[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Iron]

Mason begins the series of mock battles with Arete.

He starts out with his disobedient Tyranitar, showing Terra how to handle Rock types and fossiloids who aren't listening properly. The key is to allow them to face challenges head-on, addressing their insecurities, and helping them learn for what situations fight-or-flight isn't the best choice. Of course, to most Rock types, "flight" involves withdrawing into a Defense Curl or something. Arete's Watery leanings help him demonstrate this with precision, and Tyranitar lasts a long time against the type disadvantage. He also withdraws Tyranitar before it faints. "Not fair to make a Pokemon lose a battle so drastically, through no fault of its own. Tyranitar trusts that I will only bring him out when it's safe to do so."

He also brings out a vain Archeops. Terra can see that Mason's method of flattering his Archeops isn't likely to work on Arete, but that's good information to have. Arete also gets great practice at trying to blast Archeops out of the air.

Mason makes Arete fight his Onix next. Onix takes up a huge percentage of the battlefield, and spends a lot of time worming down between the blocks and popping up for surprise attacks. The massive pool of hitpoints means Arete can be as vicious as she likes without gaining anything - only clever commands from Terra can make that battle winnable.

Finally, some of the blocks in the Gym swivel aside, revealing four Crustle making up the inner foundation. "These are my only Bug types I have on hand. Want to see how you do against four at once?"


All in all, Arete gains 1 more point of Loyalty. Terra is finding it much easier to increase her Loyalty than to increase her Happiness.

[Dragonstrike]

"Breeding isn't something I have much knowledge in, but when I do breed Pokemon, I use rare or unusual Pokemon like fossils. Some take to it rapidly, others require special items or environments that are hard to get at a Daycare or similar." He teaches you a Destiny Knot that you can tie for free to increase the odds of Rock types breeding, including deltas.

He'll take you up on a future conversation about Orthros. His only advice there is that a Pokemon who frequently Mega Evolves is considered extra fit by potential partners.

Usually breeds rare and unusual pokemon, huh?  Then Nathan has another question for Mason.  He'll show Mason the various eggs he found deep in the Skull Ruins.  "Got any guesses what these eggs might hatch into?  My pokedex is clueless.  Best I can tell, the parents were an Aerodactyl that looked like it was revived with FTS techniques and a Charizard that...looks like it's seen better days, to put it lightly.  Quite the unusual pairing since those species can't breed with each other normally."

As for the Destiny Knot, Nathan actually has a related question after being shown the Rock knot.  "...so tight it's as hard as a rock...how'd you learn how to tie this destiny knot?  Maybe I can figure out how to tie one for Fire or Psychic types..."

[PhantomUnderYourDesk]

Actually it's pretty sketchy to just write some healing items into your character's inventory, but at this point battle items aren't super useful, so I'll allow it. We won't bother with the bookkeeping of such common items - same for red Pokeballs.

That's what I was worried for and unsure about.  Much appreciated that you're allowing it at this point though, thank yooouu!~


So, and what happens when Shiva connects with Spectral through the Tao Amulet? ^v^ How does her Umbreon see the world?

Exploring near Garlicburg's region, you're still seeing mostly Wailmer and Wailord. But you're also spotting an increase in gigantic-sized Pokemon, especially crustacean and fish mons. They seem to feast on gigantic, nutritional kelp (or on Pokemon that eat the kelp).

So many whales - Shiva leaves them alone for now, and hopes that they will do so likewise. She's not yet prepared to challenge a full-fledged Wailord for training, not quite! Soon she will, hopefully. ...No, not 'hopefully', she WILL be ready for that soon!

All those gigantic Pokemon around make her feel uneasy and very small, just another moment she's thankful for having grabbed the Ancient Shield. Still she's being mindful about not getting too close to them in order to avoid being eaten or crushed by them, and asks her Pokemon to be on guard as well. "How weird... Everything here seems to grow much more and eventually become a lot bigger than it'd be normal...", she wonders.

This gigantic kelp catches her curiosity and interest. It's like a huuuuge underwater-forest, and it has some mysterious as well as...creepy but fascinating touch to it.



The Fish- and Crustacean-Mon feed it on it? Hah! That must be related to their extraordinaire size. Humm... How possible is it for Shiva to obtain a handful of this gigantic kelp, aka harvest some of it? She has no access to Dive as in the Pokemonm Move... But she can dive for a minute herself to grab some leaves from a shallow shore, or alternatively ask Vaporeon or Azu to dive and collect a bit. If all else fails, she'll opt to search for some of this kelp washed up on the shore.

Once obtained, Shiva carefully examinates it, checks on whether it's safe to eat or whether her intuition/7 Insight tells her to better not taste it. It SHOULD be edible, she thinks... After all, people eat nori and similar too, right?

But this time she chooses to give the obtained kelp to Azu and Vaporeon, who more or less naturally feed on kelp. "A light snack, you two?~"

[Spiritmon]

Spoiler

Increasing the water available would help - but you'd run the risk of permanently changing the ecosystem to a wetter one. It might cease to be a savanna. It'd be a calculated risk.

The only Escartress you've heard about are in the swamp on the other side of the continent, but their abilities would indeed be very well suited to changing the water ecosystem of an entire region of the map.

[Iron]

"Breeding isn't something I have much knowledge in, but when I do breed Pokemon, I use rare or unusual Pokemon like fossils. Some take to it rapidly, others require special items or environments that are hard to get at a Daycare or similar." He teaches you a Destiny Knot that you can tie for free to increase the odds of Rock types breeding, including deltas.

He'll take you up on a future conversation about Orthros. His only advice there is that a Pokemon who frequently Mega Evolves is considered extra fit by potential partners.

Usually breeds rare and unusual pokemon, huh?  Then Nathan has another question for Mason.  He'll show Mason the various eggs he found deep in the Skull Ruins.  "Got any guesses what these eggs might hatch into?  My pokedex is clueless.  Best I can tell, the parents were an Aerodactyl that looked like it was revived with FTS techniques and a Charizard that...looks like it's seen better days, to put it lightly.  Quite the unusual pairing since those species can't breed with each other normally."

As for the Destiny Knot, Nathan actually has a related question after being shown the Rock knot.  "...so tight it's as hard as a rock...how'd you learn how to tie this destiny knot?  Maybe I can figure out how to tie one for Fire or Psychic types..."

"This is actually my invention. However, we do have an aide at the university who calls herself Arachne who specializes in all kinds of knots. Not all of them are for breeding, either!"

"Ahhhh, the FTS. So many mysteries still surround them...mysteries that won't be solved until the final layers of the Skull Ruins are laid bare before us. I think what we have here is a very strange Delta Egg with some ghostly energy around it. This other Egg looks nonviable. And this one...hm, well, I can tell you it's a complement to the other one. It's likely they each received a unique combination of the parents' energies. Such creatures are not always hatchable. We don't have any way to increase the likelihood of these strange recombinant Eggs - we don't even have a word for it. They defy all other genetic science! But maybe the FTS did. I wonder if it was ethical..."

"As for hatching them, that's very difficult for me to say. I'm not sure you'd like what you found, either. You may need to consult an expert on unique Pokemon Eggs - someone with more knowledge than anyone here at the University has, I'm sad to say. It's really beyond all our human lore."

[Iron]

Umbreon sees the world as a series of shadows. Places to hide in. When you are hidden, you can attack, you can defend, you can take some time to think. You can heal better. You are safe and you are at your most powerful!

The kelp grows right up to the surface of the water, so you can grab some. It's edible, but very very tough to humans. Your more delicate water types can eat it, but don't relish it the way a scavenger would.

[Iron]

Spoiler

Increasing the water available would help - but you'd run the risk of permanently changing the ecosystem to a wetter one. It might cease to be a savanna. It'd be a calculated risk.

The only Escartress you've heard about are in the swamp on the other side of the continent, but their abilities would indeed be very well suited to changing the water ecosystem of an entire region of the map.

[Spiritmon]

(@Iron, can you use put my posts in the Spoiler Tag for better read? Also, I think you should increase the size of the letter of your posts. Size 4 could do wonders for reading)

Heart think for a few seconds and then talk. "Any idea how I could help restore the savanah of this place? I have...charm with Pokemon, but Water could damage the ecosystem of this place. Any ideas about how I could proceed?"

[Iron]

(@Iron, can you use put my posts in the Spoiler Tag for better read? Also, I think you should increase the size of the letter of your posts. Size 4 could do wonders for reading)

Heart think for a few seconds and then talk. "Any idea how I could help restore the savanah of this place? I have...charm with Pokemon, but Water could damage the ecosystem of this place. Any ideas about how I could proceed?"

"That's a tough question! To restore the savanna to its previous condition... but quickly. What if there were some way to have natural wildfires to clean out the competition, but without damaging the existing trees? That would help."

"Savanna trees take a long long time to grow. They're very important because their large root systems help hold the ground in place. They also store a lot of water and energy in those roots. Hey, here's an idea - instead of planting and encouraging new trees, what if you used the resources in those roots to get a new sprout off the old root systems? For the trees with broken trunks? And maybe make sure any new water you add goes right into the root systems."

[Dragonstrike]

"This is actually my invention. However, we do have an aide at the university who calls herself Arachne who specializes in all kinds of knots. Not all of them are for breeding, either!"

"Ahhhh, the FTS. So many mysteries still surround them...mysteries that won't be solved until the final layers of the Skull Ruins are laid bare before us. I think what we have here is a very strange Delta Egg with some ghostly energy around it. This other Egg looks nonviable. And this one...hm, well, I can tell you it's a complement to the other one. It's likely they each received a unique combination of the parents' energies. Such creatures are not always hatchable. We don't have any way to increase the likelihood of these strange recombinant Eggs - we don't even have a word for it. They defy all other genetic science! But maybe the FTS did. I wonder if it was ethical..."

"As for hatching them, that's very difficult for me to say. I'm not sure you'd like what you found, either. You may need to consult an expert on unique Pokemon Eggs - someone with more knowledge than anyone here at the University has, I'm sad to say. It's really beyond all our human lore."

"Arachne, huh?  I'll remember that, maybe go talk to her later when I've got more time."

Regarding the comments on the eggs, that's actually some food for thought.  "So what you're saying is that these four different eggs could be new kinds of Delta Species, new species altogether, or just...not hatch, period?  That's...odd...but then again, so is an FTS Aerodactyl mother breeding with a Charizard father that's little more than a skeleton now..."  The one that Mason thought might be an unviable egg, was that the Petrified one?  And were the other two he was referring two the two different types of purple colored eggs?  Did Mason also have any thoughts on the fourth variety of egg (the leathery, desiccated ones reminiscent of the Aerodactyl mother's wings)?

"Hmmmm...well, thank you for your input regardless.  I guess I'll have to keep my eyes and ears peeled for possible sources of information, then.  Not the ground breaking research I was expecting to encounter in my travels, but then again, my journey's been full of too many surprises to realistically count."