they boy finds this arrangement acceptable!

Order: Ventus will equip himself and Valder with a Pickaxe, summon Michael while also keeping out Sableye Ditto and ask his merc to summon Theo, and all of them will proceed to dig out that pathway. Any gems found (if there are some) will be held in abeyance until Nathan comes back to swap Ditto with Grid again, which at that point they'll be split between Ventus, Valder, and them. Time for some mining, fellows!

[Iron]

Gustav: (5) +6 = 11
Crustle: (3) + 2 Dex + 4 Survival = 9

The Crustle lumbers into view, its square shell taking up 95% of the tunnel, with only tiny glimpses of light beyond the cube. You can see multiple layers of Mt. Sentry in there - magnetic ore, fossil limestone, the shifting clay of so many tunnels, even a little fertile topsoil.

It's already hostile! Snip, snip!

[Iron]

Shinx roars its finest roar (apparently not a Roar, though) as Nathan crawls into his lair. He's made a sorry nest of very old leaves in the widest part of the tunnel. The tunnel does indeed continue on past the lair.

That starry tail glows in the darkness.

This Shinx looks old enough to take care of itself, and it's clearly quite charged up by magnetism. It probably won't attack unless Nathan tries to get past or nab it.

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Ventus, who had been patiently waiting in silence while everyone else deliberated on what they needed to do at this juncture before he made his own decision, took the young scholar's as the opportunity that it was and stepped towards him and speaking, motioning for Valder to follow him too. "Since neither myself or Valder have decided upon a course of action yet, how about we excavate this tunnel with your Ditto's assistance? With our combined Strength and aid from our Pokémon (Michael for Ventus, Theo using Metal Claw for Valder) , we should be able to clear this path in short order, and having them help search for gems  while assisting with the dig in their Sableyes form would be a great boon indeed! In exchange, any gems we find we'll splint equally among ourselves, and I'll loan you back Grid so that I can look after Ditto while you are away. Is that acceptable, Nathan?"

The researcher clasped his hands together and gave them a friendly enough smile, while Valder does whatever Iron wants him to do/eventually swaps Starmie with one of Shiva's Pokémon. He's eager to see what this Ditto is capable of while Transformed, and finding more wealth to horde away appeals greatly to his inner Dragon, so hopefully they boy finds this arrangement acceptable!

Nathan startles at Ventus's approach.  He was only thinking to himself!  Out loud, but to himself!

He listens to Ventus's proposal...

...stares long and hard at Ventus for a minute or two.  He's still rather...grudging about loaning Grid to Ventus specifically, and he outright refused any requests to loan Ditto to Ventus...he's not really in the mood to talk with Ventus right now.  At all (he'll speak when spoken to, though).  Last night's conversation had left him very upset, and he's still trying to calm down (internally, anyways).

"Alright, but we swap back right afterwards."

Probably less prickly sounding than Ventus was expecting, but the meaning should be clear.  Nathan's particularly...defensive when it comes to matters concerning Ditto.

[Iron]

That stone puzzle looks a lot like the ones Shiva may have vaguely heard of in Johto, but far more complex. A ring of iron ore is suspended across the path (Furret immediately squeezes through to the other side, impossibly. Then he looks back to say "Come on! Let's go onward!"), and inside the ring are many tightly packed stone cubes in a grid, 8x8, with four missing cells. They're printed with dark orange lines that may make up a picture of a Pokemon. Problem is, each cube has 4 faces, and Shiva's not sure if they make up four separate Pokemon or what.

The cubes can be spun AND rearranged into the slots of the missing cells, creating an extremely large number of possible solutions!

The walls to either side of Shiva's position (behind Starmie) look like they are worked stone, in contrast to the hard clay of everything else.

To make things worse, Furret is chittering the noise he makes when he hears a wild Pokemon.

[Dragonstrike]

Shinx roars its finest roar (apparently not a Roar, though) as Nathan crawls into his lair. He's made a sorry nest of very old leaves in the widest part of the tunnel. The tunnel does indeed continue on past the lair.

That starry tail glows in the darkness.

This Shinx looks old enough to take care of itself, and it's clearly quite charged up by magnetism. It probably won't attack unless Nathan tries to get past or nab it.

Nathan looks quite...interested.  Not really scared.  But he keeps a respectful distance from the Flash Pokemon.  Ralts is looking at Shinx curiously.

"Well, aren't you an independent sounding one...moved on from your old pack, I take it?"

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

Gustav: (5) +6 = 11
Crustle: (3) + 2 Dex + 4 Survival = 9

The Crustle lumbers into view, its square shell taking up 95% of the tunnel, with only tiny glimpses of light beyond the cube. You can see multiple layers of Mt. Sentry in there - magnetic ore, fossil limestone, the shifting clay of so many tunnels, even a little fertile topsoil.

It's already hostile! Snip, snip!

(Typhon would like this place)

Heart become very careful about that Crustle and quick give some important order to Gustav. "Gustav my friend, be careful. Even with the typing advantage as Water/Ground (thanks to Earthpower) we need to be very much careful. That Crustle look very much strong, so lets finish him with our mostly powerfull moves. Use Water Pulse 4 times. Lets see how much that Custle can handle a empower STAB and Super Effective moves against him! Go get him Gustav!" Gustav prepare the cannon, more than ready to fire the torrent of Water cannoballs! "And if you got too much hurt (around 3 HP or less) I shall use a Potion! And after the potion use Aura Sphere instead of the fourth Water Pulse! (That would be count as fourth attack)"

Water Pulse Accuracy: Dex (3) + Fight (3) + Canalize (3) - Actions (4/5/6/7) = 5d6/4d6/3d6/2d6
Damage: Power (2) + STR (3) + STAB (1) + SE (1) = 6d6+1
Effect: D3 to confuse the foe.

[Iron]

The two trainers can easily swing their pickaxes above the short Pokemon (both are only a foot tall). Theo is carving right through the stone, proving how strong he has grown under Valder's care, even able to cut through the thickest stones. He'll be able to evolve very soon. (@Nylon)

Sableye literally dives into the gaps left by the other workers. Ventus hears crunching sounds from within, and only Sableye's feet are sticking out.

[Lord Windos]

Nathan startles at Ventus's approach.  He was only thinking to himself!  Out loud, but to himself!

He listens to Ventus's proposal...

...stares long and hard at Ventus for a minute or two.  He's still rather...grudging about loaning Grid to Ventus specifically, and he outright refused any requests to loan Ditto to Ventus...he's not really in the mood to talk with Ventus right now.  At all  (he'll speak when spoken to, though).  Last night's conversation had left him very upset, and he's still trying to calm down (internally, anyways).

"Alright, but we swap back right afterwards."

Probably less prickly sounding than Ventus was expecting, but the meaning should be clear.  Nathan's particularly...defensive when it comes to matters concerning Ditto.

If Ventus was in anyway phased by Nathan's attitude/fouls, it wasn't apparent as they flicked their wrist and palmed Grid's Poke Ball from.....somewhere, and exchanged it with Ditto's with a smile!

"That was the intention, yes, as I remember how loathed you were to part with them and don't wish to keep you two separate for long. I won't pretend to understand why you had such retisense to the idea, but I'm willing to accept such things. Until we meet again, happy Shinx hunting!"

He waved Nathan off as they got going, before he and everyone else specificied earlier got started on digging out that tunnel!