Trying Pokemon Tabletop Adventures

[Forum Explorer]

I think someone (not me) needs to run a similar game of GitP

[LoneStarNorth]

It ain't dead, it just likes to sleep in.

The group fled deep beneath Mt. Moon until they could no longer hear the nidoking behind them. The tunnels were very cramped, but mostly wide and high enough to walk upright. Since going back wasn't an option, they decided that all they could do was head onwards, with Chaos in the lead as their primary light source.

The tunnel branched many times, but Dale labeled every intersection by carving the stone with his pocket knife, while also making a rough map of their progress. They hit many dead ends and even encountered a few wild pokemon, but they were all relatively docile and didn't pursue them as they fled. One possible exception was a massive zubat at the end of one tunnel, big enough to bite a man in half, but as it was sleeping they managed to avoid a confrontation.

After awhile they came across a fork where the ceiling had partially collapsed some time ago. Caught in the cave-in were two pokemon trainers, long ago reduced to skeletons by scavenging pokemon. Searching the area, Dale found three empty pokeballs and an ultra ball (the latter of which he pocketed himself). They also spotted the remains of three destroyed pokeballs, reminiscent of when Chaos overloaded his and freed himself.

Finally, one of the trainers had an occupied pokeball (they glow) sticking out of his pocket, but it was wedged under the fallen stones. Attempting to retrieve it might cause another collapse. Dale was willing to give it a try, though. After a few unsuccessful but non-fatal attempts, he managed to get the pokeball loose and replaced it with a similar sized rock, Indiana Jones style. Not that any of them know who Indiana Jones is, since the world ended before those movies were ever made. What a shame...

The pokeball contained a magnemite. As manufactured pokemon, they are unerringly obedient to whomever holds their pokeball. Since Violet was the only one without at least two pokemon, she took the magnemite and named it Tesla (or Tessie). She also pondered specializing in electric type pokemon, but she'd have to catch a few more first.

The party decided to take the right fork at first, but it led only to a large chamber split by a chasm a couple dozen feet wide. They could hear running water echoing from the bottom. They decided not to risk trying to cross it until they'd explored their other options, and so they backtracked and took the left fork.

This tunnel transitioned from stone to dirt floors, and they began to see many side tunnels branching in all directions. Most of these were too small for a human, but Chaos wandered down one, curious to see where they led. He returned a moment later dragging a dead diglett, which he told the party (through shaking or nodding his head) was already dead when he found it. They also noticed that the walls and floor of the tunnel were becoming more and more damp the farther along they went. This was unusual and somewhat worrisome, but what choice did they have but to go on?

Rounding a bend, they found a collapsed dugtrio being eaten by a meowth and a bellsprout. The party instinctually whipped out their pokedexes to retrieve data on the two new species, but the noise alerted the pokemon to their presence. The meowth took up an aggressive stance while the bellsprout slapped its leaves together noisily. From farther down the tunnel came the answering slap of approaching footfalls. A pokemon trainer, they assumed. They didn't want to be caught, but they had nowhere to flee to, so they decided to stand and fight.

At first the battle went well, though the bellsprout was able to put Chaos to sleep almost immediately. That still left the party with a numerical advantage, however, but those footfalls just kept getting closer... until they suddenly stopped. Dale shone his flashlight down the tunnel, revealing a large, angry-looking golduck.

Let me tell you something about Dale. Up until his Squirtle jumped in front of him and saved his life, he didn't have a very high opinion about pokemon in general. He refused to form any sort of attachment to them, even though the ones he and his friends had captured proved to be friendly once they got used to human company. All of this stemmed from his childhood pet, a domesticated (which is to say, lobotomized) growlithe. He'd loved his pet, but one day they'd wandered too far away from the safety of Celadon City and were attacked by a wild pokemon, resulting in the growlithe's death. He afterwards found it easier not to get attached, since pokemon often live short and brutal lives.

The wild pokemon that killed his pet? Yeah, it was a golduck.

Dale froze up, which caused his Squirtle to cease shooting off bubbles from way in the back of the line, and the bellsprout was kicking the crap out of Poseidon the magikarp (who finally got to attack something, at least). The meowth had been paralyzed and confused into submission. Tessie's thundershock attacks were wearing down the golduck quickly, but it had plenty enough time to get right into the middle of the group and unleash devastating burst attack, which knocked out both Frank and Katherine. You'd think they would've learned not to stand so close together after the geodude incident, but I guess they can be forgiven as the tunnels were so narrow.

This jarred Dale back into action. Since the approaching footsteps belonged to a pokemon and not a trainer, and these three were working together despite being of very different breeds AND not being local to the caves, he concluded they were the pokemon that had escaped from those two dead trainers. He quickly caught the meowth, which freed freshly-awakened Chaos up to start roasting the bellsprout. Tessie knocked out the golduck in only two strong attacks, and Violet was able to catch the bellsprout just before it collapsed (remember, unconscious pokemon die when captured).

There was some talk about trying to catch the golduck as they had the magikarp before, but Dale executed it instead. Who knows whether this encounter will leave him a better person, or just make him worse.

Dale and Violet (and their conscious pokemon) tried to carry Frank and Katherine back to a safe tunnel, but the way back was blocked by a group of digletts. Trying to retreat past the battlefield, they were blocked from going onwards. In fact, every single tunnel they could see had a tiny little head poking out of it stopping their progress except for one. They were wary of allowing themselves to be herded, but with half their party already down (including the medic), they felt they didn't have much choice.

After being coerced through several twists and turns, they found themselves back in solid stone tunnels once more, and the digletts stopped following them. Furthermore, no giant boss diglett showed up to devour them whole, which was a relief. Had the mole pokemon merely been chasing them away from their territory, or had they been deliberatly helping the group out of gratitude for getting rid of three vicious predators? Digletts can't speak, so they'll probably never know.

They went on until they found an unoccupied branch tunnel, then rested for the better part of two days, at which point their careful first aid work paid off and the girl who actually knows something about medicine regained consciousness. At about the same time, three of the four eggs she was carrying began to hatch. Katherine was now in possession of three infant mankeys, which clung to her hair as if she were their mother. She didn't want to keep all three, but the group thougth it better to decide on that when and if they could see the sun again.

Once everyone was fit to walk, they carried on. They wandered for many hours through many brnaching, dead-end tunnels. They occasionally seemed to be heading upwards towards the surface, but any given tunnel might change direction dozens of times, winding up or down seemingly at random. They understood that the mole pokemon had dug the tunnels back in the softer dirt areas, but most of these stone tunnels couldn't be natural. What creature could have dug through solid stone?

After spending most of three days underground, they blundered into a large chamber strewn with boulders. Before they could explore further, the boulders reared up and glared at them furiously. It was an onix, much larger than the one they'd encountered previously. And, as they found out while fleeing at top possible speed, it was more than twice the level of any of their pokemon. It was also faster.

Just when all seemed hopeless, they spotted moonlight shining down from a tunnel up ahead; an exit! Fitting that they would both enter and escape these caves with a giant bloodthirsty monster on their tails. But this onix wasn't going to be lost or evaded as easily. Even now it was closing the distance between them...

Suddenly, Katherine stopped running. "This foe is beyond any of you." Planting her feet, she stood before the charging onix and cried, "you shall not pass!"

And then she threw Poseidon the magikarp at its face.

In midair, seconds before impact, Poseidon glowed brightly as it released the energy it had been storing over its entire lifetime. Pokemon evolution is drastically different from that of native Earth creatures, but it serves the same basic purpose. When a creature is faced with extinction, it must adapt and become stronger if it wants to survive.

The party continued to run as the ground shook with the fury of the epic serpent battle behind them. They burst into the open air and fled down into the valley below. They could see they were lost in the mountains somewhere, but just then, they didn't care. Not until they had covered several miles were they shocked into stopping as Poseidon's pokeball began to spark and short circuit.

They had escaped the tunnels of Moria Mt. Moon, but only at great cost.

Spoiler

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The PTA bestiary says that pokemon don't evolve automatically when they reach the right level, but that they have to be in a state of strong emotions to trigger the change. Basically this means pokemon evolve when the DM says so, I guess. Instead, I made some rules which give a random chance for a pokemon to evolve every time it gains a level over its minimum to evolve, and also every time it enters battle against a stronger opponent. This chance gets higher the more levels a pokemon has over its evolutionary minimum.

However, an onix versus gyarados fight was too cool not to happen, so I abandoned the die rolls in this instance.

Also, the session mostly considered of "We go right." "Dead end." "We backtrack and go left." "You find another fork." However, there were many other rooms with 'scripted' encounters in them, such as the dead pokemon trainers and their escaped pokemon, and the onix nest. The party just didn't end up finding any of them. They ALSO ended up taking the longest possible route through the tunnels, passing by two other exits before finally escaping. That's just the way these things go sometimes.

[The Glyphstone]

That means Poseidon died in the battle, right?

[LoneStarNorth]

Yes, pokeballs actually explode if their captive has escaped. Poor Poseidon ended up doing exactly what everyone knew he would do from the moment they caught him; getting throw towards danger in the hopes he would provide a suitable distraction.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, he was a Magikarp. At least this way he had a suitable epic death.

[Bearpunch]

This is so awesome, I may poop. I need to convince my group to play this.

[Arcran]

Subscribing to awesomeness.

[Snowbear22]

And here I was hoping this was updated with another amazing chapter of the story. If there is only one way to go down, I'm sure Magikarp definitely achieved it.

[LoneStarNorth]

Still goin'! This was kind of a short session though, as there was a lot of semi-OOC talk about what the party wanted to do before a plot point caught up with them.

Having escaped the wild onix and put some some distance between themselves and Mt. Moon, the party continued to wander south and west towards Viridian Forest, saddened by the death of another pokemon but happy to be alive. They rested at the edge of the forest, then continued on in the morning, following the tracking devices in their pokedexes leading them towards... something.

The devices' crude maps zoomed in the closer they got to their target. The maps didn't feature any significant detail, but the smaller scale helped Dale triangulate. It wasn't long before they found themselves to be standing right on top of... nothing?

Their first instinct was to look up, but there was nothing there but clear blue sky through the forest canopy. Next they thought that perhaps there was something under their feet, perhaps a secret Indigo League base of some kind. As they debated, Katherine noticed that a small nearby branch was bent towards the ground for no apparent reason. After quietly discussing with the rest of the party, they decided to have Frodo, Frank's bulbasaur, use her vines to pull on the branch.

No sooner was this done than something became visible sitting on the branch, but the party only had enough time to tell that it was small and pinkish-white before Frodo suddenly went flying backwards into a tree trunk, mortally wounded and bleeding from its ears, nose, and mouth. Fortunately, they were able to give it medical attention just in the nick of time, but the strange pokemon (for so it must have been) had escaped in the confusion. Their pokedexes indicated it was fleeing at great speeds to the north.

As the group's only purpose had turned out to be something powerful enough to kill them in one shot, they all sat down and tried to think of what they were going to do with their lives. Following the pokemon didn't seem worth their lives, but neither could they just go back home, as they were likely to be nabbed by the League as soon as they showed their faces. Dale said that he wanted to start tracking down rookie trainers and ambushing them. Not out of any sense of justice or even vengeance, but for their pokeballs. If they could amass a large enough and powerful enough force of tamed pokemon, they should be able to carve out a meagre living somewhere in the wilderness.

Before they could discuss further, they head approaching footfalls, either two humans or a quadruped, which probably meant Indigo League. They quickly hid in some nearby bushes. The footfalls slowed as they drew closer, and then who should step into the clearing but Gary Oak, rising star of the League, riding his ninetales.

The moment of panic caused something to snap in Violet's head. Apparently, exposure to the psychic energies of that mysterious pokemon had unlocked similar powers within her, and she found herself able to read Gary's thoughts. He appeared to be looking for something, but could have sworn he'd heard voices. He set his gengar free to comb the area for auras...

They had no choice but to run for it, as several of their pokemon were out of their pokeballs, and they couldn't be caught with them. The pokemon themselves were easily able to flee, being used to making their way in the wild, but Katherine and Frank both made too much noise. Gary demanded that they show themselves. When they tried to run instead, his ninetales tackled Katherine to the ground while his gengar paralyzed Frank with its tongue.

They managed to cobble together a lie about a sick aunt and a school project to explain why they were in the woods. It seems Gary wasn't up to date on the League's most wanted list, which was lucky for them. He didn't buy their story, but rather than pressing them he seemed to assume they were doing something ELSE alone in the woods. He escorted them back to Viridian while the rest of the party followed behind.

He left them at the city's edge rather than bringing them to the authorities, then headed back out into the woods, seemingly to keep looking for that strange pokemon. The party regrouped and fled to the northwest, well away from civilization. They hoped to establish a hideout somewhere, but while they were talking about it, they blundered into a flock of spearows and their alpha, a large fearow.

The battle only lasted two rounds, in which time Violet's electric pokemon were easily able to take out the larger bird. However, there were enough of the smaller ones to wound Tommy and Deuce, but poor Frodo found himself on entirely the wrong end of a type disadvantage. The spearows pecked him to death, and his luck had apparently run out. Frodo was gone.

Before the party could even react properly, all of the pokemon in the group suddenly stopped and looked off in the same direction. The party realized they could feel the ground shaking beneath their feet at regular intervals. The spearows took flight, and the party wisely did the same.

They ran at top speed, but the creature was gaining. They entered a large clearing and looked behind them. It seemed that the high level nidoking from the other day had finally tracked them down. Why it was so intent on ripping them apart, they still didn't know. Its eyes no longer glowed red, but purple. It fired a devastating beam of white light over their heads. It didn't hit any of them directly, but they all felt it. It also carved a nice little trail through the trees ahead of them.

Well, if the nidoking was faster than them AND had that kind of power, they would just have to kill it before it could fire again.

They started off with some debuffs and lined their remaining non-level-one pokemon up for battle, but when the nidoking got within a few feet of them, they saw that it wasn't actually about to smash them into paste. It had missed them DELIBERATELY. It held out one massive forelimb, and they saw it was clutching Frodo's battered corpse.

Violet heard a slow, deliberate voice echoing in her head...

We can make a deal.
What kind of deal?
It can be restored.
What do you need from us?
East, in a mountain of steel, humans are making an abomination. Stop them. Destroy it.

What choice did they have but to agree?

No sooner had they done so than Frodo squirmed in the nidoking's grip. She dropped to the ground and started running around in apparent panic, but calmed down momentarily. With that, the nidoking began to walk away.

They called out after it with more questions. What was the nature of this abomination? How could they destroy it? When were they expected to complete this task?

Soon.

The pokemon disappeared into the trees.

Spoiler

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Some notes.

If you think resurrecting someone's pokemon is cheap in this kind of campaign, wait'll you hear this! We'd all thought the bulbasaur had permadied the FIRST time it took damage this session, but because I'd houseruled the death saving throw slightly, the first (failing) roll Frank's player made was a dud. When he rerolled it, Frodo turned out not to have died after all. That's two revives in one session! What gives?! This was supposed to be a dark and gritty game!

There are exactly three ways to revive a dead pokemon in my setting, which all have their own rules and explanations for why it can happen. If it had been ANY other pokemon that had died on the spearow encounter, they would have been other luck. What makes Frodo the bulbasaur so special then? Hmmmm.

Also, there is NO way to revive a dead human.

[Arcran]

Hmmm... The fact that Mew can learn Transform has a lot of theories bouncing around. Really enjoy reading your log, keep it up!

EDIT: Also, what dying rules are you using?

[Esprit15]

EDIT: Also, what dying rules are you using?

I was wondering the same thing. You can't just leave us hanging like that!

[LoneStarNorth]

I houseruled death saves so that both people and pokemon use a d20 roll with the target number based on trainer level. This means pokemon have a greater chance to pull through, but "greater" is still a relative term.

If you mean what are the three ways pokemon can be revived, I'm not telling. I didn't even tell the players THAT much, so I guess if they bother to read this log they'll get some bonus info.

[mint]

Still horrifying to read. I really like it.

[Tesla_pasta]

I was wondering the same thing. You can't just leave us hanging like that!

I seem to remember finding a pdf of the rules somewhere online. It looks kinda amazing, actually. So much variety. Im gonna have to try it someday.

[LoneStarNorth]

We had a session last night, but it was a really short one. As such, I'm going to lump the log together with the next one, as we're hoping to squeeze another session in before Christmas.

[Esprit15]

Awesome! Can't wait to read it.

[LoneStarNorth]

We did indeed sneak in one more session this year, and I will now relate it to you.

After the strange nidoking left, the party decided they should waste no time in heading back east, for the "mountain of steel" the creature mentioned was surely the headquarters of the Silph Corporation in Saffron City, the closest thing the post-pokemon world has to a skyscraper. However, when they attempted to cross the Viridian/Pewter route on their way to the mountains, they found it heavily patrolled by Indigo trainers, including at least one scout circling on a fearow.

A few plans were concocted and discarded over the course of several minutes. The best idea they could come up with was to create a distraction by throwing a rock. Cliched, yes, but Violet could throw it with TELEKINESIS, which would surely give them an edge.

Before embarking on this foolish endeavour, Katherine noticed that they had apparently picked up a fifth wheel. A large, hairy man was crouching in the bushes behind them, listening to their whispered conversation. They asked him who he was and he said his name was Hiker. After a very awkward conversation (the man was out of practice) he invited them back to his cabin for soup. They were too hungry to argue. Plus they figured they could always sic their pokemon on him. Strangely enough, though, Hiker (or Scruffy as Dale took to calling him) didn't seem at all unnerved by the half dozen pokemon walking around with them.

At the cabin, Hiker turned out to be an illegal pokemon owner himself. He had a vulpix named Janice which he apparently trusted enough to wander about on her own. He'd looted some pokeballs from a dead trainer some time ago, then caught Janice after beating her up with his bare hands. Hiker had been living on his own in the woods for longer than most of the party had been alive, and he didn't care much for the League, though he didn't explain why.

The party decided to trust him and explained their situation, and their need to get past the trainer patrols. Hiker pointed out that pokemon had dug a tunnel under the mountains some time ago, and that the entrance was nearby. The exit was on the far side of Vermilion, which was just about perfect for their needs. The League didn't seem to know about it, which was even better. It was decided; they'd take the tunnel. Hiker would go with them, as he didn't like the idea of a bunch of kids on the run from the League by themselves.

At first all was quiet. As Hiker had promised, the tunnel seemed to have been abandoned by the local pokemon. At least, until they got a couple of miles through it, at which point they saw a light up ahead and heard something charging down the tunnel towards them. A rhyhorn, badly injured and on fire, ran past and collapsed unconscious. Two magmars emerged from the darkness ahead. The party prepared for a fight/retreat, but rather than attacking the magmars simply stepped aside and let them past. Nobody knew what to make of this, but they weren't about to question their continued good luck. They hurried past (though Chaos stayed behind and "talked" to the magmars briefly), and by midnight they had reached the other end of the tunnel.

The party set up a watch while they rested before heading north to Saffron. During the second shift, however, Violet found hersolf dozing off.

Come morning, Dale gave Violet hell for falling asleep on watch. Violet tried to defend herself by saying that nothing bad had happened (except that a wild bulbasaur had chewed on the tail of the party's new baby slowpoke, which recently hatched; Hiker ended up getting it since he, too, was ridiculously slow due to a knee injury). The party soon noticed, however, that Katherine was missing.

Dale has his meowth follow her scent, which led east. They found her discarded pokeballs, but after some time the meowth refused to go any further. In fact, all of their pokemon were clearly afraid of something. The meowth even went so far as to try and overload its pokeball and escape, though the attempt failed. In fact, only Tessie the magnemite (being totally obedient to its trainer) and their first pokemon (which had been around them long enough to develop a lot of trust) were willing to go on. The group was worried, but Katherine had saved most of them with her medical knowledge at least once. There was nothing for it but to keep going. They returned most of their pokemon to their balls and left Chaos waiting under at tree.

(This was where the first session ended. It looks like a lot when typed out, but it was really only a short session interupted by way too much screwing around.)

After heading east for some time along an overgrown former route, the party reached the abandoned Lavender Town. Many years ago, early in the days of the Indigo League, a massive radio tower had been built there in an attempt to counter the strange failure of all long-range radio signals which coincided with the arrival of pokemon on Earth. However, after only about a day of broadcasting, all communications with the town were lost. The official League explanation was that the tower's energy needs were too high, and so it and the entire town were abandoned.

The party had seen way too much to believe that for a second, of course.

The entire town was obscured by dark fog, and a sheet of black clouds blotted out the sun. No plants were growing in the area, which meant that most of the buildings were intact rather than town apart by trees. There also seemed to be no pokemon or animals about. All was silent and still except for the occasional breeze blowing the dust about.

Hiker's vulpix was able to follow Katherine's trail, which deep into the centre of the town. On their way, the party noticed a pokemon centre. These buildings are the League's connection the public. They offer medical services and temporary shelter to victims of pokemon attacks in addition to services and supplies for trainers. Reasoning that there might still be some pokeballs or other useful things inside, the party decided to check it out quickly.

The building was largely whole except for a few cracks in the ceiling and a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. They quickly scooped up any medication they could find that wasn't expired and that they knew wouldn't kill them, as well as some bandages and clothing. The centre had clearly been abandoned in haste.

After a few minutes, Frank noticed a faint, ominpresent static hiss inside the building. Occasionally he thought he could hear snatches of words or music. Thinking it might be the PA system, they started fiddling about with the computers at the front desk. They weren't receiving power, however. Violet had her pikachu try to power them up, but they got the wiring wrong and the attempt failed. They decided not to try it again lest they break the machines and tire out their pokemon.

They also found a portable radio whose batteries seemed to still have a charge. Turning it on, however, they couldn't seem to pick up a proper signal, and all they got was a loud mix of various broadcasts, Bizarrely, they all seemed to be for sporting events; there had been no organized sports broadcasts in made in over fifty years.

Seconds after turning the radio on, the building seemed to quiver and dust rained down from the ceiling. They quickly turned the machine off.

In the back, they found several useful items after ripping open some drawers with Frodo's vines. They found some pokeballs, some antidote (which only worked on pokemon, unfortunately), and some "potions"; small portable batteries which could be plugged into a pokeball to restore energy to the pokemon inside. All seemed to be in working order, but unfortunately the centre's main pokemon restoration device was out of power. They left the building.

They continued to follow Katherine's trail, but they noticed that the static hiss could now be heard outside as well. Before they could even being to guess what that meant, they saw Katherine up ahead, sitting on a park bench. She was staring blankly ahead and stroking her hair. She seemed to be singing, but the sound she made included instrumental accompaniment...

Katherine didn't respond to Dale and Frank asking her what she was doing here. When Violet tried to help her to her feet, the music stopped and she fell limply to the ground. Before they could pick her up, she shot off across the ground as if being dragged. Dale gave chase, but despite being the fastest runner in the party, he couldn't keep up. They'd lost her, and what's worse, the static noise around them was now louder and more erratic.

While wandering the streets and trying to come up with a plan, they noticed something strange. A small house nearby had been covered entirely in copper plating, even the door and windows. As this seemed a recent addition, they decided to check it out. After nobody answered their knocking, Hiker shouldered the door open. They were immediately greeted by the blinding glare of two industrial flashlights and a raspy voice shrieking at them; "Close the door!" They did so, and the ominpresent static ceased.

A disheveled, white-haired man was pointing a revolver and a blowtorch at them from behind a desk. After closing the door, they made repeated attempts to calm him down, but only seemed able to escalate the situation. Eventually the man released a voltorb from a pokeball and threatened to blow them all to pieces (including himself). Hiker, being intimately familiar with going crazy from isolation, was finally able to confuse and distract the man enough to render him less of an immediate threat.

They gathered that the man wasn't with the League; in fact, he was very much against them, and initiatlly suspicious that the party themselves might be League officials come looking for them. Rather than push that topic, the party tried to get information on just what was going on in Lavender. The man revealed that in building the "Tower of Babel", the League had brought down God's wrath. Instead of leading to heaven, the tower now served as a gateway to hell. He that he and some accomplices had attempted to take the tower back, but were stopped by "the devil" himself, a terrible skull-faced monstrosity. The man claimed to be the only survivor.

As the man was clearly more than a little insane, they waited until he apparently forgot they were there while banging away on an old typewriter. They snuck out the door, but not before snatching up his flashlights (he had a third which bore the Silph logo, oddly enough) and blowtorch, which they thought might come in handy. They reasoned that he wouldn't try to get them back, as he didn't seem to have left his little shack in years.

After some more wandering, they finally came across the old radio tower. The building was in good condition, except that the tower was bent to one side (due to a heavy impact, they guessed). It was also surrounded by corpses, . All showed signs of severe blunt trauma, and most were armed with pokeballs (broken, but salvageable). Those farthest from the door also had guns, but none of the weapons still worked (or had ammo). The men seemed to have died while trying to get through the broadcasting station's front door. Or perhaps while trying to escape. None of them wore League uniforms.

Hiker noticed movement inside. A small pokemon was peering out of the doorway; a cubone. They puzzled over the description their pokedexes gave them; an orphan pokemon first created when another pokemon species lost its mother at an early age. It used the mother's bones for both armour and weapons. Hiker decided that he wanted to catch it, so the party went inside. Once again, the static hiss stopped.

There were more corpses (and parts of corpses) inside. Violet turned on her flashlight to get a better look at things, but the Silph-labeled light emitted a dark purple beam rather than a bright white one. It also revealed glowing splatters across the walls and floors. They didn't know what the strange light's purpose was, but they could see by it and so didn't bother to turn it off.

The cubone fled up to the roof, and the party followed. Violet stepped forward to get a better look at the pokemon as it huddled behind one of the tower's legs, but the beam of her Silph flashlight reveal something alarming. Surrounding the tower were... faces. Angry faces, which could only be seen when the black light shone on them. Realizing they could be seen, the faces would emit a high-pitched tone and fly away, but the party was able to identify them as gastly, a ghost pokemon.

They quickly fled back inside, as the gastly appeared unwilling to enter the building. Looking for a reason why, the party headed downstairs, where they found the recording and broadcasting studio. There were bodies down here, but they were older, and had seemingly died instantly rather than by violence. There were no splatters except for in the far corner. They stepped forward to get a closer look.

Huddled in the corner was a partial pokemon skeleton, a squat humanoid creature. It was missing a femur and its skull, with only its jaw still resting nearby. Many of its bones were broken, and some still had embedded bullets. The ground beneath the skeleton was absolutely littered with them. The creature had apparently killed dozens of armed men while under heavy fire, then only died hours later after dragging itself here.

Suddenly they heard a wail from the stairwell. The cubone had followed them, and was shrieking at the top of its lungs. The room grew darker, and the static returned. Somehow, it sounded angry. Violet's flashlight revealed a massive semitransparent marowak rising out of the floor.

In a panic the party attacked. If the thing had a visible form, it could be damaged, they reasoned. Apparently their pokemon agreed, as they were now willing to fight again after hours of slinking along uselessly behind them. The marowak for some reason gave them the chance to strike first, but it wasn't nearly enough to take the powerful spectre down. In its first attack it shattered Tessie to pieces, and the party was only able to win by slowly wearing it down with a constant barrage of energy attacks. Finally, the creature collapsed. But it didn't disappear as they hoped it would; it just lay there. The cubone sobbed in the corner.

Hiker decided this was his chance. He had his vulpix attack the creature, then caught it once it was weakened. This proved to be a bad idea.

The marowak turned its eyeless gaze on Hiker, and uttered a low rumbling noise from its distended mouth. The party fled before it could do anything other than scare the hell out of them.

Outside, they found the static greatly subdued. Janice was able to keep her head and follow Katherine's trail again. They soon found her, floating slowly along with her feet dragging. Violet and Hiker grabbed her and Frank shone the Silph light on her, which sure enough revealed a gastly engulfing her. The light chased it out of her body, causing her to instantly go limp. The party steeled themselves for another battle...

...but Dale threw a pokeball and caught it instantly.

Katherine immediately regained consciousness and began sobbing the name "Evan" over and over and over.

The group hurried away from Lavender, heading northwest towards Saffron, as they'd already lost a lot of time. Only as night fell did they remember they'd left Chaos behind on the abandoned route. They hoped he would still be waiting for them come morning.

Spoiler

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THIS IS WHAT POKEMON HAS BECOME IN MY HANDS. WEEP FOR YOUR DESPOILED CHILDHOOD.

[Esprit15]

This is awesomeness. Nightmare fuel Lavender Town. Too bad you're just sticking to the original games; Litwick's family would make this even scarrier.

Chaos was the Charmander, right? Was the player absent or something?

[LoneStarNorth]

Chaos was a temporary player character. His player is now Hiker. While playing as a pokemon SOUNDS cool, and SEEMS like it would improve your survivability, what it really means is that you're all alone when the rest of the players are three or four people each. Pokemon can die pretty easily, as demonstrated by the magnemite getting nailed by a powerful ground type attack.

Anyway, Chaos is now an NPC ally, but we'll see what becomes of him now that he's been left on his own.

[LoneStarNorth]

Sorry to necropost; this IS still ongoing, it's just a CRAZY long time between sessions. As such, I am continuing it on my own forum so as not to (further) break the rules of this one