[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

Stealth: (2)(6)(5)(4)(6)(1)(5)(6)(1)
Alert: (6)(2)(2)(4)(4)(6)

Heart scouts ahead and comes back with a report. The coal gives way to strange, narrow tunnels whose ceilings are pierced by extremely hairy roots. In places, the tunnels are made entirely of thick root mats. Little glow-in-the-dark ferns grow from the roots now and then.

When Ventus gets to these roots, he recognizes them as a rare family of ferns. They're called the Tochu Ferns, of which there are thousands of species, none of which are prolific at all. He's never heard of so much root mass in one place, and he is not familiar with this particular species. All roots of this family can be brewed into restoratives, but the process is very time consuming. The brew must be stirred constantly and mixed in with other ingredients at particular intervals and the temperature monitored carefully. You really have to baby it. Luckily, the other ingredients are fairly common and cheap - fiber, phosphorous, fixed nitrogen, iron dust.


Since Heart was successful in his scouting roll, the mandatory encounter will now be avoidable. He noticed lots of Grass types among the roots - mostly Shroomish and Paras.

Spoiler

Heart with success in his scout mission and proud tell the other the information. "I back people! And come back with neat information. There some strange coal ahead. The coal gives way to strange, narrow tunnels whose ceilings are pierced by extremely hairy roots. In places, the tunnels are made entirely of thick root mats. Little glow-in-the-dark ferns grow from the roots now and then. Also, there is some horse of Grass Pokemon ahead. To be more specefic, Shroomish and Paras. We can avoid them if we go to another path to not have conflict. But since we gonna face whatever the Scimitars might throw to us, I think we should use that opportunity to train a bit (aka farm some good XP). I think thats a good chance to bring Abbandon and Rose to battle. Safeguard can help us quite a lot." Then Heart look to Ventus. "Uh, if you permited of course Ventus. Also, I might need some extra pair of hands to deal to train too." Then Heart look to Shiva. "How about we take care of these pokemon Shiva? Youre pokemon could use some extra training. Not they are weak, but more power is always welcome."

Mechaninc: Team Heart/Shiva vs Shroomish and Paras. But wait the aswear of Shiva about what to do.

However much of a piss poor mood Ventus was currently in right now, even he wasn't about to disregard the rare collector's report of the multitude of Mushroom Pokémon lying in wait he had the good fortune to discover before the group stumbled upon them. Given that he's the extremely proud brother of Michael and a knowledgable Pokémon Researcher, he was more than aware of the dangers that were posed by just an individual Paras/Shroomish with their noxious Status Moves, and was extremely glad that neither he nor anyone else was forced to deal with them . 'The sheer drain on our resources treating the Status alone would have made them a nightmare to fight, so I'm grateful Heart spared us the necessity of engaging in such a costly mass brawl. The very thought of getting set upon a band of territorial Mushroom Pokémon without preparations ......*Shudders* ' he thought, wincing as images of Paras and Shroomish dosing them all with Spores, Stun Spore, and Poison Powder before dragging them off to add them to a compost pile to wither away and add their nutrients in. By Reshirim's Flames of Truth, thank them they were all spared such a horrid fate!

When Heart and subsequently his girlfriend decided to go challenge the whole lot of them anyway, the empath nearly halted in his tracks to give them both increadulous stares at how monumentally stupid that decision was. That is, until the pun lover immediately revealed they were going to use his child Abaddon to completely neuter the main threat they posed to them, which instead only resulted in him briefly stumbly mid step before straightening up and pretending like he had not had a minor panic attack at the idea of them fighting all those mushies. When the man asked permission to use the Blue Demon, they were given an almost immediate nod of approval from Ven, before he said with a fairly impassive expression and a dully serious tone with bare hints of concern in it: "You have permission to use Abaddon as you see fit Heart, so long as you take great care of them and not unnecessarily endanger their lives. My suggestion for facing the swarm of Mushroom Pokémon is to stealthly summon my child to your side and have them cast Safeguard on both you and Shiva's team, before returning them for another heavy hitting Pokémon like Koa. Abaddon fairs less well against large groups of enemies, and his Shadow Tag ability might prove a detriment if some of your foes wish to escape and spare you the trouble, so I'd recommend against using them in that fight except to cast Safeguard prior to engaging them, or only for one Round and then immediately switching to another Pokémon bar that."

After giving his advice, the sociologist proceeded to ignore and tune out both Shiva and Heart, as he was not in the mood for any form of banter or small talk with ANYONE right now, except maybe his Pokémon/family. Speaking of which, Malphena was still lingering around her master's side with an distinctly charinged and grumpy look, as EVERYONE'S attitude in the group and especially her master's was a great big highly grating buzz kill for her. Add to that she couldn't even go over and tease Ralts and that horrid boy they call a master unless Calam decided to intervene or they were too moody to appreciate her jollity, and the end result was that she was itching for just about ANY target she could vent her frustrations on. Needless to say, she wasn't too much of a happy camper right now.....


The rare collecter's inclusion in his report of odd ferns and their root balls also piqued the researcher's interests, as they distinctly sounded like some hithero unknown subspecies of the Tochu Fern that his.....mother taught him about (which caused a small plumment in his already dire mood as his thoughts briefly lingered on her). As the group traveled to the described local he got visual confirmation of this, causing a smigen positive increase in his mood as he well remember the medicinal properties these plants had that he could later brew Healing Items out of. Of course he also noticed the Snivy wandering around and acting like a caretaker to the plants, which for a small moment reminded him of other Grass type Pokémon acting like shepards to plants, causing him to grimace in distaste at the memory and possibility of this being more than just a strange coicendence....

Just as he was about to order Malphena to freeze them solid out of paranoid concern, Nathan had invariably managed to attracted its no doubt worried attention just by plodding along the plant chocked tunnel with Swiftfire, leaving all the valuable roots completely unguarded! No one to waste a golden opportunity, Ventus set about to collect as many Tochu Roots as he possibly could in the time window granted to him, summoning Michael to have him assist in the task. Between the herb/medicine lore bequeath upon him and his brother's natural connection to plants and his extra pair of 'hands', they should be able to harvest an ample amount of root for later Healing Item crafting!

Order: Give Heart explicit permission to use Abaddon, offer him advice, before having Ventus collect some Tochu Fern root with Michael assiting him and Malphena acting as sentry/guard while they harvest! Hopefully having a Grass type with hands help with the harvesting will increase the amount of Root I get from this, but if not its should at least speed up the process some!