The Fox in the Forest (Open)

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If one would go East of Grassveil, Lumina has noted, they would come across a tall, dark forest, where light barely seemed to touch the ground. At first she had thought it had been just that; a forest, nothing more. But now the Vulpix knew she was wrong. This was a Mystery Dungeon, and apparently, quite a challenging one at that. Perfect.

Lumina had always called herself an explorer, even though she didn't have a shiny guild badge or a treasure bag. She liked exploring, and had a strong interest of the warped way the world worked in these Mystery Dungeons. Therefore, she was an explorer. In her eyes, it was easy enough.

She wasn't a strong fighter, still being a low level, but she was a skilled one, and that had won her many battles in the past. That was why the Vulpix felt sure of herself, she could handle this. Whether she would actually be met with success this time, well... that was still to be determined.

(Energy: 7)

Mirage looked to the Shoomish, watching as it finally looked ahead of itself, realizing that some pokemon were talking. The shroomish's cheeks puffed out in anger, as if it could understand the vulpix. It hopped onto the box, standing atop of it and glaring at the two, giving off a growling sound as it began to shake. This pokemon seemed to be intimidated by the two, but the zorua had to admit, the box looked rather valuable and interesting. What secrets could it hold? The zorua held her head high as if looking down on the shroomish, "So, stole someone's box again huh?" she huffed, planning weave a web of lies.

"A thief, is it?" The Vulpix narrowed her eyes. At first she had just been interested in the box, but this Shroomish had stolen it from someone? This could've been more dangerous than she thought. At first she hadn't been too worried about a battle, as she had the type advantage and Ira seemed like a powerful ally, but she made a mental note not to underestimate this Shroomish, should things come to blows. "I don't suppose we can just convince it to give it back to whoever it stole from, either."

Energy: 8

(Energy: 28 as Mirage lives here and regained the energy spent on the box through page regeneration)

The shroomish's cheeks seemed to puff out further as it turned to glare at Mirage, "Shrrrrrr..." it growled in rage and defense. It stopped its growling for a moment to appear as if it was inhaling. The mushroom seemed to swell as it took in air, but it was all quickly released after a deep breath. Green spores flew from its breath and towards the two, using the sleep-inducing move, spore. Mirage quickly moved out of the way, having expected some kind of powder attack as it wasn't exactly rare for a shroomish to use such an attack.

Lumina backed away as she saw the Shroomish inhale. She already had a run-in with grass types and their status moves back in Pecha Forest, so seeing the feral Pokémon use Spore wasn't completely unexpected. She had avoided the worst of the attack by doing this, but a few stray flecks of the fine green powder had floated over in her direction, which the Vulpix accidently breathed in.

Almost instantly, there was a lurking feeling of tiredness looming over her. She shook her head back and forth, trying to snap herself out of it. Ira was clearly the more powerful between the two of them, and Lumina didn't want to be any more of a burden by drifting off to sleep in the middle of a battle. She growled lightly, maybe she just needed to focus. She steadied her stance and spat a trio of Embers at the Shroomish, the small spheres of reddish-orange fire rushing towards her enemy.

The bits of ember blasted into the shroomish, bits of flare sending off from the impact as the shroomish was shoved onto its behind. It hopped back up and seemed to be focusing, green tendrils of energy shooting forth and towards Mirage.
The zorua remained in her spot as the tendrils came towards her, a dark energy encircling her as the tendrils entangled her. She felt herself expel energy into the sphere of darkness and energy be forcibly drained from her by the tendrils. Mirage remained like this for a few more seconds before the sphere around her suddenly shot forth and into the Shroomish. The mushroom pokemon managed to leap out of the way, but the sphere still caught it by the tail end. It gave a cry as its behind and the box was blasted with a Dark Pulse. The box flew into the air, but landed on the ground, seemingly unharmed.

The Vulpix gave a wry smile as she watched the Shroomish get hit by the blow. A Shadow Ball, if she had to take a guess? Though it wasn't any real matter, either way, as it seemed to definitely hurt the small mushroom-like Pokémon. She sent a glance back over at Ira, checking to make sure she wasn't hurt too badly by those tendrils, before curiously approaching the box (and holding back a yawn). She eyed the Shroomish, silently daring it to take it's possession back.

The shroomish turned to the vulpix, its eyes wide as it spotted its treasure about to be taken. It gave a growl before the tendrils erupted from it once more and shot towards the Vulpix, attempting to slow it down further from even touching its treasure before the vulpix fell into the eventual slumber. Mirage became encircled in a dark sphere once more, beginning to use Dark Pulse once more. She allowed the attack to charge long enough to fire it before the tendrils touched the vulpix and began sapping its strength.

Lumina let out a soft yawn, despite her best attempts to hold off the feelings of sleep. Darn it. She had been hoping that she hadn't inhaled enough of that powder for the Spore attack to work, but it looked like that wasn't the case. Feeling drowsy, she stared blankly at the tendrils for a moment, not entirely sure what to think. It was a bit silly of her, but the Vulpix was the type who didn't react as quickly when she was tired. Then she saw Mirage gathering dark energy from the corner of her eye, and that was enough to zap her out of the trance.

She briefly tried to out-maneuver the tendrils, weaving around to try and get a shot at the Shroomish. Eventually, she saw her chance and spat out another Ember attack. There was only one fireball this time, but it was considerably more powerful than the last three. There was a faint blue flickering at the tips of this Ember, a silent signal of how hot it was.

The shroomish was struck with the Ember attack, it gave a cry in pain and fell onto its behind once more. The zorua took this chance to send the attack flying towards the Shroomish, blasting it while it was down so as to make sure it wouldn't get back up. Once the shroomish seemed to cease moving, except the faint inhaling and exhaling of breathing, she approached the vulpix, her facade once more continuing, "Wow that was awesome! I haven't seen anybody do that before!" she spoke, referring to the Ember attack that had trailed flames of blue.

Lumina gave a sleepy blink in the Zorua's direction, as if she was having a hard time comprehending what she was saying. "Er... thanks." She murmured. She hadn't thought it had been anything special; her mother could make fire hot enough to turn blue easily. Though maybe the Vulpix was just being cynical. Maybe it did look sort of cool to Ira. With a loud yawn, she leaned up against a nearby tree. "Would you mind if I rested for a minute?" She asked, almost without thinking. "I think that Spore got to me."

"It's fine!" Mirage said cheerily, behind the facade, she was a bit disappointed.
'out like a light already? From a little spore? That's no fun...now i'll have to wait for her to wake up again,' The zorua made her way towards the box, picking it up and inspecting it. It had survived the battle in perfect shape, no wonder they were impossible to open. There was only one way of opening these strong boxes, which was through a shop that was actually located within the guild. She cursed under her breath, she'll probably have to fool someone into doing an errand for her. Last time she had gotten a bird-brained archen to do it, maybe she would be able to find him again to perform the box-opening inside the guild.

The Vulpix dropped down to her paws, resting against the tree she had been leaning on a moment before. She placed her head on her forepaws and just like that, she had dozed off. If she had been awake, she would've been disappointed in herself for not managing to resist the Spore, but at least she hadn't drifted off in the middle of the battle. Her brown eyes lightly shut, the six-tailed fox rolled over onto her flank in her sleep, snoring softly.

The zorua took a seat not far from the vulpix, deciding to wait for the fire type to awaken from its slumber. She examined the box further, not even bothering to attempt to pry it open with her paws like many would do. She merely stuffed it into her pocket made by the Joy Ribbon tied around her neck, and played the waiting game. It wasn't exactly a game, it was pretty much just the zorua waiting for something. She wondered why she always used to say, "After all it is a waiting game", it was a rather frequent phrase of her's that she had stopped using. She wondered why, and started to wander in her thoughts.

Lumina stirred from her dreamless sleep, letting out a loud yawn and stretched her legs as she woke up. Still slightly groggy, she forced herself to her paws, blinking sleep out of her eyes. She couldn't be sure how long she was out; time always seemed to pass quicker when one slept. But it hadn't felt like she had been asleep for long. That was what she hoped, anyways, she wouldn't have wanted to keep the Zorua waiting. "Sorry about that. I think I'm fine now." The Vulpix murmured.

Mirage wiped her scowl off quickly as the vulpix awoke, "It's fine~" she chimed, "We should get moving though, the shroomish could wake up and get us both with the Sleep Powder and run off with the box!" her ears lowered in concern, "Whoever owned this box must have been ambushed by it, its probably worried sick of it by now. Boxes can contain really valuable things you know?" the zorua quickly turned as if the vulpix had agreed with moving on. She was putting on the ploy of merely an energetic Zorua that may have been a bit rude, she really hoped it was working though and not falling into some kind of plan to capture her.