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The Ruined Chateau.... Given Sova had been here once already and explored the interior, it now looked smaller from the outside, all except for the massive double-doors. Then again, given the things he'd witnessed inside, it probably WAS somehow smaller on the outside. Still, this wasn't going to deter or scare him. The only thing he was worried for was anyone else aiming to go there. Today, the one who happened to want to go with him was Varda. This was odd, since the two usually only did missions together, but today.... there was no mission here. Actually, the guild had sort of made it a mission to explore the things happening and this seemed like the place to go, so maybe it was a mission. Just, without the rewards.

He looked up to the sky and stared at the gloomy dark clouds for a moment, as if just making sure the sky wasn't changing before he set his attention back on the Chateau. "Remember, Varda, stay close to me in here. This place will literally change with you in it, so if we get separated, we could have a lot of trouble finding each other. There's also a lot of really dangerous and hostile pokemon in here and since most of the rooms aren't exactly huge, I won't be able to go all out with you here," he explained, relaying his past experience in this horrible house to the swablu.

He wanted his ally to be ready for everything in here, after all. Especially since there was a good chance he was going to need some help.... if not with fighting, then with finding his way around. He would have brought some of his other new allies along, but oddly enough.... the little fluff-ball was still the one he trusted most alongside him. At that, Varda was the only one he trusted to manage to capably and safely navigate this place, and more importantly, to LISTEN to him. Sure, Dusk knew the area given she'd come with him before, but she had mostly just been a hindrance in fights and never listened.

"This isn't a game," Sova forced himself to speak, trying to get his friend to understand that leaving wasn't exactly as simple as forfeiting the game.
He could only assume giving up would also forfeit their lives, which was something he didn't intend to do. The rules of the "game" were simple, though, all they had to do was get to the door. However, he was now considering adding on some rules of his own.... like "kill the host." Yeah, that seemed like a nice rule to have.

The shuppet flew a bit closer to the duo as the little bird began talking about not playing the game anymore. It giggled before speaking, "You can leave at any time, all you've gotta do is get to the door. Or the stairs, if you want."
It was clearly enjoying the show so far, though it made sure to stay far enough away to be able to phase into the ground if either of the duo came after it.

Sova glared at the shuppet as it began speaking. It was clear this thing knew what it was doing, so calm and collected, confident about its little game. He assumed going back at this point was gonna be about as easy as going forward, considering the host of this game openly acknowledged it, so he wasn't even going to bother trying to do that.
Instead, he focused first on his new injury, biting onto the spike in his shoulder before tearing it out, groaning in pain. He then tossed the thorn in the direction of the shuppet, followed by firing a Shadow Ball as it moved out of the way of the bloody projectile. Given it was already in the middle of avoiding one attack, the Shadow Ball was a direct hit, sending it flying backwards before it finally fell into the floor.

"B-But he said," Varda started as Sova mentioned how this wasn't a game, his eyes large and sad. The ghost had called this a game, so... It had to be one, right? It just would have been so wrong if he had lied, right? Lying was bad! But it was true that he didn't really like this game, as games shouldn't hurt Pokémon who played them – at least on purpose! While they were given the option to leave, they only had two ways to go: the door and the stairs. The door didn't look safe, and the stairs... Well, they didn't really lead anywhere! The room above didn't have any other doors they could take to continue!

"Oh no, Sova, don't!" The bird suddenly realized what his friend was doing as the Glaceon grabbed the spike on his shoulder with his teeth, pulling it out. Didn't he just talk about how – oh. No, he didn't. He never actually mentioned how sometimes keeping the things in was better, but it didn't really matter. Varda covered his face from the blast of purple smoke that erupted from the shadowy orb Sova had spat at the ghost, causing the little thing to fall down unconscious.

"Ah," the Swablu gasped, moving his wings so he could see, looking as the ghost started to sink into the floor rather slowly. He blinked slowly in silence before turning to look at Sova again.
"Oh no! What do we do now? He's not going to help us get through if he's unconscious..."

Bird carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

The wound on Sova's shoulder began to ice over as his armor repaired, covering the wound and stopping it from bleeding.  He turned around and continued walking as Varda seemed to begin to panic over no longer having their guide.  He wasn't worried, though, as all the "guide" was doing was watching them get hurt for its own amusement.  But did he really want to try and explain that to Varda?  Maybe it would make the bird understand that they were in no worse of a situation than they were prior, or maybe it would just make him sad.

"Varda, this isn't a game, it's a death trap that thing made for its own amusement.  It wasn't planning on helping us, it wanted to watch us die," he tried to explain as clearly as possible while he carefully moved, keeping an eye out for any possible dangers.
Tripping a nearly invisible wire had sent a spike into his shoulder, so he really didn't want to find out what other surprises this place had in store.  Maybe they could avoid any other traps and just get to the door safely.

(Energy - 70)

Lord E V carried out 5 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

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Varda blinked slowly as he stared at the Glaceon, listening quietly. It... Wasn't a game? But they had been told that... Oh, it was just horrible! They had been lied to, just like that? How... Mean!
"He... Lied?" The little bird chirped, his entire little world seeming to shatter into tiny pieces. Who would do something like that? It was just so wrong, tricking Pokémon and playing such mean tricks. All he had wanted to do was to play a nice friendly game with a nice, friendly Pokémon...

The Swablu stayed quiet as a while, his gaze falling to the floor. There was a door and there were the stairs that wouldn't lead anywhere, but the door was trapped and dangerous.
"What... Do we do? Are we stuck?" Varda chirped, lifting his eyes off the ground as he looked back up at Sova.


((You can take my two itemizer orbs that I rolled.))

Sova sighed at his friend's naivety towards the situation. How was Varda surprised at someone lying when they'd had things try to KILL them many times? How could ANYTHING be surprising after dealing with an aggressive feral? Okay, maybe seeing a deity or experiencing an apparent break in reality such as the Ruined Chateau could still serve to be a surprise, but something as little as lying seemed fairly.... tame compared to murderous intent. He'd have to try to explain this to Varda some other time, though, as right now they really needed to focus to make sure neither of them died.

"Just stay behind me. If all of the traps are like that one, I can survive them, but I'm not sure about you. And I know you're gonna want to object, but please, first consider if we really have any other options," he responded in a serious tone before beginning to cautiously move forward.
He knew Varda would try to speak against his plan, but really, what other choice did they have? They couldn't spot the traps, clearly, and he doubted Varda could take hits like that. Besides, if all of the traps were like the little tripwire he'd encountered, he was confident in his ability to survive them.... albeit it would surely hurt. Probably a lot. Oh well.

Varda already opened his beak to object to the plan let Sova take all the hits even though he's injured and it'll hurt a lot and probably damage him further (named by the bird himself), though the Glaceon got to it before he managed to let out a peep, claiming that there were no other options. The Swablu frowned and stayed silent, looking at the dark room. If there were wires around, he couldn't see them... Which made this all very problematic as they couldn't try avoiding things they didn't see! But Sova's idea didn't sound like the best one, either.

"My mother said... That many birds are built for speed and our bodies are very light and weak because of that," he started chirping,
"But not us. I'm not built for speed," the bird continued, looking at Sova. He wasn't a very strong Pokémon. He was small and weak, had always been. He had been very sick in the past, too. But despite all that had happened, he was still alive!
"...We have those spikes. Could we maybe... Throw them there and have them trigger the traps for us? They do have some weight to them..."

Sova barely listened as he just walked along, having known his little friend would try to speak out against it. The issue was there weren't really any options aside from just taking the traps as they came. "That's not exactly gonna work. We don't know where the traps are, so we don't know where to throw things to trigger-," he began to explain, but stopped as he placed his front paw down and felt the floor under it seemingly.... sink.
Another trap! He jumped back immediately from the tile-trap on the floor before it could do anything to him, only to have smoke begin pouring out of it, threatening to quickly fill the room. Well, this wasn't too bad, at least.

Then came the bad part. He suddenly felt something on his usable front paw in the haze, it felt like a hand or some other kind of grabby-appendage. Then another around his back. Before he knew it, he felt himself being pulled down by a variety of arms, carefully positioned around his icy armor to avoid being cut. Luckily, none of them were particularly strong, so he found himself able to fight against the downward pull.... for now.

Varda started to waddle after Sova, he couldn't possibly stay behind when his friend was trying to risk himself again despite his injured state! But he was just having it so impossible to actually try to stop the Glaceon when he became like this. His words rarely affected him, and he certainly couldn't stop Sova physically! Trying to push the much heavier Pokémon elsewhere was just impossible!

The bird looked up in confusion as his friend's sentence was suddenly cut off, trying to quickly figure out what was happening, but a bit too late. He was pushed backwards by Sova's body as the Glaceon tried jumping backwards to avoid whatever it was that had startled him, falling down on his feathery bird butt. A thick smoke started to hiss out of some odd crack in the floor, making it quite impossible for the Swablu to see – and even breathe at points, causing him to cough.

Varda was only able to see some silhouettes through the smokescreen, noticing that Sova was actually struggling against something. First thing first, he had to actually see!
"Sova! What is happening?" He chirped as he jumped in the air and started to flap his wings as hard as he could to push away the smoke.

Sova felt himself being slowly pulled closer and closer to the ground by the many arms grabbing onto him. The little shuppet who'd orchestrated this so-called game certainly seemed to have a large following, as he could feel enough arms to judge that there were more than two things grabbing onto him from inside the floor. Seeing that he couldn't simply pull himself free, his body temperature began to rapidly drop, cold-burning the hands trying to pull him down and forcing all of them to let go. One of the sources of the arms, a drifblim, then rose out of the ground in front of him, presumably planning to attack. However, its underestimation of a simple glaceon's power resulted in it being knocked into the far-wall by a Shadow Ball, the resulting explosion both blowing some of the smoke away and shrouding the glaceon for a few moments.

"We've got company," he finally responded, now that he had a momentary break to speak.
It seemed none of the other enemies were interested in trying to take him on, none of the other sources of the arms revealing themselves. Granted, there was still quite a lot of the smoke around and it seemed to be continuing to get thicker, quickly filling the clear area the Shadow Ball had created back up, so it was possible he just couldn't see the enemies at the moment. Either way, it didn't matter as long as Varda stayed near him. He very much doubted anything here was capable of giving him too much trouble, even in his current state.

Even though Varda tried to clear the air, it seemed like new smoke poured in at about the same rate! He was only able to enjoy a moment of clarity now and then before his vision was filled with the smoke again, making his eyes water. He did, however, manage to see a large balloon-like Pokémon float from the floor, but it was quickly taken care of by Sova, even blowing away some of the smoke for a moment! Yet... The Glaceon still was struggling. The Pokémon that had just been defeated couldn't be the culprit. What exactly was happening?

The Swablu looked very determined as he flapped his wings, soaring closer as he dove deeper into the thick smoke, hovering over what he thought – or at least hoped – was the shape of his friend. So close to his target, his wings did a better job at generating enough wind to try to keep the smoke away – giving him the opportunity to see various hands and appendages trying to wrap around Sova's body. Varda, of course, immediately flied closer and tried to peck at all of the arms so they would pull back.
"Stop it!"

Sova quickly looked up when he heard the sound of wings and noticed the smoke seemed to be dissipating around him a bit, only to see Varda there, blowing the smoke away! This revealed the arms that'd once held tight to him, allowing him to clearly see the culprits.... sort of. They were still just the arms, but at least now he could see them. He watched as the swablu began pecking at the arms and couldn't help but find it a bit funny.... then the funny feeling stopped as he saw some of the arms begin to focus on the bird instead. "Varda, get back! They can't grab me without hurting themselves, but y- aaah....," he began, raising his voice gradually in a sudden panic until his chest injuries became aggravated and forced him to stop speaking.

He held his injured paw close to his chest and closed his eyes for a moment, wishing there was some way to make this stop. He felt useless in this state, he couldn't use his normal mobility, so half of Ice Shard's merit - the speed - was nullified. He couldn't breathe in deeply, which meant no Frost Breath. And of course, he couldn't kick up any Blizzards due to the significant risk of hurting Varda. If he was actually right about there being some creature here strong enough to drive random individuals insane from so far away, how would he ever manage to beat it in this state!?

Even though Varda had pretty much been ordered to get back, he didn't. He couldn't! It was how Sova always was, trying to handle everything on his own, but... Right now he was in trouble! Sova was hurt and while the bird maybe wasn't the best Pokémon to handle these things, the two of them really didn't have much better here. Varda couldn't help but frown, a pained sound escaping the Glaceon's mouth... This had gone on for long enough!

The Swablu used his movement to loop around, returning back to the Glaceon for another round of pecking at the ghostly hands. He did notice that instead of trying to grab Sova, they were now more interested in him... Which was a good thing! He could fly and try to avoid the things, but obviously he couldn't avoid them forever. The bird just wasn't fast enough for that. But buying some more time for Sova could help them out of this mess!
"Sova, can you move?" Varda chirped, trying to lure more of the hands towards him.

Sova grew very frustrated upon seeing his friend seemingly ignoring him. He couldn't make a Blizzard with Varda around, if the little thing would just move he could get rid of these hands! Then, to add insult to injury, he was questioned on if he could move. OF COURSE he could move, he still had three usable legs! He followed his friend around with his gaze, giving a glare to show his disdain, though he wasn't sure if the swablu could properly see it in the ever-persistent fog. He then turned back towards the rest of the room in front of him, but instead, he got to see.... something pink right in front of his face, before he felt a rather soft palm slam into his face.

Instead of being knocked down or even wincing, the glaceon merely stood there with the pink hand of a gourgeist against his face, the thing clearly confused by how it'd seemingly done nothing with its attack. It'd attempted to attack with Shadow Force, but the move seemed to do pretty much nothing. Normally, he wouldn't have given something like this the dignity of actually taking it seriously in a fight, but right now, he was in a bad mood. The thing vanished from sight before reappearing above him and trying to slam a fist into the back of his head, only to have him turn his head and bite onto its wrist before dragging it down and slamming it into the ground, followed by sending a Shadow Ball into it and once more helping to blow the smoke away temporarily with the resulting explosion. He then stepped over the now-unconscious annoyance and began walking toward the door, figuring he wasn't going to be able to stop Varda without literally dragging the bird with him or moving on.

Varda had a lot to do! Not only did he have to keep the arms busy by baiting them into trying to grab him rather than Sova, there was also the annoying smoke that his wings could cause to disperse – for a moment. And Sova needed that to be able to see, right? So the bird had to make slightly bigger loops around the room so he could try to get rid of as much of the smoke as possible. It did make everything more complicated however, having to keep track of so many things made it hard to really concentrate on any of them... And the hands almost caught him so many times!

And well, eventually one did grab his leg as he swooped through, coming to a complete halt in an instant. His flaps did nothing to propel him forward, and the arm didn't even seem to be having a hard time keeping the bird in place! Well, Varda was a rather small and light Pokémon, so it made sense, but... It was a big problem! He tried to bend down to peck at the hand, but it seemed like he couldn't quite reach far enough... And then the hand started to drag him down.
"Uh oh!" The Swablu chirped, noticing how a panel in the floor slid open to reveal a bigger hole he could be pulled through...

The solution seemed so easy: walk towards the door. Yet it was proving to be so very difficult to do so, with the traps and enemies. To make things worse, there was pretty much no communication! Sova had given up on trying to get Varda to do what he said and just figured moving would get the little bird to follow him, but the swablu's voice seeming rather worried stopped him dead in his tracks. He spun around a little too quickly for his own good and ignored the resulting pain as he struggled to see through the smoke, managing to spot that his friend had been caught.... as he'd worried. How was he going to fix this!? Oh, right, Shadow Ball couldn't hurt Varda!

A black ball of negativity formed in front of the glaceon's face before flying in the direction of the swablu, aimed more toward the hand. It likely would have hit his ally if not for the Normal-typing, since he couldn't exactly aim too precisely in his current condition and Shadow Ball tended to have a blast radius, but he luckily didn't have to worry about that. Before he could see the impact of the Shadow Ball, however, the smoke seemed to suddenly thicken around him, obscuring his vision. It also seemed to turn a purplish color, which was odd, since the smoke had previously been a normal gray color, like fog. It also seemed to only be around him.... and what was more worrying, he was beginning to find it difficult to breathe with the sudden new smoke. Unbeknownst to him, there was a gastly trying to suffocate him.