@Lychee
Resolving this here:



#48 Dantus the Dragapult: {<Diplomacy> OR Drug Evidence}

You realize Dantus is not the type of Pokémon that gets emotionally attached to anything. It’s quite clear he’s become desensitized from his career and the situation with the Stalkers is no different. But you find there’s at least something he cares about…

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you tell Dantus cynically. “I must have you mistaken for someone else. See, I thought Dantus was the sheriff of this town and silly me, I thought you were actually him.”

He drops what he’s doing and bingo. Now you have his attention.

“You should have known that by now,” he looks back at you, abandoning his dossiers for the moment. “Yes, I am Dantus and I am the sheriff of this town.”

“Then start acting like it!” you call out to him. “You know you and Yanza can’t handle all of this. Tell me, when did you have the highest number of cops and detectives working here? Judging by the number of desks, it had to be… say… two, three dozen at one point? How long ago was that? And what do you have now?”

He goes silent, taking his small, blue clawed hands off of the pile of dossiers as he turns around and narrows his gaze upon you. He doesn’t give you an answer, but you know you don’t need one. He did once have that many. And not too long ago at all. You keep firm with your approach, knowing Dantus would never open up to anyone that’s a softie or can’t stand their ground. You know around him, you need to show you have balls, even if you personally think it might come across as rude to someone else.

“I want to know everything you’ve got on the Stalkers,” you insist to Dantus. “Everything. Not the watered-down ‘civilian’ version of the story.”

“What would you even do with it?” he asks you. “I don’t lay all my trust on just anyone.”

“Then who would you trust?” you ask him rationally. “I’m not asking for payment. I had a friend murdered by these Stalker bastards and I want their head screaming on a stick just as much as you do. And really, your concern is trust now? What do you have to lose besides… oh, I dunno… your entire town at this point? Let me tell you how the story ends if you don’t help me help you. You die, Yanza dies, your whole family dies, and so on and so forth because well, at least you didn’t trust the wrong Pokémon here, right?! What a deal. No, your trust dies with you if we don’t help each other. You know what’s going on in this town and you’re actually still worried about who might be privy to your investigation? That’s what you’re afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid of anything. Fine, if this is what you’re after, then consider yourself lucky, because I’m at the point where I don’t give a damn. I’ll tell you what I know not because I think you’re some secret all-star detective or you’re some good Samaritan, but because I actually want to see if you can back those claims up and actually make use of what I’m about to tell you.”

“Seabourne has had murders in the past,” Dantus begins. “Every town does. But we knew something was going on when five… possibly six distinct murder signatures intensified in town. Some of them leave names, proud of their kills. Others seem to prefer being anonymous. We lost some detectives and Yanza and myself can’t gather what we really need with just the two of us now. So if you think you have the balls for this, then do it and prove it, because I don’t envy anyone who will need to dig further into what has already caused several of my detectives to put in their resignations. We’re not even running on fumes at this point.”

“I know you’ve heard of Exonull,” Dantus tells you. “Likes to kill flying Pokémon. We’ve tried to find inconsistences in case this was a bad assumption but there’s never been one. This Stalker will only go exclusively after these types of Pokémon. They rip their wings off and make the victim suffocate on them. We originally classified these as hate crimes, but something in them appears to be rooted in jealously with traces of self loathing. That’s why these cases didn’t make sense to me at first, but then I was able to grasp this Stalker has had their aspirations altered and corrupted.”

“Inzaketh is another one,” Dantus explains. “You wanted to see evidence of this Stalker? This is what it looks like, but don’t mishandle it.”

He then hands you what looks like a piece of a wreath of thorns with blood on them, using a cloth towel to carry it before he passes it to you…

#Dark Lacerations – GRASS (4 Health Damage, 4 Purity Damage)# Trap 30% Evasion Test: 89 out of 100: Failed!

You reach out to grab it, but your black hands lose their grip on the towel and you instinctively grab the wreath before it hits the ground not realizing it’s cursed and dangerous…

The thorns quickly šͤ͊̊͂͑i̻̲̯̼̮ͨ̇͗͆ͧnk ̖̯̞̒̎̏i̻̲̮̜̝̾̎̍̒ͤn̬̪̪̪͍̩t̼̩͙̯̬̠͈̓ͮ̒̽̄ͪ̒o̮̎ͣ͂ͨ̊ ͍̤͉̝ yó̎ŭ̘r͉̻̈́ͨ ̖͙̗̼ͧ̆̈́ͥfl̩̠̠̯͇e͙̰̤̦̹͉ͫͮ͋̔͆ͧs̻̏hͫͣ́ and you gawk and moan in pain, eyes bulging, blackening, and you feel like you could vo̭̲̔ͤm̜͓̹̗̭̰̗͌̍ͩ͛ͧ̈́̿it̗̟̣̙ ̾͋̓͂ͬ̊ͤṵ̥̱̼̹̾̌̉̈̐p̄̉͊ b̠̖͓̳͔͉͙̀ͨ̏ͩͤͣͧl̮̹͍̩͌̒̍̿o̫̯̠̥ͬ͒ͣ̏ő̦̯͉̳̲̗̐̆̓͆ͥd̑̃ͬ ̰̮̣̬̽ ̙͓͋̃ăͮ̌ͣ̂͆̂ṇ̼͓͖͔̩̹̆ͬ̓ͧ̍͌̚d̯̺ ̲̳̖̟͔̘̮̽ͮͬ̂̏͒ͮi̩c̠͚̮͇͈ͦ͂̍ͮ͋h̥̩̟͕͍̾̐ͫ̍ͯo̞̠ͯ̽͆ͣͫ ̦̺̠r right out of your very soul.

ChiChi has suffe̟̯̖͉̲̻͉ͮ̊ͭ̽ͧͫ̂red 4 Damage to Hea̪̯̰̮͉͎͐͋̈ͭ̍͑lth and Pur̖͎ͪ̆ity.

“Didn’t I just say to be careful with that? Don’t touch that damn thing again, it almost killed one of my other detectives. Just before she quit.”

You nod, feeling sick and in pain, but this time, you carefully wrap the towel over the wreath fragment.

@[Bloody Thorn Wreath (Part 1 of 3)] Dark Lacerations – GRASS – (4 Health Damage, 4 Purity Damage)@ has been added to the Team Inventory.

“To get to the point,” Dantus continues, “that’s Inzaketh’s work. Anything with spikes, thorns, briars, you can thank them for that. We’re not sure why this is a signature trait for this Stalker, but every victim we’ve found was killed by organic materials like these. We did the math and never once did we find someone lacerated or impaled by something made of metallic or synthetic materials. Inzeketh only uses what can occur in nature.”

“If you’ve heard of Pokémon killing themselves by cutting themselves up and trying to rearrange the severed and extracted pieces, that’s from a Stalker named Languished,” Dantus continues. “At first, we believe this was solely from inflicting a kind of psychic psychosis upon the victim up until this went deeper. It becomes more psychologically self-destructive. Those who know the victims claim they heard them hating themselves, trying to rearrange all the ‘ugly’ parts to become something beautiful. Obviously none of it worked, but it had the victim believing they had to suffer for it and it was an ends to justify the means up until it kills them.”

“Fallow is not a Stalker many know about, but we have some material on them,” Dantus explains further. “This is your child-killer. I only know a few details, but Yanza has been more on top of this one. At least three children have been murdered by Fallow with their faces blacked out with oil or black paint. We believe it must have been heated to the point of boiling. Attempts to remove it from the faces of these children revealed it can’t be done, leaving the child essentially faceless.”

“We believe there’s two others,” Dantus tells you. “We don’t have names, however. Not yet, but that’s where you can come in. There is a Stalker that causes rapid and unnaturally fast decay and decomposition in their victims. And the other is an anomaly. We’ve found several Pokémon victims, dead from a brain aneurism in their sleep. It was believed to be natural causes at first until it kept happening multiple times. And it took us some time to realize there were reports of some Pokémon experiencing dreams of murdering the aneurism victim on the same night that victim died. That’s no coincidence and that’s already happened multiple times. A therapist named Velta, a Mothim, came to us against patient confidentiality protocol and reported this happened with several of her patients and that these patients woke up feeling depression and guilt. We were about to inquire for more details about these reports and the discussions she had with her patients before Exonull killed her, too.”

“I’m now going to need to refer you to Yanza if you want her side of everything,” Dantus tells you, getting back to his dossiers. “She’s been out in the field more than I have. I have enough to do here as is, so if you’re serious about this, take what I’ve told you and make damn good use of it.”

ChiChi the Tapu Lele (M: Psychic / Fairy)
Health: 16/20 | Sanity: 20/20 | Purity: 10/20 | 6/10 Kurosuōbā | Dodge Rate: 30%
Perk: Diplomacy
Reincarnation Forms: Corviknight, Milotic, Aurorus, Espeon, Alcremie
EQUIPMENT:
  • Defense Armor: <Empty>
  • Jewelry: <Empty>