[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Iron]

"Great!" Oscar seems pleased to have the chance to do something cool for his nephew.

He rings the door of the gothic house and vanishes inside. A bit later, he leans out the door and waves you on over. You follow him through the dark interior of the house. Most of it is poorly lit. The decor is quite strange, in the shadows: the owner has commissioned or purchased a lot of wooden sculptures or ceramic figurines or simple paintings, all of Pokemon or landscapes featuring Pokemon. But apparently, the artist was unsatisfied with the renditions, and has made crude attempts at "fixing" some problem that none of you can see. Not even Shiva can identify any errors in the Houndoom on the umbrella stand, the (unlit) Carbink chandelier, the Poliwrath at the banister's end. Yet the Houndoom's legs have been erased, Carbink's face has been painted blank, and the wooden Poliwrath have both been chipped away until only their swirls are recognizable.
Occasionally, new plaster or paint has made a vain attempt to improve the models, but never successfully.

There is also a lot of damage to the house, damage of every element from burns to waterlogging.


You follow Oscar up the stairs. He stays fairly cheerful despite the dim house. But when you reach the top of the stairs and pass through the attic door, Oscar's smile grows.

The attic is very well lit, with practical electric lighting with a hint of blue to it, and of course whatever light comes through the windows. A workbench runs around the whole room, and there are lots of simple chairs, each matched with a window. On the workbench are painting tools and small easels, sized for a card. There's also a big roll of paper, the loose portion being covered in sketches. Many of these sketches are only a few lines, simple stick figures, but you can instantly tell what Pokemon they belong to. They almost feel animated.

An old, old, old man sits at the window overlooking the street. He already has a sketch of Cottonee in front of him, in a notebook. The Cottonee is in the act of burrowing into a girl's hair. You notice the girl has few features, while the Cottonee is actually recognizable as Shiva's even in sketch form.

The old man is hunched and his face is lined, but he has a tiny smile as he works, and his hand never trembles. There's a pencil stuck in his long gray hair, which is up in a twisted bun. His chair has a jar attached, also full of pencils and such. His clothes are of an older style, but they're newly tailored. Already, his cuffs are shiny from being rubbed on the workbench.

Mr. Morgusi turns slightly toward you, but doesn't quite make eye contact, in the way of the extremely nearsighted. He looks at your knees, still with that calm smile. "Please, take chairs! You may look at any art but please do not touch for I have not yet applied my coating of protective substance and the art may be vulnerable to the oils within human fingers!"

"Mr. Morgusi, this is Shiva, Terra, Heart, and my nephew, Nathan! Terra has a Milotic he'd like to show you - perhaps he can summon it down in the street? And Nathan and Shiva are both fans of your work. I gave that Skarmory to Nathan for his fifteenth birthday, just a few days ago."

"You bring me rare Pokemon, do you? Good, good. Tell me about yourselves! Nathan...hm...the Skarmory in your mind was like none I have seen in many a decade with its mighty wings of steel that slice the air itself and transport it instantly across the sky at legendary speed..."