Main Action and Team Status Thread [VICTORY!!!]

[Neo Emolga]

I'll stop playing in the garden for now. Interview 9. Fetcher the Fearow

Interview Rapport: VERY POSITIVE
+1 Shared Pokémon Type (Flying)
+1 Shared Pokémon Evolution Stage

You approach Fetcher the Fearow at the Silver Moon Tavern, and you realize he's both the owner and the general manager of the restaurant. It seems the Stalkers have had a bad effect on business, but you can see in the Fearow's eyes that he tries to shove it aside.

He sees you and it seems your presence makes him a little more pleased to have a potential new customer. You introduce yourself to him.

"Welcome to the Silver Moon," Fetcher tells you, seemingly setting aside his usual bitter personality for you. "We've got plenty of great drinks on tap if you'd like."

You inquire about the situation regarding the Stalkers. Fetcher nods, realizing you're not here for a drink, but decides since there's not much going on anyway that needs his immediate attention, he deices to converse with you.

"I hate these Stalkers, but I have to give them credit," Fetcher tells you. "They're diabolically good at hiding. I think Adis knew this, hence why he was working around the clock to just blow them out of the water rather than stalk them in return."

He looks around to make sure no one is listening in. Despite his usual, bitter nature, even to his wife and kids, it still seems like you're the kind of Pokémon he can talk to, get things off of his chest, and not have anyone think he's crazy. You get the feeling that's a level of trust he doesn't even have with his own family.

"Adis..." Fetcher speaks up again. "This may seem crazy, but he needed my help for something. He wanted these... samples. Samples from as many Pokémon I could get, such as fur, hair, a scale, or anything like that. And he was willing to pay me for it! I thought he was nuts, but he said something about 'a normal Pokémon could never overpower a Stalker outright.' I was like 'yeah right.' But he got into a deep conversation about it, telling me that there's some kind of parasitic, demonic force in each of these Stalkers that gives them dark supernatural power or something like that. And he also said it's impossible to dig it out by any means other than plain ol' death once they've found a 'conduit' or whatever the hell he called it. So, I tried to secretly collect fur, scales, and anything like that from each of my patrons without looking like a nutcase. Adults, kids, parents, visitors, everyone. I had been doing it for months, wondering what the hell the point of it all was, and then one day, Adis just came to me."

"'I know who the Stalkers are,' Adis told me," Fetcher continues. "He said he had all the samples he needed and he managed to pinpoint which ones had some 'dregs of evil,' but he insisted on keeping it quiet because he felt anyone in town trying to go after them would just get themselves killed. I told him I could get together a band of Pokémon together to take these suckers out once and for all if he told me who they were, but he insisted on going through some 'Sin Purge' ritual like that to keep everyone safe. He didn't think we could take them on! Trust me, I know Namax, Talag, and Smide personally. We could have ripped them to shreds if we knew who to go after!"

"But, as luck would have it..." Fetcher sighed, "he was dead two days later. He was really close to something, but no one knows what and he didn't write their names down. And I sure don't know how to detect 'dregs of evil' like he could."

Fetcher sighs, and once again, he looks around. He seems to think to himself, looks down in thought, and then looks back to you.

"I have a feeling Adis kept the samples close by," Fetcher tells you. "They're either at the church or they're at the windmill. And there were two other Pokémon that Adis was good friends with. Seriously good friends, as in they'd kill to protect each other if need be. Trinka and Ryne. Talk to them, mention Adis, and tell them you're trying to figure out what the Sin Purge ritual is. Trust me, they'd be your best buddies in this Arceus-forsaken town if they knew what you were up to."

Shortly after, Fetcher's wife, Ralice, comes down the wooden steps with an arrogant strut, holding Fetcher's note in her beak. She drops it right in front of him.

"REAL cute," Ralice snaps at him with an egotistical smile. "You want your dishes cleaned, get off your lazy, feathered behind and clean them yourself! And this tavern was your idea, so if you don't like how the floor is, that's your problem!"

She struts back upstairs, and Fetcher looks back to you.

"That's it for now, I have... this stupid matter to attend to," Fetcher grumbles. "But if you think she's bad, you should see my kids. They're my own little 'Stalkers.'"

[EmeraldSky]

Lita is overjoyed to find such a wealth of info, and hurries to tell her teammates.

After leaving her finds for the others to examine, she hurries to #16: The Performing Arts Center. True it's not the best time to take in a show, but maybe there is behind the scenes info to help the cause?

[Neo Emolga]

I'd like to search #45 Lablanc Mansion! There's gotta be something in there... Abandoned mansions = perfect for ghost-type investigations through walls!

(You know it!)



You arrive before Leblanc the Liepard's mansion, and it's very easy to see the Liepard does extremely well for herself and has very expensive tastes. You start with searching the interior, and it becomes quick and obvious Leblanc only likes the finest furniture, carpeting, jewelry, and decor. Everything looks very expensive and you see she obviously lives like a queen.

It also seems like she doesn't mind living alone in the comforts of her near castle-like estate. You also see she has a passion for collections. Art collections, artifact collections, and other trinkets are displayed proudly as if her mansion was a museum, only no one else is allowed to view it save for her.

You find that Liepard keeps a diary, and as you flip through it and learn of her day to day living, there is one more recent entry that seems to catch your interest.

"I once again tried to talk to Blak today regarding his debts to me. Oh, the darling has no idea what's coming to him! He says the hotel isn't doing quite as well as it used to, but business is still business and that still marches on. He blames it on the Stalkers, as if I haven't heard that one before! Can't pay the debts? Blame the Stalkers. Can't earn enough income because your shabby hotel can't get clients? Blame the Stalkers. It does get so very tiring. I gave him another month, simply because sometimes the excuses can be a little entertaining.

Something else happened yesterday that's been strange. I had been in the backyard, enjoying some fresh air until I noticed something or someone had buried something in my yard right next to the well! The audacity! If someone buries something in my yard, it's instantly mine. So I dug it out and it looked like a coin! I thought it would be perfect for the collection if an appraiser felt it was worth anything.

But then, as soon as I pulled it out, I felt the most oddest, most disturbing feeling I've ever had. It was like waking up from a nightmare! I dropped it back in the hole and simply left it there. The filthy thing must be cursed or something. Whoever that miserable thing belongs to, they can keep it, but I want it out of my yard. I don't even want to touch it again.

I must leave off here, as I have some work to do."

You decide to search the exterior of the mansion, and most notably, you search by the well for this coin that Leblanc mentioned in her diary entry.

You find the hole that she must have dug out, as well as the mentioned coin. You sense a kind of disturbing darkness emanating from it, but you decide to take it out of the hole.

Leblanc's description of "waking up from a nightmare" feels quite accurate as you come in contact with the coin. It disturbs you for a moment, but you feel inclined to look it over.

On one side of the coin, there is a frantic and traumatized Pikachu being swallowed by hideous, enrapturing shadows. And on the reverse side, there is but one word:

DAMNATION

You take it with you, using a cloth to at least somewhat suppress the dark and infernal nature that comes from having direct contact with this coin...

Item: [Coin of Damnation] has been added to the Team Inventory.

You make your last search around the rest of the property, but nothing else seems to grab your attention or come across as suspicious...

[Neo Emolga]

#37 Cina the Chansey has been killed by the Stalkers.



Location: Outside rear of #23 Serenity Town Supermarket
State: Asphyxiation, eyes impaled

Deputy Zick examines the body, looking at the wooden stakes rammed into the eye sockets of Cina's head. It seems like the sight of this used to really bother him, but now that's he's seen it plenty of times, it doesn't disturb him as much as it used to, but it still gives him an unsettling feeling.

"Time of death?" Adom asks the Jolteon.

"Had to be sometime during the night," Zick replies. "Srin was the one who found the body this morning when he came by the shop to see how Cina was doing. He told me he was a bit surprised she hadn't opened up shop yet, but after looking around, he realized the hard way she never came home last night..."

Adom nods, still examining the body of the deceased Chansey.

"I read your file," Adom tells the Jolteon. "So judging by your theories, you think this... 'Undone' was responsible for this?"

"Oh, without a doubt," Zick nods. "In fact..."

He checks around the body, and on the ground, he finds a note. A signature, of sorts...

"Her lungs no longer breathing in the toxic air of this wretched world, her eyes no longer needing to gaze upon it's ugliness, it's sickness, and it's hideousness," Zick recites.

"I definitely find that disturbing..." Adom replies. "I just don't know why no one saw it happening."

Zick looks around and nods.

"Well, take a look around," Zick tells the Magnezone. "There's no vantage point on this, save from Riverwatch Apartments, which are probably too far away to have seen anything late at night. That and I highly doubt anyone who lives in that awful place would even care."

"We just need to keep trying," Adom tells Zick. "All of Serenity Town is depending on us..."

"Thankfully..." Zick tells Adom, looking back at Serenity Town, "I don't think we're alone in that regard..."

[Neo Emolga]

Well that didn't go well. I'll search #20 Riverwatch Apartments

You arrive at the Riverwatch Apartments, which have the quality of housing projects but only for Pokémon. It's quite clear this is the least-appealing of apartment buildings in all of Serenity Town, save for the Rolodon one being used by the squatters. In fact

Inside, there is wall damage, water damage on the ceilings, and a lot of the metal has been damaged by rust. You definitely get the feeling Pokémon that live here don't do very well financially at all.

You learn from the mailboxes on the first floor that Kneed the Krookodile himself lives here, but in a much nicer-looking apartment from the rest. The other mailboxes mentions Razen the Jumpluff, Talag the Pangoro, and the recently deceased Cina the Chansey. Two other Pokémon, Mincy the Cinccino and Urst the Snorunt, used to live here on the second floor, but their names have been crossed out. You assume the worst...

Upstairs, you find Razen's apartment door ajar. It seems the lock has been broken for a while and he's never been able to get Kneed to fix it. You can easily tell that he seems to be a starving artist, a comedian struggling to make ends meet, especially in a hard time like this when most Pokémon aren't up for comedy.

Talag's apartment appears to have never had a lock in the first place, just a vacant hole where a doorknob should be. You can see that he is a builder by trade and seems to enjoy metalworking on the side given the several half-completed projects that lay around his apartment. He also seems to own a few books about the subjects, which seems to imply he spends quite a bit of alone time studying his trades rather than go out socializing.

Cina's apartment shares a similar story in that her apartment lock feels loose and non-functional. Her apartment also has many books and it seems like she liked hanging pictures of nature on the walls. It seems like she had taken up some kind of Pokémon form of origami as a hobby when she wasn't busy working as a grocer at the supermarket.

There are several other apartments here, but many of them seem to be empty.

You investigate the outside of the apartment building, searching the back and the sides for anything that might stand out. You come across one area in the back of the building that looks like it was recently disturbed. You investigate it further by digging away at the area, and you find a metallic, coin-like object. You reach in to grab it...

...but as soon as you touch it, you are suddenly taken back in cold, icy shock, recalling a sad and depressing memory but just for an instant. When you recover, you slowly pull the coin out to take a closer look. On the front side, you see the depiction of a Pikachu, covering his face in tears and sadness as he is overcome with grief. On the reverse side, there is but one word:

DESPAIR

You take it with you, although it almost depresses you to do so...

Item: [Coin of Despair] has been added to the Team Inventory.

You've seen enough...

[VeloJello]

Not the best rapport, but I'm one of the few that doesn't clash with them. Interview 52. Ryne the Floatzel about Adis.

[Neo Emolga]

I take the Black and White wing pieces and the Heart Key, head to (10) Sleepy Valley Apartments, and use them on the Abandoned Basement Door.

Let's see if I can't coax out Koax's identity from this, huehuehuehue, gradient.

You find your way back to the {Abandoned Basement Door} and place both the [Black Wing Piece] and the [White Wing Piece] in their respective slots in the door. Then, you place the [Heart Key] in the keyhole and turn it.

It all unlocks with a heavy, cold-sounding click, and the door swings open...

Inside, the room is barely illuminated through small slits in the walls just below the ceiling, but there is still enough dim light to look around in the cold, stone room. You find all kinds of disturbing markings and smudged writing on the walls and plenty of torn papers all over the stone floor.

You find jars of fluid containing something strange on the back wall, but when you take a closer look, you're taken back. Each jar contains a stopped heart in a kind of preservation fluid. Nearby, you find a pouch of blood-stained surgical tools in a wide variety of sizes and shapes. It seems like these tools were originally intended for intense surgery, but were obviously used for all the wrong reasons. You immediately draw the conclusion that these were used to extract the hearts currently in the preservation jars from the victims's bodies.

The walls are covered with words that have been smudged out. You can make out a few of the words and the formatting reminds you of a poem, but it's impossible to tell exactly what it used to say.

The dank floor is also covered with ripped pieces of paper, most of it all in one pile of bedlam. You decide not to try and piece it all together, as there must be over a thousand pieces of paper, all from multiple pages that would take an enormous amount of time to sort and try to put back together.

In your continued search, you find what appears to be an ordinary iron key resting among the paper shreds. You take it with you.

Item: [Iron Key] has been added to the Team Inventory.

You continue to look around for any additional clues or evidence. You come across a pile of books that have been shredded, and what looks like a diary, only that too has been angrily torn apart.

But then you notice something unusual. In a secluded and isolated corner of the dark room, you find one pile of torn papers that is separate from the rest. You think you might be able to put this small pile of paper shreds back together in one piece...

=A Twisted Note=

You decide to gather the pieces of paper and take them out in the open daylight where it would be much easier to try and put it back together...

[LKWayvern]

I interview number 21, Marche the Zoroark!

[Dash]

I'd like to interview #57 Millie the Vaporeon about the mysterious twisted note.

Note:

Spoiler:

MY NAME IS KOAX.
MY NAME IS [indiscernable]

I can't do this anymore. I can't run from these demons. They've driven me to kill. My name is

Millie the Vaporeon. And I've done horrible things. I can't stop myself. I need you to put an end to it all. So to whoever reading

[Neo Emolga]

Feeling a little embarrassed for searching an already searched location, I move on to interview number 22 Dami the Bellossom.

Interview Rapport: POSITIVE
+1 Shared Pokémon Type (Grass)

You come to Dami the Bellossom at her store and home while her son Vam the Oddish is relaxing in the yard. She seems happy and content, but nonetheless, she has been keeping a watchful eye on him. You introduce yourself to her and she greets you with a warm smile.

"Hello, Sloane, pleased to meet you," Dami replies to you. "What can I help you with?"

You inquire about the Stalkers and what's been going around. She nods and looks a little somber.

"Yes, I heard about Cina..." Dami tells you, having learned about the Chansey's death. "It's truly awful and I'm going to miss her. She always seemed like such a sweet and caring Pokémon, although she was poor."

She tries to recall something she's seen recently that might be of some help.

"Adis was a kind priest, though he was a bit unusual," Dami recalls. "On the outside, he was a kind and gentle Delphox, but on the other hand, there was a lot about him that was mysterious. There was this time I wanted to talk to him about something that had been troubling me, but he wasn't at the church. I went searching around the building to see if he was outside, only to find out he had been at the windmill the entire time. I couldn't understand why he'd be there of all places, but I never did ask him about it. Looking back, I'm wondering if he's been doing something there in secret. I'd go and check, but I couldn't leave Vam by himself, and I couldn't take him with me in case something terrible happens. Lately, I feel guilty even just sleeping and waking up later than usual."

"Despite all that, I just wasn't ever a part of Adis's circle of friends," Dami continues. "I never took the chance to get to know him better and I regret that. But there are a few Pokémon that know what he was up to. Trinka the Lopunny and Ryne the Floatzel were always good friends of his and I knew Trinka and Ryne volunteered very often at the church and assisted Adis during mass. Trinka... she's a fighter. She was angry and depressed when Adis was found dead, but she vowed to do whatever it took to stop the Stalkers. Meanwhile, Ryne, despite his cool and collected nature, has been trying to encourage the scared townsfolk of Serenity and has been leading the Night Watch in Adis's honor. But not too many Pokémon have been willing to help him..."

"Talk to Trinka and Ryne," Dami tells you. "They'll let you know more about what Adis has been up to, but I only know so much. And there has to be something at that windmill. I just know it."