[Game Thread] Pokerole: Mount Coronet Mystery

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

Ran is silent as the prodigal girl does not desist in her inquisitiveness, before again he *sighs*, his head tilting down to the floor.

"....You're too kind for ya own good, lass. 'Specially to a mean old bastard like myself. Fine. I'll share my tale with ya. But don't say I didn't warn ya."

He looks back to the walls again, a heavy brooding air all about him. Then, he began to speak, his tone taking on a quality not too dissimilar to an old storyteller's .

".....Long time ago, I used to work and live in Orebourgh. Was a foreman - manager of sorts - for the coal mines there. Made sure everyone did their jobs right, that all the codes and regulations were follow to the letter, and, most importantly of all, that everyone was safe, sound, and whole by the time the left for home. Pretty good at my job, not to toot my own horn, and my workers.....well, we got along well together, so long as I didn't catch them slacking or lollygagging with some too nosy for their own good Trainer."

The bristly blacksmith snorts in slight derision at that, before he continued unerringly on.

"For a long time, everything was going fine. I did my job right, my workers did their jobs right, and we all harvested the bounty of the earth. *Shakes head* It was not an easy life. It had it's fair share of nasty scraps or accidents, and some days the job took more out of ya than what you dug up."

Ran looks up to the cave's celing, a faint smile touching the corners of his lips.

"But it was a good life, none the less. It was a good life."

Slowly, he lowered his gaze back to the floor, whatever happiness in his expression now banish to the gloomy past brought forth to the present.

"....Until it wasn't."

His hands started to tighten as his thought of that day again, but he stopped as he looked down at his bandaged hands, and looked away with a *Sigh* .

".....One day, just like any other, during the busiest part of it, deep within the shafts of the mine and in the section I presided over...."

Ran clenched both hands in fists and he started to tremble. Tremble in anger.

"....A disaster happened."

He hissed out the next few sentences, like a cold, hot, seething furnace threatening to boil over

"Right through, a Onix violently tore itself out of. But not just any regular Onix. No, this one was huge, jet black as the coal we excavated, and had horn that looked something out of a nightmare. And it was the most viscous, aggressive, and hateful Pokemon I have ever come across. "

"It....it rampaged through the mines. Attack anyone it could see, and didn't stop attacking them until......"

"......My miner that were Trainers tried to Fight it off, of course. Subdue it, Catch it, drive it off, whatever they could do to get it to stop. Nothing they did worked, though. Nothing at all."

His tone softened into almost silent and dead sounding whisper.

"When it became apparent that abomination of nature was too much for us, I was seconds away from ordering a full evacuation. Seconds. But....but....that was already too late. Right about then, I swear on my life that thing stopped to look me dead in the eyes all the way across from where it was destroying the tunnels. Like it knew what I was about to do. And...it let out this horrible roar that shook the very earth.....and started setting off a chain of Earthquakes and Rock Slide. It was trying to collapse the entire damn section of the mines I was in. "

"....Everyone panicked, of course. Like Torchics with their heads cut off. Almost did myself too, but I somehow found it within me to be brave and defiant towards that abomination. I tried to get my men as I could to listen, round them up and get the hell out of there. Screaming and hollering at the top of my lungs over the din, waving and jumping all over the place like some tiny litter Loudred, everything I could possibly do."

Ran hunched over, and what little of his expression that Karen could see was tight with raw pain and hate.

"....It wasn't enough. Was too late, like I said. Only managed to get my best friend, and a three others near me to notice and group up with me before the tunnels we were in started to collapse. We.....we had no choice then but to escape, and hope to whatever god out there that the rest of our fellows followed."

".....They didn't. Only we just barely managed to get out and away from that abomination and my section of the mine, before it all crumbled in on itself, like a poorly made sand castle. Everyone else in them....."

He goes deathly silent, cutting himself off by slamming his fists into the stone bellow him.

....

"......Once all the drama passed from that.....Incident, and I.....told all the miner family the news, I.....quit my job at the mines. After I failed all my workers......buried down there.....I didn't deserve to be there anymore. Gathered all the savings and possessions I had and moved far as I could from Orebourgh, all the way to Canaclave. Took up my hobby of blacksmithing as my new full profession and.....got along, best I can. Probably still be over there making tools and nails, if I hadn't decided to become a Trainer one day in my advanced age."

Ran slowly raised one fist in front of him, and clench it tight enough to draw a bit more blood from his fresh injuries.

"I made a promise to myself, though. Myself and it. That one day, somehow, someway, I would find that motherfucking Black Onix and get VENGEANCE on it, for all the lives it took that dark day. Even if I became older, infirm, and senile, I would not stop seeking it until I found it and crushed them. Haven't gotten much news on it, and haven't any luck tracking it down myself after becoming a Trainer. But one day.....one day.....I will.'

He loosened his fist and let it fall limply by his side, as he stared once more at the walls of this cavern.

"Seeing these wall lined with coal, after all I've been through recently on this gottverdammt job of Rowan's .....it brought it all back to me in vivid detail. I got a memory like a Donphan, for better and worse, so when I remember something, I remember it well."

"....And that's all I have to tell ya. If you could possibly help with any of that ..... *Darkly chuckles* ....I sure as hell like to know how."

With that said, Randolph falls silent, leaving the wee lass to mull over the grim revelation she brought upon herself.

(....And I believe I'll stop writing here for now. Let everyone react and you get a response written up to it, before we move on to the comparatively lighter conversation I have planned with Lucas. Don't want it to detract from this revelation, and vice verse, no?)

Karen silently and patiently listens to Randolph as he reveals his backstory.  When it starts to get grim, her eyes get wider and she covers her mouth with her hands as she silently gasps.

"...that...that's horrible...I'm so sorry..."

Something about Randolph's story is bothering her beyond the obvious details, though...

"...is it just me, though...or did what you just describe sound similar to how Espeon described Shadow Pokemon earlier?  I mean, that was obviously a long time ago, so it probably wasn't, but...something about that doesn't sound right to me..."