A Most Excellent Adventure

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Mission Thread Could someone get a Joy Ribbon for me? It's my friend's birthday in two days and I need a gift for her... I feel like I need to give her something special. » Client: Lillipup » Objective: Find 1 Joy Ribbon » Place: Black Mist Mountain » Restrictions: None » Difficulty: E » Reward: 150 Poké + Sitrus Berry » Expiration: 5 months after last attempt » Exploration Points: 15

Black Mist Mountain was, well...it was Black Mist Mountain. What else was there to expect? Nothing had changed in the scenery, the mountain was still a craggy, rocky one made up of dark rock, and was still fairly misty, making it hard to see anything. Deciding to take a moment of rest now that he had finally arrived there, a certain Pikachu well accustomed to the area came to a halt by some loose boulders at the foot of the mountain, grabbing the job request out of his explorer's bag and reading it over once more.

"...okay. Just have to find a Joy Ribbon. How hard could it be?" Nate pushed the mission request back into his bag haphazardly, not seeming to care for the condition of the paper much. Taking a somewhat cautious look around, he figured it would be best to make sure no other hostile pokemon were around before heading out. He'd been around Blackmist once or twice before, and that combined with his time in Shadowhue, he'd learned to at least try and be a bit more careful with things. Taking a quick glance and not noticing much around in the mist, the Pikachu shrugged and began to walk once more, starting to head upwards on one of the various paths interspersed with the rocks on the mountain.

Once he had started to move again, Nate peered forward a bit through the mist. It seemed like there was something there...some sort of shape maybe? A small gust of wind blew by, and the shape rocked a bit. In an instant, Nate jumped with a slight gasp, and a bolt of electricity shot off from him, his cheeks crackling as the Thundershock attack made contact with the shape in the mist, leaving behind a loud crackling sound, and a fairly scorched rock. Blinking, the Pikachu let out a sigh of relief, chuckling a bit to himself as he rubbed the back of his head with a paw.
"Right...eh...maybe I'm just a bit jumpy..." He muttered to himself, shaking his head.

Energy: 13/29

Giles decided to just say out of this one. All of this direction stuff was making his head hurt. “Too many lefts and rights,” he whispered under his breath. In hopes of trying to reach a decision, Giles spoke up and said, “Ok let’s take the path that leads to the top of the mountain. We’d get a better look looking down at all sides than walking up the mountain and looking up ri… correct?” Giles had to stop himself so that way he did not add onto the confusion.

However it appeared to Giles after the fact that he was so lost in the conversation that Nate already made a decision on which way the party was going to travel in (right). As they made their way along the right path, Giles heard something in the distance. It seemed that Bill heard it as well. “Hey man, I must have had some bad gummies because that rock looks like it’s coming right at us,” he said. Giles could finally make out what the noise was, “That’s because it is! RUN!” he said rather startled.

As the group made their way onward along the right path, Nate paused as a sound seemed to be making itself rather prevalent in the distance. It was some kind of rumbling, definitely. And considering the boulders that had been blocking the left path earlier, it was definitely possible that...yeah, no. Looking further up the path, the Pikachu could definitely see that it was a boulder, and it was confirmed by Bill and Giles right then. Seeing the boulder, Ted and sighed.

"Bogus, man! Let's run for it." He stated, before turning away and starting to run back down the path. Nate turned and watched, before looking back to Giles. That was when he realized, he wasn't exactly sure if the Shuckle could move all that quickly. Sure, he and the other three could probably run, but what about Giles?
"Hey! Giles, can you keep up?" He asked the Shuckle, glancing back at the advancing boulder before looking back at the other pokemon. If he couldn't keep up, how was he going to get him out of the way? Would he be able to carry the other pokemon, or no?

Giles looked up the trail to see what all of the commotion is. As it was pointed out by everyone, a huge boulder was hurling towards everyone. The other three are quick by nature; Giles on the other hand is quite slow. He stood there for a second or two trying to figure out what to do next. The first thought that crossed his mind was to just continue to stand there and the boulder would break on his shell. However Giles is not strong enough to accomplish that feat. He did not have enough time to try and slow down the boulder and then try and just hold it off. It seemed that his only option was to run.

Running for a shuckle is not an easy task, thankfully he had a trick up his metaphorical sleeve. He went into his shell and begun to spin in the general direction that was perpendicular to the boulder’s path of travel. This plan worked mostly well, probably would have worked better if he did not wait so long. The boulder managed to scratch up his shell, but he did not take any real harm, just shaken. “Well, that certainly was an adventure,” he said.

Considering the lack of answer, the spinning the Shuckle seemed to be doing, and the giant boulder threatening to crush a little more than just his spirits, the Pikachu decided to take all these signs as a "Yes" from the Shuckle and ran off to the side as fast as he could. Careful not to go so far as to run right off the path, he skidded to a halt just out of the boulder's way and turned around, watching to see Giles barely manage to make it into the clear. The electric type let out a sigh of relief, shaking his head.

"Gives a whole new meaning to being between a rock and a hard place, doesn't it?" He remarked, letting out a somewhat exasperated chuckle before looking back down the path, watching the boulder head down. He figured that must explain where all the boulders covering the left path came from, but still, he didn't quite know what was causing the boulders to fall in the first place. Maybe some kind of enraged pokemon? Just natural rock falls? Something going on inside the mountain? Was there an inside to the mountain...?

"Well, I'm not sure where Bill and Ted went, but I think they must have run down the path. I'm, uh, pretty sure they're alright, considering the lack of any crushing sounds, so I figure they'll meet up with us up here when they can." He suggested, at least fairly certain that the two pokemon hadn't met an untimely fate underneath the boulder.

After Giles made it out from his close encounter with the boulder he was a bit shaken. This is not how he imagined his day going. Well, he did not really have an idea on how he thought it was going to go but it definitely was not trying to out run a boulder. As he came back to his senses he found his friend Nate. “Do you have anything to make a sign? This place really needs a sign saying ‘caution, falling rocks’. Huh wait Nate, where are Bill and Ted, and hey that rhymed, wait and Nate.” As he babbled he looked at his surrounding to any sign of the poochyana or the Cubone. Not being able to see any trace of them he asked Nate about what he thinks should happen next.

“Well Nate, we appeared we lost two party members. So now we have a choice, do we search for them or go back to trying to find what you’re here in the first place for of the Joy Ribbon? WAIT I GOT IT! We can do both at once! That’s a great idea Nate, gosh wish I could came up with that. Well, let’s go!” Giles began to set off in the direction of where the boulder came from. He figured that he could get some clarity once there.
(+1 energy from new page, 10/25 energy)

brooklynrage carried out 1 launched of one Black Mist Mountain :

The Pikachu looked to the somewhat shaken Shuckle and listened to what he had to say, starting to feel just a bit guilty about bringing him with him. Maybe Giles wasn't exactly ready to go on a mission in an area like this, or maybe he should have looked out for him more. At the same time, though, he reminded himself that the Shuckle had gotten to the mountains on his own. It was probably better that they were traveling together, with the whole safety in numbers thing.

When Giles finished speaking and set off down the path, Nate couldn't help but chuckle at the other pokemon's suggestion that he had been the one to come up with the idea.
"Alright, great. Let's get going then. Though, that was all your idea there, don't be afraid to take at least a little credit for it, y'know?" The electric mouse pokemon continued, catching up to the Shuckle fairly easily and making his way down the path, eyes open for any sign of the joy seed they were looking for, the two pokemon they'd lost, or anything else of interest.

Energy: 29/29

Pikashock carried out 5 launched of one Black Mist Mountain :

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Giles went off trying to find the Joy Ribbon. He was so determined that he did not even hear what his new friend said to him. His eyes were peeled to try and find anything really because he did not exactly know what a Joy Ribbon looked like. He managed to make out something at the bottom of a decline. “I think I found something Nate!” the shuckle said. He looked at the drop and pondered away to get down. “This is so crazy it might just work,” he thought. The shuckle figured that if he used two of his moves he could get down with relative ease. He used Withdraw so he did not take as much damage if anything failed, went inside his shell, and used rollout down the decline.

First off, he did get to the item, but unfortunately it was not the Joy Ribbon. It was simply a TM for focus blast. Also unfortunately for Giles he appeared to run into some more pokemon. They were two larions looking down on him when he came out of his shell. “Hey, whatcha doing down there man, like this is our world man,” said one. “Huh, your… world?” said Giles quite confused. “Well, technically it’s not my world man, it’s his world. Wayne’s World.” “Yeah, party time excellent,” said the larion that Giles could only assume to be Wayne, “Party on Wayne,” “Party on Garth.” “Ok so Wayne and Garth… this day keeps getting stranger and stranger,” Giles thought.
(-1 energy from rolls, 9/25)

Noticing that the other pokemon didn't seem to acknowledge what he had said, the Pikachu smiled slightly and sighed, rubbing the back of his head with a paw. He started to wander slightly from Giles, looking around for the Joy Ribbon he had been searching for this whole time. Coming across an odd mound of smaller rocks, he stepped up to them and pushed them around a little, dismantling the mound and finding a seed inside of it. It wasn't the ribbon, but it was still certainly an item of interest. He couldn't exactly tell what seed it was when he picked it up, so he figured it would be better to just bag it.

Hearing the Shuckle call out to him, Nate turned back to him and nodded, starting to walk over. Before he could fully get there, though, he watched Giles Withdraw, before rolling down the decline. He blinked and upped his pace a bit, heading over to the edge and staring down, just to make sure things had gone alright.
"Hey, Giles! You alright?" He questioned, some electricity starting to spark out from his four paws as he lifted off the ground just a small bit, starting to levitate down the decline in hopes of being able to control his speed much better than if he had just jumped down it without thinking.

Right after the two finished there banter, Nate was floating behind Giles. “Oh no, not this again,” he thought. “Um, I am fine, thankfully these two gentlemen were here if anything bad did happen, right?” he said trying to figure out if they were hostile or not. “But like, of course man. You are here so your like our guests right?” said the one that Giles assumed was Wayne. “Oh pardon my manners. Nate this is Wayne and Garth, I only just met them too.” When he introduced the two he only motioned to them as a group seeing how Giles did not want to offend them for mixing them up.

“So uh, where do you all come from?” said Garth. “Well you see, I came from really far away so I am still mapping out this area for myself which is when I found Nate here. Nate’s looking for something and I agreed to help. We met two, no three other pokemon thus far. There were to other pokemon with us. Maybe you’ve seen them? They go by Bill and Ted,” explained Giles. “Those two? Ugh they are busying try to be the best,” said Wayne. “The best at what,” asked the curious Giles. To him, they did not seem to be the best at anything other than confusing people.

Making his way down the slope, Nate had built up a little speed but managed to slow himself down at the bottom, wobbling ever so slightly as he came to a halt. Continuing to levitate for the time being, the Pikachu stuck beside Giles and listened to what the various pokemon there had to say, only ending up more confused than before from their responses. Man, today's just been crazy...maybe they all took a bad trip up to the top of the mountain and they're still dealing with the affects...? He thought to himself, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, have you seen them around here? Preferably un-flattened?" Nate decided to pipe up just after the Shuckle had asked his own question, curious as to how the two new pokemon would answer, and if it would get them anywhere, or if it would simply give them more to worry about in addition to everything else they were working with. He turned back and looked up the slope for a moment, debating the best path back up it while he waited to hear from the others.

The pokemon that Giles assumed was Garth said, “Nah man, we like haven’t seen them. Flattened or unflattened what that means. We’ve just been here practicing our rock music when this guy came crashing down making a rockin’ rift.” Giles was concerned for Bill and Ted’s well-being, but at the moment he was more confused with what the two mean by rock music. “Rock music?” asked Giles. “Yeah man, we throw rocks at different sized rocks, when they hit they make noise right? So with that noise we make music out of it. That sound that you made there yellow dude was pretty killer.” Giles was still confused on what he meant. The fact that he said yellow dude despite both of them being yellow did not help. Giles just assumed that the larion was talking about him, but he will not know. “Do you know what these two are talking about?” he whispered to Nate.

Rockin' rifts? Rock music made by throwing rocks at other rocks to make sound? What were these two even talking about? And which yellow dude were they speaking about? More importantly, why was everybody so crazy on the mountain today? Was it possible that everyone was just getting a bad experience from higher up? If not everyone, maybe just the pokemon they had come across? And why was Nate asking himself so many questions?

"I...can't say I really have any idea of what these two are talking about. But I'm starting to think it might be in our best interests to forget the mission and get out of here. If all of these guys we've been running into so far haven't been making any sense, maybe it's possible that we're a little too high up on the mountain, or the more hallucinogenic issues that happen higher up are starting to come down here..." The Pikachu whispered to his Shuckle companion, explaining his thoughts on the subject. It wasn't like the mission had the client in danger, or like the item wasn't one they could find somewhere else. Right now, he was fine ditching the mission to make sure he and Giles didn't get into any serious trouble or harm with whatever was going on at Blackmist.

Giles tried to keep up appearances of that they knew what was going on as his companion whispered to him. There definitely was truth in what Nate said. Giles had never been to Black Mist before so he just assumed that everyone was like this. Now knowing that they are not, Giles thought that it was in their best interest to get out of there as soon as possible. “I never thought that there could be something causing them to be this way. But if that’s the case we really should get out of here,” he whispered back.
 

As Giles was about to just leave, he realized that what would happen if they just left in the middle of this conversation. The larions would probably find it rude, and might attack them, especially under the effects of whatever this was that was making all of the pokemon here act this way. Giles started to think that they had not encountered any ferals, so maybe they’d turn aggressive. “Nate… I think we might have to talk our way out of here… We don’t know how they’d react, and I’m not ready to fight two larions,” he whispered back.

Nate nodded in a silent agreement with the Shuckle as he kept his eyes on the Lairons, thinking the situation over. They probably shouldn't just up and leave during the middle of conversation, that much was true. At best it'd be rude, and at worst they could attack, and Nate wasn't exactly equipped to deal with those two kinds of pokemon either. Luckily, though, it seemed like an easy enough conversation to get out of, and they did have other things they were supposed to be doing as well.

"That sounds pretty...killer, with the rock musics and the throwing the rocks around. I bet it sounds sweet, but me and my friend actually have a little business to attend to right now. Maybe we'll come back some other time, but we should probably get going and find who and what we're looking for." The Pikachu remarked, trying his best to speak with the same sort of lingo these strange two pokemon had been speaking with. Of course, he wasn't very familiar with it, so he most likely sounded like some older guy trying to speak hip like the young'uns.

Right as if they were waiting, Bill and Ted came out of nowhere once Nate finished saying that the two should go back to trying to find who they were looking for. “Don’t like, play games with us Wayne, we know that you took Rufus!” Giles was shocked to say the least when he heard Bill’s accusation. “It looks like they have history Nate,” whispered Giles. “Yeah like, that was totally bogus thing to do.” Ted tacked on. The one of the larions (Giles still did not know who was who) laughed at them and said, “Well look who’s here, if it wasn’t these two sellouts. Your guy in the biz came by and tried to get us to sign, but we said no way and he took a spill.
 

“YOU KILLED RUFUS???” yelled Ted. “No no, don’t get us wrong. He’s just unconscious, but you crossed a line. That’s it, we challenge you to a rock off, mainstream vs indie, petra y petra,” said one of the larions. Giles was needless to say confused, but all four pokemon seemed preoccupied. “I think this might be our chance to get away Nate.”