Planeside

[Deathkeeper]

Mystery?

the hallway leads to another room with stairs!
Though as Zebes walks over to it, Jace steps on a trap!
Somehow.
He's pelted by a bunch of really heavy pinecones!
"Ow." he says flatly.

[Rebonack]

[Mystery? - Village]

Kate's comment causes the dog-like pokemon to start, messing up her painting! Aaww... that's too bad. It was looking really nice, too. "Oh... umm... hello?" Smeargle replies uncertainly. "I... I guess I can try to answer your questions."

A beat.

"You're a very pretty color. I've only seen one other pokemon before who shines like you."

Well!

That's a nice thing to say.

[Dungeon]

Fortuna snerks when Jace gets belted with a pine-cone.

"Hehe, do you think you'll need a Softboiled to get you feeling better, or are you still good to go?"

[Lost_Deep]

Mystery? - Village

"Uh, thank you. Who was supposed to be maintaining buildings? Who built them? Why haven't they been fixing them?" Kate asks, "I just... don't like seeing such rickety houses."

[Deathkeeper]

Mystery!

Jace shakes his head.
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" he says. Zebes chuckles, and heads down the stairs.

In this room, a scolipede, a venonat, and a furret were waiting for them! Oh no!

Zebes approaches them carefully. The first bug tackles him, causing them to grunt in pain. The venonat shoots poison powder at Fortuna! The furret walks towards them.

Jace shoots fire at Venonat, but he misses...

[Rebonack]

[Mystery? - Village]

"Oh, well, lots of- umm, that one was- eerr they all got- oh... umm... I don't either? That's why I paint..." the dog-like pokemon replies hesitantly. Seems she doesn't do so great with the constant barrages of questions.

Maybe Kate should slow down a little?

"Umm... I'm Smeargle. Who are you?"

[Dungeon?]

How in heaven's name did Jace manage to miss something with fire that's sitting right in front of him?

Honestly!

That's just inconceivable!

BUT THEN POISON POWDER!

The nasty, choking dust gets poofed right into Fortuna's face, leaving her coughing and generally looking a bit ill all of a sudden. She responds in a totally reasonable and not at all reactive sort of way!

By trying to psionically crush the venonat's mind until it gets knocked unconscious by the mental trauma. PSYCHIC!

[Lost_Deep]

Mystery? - Village

"Kate," Kate says, "I'm just... this places makes me sad." And these huts look drafty.

[Deathkeeper]

Mystery!

The venonat falls over, twitching. Poor thing didn't have much brains to begin with.

Jace uses flame burst on the other bug. It screeches in pain, and flails a bit, before it too falls over. Super effective and burns are more than most bugs can handle.

Zebes gives a powerful downward chop onto the furret, knocking it to the side. Despite its distance, it lashes out with its tail and hits Jace in the face.
"Ow." he says flatly.

[Rebonack]

[Mystery? - Village]

"Oh... well... sorry..." Smeargle replies sadly. "Everyone has been drug away or lost their minds..."

That's...

Really terrifying.

Seriously.

"You can help me paint?" the dog-like pokemon offers.

[Dungeon?]

Getting floofed in the face by a furret's tail really doesn't seem like a very debilitating attack.

Fortuna, however, aims a chakra-powered tail slap of her own! Getting blasted with a tail-bound aura-sphere will probably be a little more harmful than fluffy tail-boops.

[Lost_Deep]

Mystery? - Village

"I'm not very good with art," Kate says. "If only I knew how these were built. We need to fix them up if people are going to come back. What broke them?"

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

Fortuna says that, and yet Jace is missing ten more hit points.

But the normal-type is missing a lot more, as it's currently out cold. That was awfully easy.
"Man, this really is a starting dungeon." says Zebes as he bends down to pick up a large red seed.
"Oooh, blast seed. Nice." he says, starting to move down the hall.

[Rebonack]

[Mystery? Village]

The Smeargle stares at Kate in silence.

Then stares at the nearby ruined building.

Then looks back to Kate. "They did."

That isn't very descriptive, Smeargle.

[Dungeon?]

Fortuna adds several new pokemon to her cloud of beaten-senseless friends. "I guess things get tougher as you go?" she asks. Not that being tougher would be better. But knowing what she's going to be up against is helpful at the very least.

Also?

It would be nice if the bad guys actually went after Zebes!

He has all the defensive buffs!

[Lost_Deep]

Mystery? Village

"Um... if you'd like to be left alone, I can go," Kate says carefully, "I don't want to bug anyone."

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

Zebes nods. That's basically how it works.
The next ten minutes are a bit boring, really. Left turn, they pass a sleeping Raticate. Right turn, a metapod stands in their way for about three seconds before Zebes kicks it over. Right turn, Ice Punch another pidgeotto. Left turn, room with 26P and a Glameow, whose paws bounce off of Zebes' belly before he Dragon Claw's her out cold.
The next room straight ahead has the stairs! And a small trap, which somehow misses Zebes as he steps on it and activates some nasty gas. Which somehow sprays to his left and misses completely. Weird.

[Rebonack]

[Dungeon?]

This place is really surreal.

And Fortuna's collection of unconscious friends is steadily growing. She has no idea if it'll be possible to snap them out of the whole 'have their sapient mind suppressed' thing, but there's no way that she's just going to leave them sitting in some unhallowed hole in the ground waiting to die of old age. Or get eaten. Or something worse.

If any of her friends are looking a little under the weather, they can expect a nice pick-me-up via Softboiled! That sure is a useful move. Who doesn't like having a cleric on hand to keep the team members healthy?

"So... do the pokemon who go feral just wander down here?" Fortuna asks of Zebes. "Is that why there are so many people prowling around this maze who have lost their minds? What causes this? It seems really awful..."

Super awful.

Just the worst, really.

[Mystery Village?]

"No! No, nothing wrong," Smeargle replies quickly. "You can stay? I don't want to be alone..."

There's a very real chance she's afraid of losing her mind. There's that... vague, fuzzy feeling at the edge of her mind. As though she were slowly slipping away and she had nothing to hold onto. Maybe she can hold onto a shiny lizard?

Yes.

Maybe she can.

[Lost_Deep]

Mystery Village?

"Well... okay." there's something weird about this place. Just the atmosphere about it... "Let's try something different, though? Let's try to find something, think of something, to patch some of these holes. I know that likely isn't your kind of thing, and it's not mine, either, but I think it's what needs to be done."

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?: Forest Maze Sanctuary

"From what I understand, it's an effect that's never really been explained or understood well. I just hope it's nothing too Dark Souls-ish." he says, shaking his head.

Descending the stairs, they come to a simple, straight path leading to a cul-de-sac of sorts. Rocks and trees litter the clearing.

"We should spread out. Nidoran is probably hiding here somewhere." Jace suggests.
But as they step forward, the rocks come to life, standing up to reveal an enormous, vaguely serpentine shape!

"GROOOOOAH!" screeches the Onix.

[Rebonack]

[Mystery? - Village]

"Oh... alright..." the dog-like pokemon replies, now hanging onto her tail with both paws as she stands there waiting for Kate to take the lead. Should she begin looking around, she'll find plenty of timbers and nails and the like, but no one to really work with them. The village is all but depopulated! Though given that there are more than a few boards sitting about, they could at the very least nail those over the holes in some of the walls. It wouldn't look particularly flattering, but that's a start at least.

[Dungeon?]

"What's Dark Souls?" Fortuna asks.

She's kinda dreading the answer, to be honest. Mostly because a title like 'dark souls' doesn't suggest anything particularly edifying.

But before an answer can be supplied, suddenly onix! Not the pretty black rocks, no. That would be pretty neat if they were just dealing with some semi-precious stones. Nope, they have to deal with an absolutely massive monster made of solid rock! And also ground. Both rock and ground. There are a lot of pokemon like that for some reason.

Fortuna steels herself, chakra flaring around her little paws as she prepares herself to attack or dodge as the need arises.

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

Onix uses Rock Throw on Zebes!
"Ow." he says as a third of his hit points go missing.

Zebes uses Aqua Tail, swinging his body and tail like an ocean wave, slamming into the Onix with a sound like gushing water.
For once, the super effective hit doesn't instantly knock the beast out. Nor does Jace slamming it with psychic energy.

Oh no! It has boss hp!

[Lost_Deep]

Mystery? - Village

Look at that! Kate will find a rock, and then try to get smeargle to hold the planks in place (safely! Safety is a concern.) while she nails them in. She'll go for the bigger, more obvious issues. She can't get up to the rooves, but she can patch up some holes in walls.

She's not going to be messy about it, either. She's going to have the boards as straight as possible, flush with each other, all that good stuff. It will take more time, and more wood, but what good is a patch job that looks ugly and doesn't do much good?

Somewhere in there, not wanting to be sore tomorrow is forgotten.

[Rebonack]

[Mystery?]

And thus, while her friends battle a giant rock-snake, Kate battles holes in the wall.

You go, little solar powered lizard.

[Dungeon?]

Fortuna tries really hard not to snerk at Zebe's deadpan reaction to getting clubbed with a bunch of flying rocks. It's hard for her to tell how serious he is about being injured! Did that hurt him a lot, or just a little? Honestly, she has no idea. It must not be anything awful, since Zebes doesn't look hurt too badly.

And so?

Fortuna looses a charka bomb on the giant snake!

With a shout she hurls the aura orb, the missile glowing with an ultramarine so intense that it's almost painful to look at! Let's see how the rocky behemoth feels about the power of pure FIGHTAN!

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

The Onix reels in pain as the aura sphere impacts with its face. A critical hit!

Then, oddly, the process just sort of...repeats. Zebes gets hit again, and he looks pretty badly injured. I mean really, giant rocks hurt even when you don't have wings to make them double in damage. Another aqua tail nearly brings it down, and Jace's psychic barrage leaves it laying unconscious in the dirt with a rather unceremonious groan.
"Well. That wasn't so bad." says Jace.

[Fenric]

Orochi's Palace

Steven sits down, giving a polite nod to the gentleman.
"Evening, sir." he says simply.
"What did you have last time?" Steven asks Frederick.

Johann nods

A pleasure.

Frederick chuckles

They served us roast chicken and vegetables, Steven. I do hope they'll be more imaginative tonight!

Helen has the opportunity to point out that Game Hens are not chicken, and delicately steamed and seasoned medly of tenderest Spring produce was heavenly...

[Rebonack]

[Dungeon?]

Alright.

This is just getting surreal.

"What is going ON?" Fortuna practically yells as she conjures up an egg-shaped blob of healing power and moves to stuff it in Zebe's face. "Everything about... about ALL of this seems fake! Completely fake. Like it's a badly performed play."

Super fake.

Just the fakest.

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

Zebes tries to explain, but he's busy mmph-mmph'ing on a magical heal-egg right now.

"What? That was a pretty normal battle. He swung, it didn't kill us, so we smashed it with the strongest things we had. Made sense to me." Jace says with a shrug.

Really, the fight is what sets her off?

[Rebonack]

[Dungeon?]

Fortuna gives a little huff. "I don't know... this place is just bothering me, I guess..."

She glances down at the giant rock-snake.

"And I don't think I'm going to be able to carry him. My telekinesis isn't nearly that strong."

Not even close.

[Ionbound]

Orochi's Palace

Helen is not that snobbish, but nudges Frederick gently and says, nodding to Steven, "It was truly divine, in more ways than one. Hopefully, this meal will be no different."

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

Zebes shakes his head. "He's made of rock, he'll be fine taking a nap here for a while. This place is pretty deserted. Come on, let's find Nidoran and get out of here." he says.

Orochi's Palace

"A sentiment I can agree to. You don't need something original to be good." Steven says.
His mother never really had much variety on hand to cook with, but she was pretty good at using what she had.

[Rebonack]

[Dungeon?]

Fortuna relents with a nod.

"Alright. At least we'll be able to see how Kate is doing. And get some medical treatment for our friends."

Their friends, in this case, refers to Fortuna's cloud of bludgeoned into unconsciousness pokemon.

Onward!

Wait... no onward.

This is the last room!

A small shrub in the corner wriggles a bit moments before a pair of little ears pop out. "Is it safe?" comes a small, frightened voice.

[Deathkeeper]

Dungeon?

Jace goes over to the shrub, a smile on his pseudo-lagomorph face.
"Yeah, we took care of everything. Come on out." he says gently, holding out a paw.

[Rebonack]

[Dungeon?]

And come out she does.

A little female nidoran. No doubt the sister that Nidorino spoke of.

She gives a little gulp, glancing between her rescuers. "Y-you aren't from our village. Who are you?"

Oooh.

This will be the fun part.

Are they going to strike a dramatic pose as a team?

Or is Jace just going to up and tell her all straight forward-like?

Stay tuned to find out!