[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

Heart and Shiva get their time slots for the Little Cup!

Shiva has to fight Stonemason Addams. Heart will face Steeldriver Gertrude.

Nathan's in the stands again, ready to watch Shiva's battle!  He's also keeping an eye out for that silver haired guy...

Kirlia's ready to get some ribbons again!  Forthright's awake this time, but isn't really interested in the battles.  Grid's also on Nathan's shoulder once more, recharging from earlier again.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Spoiler

Heart waves back.

Then the Egg starts shaking and cracking!

More purple fluid oozes out - Shiva is careful to take it out of the Incubator and avoid the fluid, but it's only a little bit. Then the Egg splits, and writhing in the puddle is a baby Skrelp! It's so tiny!!!
(...)
This is one of the most poisonous Pokemon known to man, and Shiva just hatched it.

Spotting Heart at the entrance, he gain them a nod of his head and a smile, before his attention was abruptly yanked away when his fae friend's Egg started to hatch, and nary a moment later a Skelp was born into the world! "By Reshirim, its a Skelp! I thought they were only native to the Kalos region, but its difficult to doubt its presence in Cheshire when the newborn is right here! How in the world did the Shelter receive such an relatively rare species into their care and not being able to verify its identity.....? Ah well, no matter at all, in the end! Please don't let my ramblings prevent you from tending to your child, my dear!" Ventus said in short order, a wide excited grin on his face as he looked over to the mystical lass in question...............before he noticed the previously rare collector had vanished.

When Heart appear behind Shiva he came a little close and say: "Boo!"  After that Heart chuckle a bit. "Sorry for that Shiva and Ventus. I was training my stealth abilities. I was training together with my pokemon and was testing my stealth skills. Sorry for that."

True, Shiva immediately stopped waving and brought all her attention away from the PUNisher to that precious Mystery Egg finally hatching. Huh, what a good timing the young one had, deciding to hatch not only very shortly after she has checked on it – visually, not with Almanac obviously since Ventus and Heart were nearby – but also in front of the place she obtained it from. She has looked forward to this, has waited for this with great patience and wondered more than once what mysterious species was growing there within the eggshell – now the moment of realzation has arrived, one of the most precious moments for a yet young Breeder like Shiva was.


… Now a very small brown and purple seahorse stared up to her with its big red eyes, joyfull spreading its bluish pectoral fins while Shiva...just stared back in wonder. Seemed like she and her expression have frozen on the sight of having hatched a young Skrelp of all costs. She knew about this species, not much however, but certainly enough to know these seahorses 1. must indeed/luckily be very rare in Chreshire, matching Ventus' words there and 2. belong to THE most poisonous Pokemon known.

Ventus adressed that Skrelp as her child. ...Shiva averted her gaze from it and gave him a look that clearly spoke worry, 'What... Excuse me?!' and disbelief, before she went down onto her knees and carefully made cautionous eyecontact with that small Pokemon.

Skrelp seemed to smile at her. It was definitely not afraid, but even joyful to see Shiva (or so she detected). Neither felt she any danger coming from that Pokemon, at least none towards her. Faintly wondering about this, Shiva kept staring back, and eventually...she smiled back. Very faintly, but she did. To be honest, this lil' one was cute – so tiny! So...aww. One of the most toxic Pokemon known, and she of all people has cared for an egg of this line the whole time, anticipated to what will hatch, and now it was her young one. If...young Skrelp does not feel uneasy and even was friendly towards her, it won't harm her, right? It won't poison her or anyone close to her, right...? There was, actually, no reason to decline and fear what she has hatched there, was it? Even its toxicity will grow with the Pokemon, even if it might be a dragon one daywhose touch may be deadly, if things start with the right foot there is no point of shunning this little Skrelp... Right? With Psyshock and Co. On her side, she was able to somewhat defend herself from toxins lurking around, right...?


In the middle of this train of thought Shiva was stopped suddenly as something from behin startled her, almost causing her to either freeze again or yank away in pure shock – but not this time. This time, Shiva did what Ventus has prevented himself from doing – punching Heart. Well, not in the face, mind you, she ended up hitting him somewhere between chest and right shoulder.Probably not hard enough to give him any pain (unless GM feels like rolling out a Strike here nevertheless) and definitely not hard enough to send him flying, but enough to air some of her displeasure over being startled here, to defend her new Skrelp from a possible predator and enough for the desired 1 point in Brawl Speciality. (6xp spent)

[/b]Once she realized it was no predator nor something poisonous but ony Heart and his Phantump, Shiva went silent and withdrew her fist. She stared at it for a moment, before looking up to Ventus – wouldn't she know the oddball of sociologist relatively well by now, she'd be scared and possibly panicked over how wrathfully he seemed from that fun training of Stealth. Now though, she soon averted her gaze from him like nothing really happened, to bring her attention to her new Skrelp again.


In a move of very cautionous courage, Shiva extended one hand to her new companion(??) in an attempt of softly touching it on the forehead, then motioning it to come onto her open hand. The whole time she was keeping her calm as best as she could, as well as cast another faint smile to it. „N...Now then“, she spoke in a subtly shaky voice, „come with me, young Skrelp. I have hatched the egg you were in so far until now, so you have nothing to fear from me... In return, I am hoping to not having to fear your poison. Alright? How about a snack? I'm enjoying the pure taste of these cookies, so how about you...?“ *offering that Skrelp a tiny pice of it*



(@Iron's input now!~ I guess I'm making this Skrelp female, Comite is sent to PC for now to keep her in party. Once these scenes are resolved, I'll send out my Pokemon for Little Cup against that stonesmaiden.)

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Heart thanks with a nod of his head. "Thank you Ventus. I promise you I wont do that again without a good reason." Then Heart bow his head in apologize to Shiva too. "Sorry for startle you too Shiva. I promise never do that again." Also he decided to share some information. "Oh I have some information too I forget to share. The Almanacs was hiring scientists to join with them to a little project. And Dagny talk with me she find a few machines beneath the skull ruins. She suspect it would maybe a TM library create by Saminarok itself, but I suspect it might be the drill I hear before our journey to the end of Earth. And this might be conect with the worker disaperance."

"Also when I was inside the Mt. Sentry, I find some old Unow Language. I couldnt translate but I was able to copy in my notes. Here." Then Heart show his notes with the Old Unow Language.

Heart's apology is thankfully accepted, she coyly apologied for punching him as well before praising his stealth, so now looking at these Old Unown Heart was showing them was it. Shiva frowned at them – they looked so different that those she saw in books and these three Unown of the Shelter. She let Ventus taking a gander at them for a bit, before eventually and carefully bringing up that „Ehm... Maybe we can show this to Nathan later or tomorrow morning, he's so interested in historican things I guess.“ Then she faced first Ventus, then Heart, then Heart's writing, waiting for their thoughts on this idea.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Later:

Director North speaks with Shiva about the Unown and the Herdier, accepting her proposal to do it tomorrow instead of today, since it's already getting toward evening.

"Oh, Unown are very easy to take care of, as far as basic needs are concerned. They don't eat - can't, in fact - and they take up very little space. The only issue is when they get disturbed and break things. I can let you have one for $800 or an extra 6 hours of volunteering. However, they are extremely difficult to train, unfortunately. I'd want to battle you again to be sure you're ready."

Shiva was all ears to what Director North was saying here; once he finished, she thoughtfully and a little nervously put her fingertips together. „T...Thank you for that information. I'm honestly not quite sure by myself whether I could prevent little exclamation mark from breaking things, but I'm sure me as well as my travel companions would do everything possible to prevent it from being disturned. Training, I don't know either – I'd like to leave that option open yet. My sentiment and goal is to bring this Unown to a different layer of the Skull Ruins, the one beneath the Barrow Down – there, more Unown and way less Ghosts and Ghost Types beside a few Sableye roam as far as I got to know. Maybe '!' would feel better and more safe there, eventually even staying there... I feel like we as a traveling group through the region WILL head down there one day or the other, for one reason or the other... I'm training a special Poochyena to defend me/us from Ghost Types and am working on a selfmade Cleanse Tag – we know what we are doing.“ So so Shiva hoped.

„Hmm... A battle to test me is no problem, I can show exactly that Poochyena the if desired. Yes, it obeys me well. I'm prefering to work additional six hours shall a deal be made about the small Unown too, as I'd rather offer my help to the place than my money. I'll speak with the others of my group about that first, though, I'll let you know tomorrow.“

[Iron]

Spoiler

"Gladly! Ah, Kingdra will enjoy traveling all over Creshire with you. Remember that the Sealord does not like being touched. He needs lots of exercise daily, if possible, which means finding some decent body of water every day. He can filter feed if he's in natural water, or he can eat berries, or fish and Magikarp."

Happiness: 2
Loyalty: 1
Disobedience: 4

Moves: Yawn, Twister, Brine, Dragon Dance, Bubble, Leer, Dragon Pulse, Water Gun. This thing is a beast. 6 base HP.



As for the Egg, it has between 6 and 9 days left still.

The empath gave Director North a wide, more than delighted smile at the news, and let out an equally jolly laugh to accompany it! "Excellent! Yes, I'll keep keenly in mind his what his inclinations and adversions , and make sure he gets his all the physical activity he desires! I'll also make sure he's well provided for nutritionally speaking! Now, if you excuse me, I better go tell him the good news poste haste!" Ventus gave the Director another bow in thanks for their generousity, before bustling on over to the Inmate room, and to approach the king of the sea himself , stopping at a respectful distance to give them a customary bow, before clasping their hands together and giving them a wide smile!

"Kingdra, the ordained time has come. I am here to release you from the Shelter's captivity, and take you into my own care as we explore the whole of Cheshire itself. Are you ready, my lord?"

Another lordly bow! He likes that subservient language. This is really happening!!

[Iron]

Flashback!

Heart thanks with a nod of his head. "Thank you Ventus. I promise you I wont do that again without a good reason." Then Heart bow his head in apologize to Shiva too. "Sorry for startle you too Shiva. I promise never do that again." Also he decided to share some information. "Oh I have some information too I forget to share. The Almanacs was hiring scientists to join with them to a little project. And Dagny talk with me she find a few machines beneath the skull ruins. She suspect it would maybe a TM library create by Saminarok itself, but I suspect it might be the drill I hear before our journey to the end of Earth. And this might be conect with the worker disaperance."

"Also when I was inside the Mt. Sentry, I find some old Unow Language. I couldnt translate but I was able to copy in my notes. Here." Then Heart show his notes with the Old Unow Language.



Flashback end

The researcher gives Heart a somewhat curt nod in response, before he loosens up somewhat when they apologize to his dear friend Shiva as well. The rare collecter's news, however, quickly caused him to put aside his current discontent for the man, and soon a sense of guarded curiosity filled him. "That is rather....intriguing news, Heart. Hmm.....perhaps I'll conduct my own investigations into the 'job' that Almanac is hiring for, and see what Insight I can gather of their operations. Researchers such as I are hardly a commonality, so I expect this shady organization would be quite eager to snap up my services, if given the chance..... As for Dagney's own gathered intelligence, in conjuction with your own, I find it likely that Almanac were attempting to find the hidden treasures of the Skull Ruins with that drill they made, before they awoke that golem and unearth those blasted Vines. I wouldn't doubt that more than a few Almanac workers lost their lives or 'disappeared' as a result of that fiasco......"

As for the Old Unown script that Heart copied down, Ventus decided to take a gander at it for a bit himself, both to memorize it and to see if he could glean anything from it (Ven may not have any Lore Specialty Points, but he is rather Insightful + Knowledgable, and I believe he's had a gander at the Old Unown + The partial translation a couple of times to decipher a few letters....)

Ventus easily memorizes the script.

*roll*

He also realizes it's not simply a 1 for 1 alphabetical substitution. There's no solution to this cryptoquip that makes any sense with the context.

[Iron]

Oh yeah, Skrelp loves cookies. He happily oozes onto Shiva's gloved hand and gazes at her adoringly. That might feel weird, considering how a deadly Pokemon can be so adoring.

I'll leave it up to Heart whether he wants to dodge (requiring a roll for Shiva and/or Heart) or just take his medicine.

If you are simply bringing the Unown directly to the Ruins, it would not have to be registered in your name. If you traveled with it first, it would be, and you'd have to pay the fee.

[Iron]

Heart and Shiva take their places in the Little Cup Tournament, facing Addams and Gertrude. Addams is a middle-aged man with huge, callused hands. Gertrude is a HUGE bulky woman that Heart recognizes from the Scrapyard, though they never spoke. It's all muscle, too.

Send out your first Pokemon!

Nathan sees that the silver haired man has indeed moved on to the next round. His name on the scoreboards is Anaster.

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Oh yeah, Skrelp loves cookies. He happily oozes onto Shiva's gloved hand and gazes at her adoringly. That might feel weird, considering how a deadly Pokemon can be so adoring.

While being incredibly thankful that she's wearing gloves that resist the poison, Shiva feels like the term 'bittersweet' has received a whole new meaning. She's humming the melody of a bittersweet symphony on her way from the Shelter to the TOURNAMENT PLATEAU!!!


Whoah, that clearly looked like a stonesmaiden to her. She doesn't let herself be intimidated by Addams though, and fearlessly-gracefully sent out Pancham! He's holding a Chesto Berry, just in case.

[Dragonstrike]

Whoah, that clearly looked like a stonesmaiden to her. She doesn't let herself be intimidated by Addams though, and fearlessly-gracefully sent out Pancham! He's holding a Chesto Berry, just in case.

Kirlia grabs some black and white ribbons!  Nathan's watching Pancham REALLY carefully...