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

[Chakramaster]

Well Dari was....interesting. I'll get back to her soon enough. For now...

We need to have a talk with Prat. I think we know a lot about Daz, but what about this other farmer? Let's see what Prat knows or how they act when I press them.

I interview #43. Prat the Heliolisk. Asking I'll ask them about their farm and their relationship with Daz. Then I ask if they know anything about the bloody shears.

[Neo Emolga]

Let's go and search these Quiet Creek Apartments to see what we can find. We might find a keyhole to a key we've already found for that basement, or maybe it doesn't need a key.

You arrive before the abandoned Quiet Creek Apartments, which, as Dari the Raichu described, look like they could just completely collapse any day now. Most of the wood has rotted, the paint has chipped and fallen away in thousands of flakes, and there is dust, debris, rusted metal, splinters of wood, and rubble everywhere. Not even Serenity Town's local squatters wanted to try going to this place.

You search around the perimeter, but don't find anything out of place besides the usual pile of rubble and junk. If anything of value still remained after the last tenant left, you figure it has probably long deteriorated in this forlorn derelict.

You attempt to search the main level, which seems to be more of the same. Empty rooms that were cleared out long ago and haven't been inhabited for ages are all that seems to remain here from a first glance. As for the upper floors, you manage to search them only because of your small size and light weight. Most other Pokémon would have easily fallen through the floor or never would have made it up the crumbling wood staircase. But, even with your accessibility to the upper floors, you don't find anything out of the ordinary besides many ruined rooms that you are pretty convinced you may be the last Pokémon to ever visit them before the building completely collapses on itself.

You then search the hatch entrance that Dari mentioned. The metal hatch has been rusted over, but it still opens easily, oddly enough, as if someone recently fixed it and repurposed it for their own intentions. You climb down a ladder into a dimly-lit tunnel and you find it's a bloody mess with blood stains and splatter thrown about. As you soon realize, the ladder can be lowered up and down through a switch on the wall. You do the math and learn this terrible place was used to entrap Pokémon before killing them. And you can tell that unlike the rest of the building, this place has been recently used, and doesn't look like it has been forgotten about...

You continue down the short, macabre tunnel and arrive before a large, metal door. The blood-splattered door has some kind of depiction on it, and when you take a closer look, you see the door has a smiling Raichu father, a happy and content Raichu mother, and a cheerful Pichu child standing between them, as if it were a family photograph. However, the two Raichu and the Pichu have a open slot right where their heart would be. Below the three of them, there is an inscription here:

"The Magnate of Madness demands the unholy sacrifice of father, mother, and child."

It seems something morbid is needed to unlock this door...

Locked Door: {Underground Hall of the Mad, Heart Slot x3} has been noted in the Team Records.

[Neo Emolga]

Well, since it just kind of got passed by and I feel like its important, I'd like to interview 47. Shawl the Bibarel.

Interview Rapport: NEUTRAL
+1 Shared Pokémon Type (Water)
-1 Super Effective Against (Fighting vs Normal)

You find Shawl, the owner of Shawl's Cafe, just outside of his restaurant. You approach him and introduce yourself. The expression on his face seems to be one that tells you he used to be a very jovial Pokémon, and his pained smile clues you in that he is really hurting inside.

"Well, hello there, Dash," Shawl addresses you. "How are you?"

You tell him about the investigation looking into the Stalkers. He nods, but it seems to be a subject he's had a lot of trouble talking about lately.

"It's hard to be... me in a time like this," Shawl tells you. "You see, I used to love waking up and greeting each new day. I used to laugh with my customers, talk about how things were going with them, and it seemed everything in life was perfect. And then... this all happened."

"My business is dying, my entire restaurant staff has been killed, and now I'm... I'm more alone than ever before," Shawl explains. "I don't know where I'm supposed to go from here."

"Adis kept telling me things would be okay," Shawl explains to you. "And I really thought he had things under control. I offered to help him, and he gave me something he wanted me to hold onto for safekeeping. Well, I still have it, but..."

Shawl fidgets a bit, looks to you, and nods before he goes back into his restaurant, pulls something out of a cabinet, and gives it to you.

"I guess... there's nothing left to lose by giving this to you," Shawl tells you, handing you a silver candle. "Normally, I would have only given this back to Adis or to someone he really trusted but... well, the number of Pokémon that fill those roles has dropped to almost nothing. I guess there's no harm in giving it to you, since I can't use it and it'll never be used for whatever it was supposed to be for sitting in my cabinet."

Item: [Silver Candle] has been added to the Team Inventory.

"I keep telling myself things will get better," he sighs. "Well, at least part of me does. The other part just, well, thinks maybe I'm not supposed to make it through this. And there are times at night when I just lay in bed, restless, and all of a sudden I miss everyone..."

[Neo Emolga]

I'll try using the [α Alpha Key] on the {Lockbox, α Alpha emblem} at (11) Daz's Greenhouse!

You stealthily sneak by Daz and insert the [α Alpha Key] into the {Lockbox, α Alpha emblem}. Carefully and quietly, you turn the key, and the lock disengages with a click. You carefully open the lid of the box and look inside.

Within the box, you find yet another key on top of a few papers. You take it with you can see there's a β Beta emblem on it. You take it with you.

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

Meanwhile, you sift through the papers and start reading them.



The other pieces of paper are just as disturbing. As you go through the box, paper after paper, journal after journal, seems to be more of the same kind of deranged, angry, and twisted documentary thrashing that depicts the same kind of mindless rage toward faces, signed with the familiar name "Shadefetch."

You quickly leave before anyone notices you've been here...

[Neo Emolga]

NOTE: Just as a heads up, items that have been used up and don't need to be used again are getting removed from the inventory. This includes keys that have been used for locks. I don't want people to accidently think there's a second lock that requires the same key. :P

I guess I'll take the [Star Stone: Father Time] and [Star Stone: Mother Nature] and unlock the White Cabinet at the Windmill.

You take both Star Stones to the Serenity Town Windmill and insert them into place into the lock mechanism of the {White Cabinet}. Both stone fits and the lock disengages with a gentle click.

Items: [Star Stone: Father Time] and [Star Stone: Mother Nature] have been removed from the Team Inventory.

You open the cabinet and discover this is the secret place where Adis kept most of his exorcism tools. While some of them have been set aside, there is one item that stands out distinctively. It appears to be a silver and gold-trimmed canister that has a very heavenly and ornate appearance and design. You find a small, gold wheel switch on the side, and when you turn it, an amazing flame of pure, miraculous white fire lights up at the top of the canister and surrounds everything around you with a calm, tranquil, and comforting glow. When you let go, the flame extinguishes.

As you hold this holy fire lighter, you begin to truly feel this device has to be from some other, heavenly realm.

Item: [Ceremonial Fire Lighter] has been added to the Team Inventory.

[Neo Emolga]

Regardless of what we decide to do with Millie, we need to start finding as much ritual stuff as is Pokemon-ly possible. Which means lots of searching.

Search (47) The Vordin Mansion (Abandoned)

You come before the large Vordin Mansion on the outskirts of town. The large house has started to fall into disrepair and looks like it's long overdue for maintenance and renovations, but it's still at least capable of standing on its own.

You start by searching the interior. Oddly enough, walking through the house gives you unsettling vibes, as if the place is haunted. The atmosphere is unusually cold and you're easily beginning to see why the squatters chose the vacant Rolodon Apartment building across the street instead of this place. It's also no surprise why Vordin the Simisear must have left.

The Vordin Mansion is just downright creepy...

The mansion seem to have an unusual, black, tar-like substance trickling down the walls, in goopy piles on the floor, and dripping from the ceiling. And you're not sure what exactly it is or where it's coming from. It also smells unusually terrible, like a mix of decay and rotting eggs.

The cherry wood stain finish on the banisters, moldings, and hardwood floors has become a sickly mix of black and maroon, almost looking like the color of dried blood and scabs. Not a whole lot of furniture remains, but something has caused the wood to become warped and disfigured. Meanwhile, some of the metallic objects have become overrun with a red-pigmented rust.

You start searching from the attic, which has become a sickly graveyard of Vordin's abandoned furniture and crumbling family heirlooms. More of the black gel-like slime is here, and you're suspecting it has to be something about the roof that's the source of this disgusting goo. As you check the roof from the outside one of the broken, warped attic windows, it looks like the black roof tiles have been melting from the rain and any areas that had holes and water damage, which must have been quite a few in number, have become channels for this heavy, black goo to start dripping everywhere. You figure the filthy rainwater, rotting wood, and whatever these tiles were made of is probably what created this foul-smelling black goo.

You finish your search of the rest of the house. It appears Vordin probably left at a good time and most of the furniture in the house was cleared out. Whatever was forsaken and left behind has begun to crumble apart and has plenty of this black goo just plopping right on top of it, drip by drip.

After leaving the mansion, you search the exterior for anything interesting. You discover that the entrance to the basement is on the outside via a pair of metal, double rectangular doors. You open both of them and head downstairs via a cold, stone staircase.

You soon arrive before what begins to feel like the entrance to a dark, underground chapel, only there's a lot about it that feels and seems disturbingly twisted. However, before the hallway lets you proceed any further, you come across a dark, metal vault door that looks like it has the frozen, metallic depiction of Arceus, only the body is wretched and twisted, and it's missing its entire face. There also seems to be an inscription here.

"The SUNKEN God demands a face."

Locked Door: {Chapel of the SUNKEN God, Missing Face Left Half, Missing Face Right Half} has been noted in the Team Records.

You head out back into the welcoming daylight.

[Neo Emolga]

Well Dari was....interesting. I'll get back to her soon enough. For now...

We need to have a talk with Prat. I think we know a lot about Daz, but what about this other farmer? Let's see what Prat knows or how they act when I press them.

I interview #43. Prat the Heliolisk. Asking I'll ask them about their farm and their relationship with Daz. Then I ask if they know anything about the bloody shears.

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

You come to Prat's home where he's simply sitting in a chair on the wooden porch, sipping a cup of Oran Cider. He doesn't seem too overly concerned about anything, and despite the fact it's pretty clear from a first glance that the wheat field needs to weeded and there's work to be done on the house, especially a new coat of paint, Prat doesn't seem to care too much.

You introduce yourself to him.

"Eric, huh?" Prat shrugs, smiling a bit, but still kicking back in relaxation. "So, uh, wut's the occasion?"

You ask Prat about his farm and his relationship with Daz the Dragonite.

"Ah, well, I jus' have a wheat field," Prat smiles. "Wheat's outta season anyway, so I'll take care of 'em weeds... maybe in the Spring. Unless Tashy feel like doin' it. But she usually don't care."

"Eh, Daz does 'is own thin' an' I do mine," Prat tells you, taking another sip of Oran Cider. "He's jus' a grumpy ol' git who makes friends one day, goes changin' his mind, an' leaves 'em out to bake the next. I never really was friends wit 'im, though. I met 'im in town jus' the other day an' he was jus' givin' me dirty looks an' all. He don't trust me an' I jus' don't care."

You then ask Prat about the bloody sheers.

"Never seen those before," Prat tells you, looking a bit surprised. "Ya'll think one of 'em Stalkers used those? I mean, that's prob not beyond 'em, but I sure wouldn't wanna be kill'd wit' somethin' like that. If ya ask me, I'd say whoever used 'em had to have a good reason for ownin' 'em in the furst place. Dem's heavy duty sheers, an' I'll be, sure wouldn't need somethin' like that fer jus' plain ol' wheat."

"Ya'll let me know if ya wanna chat 'bout anythin' else," Prat tells you, taking another sip of Oran Cider before shutting his eyes. "Jus' don't go wakin' me up if I'm asleep, now."