[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Angie hums happily as the curious boy studied and then gave his critique on the S.D.S. , quite pleased with the second opinion that it was valuable as her papa declared it was. Today, she learned how wonderful validation was, and its all thanks to Nathan!

She took back her/their babble with calmness and graciousness, droning out an appreciative *Zzzsss* for how tenderly they handled the sparkiling hermit crab shell. When he subsequently declared it her treasure, however, she perked up greatly, 'blinking' and then actually leaning up in her papa's arms to fix him with an especially speculative and attentive stare.

Prior to that comment, she could quietly accept that he and her had some sort of odd, inexplicable connection between them, like a child is want to do with the unknown. With its utterance, though, she could feel a form of resonance coming from him, and knew that their was an tangible force at play, an arcane element of some sort that conducted, fostered, and galvanized a great understanding and admiration between them. 

It was, in all honestly, rather baffling to her, and ever so slightly intimidating too....but along the with those feelings was a greater sense of fascination too, coupled with a keen curiosity and slight eagerness to aquaint herself with him. 

Curious and more curious it gets with this boy......but not unpleasantly so. Hmm......

The smol chubby snake eye Nathan for some time, before she smiled at them, and leaned her head up a little more to be rubbed at that spot. Ah......how wonderful. She'll get her papa to do this for her, now that she knows how good it feels.

By this point, Terra grew more certain that something going on between his daughter and the clever trainer, until he finally 'realized' it, and remembered: Nathan was a rancher, a person experienced in handling in all sorts of Pokemon, in his case the Ponyta line.  The boy's Skill and/or the innate nurturing/caring quality in him could have been recognized by her, so maybe that's why they were getting along so well together. Hm....

In any case, he put that eureka moment to the side for a moment, and instead addressed the boy's comments about the S.D.S., bring out another one and motioning to/with it.

"That is not the only one. Found it and many others in box, in a ditch. Ten in all, including one held by Angie. *...I think. *Looks thoughtful, then nods* Yes, ten. Did not know what these where, other than sparkling pretty shells of crabs. Thought they were valuable too, but was not sure until now. *Smiles* Thank you for.....telling me more about them, my friend."

He paused at this point to collect his thoughts, then continued speaking in a more ponderous and tentative tone.

"...Nathan, you know a lot about Pokemon, yes? How to take care of them, and raise them right? *Beat*.....Can you teach me.....some of what you know? I....want to know because of Angie. *Shakes head* ....Never took care of a baby Pokemon before, so I...do not know what to do. So I want to learn much as possible. First from Shiva, and now, you. *Frowns, then looks down*....Since I am dumb, and bad with people and Pokemon. Afraid that I will.....mess up with her. I....do not to do that to her. Ever."

The rugged wanders trails off, and a disquiet falls between the two mean. Anubi sharply glances at his partner, a worried frown tugging at his lips, while Angie looks up at him, cooing out in confusion and concern, as if to say 'what's the matter?'

...

Nathan blinks a few times.  "...ten?  You found ten?!  Oh my Arceus...that's...wow...I don't know exactly how much Shiny Dwebble Shells might sell for off the top of my head, but...wow...but that can't be a coincidence...now I'm wondering what happened to their inhabitants..." (Terra's free to chip in about how much he thinks they might sell for if you think he can estimate that, Windos!)

Once Nathan's processed that, he shakes his head to clear those thoughts before they go somewhere that's not very useful.  "...not that they're using them now, I suppose.  Finders keepers, I guess.  Just hope the Dwebble that were using the shells are okay...oh yeah, uh, Dwebble are basically crab pokemon, like Corphish.  They live in deserts and caves instead of in the water, though.  Wear rocks for shells.  Just in case you were wondering."

As for Terra's question...

"...first of all, you're not dumb, Terra.  Maybe a little slow compared to everyone else, yes, but not dumb.  So stop calling yourself that, alright?  It's not good for your self-confidence to be demeaning to yourself.  You know why I think you're not dumb?  Because you want to learn.  Learning...is good.  Great, even.  And just because you don't understand a topic yourself...well, that doesn't mean you won't get it if you keep trying to learn it.  I know I personally didn't understand at least half the stuff I've learned right away.  Some of it's cryptic, weird, and just outright unbelievable.  Hard to understand.  For example, those Unown we faced?  In large groups, they have a tendency to spell words, and it's used as a form of writing sometimes.  There's one Unown for each letter of the alphabet.  It can take some getting used to, but with practice, you can read it as if it was normal handwriting.  But what's really weird is when you get to what we call Elder Unown.  They're often found in really, really old places like deep in the Skull Ruins, and they don't all follow the standard alphabet because they represent a much older, mostly symbol based language.  No human today can read it, but...well, I'm slowly getting a grasp on how to do it.  I'm having to practice it a lot, and I'm finding it difficult to learn, but I'll get there eventually."

"...anyways, I guess I'm getting a little off track...the point is, if you keep learning, you learn from your mistakes, and you keep that drive and passion going, you can...eventually...overcome your shortcomings to some notable degree.  That's what I believe.  Alright?"  

OOC Note

A comment I read the other day on one of the High Rollers DnD videos on Youtube said something really interesting and relevant, actually.  Paraphrasing it, it said, 'A low Intelligence score does not mean your character has to be dumb.  Intelligence just indicates how 'book learned' the character is.'  (side note: this came up because it was a character creation video, and one of the players rolled two 18s...and a bunch of less than 10s.  And one 10, iirc.  He was considering playing a big, dumb, powerful Barbarian Rogue Goliath with a stat spread like that.  Which is what he did, lol)  And from what the Pokerole core book says about Knowledge, it's treated the same way in pokerole.  3 is equivalent to a college major in a specific area.  2 is equivalent to High School knowledge, while 1 is Elementary School.  0 is...well, barely know how to read and write (but it doesn't mean you don't.  Props to Nylon for RPing this all the way, though!).  Nothing there indicates that your character has to be dumb.  4 and 5 are where you are an expert in the field of your choice and when you're able to revolutionize your particular field of study respectively.  In Nathan's case, he's a history buff, so that's where most of his Knowledge resides, and what he's learning on this journey is going to eventually revolutionize the history books as Creshire knows them, no question.  In Terra's case, from what I currently know of him, most of his Knowledge is likely in Wilderness Survival and, funnily enough, Commerce.  Since the book starts specializing Knowledge in specific areas starting at 3 Knowledge, it could be possible for Terra to have 3+ Knowledge eventually, imo.  It might take a lot of time and practice, but he could probably get there.)

"...*ahem*...yeah, I'm, uh, pretty good with pokemon...lived around them most of my life.  Spent a lot of time around the young Ponyta back at the ranch in my younger days, and I've read some general tips on how to care for most pokemon in general.  There certainly wasn't any shortage of accidental burns when I was trying to copy what my mom was doing, that's for sure...hehe...Angie here, though...well, you could say I have a bit of affinity for Dragons and Dragon-like pokemon as well...though I didn't really know that until very, very recently...snakes and serpents aren't really too different from most Dragons, if you think about it.  They're actually more closely related than you might think."  Nathan winks at Angie.  She probably doesn't fully understand what Nathan's hinting at yet, but she will in time if Nathan's right about her...and he definitely thinks he is!  He's not sure all Dunsparce can evolve into Dunseraph, but he has a good feeling that Angie can.

Hmmm...now that he thinks about it...is that affinity for Dragons maybe part of why Aspis had suddenly taken a liking to him?  He's not too sure...that was before he'd 'awakened the blood', but...hmmm...Lucifer had seemed to have taken a liking to him too by the time they reached Atheneum...maybe it wasn't a coincidence after all? Or maybe it was, since he had just saved Lucifer's life and all...or was it? There's really no way to be certain, to be honest...(OOC, though, that was all totally a coincidence. Lol)

"...anyways, yeah, I can teach you a little about raising pokemon.  The general concepts are the same regardless of what kind of pokemon you're raising, after all.  Did you want to ask a few questions now, or save it for a little later?"

(BTW, Nathan's kinda momentarily forgotten about the Stealth Rock TMs. Terra asking Nathan about why he was rooting around in the berry bushes for so long would definitely jog his memory, though!)