NOVEMBER EVENT LOG

[teamboba]

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NOVEMBER LOG

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In the aftermath of the rampage, the city of Mango starts to put itself back together, mourning losses of its citizens and Pokemon which would have been much heavier if the calamity hadn't suddenly and mysteriously stopped. The static in the air, which the citizens had gotten so used to to the point of no longer noticing it, is now gone and the silence is almost palpable, so obvious in comparison. Even the sandstorm to the west has started to die down, so that every crunch of heel on gravel can be heard as relief pours from Toran to Mango City, volunteers empathetic and eager to return the favor, however unfortunate that the opportunity had to be this soon.

The ghost Pokemon linger for a while, helping to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife before they disperse back into the forest, while the cemetery stands still and silent save for those working on restoring the graves and fixing structural damages. Both towers remain closed to the public, the cemetery out of respect and the radio tower due to police investigation, with the staff called in for questioning but each denying knowledge of the radio signals having an adverse effect on the Pokemon. If there is anybody with that knowledge, it would be the company president, who is currently on leave elsewhere in the region and cannot be reached due to the storms and a conspicuously missing radio antenna preventing physical and electronic communication respectively. Maybe you guys will come across him later, maybe not. Maybe he got caught up in that volcano explosion you let happen. Who knows? haha!

Either way... people are welcome to remain in Mango as long as they want, and Toran seems to be fully up and running as well. Those who make the trip back to check up on how things are going will find the island to be warm and sunny, townspeople hard at work sowing the berry gardens and expanding the daycare center, where extra Pokemon will be sent to once the maximum limit of six Pokemon in a team has been met. Several missing children posters remain hung up around the daycare, but the island feels fuller, happier, with sounds of children laughing and yelling as they rush to the game corner to pool their tokens to win the new month's prize Pokemon: Swinub which know the move Rock Smash.

But for those who have decided to push forward, the only way forward is to the west, into the sandstorm towards Melona.

→ ICHI WE MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU

(click to expand - with all our hearts)

Even without raging sandstorms, the desert is rough travel and there is no reliable map to get from one place to another, especially with the way the wind naturally and occasionally picks up to start sandstorms, and it's so easy to get turned around by the wind and the cliffs and the way everything is sand for miles and miles and miles around. Little Gale King is eager to go home, looking around for somebody who will act as her guardian so they can travel with a guide straight to Melona. While taking a guide can be a bit expensive, groups up to six people can travel together for the same group price and they are guaranteed safe passage, provided with thick capes to keep the sand from buffeting them, goggles to help them see, and rental Numel to ride upon so they don't have to make the trek on foot.

The trip from Mango to Melona takes several hours, with occasional pit stops during which the guide pitches a large tent for everybody to rest in or to wait out a particularly heavy sandstorm before continuing on, but if they leave early enough in the day, they will eventually come across a huge stone dome in the middle of the desert, spanning several miles in diameter. Around the perimeter of the dome are several gates that can be opened from either side via hand cranks that require two people to operate, the thick stone walls of the dome protecting the desert town from the sun and the sand. At the apex of the dome is an open oculus that allows sunlight to shine down upon the town, and during the day, a constant beam of light illuminates the boba shop located at the very center of Melona. This shop's specialty flavor is Cacnea flower tea and its collectible stamp is a yellow Sandshrew! The boba shop is where the guides make a beeline to once everybody has been dropped off, the employees at the shop glad to hear the news that the sandstorm isn't as bad as it was in the recent month or two, but they also don't seem all that concerned about the outside world, nor were they aware of how bad things really were, with how isolated they are within this dome in the middle of the desert. Tsunamis? Volcanoes? Rampaging Pokemon? The citizens are pretty horrified, actually, and promise to send help to both Mango and Toran when the guides have rested up and are able to make the return journey.

In the meanwhile, Melona is a pretty quiet town, with everything quite scattered and far apart, less streets and more individual buildings with packed dirt paths connecting them. Next to the boba shop near the center of town is the Pokemon center which features a clinic space for people in lieu of an actual hospital, and flanking the Pokemon center on either side is the contest hall and psychic-type Pokemon gym, although the gym leader is currently absent and thus the gym is closed. Apparently it's not uncommon for him to wander off sometimes, but he has never been gone for weeks at a time and the people are getting worried. Is he lost? The last anybody heard, he had set out to find a mythical Pokemon rumored to be in the area, investigating a possible link to the abnormally long and harsh sandstorms that picked up recently, but for as competent a trainer as he is the storm was no joke and the town has never seen anything like it before. The same worry is echoed at the Pokemon school, which takes students of all ages to teach them more about Pokemon, their relationships with humans, and everybody's place in the world; several field trip groups had departed weeks ago but must have gotten caught in the sandstorms as well because they haven't yet returned. Gale is immediately concerned, and, asking around, learns that her little brother Jordan had gone on one of those field trips, and both their parents had gone with him as chaperones.

Hopefully good news will come in time, and the townspeople are patient, going about their daily business with a certain calm. For those who wish to earn some money, there is an abundance of odd jobs hiring both people and Pokemon, especially asking for Pokemon suited to specific tasks such as fire Pokemon to help cook and keep fires going at night for warmth and light, water Pokemon to water the fields and ground Pokemon to help till, flying Pokemon to check the dome for cracks to repair, fast Pokemon to make mail deliveries around town, hardy Pokemon to weather the sandstorms and keep a lookout for anybody approaching, for example. For those who looked at October and went "That was not a break month, what the heck," other places of interest include the museum containing many specimens of ancient Pokemon preserved in fossils and amber found right in the surrounding desert, offering rare items in exchange for more specimens, and... that's it, really. It's a quiet, sleepy town.

The days are hot and the nights are long, but when the sun goes down and the electricity is shut off overnight, the view above is spectacular. Thousands upon thousands of stars can be seen overhead, sparkling like diamonds in the pitch black of the oculus, while candle lit rock salt lamps line the street sides to provide a soft, temptingly lickable, warm glow below.

→ ICHI WRITES ALL THESE HEADERS

(click to expand - Ori headers are just like this haha)

But perhaps you're not the sort to just sit around and wait for things to happen. Perhaps you're the sort to dive headfirst into trouble despite the multiple danger warnings. Perhaps you were just foolhardy enough to have ventured into the desert from Mango without a guide, thinking that you could save a few bucks and make an adventure out of finding Melona all on your own. Those leaving Melona may be stopped by townspeople on the outskirts offering to sell them escape ropes, which will allow them to escape the ruins and appear right in front of them again if they're ever caught in a sticky situation, along with other food, water, and camping supplies. One man in particular suggests catching an Abra to teleport you right back to Melona— or if you prefer, he is also offering to trade one of his own.

Those leaving Mango are out of luck.

Either way, even if it takes days (and if you're wandering blindly, it's going to take days), you will eventually come across one of the ruins scattered throughout the desert. Hopefully you came prepared, not only for the travel, but for whatever awaits inside the ruins! The ruins look like this, aka the first thing that pops up in Google Images, but while some of the pillars still stand, most have collapsed and lay buried in the sand, presumably due to the massive sandstorm that raged the entire month prior. The sand is soft and hard to walk on, constantly shifting over uneven ground and quite a bit of digging might be required to locate hidden underground entrances or other secrets. The ancient ruins seem to be a bit unstable, with evidence of cave-ins here and there, the potential for further cave-ins the deeper inside the ruins one ventures, and with the lack of light and constantly branching halls, one could be stuck down here forever exploring the labyrinths underneath the ruins. Maybe you'll never escape. Maybe you'll live and die here, and get to do just that (:

No wild Pokemon can be found without thirty feet of any of the surface ruins. Every few hours, a slight tremor can briefly be felt underfoot, barely noticeable at the start of the month and becoming somewhat concerning as the month progresses. Everything is fine.

→ MOD NOTES

⬥ It's November!! Somehow! When I'm at work and am writing dates, sometimes I autopilot 2010 and sometimes it's 2021 and ig I just want everything to be over.
⬥ Ruins investigations are currently capped at two investigations per player to allow your mods space to breathe, but is likely to be lifted as the month progresses and investigations wrap up. As a hint, it would be highly worthwhile to investigate the area and question npcs first, and in particular find the gym leader, before heading into the ruins! If you do decide to run blindly into the ruins, though, we'll have a good time (:
⬥ As a reminder, the gym leader must be located and brought back to the gym before any challenges can take place. The contest hall, on the other hand, is open from the start of the month. For both, please comment on the appropriate toplevel for submissions!
⬥ Please comment to the new Pokemon toplevel for trading with the NPC, making a note of which Pokemon you would like to trade for his Abra. As a reminder, traded Pokemon are able to gain +15 levels a month through bonus activity, and traded Abras are able to evolve into its final evolution, Alakazam.
⬥ As an alternative to the daycare in Toran, Pokemon can also be given jobs around Melona if they aren't in your main party. OOCly, players are allowed to give each of their Pokemon +5 levels (not counting towards the bonus activity level cap) one time only for this month, regardless of the number of jobs the Pokemon takes. ICly, the Pokemon will be unavailable for one week while they're at work, so please be mindful of which Pokemon are available in your threads at what time of month! Please also be aware of the badge/ribbon requirements for higher level Pokemon to continue obeying, applicable to the total number of unique badges/ribbons in the travelling group.

Comments

[teamboba]

o7 since you guys are splitting, feel free to reply to this comment with each group and I can reply to them separately once everything's caught up

On the left: the ground continues to tremble as the group makes their way down the hall, and it gets harder to see in the darkness even with a source of light, with how dusty and hard to breath it becomes. At least the walls aren't collapsing in on themselves, and this seems to be the main path most tourists take, seeing as the ground is well packed and largely clear of rock and other debris expected from ancient ruins with no regular maintenance. There are markings on the walls on both side, what looks like symbols or drawings but the carvings are faint, and impossible to read once they get to around chest level. aka about the height hundreds of schoolchildren would be able to most easily reach and touch and rub out the carvings through the years. They don't have much time to admire these carvings, though, because left path is cave-in path! Hope this group has some idea how to either stop the cave-in entirely, or to protect themselves while the hall collapses and comes to a natural stop, otherwise they're getting buried.

On the right: once everybody is through the hole, they find that the ground starts to gently slope downwards. And then very steeply downwards, and instead of the neatly carved stone that made up the upper ruins where they first entered, the ground here is more crude, fairly rocky and it's easy to twist one's ankle if they aren't careful of where they're stepping. Best keep an eye on the sand as well as the rock, because hidden along the slope are many sand pits dug by Trapinch who will very eagerly nip at people's feet if accidentally step into one of the traps, as well as Galarian Stunfisk half hidden in the sand who will also spring their bear traps around people's ankles. It's a hungry Pokemon den (: There is a lone sneaker lying right in the middle of all the Pokemon (:

[thaumewturge]

Team Right is trying to put this cranky 'mons to sleep with Sleep Powder, and Joss is going to carefully check for traps with his spear! What happens?

[teamboba]

Joss' spear is going to get a beating setting off traps left and right, but at least nobody's feet get caught in them! Once the Pokemon poke their heads out, thinking they'd caught prey and being disappointed, Sleep Powder successfully gets them to fall back asleep.

With these two strategies, the team will be able to rush through the den and get out the other side to proceed, but if they linger and intend to investigate the shoe, the burrowed Pokemon will wise up to their plan and start attacking before they can be put to sleep. The sleep powder might also get kicked up into the air and affect the party.

What will they do?

[thaumewturge]

Real quick: there's no blood on or near the shoe?

[teamboba]

With all the dust and dirt kicked up, it's hard to tell for sure, but at a quick glance, there doesn't seem to be any blood on or near the shoe!

[thaumewturge]

In that case they're going to leave the shoe and cross the room. Finding the owner of the shoe > looking at the shoe, especially with all these asshole Pokemon

[teamboba]

my asshole Pokemon just wanting to eat to survive, who can blame them for wanting to live u_u

The group makes it out to the other side fairly unscathed as the ground starts to slop back up and evens out. At the end of the hall is a small room where a dusty backpack lies. Inside, they find two empty potions bottles, an empty Pokeball (which can be taken and reused), and a short length of rope that seems to have been burned on either end, barely two feet long and no good for escaping. If there were any footprints around, they've long been obscured by the many Pokemon tracks crossing through the hall.

Pushing forward, they again come to a split in the path, the right tunnel seeming a bit narrower than the left one, but otherwise it's too dark too see ahead for either. How do you want to proceed?

[thaumewturge]

Going to get Efi to breath fire down the tunnels to see what they can see!

[teamboba]

At the burst of light and heat, a hundred Zubat burst out of the tunnel with an unearthly screech that will make everybody reel, suddenly lightheaded and confused. They flap out of the tunnel in droves, screaming and buffeting everybody's heads and faces with their wings as they push and shove each other and swarm the cavern in their fright and— honestly, own confusion at this apparent enemy that's attacking their home. With their incessant screeching, the ruins rumble once more.

Unless they're able to deal with the Zubat swiftly, the screeching lasts a solid five minutes and the confusion makes them liable to hurt each other and themselves. Their ears hurt pretty badly. Pepper is crying.

So is? a voice? further down the tunnel. Barely audible past all the Zubat they're going to have to get past.

[thaumewturge]

From chat: Efi will cast dragon eye for defense buff for rhel, joss, herself, cyndaquil. Won't affect pokemon in battle 8( vivi will use aromatherapy to kinda offset the painful screeching and uses Gust to send the zubats away. Back off, heathens.

[teamboba]

These heathens were sleeping peacefully until SOMEBODY came and shot fire at their faces /: Rude /:

A Pokemon battle ensues and wears everybody down but I'm going to assume they eventually win because otherwise everybody will black out and get buried forever, considering all the damage the left tunnel team is doing to the ruins. There is rumbling the entire Pokemon battle, distinctly from the left, and towards the end of the battle it gets so bad that I'm going to collapse the tunnel behind this group and seal off the rest of the angry wild Pokemon.

The dust settles and there is only silence. The crying has stopped. In the darkness of the tunnel, they can barely make out quick movement to the side, behind some large fallen rocks.

How will they proceed?

[thaumewturge]

Real quick: we've gotten a bit turned around as to what is blocked off entirely and what isn't. We can no longer go back, but ahead of us is clear for the most part? And this is where this shadow was seen?

[teamboba]

Yeah, that's correct! The tunnel behind the group is completely collapsed so they can't go back without digging themselves out, but the path ahead is clear for the most part, aside from some large fallen rocks due to Akira and co being busy destroying the ruins. The shadow is further ahead from where they are, behind some of those fallen rocks!

[scension]

TEAM LEFT REPRESENT for the brief span of time before they get buried by a cave in

Akira has a Slowpoke and Sagi has a Sigilyph, so they try to get them to psychically hold the collapsing structure off them long enough to pass through the hall. For slightly more safety, Fai will use his magical shield directly above them to keep rubble off their heads. If the Psychic-types can't help, they'll all huddle under the shield.

[teamboba]

With a combination of psychic powers and Fai's shield, the group manages to cross the tunnel unscathed!! To a certain extent. By which I mean they do not get crushed by the rocks falling on top of their heads, but there is a cave-in in front of them and no more space to redirect the rock and dirt unless Akira and Sagi are very in tune with their Pokemon and somehow manage to sort of... move all that rock and dirt over and around behind them while the group crawls along on their stomachs or something, idk, I'm doing my best to give suggestions, you guys, but as it is, this group might become entombed from all sides.

The tremor does not last long! The cave-in eventually stops! But you sure are trapped in Fai's little bubble until you figure out a way to keep moving and either find that original tunnel again that's been collapsed, or another one that is hopefully still intact.

[infiltrationtools]

Okay so here is our proposal. It depends on how much of these tunnels is rock and how much is dirt, but. In an attempt to find either A) the original tunnel or B) other tunnels to escape to, including the space above them where the debris fell from, Akira's going to send out his leetel Sandile and have it do some recon. Sagi will send out his Marshtomp, if it is good enough at digging, to do the same thing.

Sandile respectfully leaves his sunglasses in Akira's care while he does this.

[teamboba]

I had a really good idea for this thread but then I fell asleep for two hours and it wasn't there anymore when I woke up but hopefully I'll remember it again.

Anyways, there's about three feet thick of rock wall that comes down, but after that it's mostly dirt and a whole lot of sand, so Sandile would be able to burrow through the debris while Marshtomp does the heavy lifting of pushing dirt out of the way.

The sunglasses remain safe. They don't even get scratched with all this sand.

Sandile will be able to find promising tunnels to the left, right, and below them. Which direction will they go?

[infiltrationtools]

They're going to go left to see if it's possible to reconnect with the original path they were going down.

[teamboba]

They make it into a new tunnel to the left, but with the ruins falling apart, there's no way to tell whether this is the original path or not. Somewhere to their distant right, they can hear Zubat screeching and rocks tumbling... But the one they're in right now seems to be holding up a bit better, stone walls obviously constructed by man and the carvings a bit more clearer now, although still unintelligible. History!

Along this hall, the group comes across what would be a separate area, except the doorway is blocked— not by fallen stone, but by a neatly fitted rock that seems to have been placed here on purpose, like a physical barrier. One huge slab of rock to blocking a room they can either investigate further, or ignore. There doesn't seem to be any sound from the other side of that rock.

A little further down the hall, the tunnel widens out into a large open area, with large boulders scattered here and there and a shallow pit dug in the center of the room. Inside that pit are a pile of dusty bones. Also a shoe. No blood is apparent on the shoe.

Will they look more closely at anything, or move on?

[infiltrationtools]

Sagi attempts to take that one big rock with a card and delete it. Let's see what's on the other side.

[teamboba]

The rock disappears and the wall collapses. It, uh, might have doubled as structural support, but at least the entire tunnel doesn't fall down over their heads! Once the dust settles, they can enter the unsealed room, which is filled with carvings of a certain Pokemon any of them may or may not recognize from storybooks of legendary Pokemon. The largest stands in the very back of the room and spans the entire wall, with long since burned out candles scattered along the wall in front of it. Here are there are dusty pieces of gold and jewelry, several dolls so old the fabric falls apart when touched, and other personal trinkets.

Nozomi wishes she were here.

[truelovelens]

[heathen sobbing]

[scension]

Nozomi is not here :( But Akira is here and has his cell phone, so he thinks the room looks neat and snaps a photo. Sagi vaguely recognises that the carvings look like a storybook he saw before and convinces Akira to take a few more photos from various angles, covering the whole room. They don't touch anything or go inside the room beyond that, since the load-bearing rock suggests the kids couldn't have come in here.

After that, they leave and move further down the hall. They'll try to cross the wide open area and just keep going, ignoring the pit for now because there's no sign of recent blood.

[teamboba]

The room is very photogenic and the photos all come out well! Good thing you guys preserved it in some aspect, because the ground tremors again and maybe this place won't be here if you decide to come back later depending on if the tremors continue.

The group ignores my innocent barbecue pit and pushes forth. I'm going to give you guys! a shitty MSPaint map!! because words are hard lately. But anyways, the end of the hall leads to a large circular room with like 20 doors surrounding it instead of the 5 that I had space to draw, and each of those rooms contains a large rectangular slab of rock, occasional carvings on the wall, some sealed pots, rudimentary tables and cabinets made of wood. They get the impression that this is a living space!

At the center of all of this is another pit, but, like. One of those bottomless pits where it's too dark to see down into it if you're just squinting.

It looks like this is where their tunnel otherwise ends! What will they do?

[scension]

Akira is going to send Raoul to fly over the pit with Sagi's glowing dagger and shine it downward, is it possible for him to see anything then?