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NOVEMBER EVENT LOG

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.

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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.

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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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

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?

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

Edited 2020-11-09 22:12 (UTC)

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.

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.

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?

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?

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!

Then we are going to try and coax the shadow out, see what's going on!

What, specifically, are they going to do to coax the shadow out?

I should have said that whoops UH Rhel is going to be calm and reassuring, promising they didn't mean to scare the Zubats or anyone else, they just wanted to see what was in the dark. They're here to help--Gale sent them!

Things could have been really bad and really messy, but then Rhel said the magic word. There's a gasp as a small child pokes his head out from behind the rock, apparently struggling to keep something else beside him down and out of sight, but he's very !!! and asks how they know Gale and is she okay and is she with them and did they really really come here to help because oh my god do they need help. All of this in one breath until he runs out of air and has to pause to breathe. He turns to his side and murmurs something about how he didn't think Gale would make friends with old people.

How will they respond and what will they ask? Please compile a list of everything they want to know instead of us going back and forth one question at a time since my turnaround time is DAYS i'm sorry

You're fine hun! Rhel will be doing most of the questioning (and flicking an ear at "old people" wow rude). She will assure him that Gale is fine, they met her on Tora and offered to take her home only to find that her family was missing! Then, in no particular order:

-Who is he?
-Where is everyone else?
-Does anyone need first aid right this very minute?
-How long have they been down here?
-How many children are down here? How many adults?
-Do Escape Ropes not work here or something?

And then if he will take them to where everyone else is so they can start figuring out the best way to get back to the surface.

Anybody over 11 is considered old. Anyways!!

The boy says his name is Jamie, and he'd come down here with his field trip group consisting of six children and two adult chaperones total about two weeks ago? They had to take a detour because of the cave-ins and got lost, and then got attacked by wild Pokemon— one of the wild Pokemon stole their backpack full of supplies and one of the adults went after it but hasn't come back yet. The other adult is with the rest of the kids, but there's a very strong wild Pokemon in the way that they can't get past, so they're stuck. He doesn't know if any of them need first aid, because it's been two days since he's seen them. He explains that he and his Rockruff (which would have immediately attacked and bitten whoever approached if Rhel hadn't been so calm and reassuring and used her words first) managed to slip past the Pokemon to go get help, as Rockruff has a very good sense of smell and would likely be able to sniff his way back, but they weren't able to get past all those Zubat... But if you guys are here, then you must have defeated them all, right? It's not like the tunnel collapsed behind you guys and completely sealed off the exit, right??

He will take them to where everybody is but they have to be suuuuuper super quiet, do they promise? Don't attack it right away, because it might lash out and hurt everybody else nearby!

Rhel will wisely not mention the cave in behind them and promise to be very very quiet, as will Efi and Joss! What do they see when they get there?

Also Pepper is still here and may poke his head out.

Pepper is not here for the Zubat life and only tentatively pokes his head out when they've all agreed to be quiet and not draw attention from a murderous Pokemon who could probably bite their heads off. He fluffs up a little when he sees Jamie, though! Seems like he recognizes the boy.

Jamie has his Rockruff lead the way down the tunnel, which involves a little bit of climbing and squeezing past fallen rock and more than once he has to whisper and ask the group to help move some of the rocks because the path was clear when he'd originally passed through it. The ruins are falling apart for some reason? Maybe they will never learn about Groudon shrine crimes.

But eventually they make it to the area in question: a small clearing, at the middle of which lies a large pile of rock, about four feet high, almost rounded like a boulder made of several smaller boulders. Behind this pile of rock is another tunnel, although it's completely blocking the way. Jamie tugs on Rhel's sleeve and points at it. Make this thing go away and save his classmates please. But also maybe retreat back into the tunnel they came from for a bit and come up with a plan instead of rushing in like he'd requested.

What will they do?

So it's going to be a team effort, but using Rhel's Murkrow to Peck, Efi's Pumpkaboo's Razor Leaf to break the rock up from the top down, her Swampert, and Joss's Drampa they are going to carefully start removing this big stupid boulder.

OH

no

Jamie meant the big stupid boulder was the Pokemon, and maybe he warns them in time and maybe he doesn't, but either his panicked shouting or their Pokemon's joint attacks cause the boulder to roar menacingly and the ground under their feet immediately start to shake. It's an earthquake! They have maybe found the source of the earthquake.

If they do attack, though, their Pokemon or them may get close enough to see that the boulder is pretty beat up, and while there's space for four limbs to poke out, the space where a head might be is clogged with crushed rock, preventing the Pokemon from having its head out.

What will they do!! Small rocks start to rain down from above and the ground shifts slightly beneath their feet and from behind the boulder in the blocked tunnel several voices cry out in alarm.

So real quick: we all completely misunderstood what you were describing there and would have tried something else had we realized this was a Pokemon and not just a pile of stones that may have fallen from all the earthquakes. Is there any chance we can redo the plan XD;;

If you want, sure.

tbf the characters wouldn't have realized it was a Pokemon right away, since it looks like a mass of rock, and riling it up lets you discover that 1) it's the source of the earthquakes, and 2) something is wrong with the Pokemon which might be why it's been so agitated. The earthquake also isn't enough to bring the entire ruins down bc I'm here to kill pcs not npcs (': lmk what you guys decide to do/how far you want to roll back if that's what you choose!

OKAY so we're going to keep "thinking this was just a pile of rocks because honestly that's what it looked like", and upon realizing that thing is alive Rhel is going to pull Jamie and Efi away while the Pokemon first try to put the thing to sleep. If that doesn't work or once it does, Joss is going to poke at the "weak spot" aka Probably That Poor Thing's Head

They are able to put it to sleep! The moment Joss pokes its head, it wakes up again and roars and causes another earthquake. Guys, please. If there's any Pokemon around that doesn't fly/levitate, they're getting hurt.

So because I am a mess today and misunderstood what the plan was we're going to try and put the damn thing to sleep again and not poke it. Efi's idea is to Pokeball it should it go to sleep--will that work?

You're fine! I like to imagine all of this trial and error is what they would icly do, and I'll always guide you guys towards good end before things go horribly wrong, so don't worry about messing up sometimes and things not going 100% smoothly.

They're able to put it to sleep a second time, but no matter how many Pokeballs they throw at it, they won't be able to catch it. The ball wobbles a couple of times to give them false hope before the Pokemon is released again. During one of these attempts, Jamie's Rockruff darts away through the tunnel that's left temporarily unblocked when the wild Pokemon is struggling inside the ball, and while Jamie is surprised, he says Rockruff is probably worried about the others and wanted to check up on them while it has the chance. He says that most Pokemon are intelligent and compassionate and that this one wouldn't normally cause such destruction if this is its home. Maybe that will prompt the group to sit back and think about what's wrong and how to handle it.

Bless you

SO Once things are calm Rhel is going to ask Jamie what's this Pokemon's name, what it normally does, stuff like that, and Joss is going to carefully look over the Pokemon, eventually asking if it's supposed to look so beat up while paying special attention to the Probably Its Head

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