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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.

Sova prepared yet another Shadow Ball to deal with another gastly, but stopped as he heard some sort of.... singing coming from Varda. He almost immediately realized what it was, but he wasn't worried about being affected by it. Rather, he knew he could stay awake longer than the gas balls, so he just relaxed and allowed the swablu to continue singing. Sure enough, the first gastly dropped fairly quickly. The second clearly grew drowsy, yet persisted in its approach towards Varda. Before it could reach the little bird, though, it also passed out. Both of the gastly seemed to just phase through the ground as they fell asleep, though it could have been due to an attempt to escape with their last remnants of consciousness.

"Nice.... now stop singing before I pass out too," the glaceon replied jokingly to the swablu.
Though he was serious in that he didn't fancy being put to sleep. That definitely wasn't his main goal at the current moment. "The door on the right seemed pretty safe. Guess you were.... right," he commented as he began walking towards the door he'd decided on, mimicking the swablu's earlier word pun in the process.

The litwick didn't really seem to fall asleep, perhaps due to being stronger than the two gastly. It waved goodbye as Sova started walking towards the door on the right, wondering if the two would be okay without knowing what the music box even did. Regardless, it wasn't like it was the little candle-pokemon's job to warn them.

Varda sang, his eyes closing as he concentrated really hard on the tune to bring its effects into reality. He wasn't attacked. He didn't really know what was going on around him, the whole world disappearing for that moment – but when nothing hit him, it certainly felt safe to continue that way. Perhaps his song was affecting the gas-balls, so he certainly couldn't stop now and possibly ruin the entire thing! He just had to keep going until it felt like it was good to stop...

It was Sova's voice that caused him to stop it, his eyes opening and blinking as he turned around to look at his friend – and their surroundings. He couldn't see the strange Pokémon that had tried to attack them, but... Well, that was a good thing, right?
"Ah," the little bird just gasped. Right, he shouldn't keep singing as it could easily put Sova to sleep, too! They were in a hurry, so a nap wouldn't really work now.

With that, the Swablu scurried after the Glaceon, the two of them heading for the right door. It had apparently been a good choice – but Varda didn't seem to be too surprised when he heard the result.
"Of course! It was the right door all along," he let out a small chirpy giggle as he did his best to help Sova open the door for the two of them.


Current Energy: 1 (+1 from the new page)

Sova rolled his eyes and smiled slightly at Varda's personality, which somehow always seemed to be able to cheer him up. As the two pushed the door open, he decided it would be a good idea to give the swablu a heads up on what was in there. "This room seemed pretty safe, just a straight staircase down to a door," he explained as the door opened to reveal that he was.... incorrect.
The entire room had changed! It was now a large, square room lit by a chandelier holding a lot of candles. However, there was a door at the other end of the room and there still didn't seem to be any enemies.

"Well, this is definitely not what was behind this door before.... but I guess this works," he stated, wanting to make sure Varda didn't think he was crazy.
"You go ahead in, I'll hold the door for you," he suggested, figuring that if he went in first, Varda would be unable to hold the door open and thus would have to hurry inside before it closed.
He certainly didn't want to risk them getting separated.... not in this place, of all places.

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

, , , ,

Varda nodded, having flown a bit higher to grab one of the handles so he could try to pull. The door felt to heavy that it was possible he was doing nothing to help... But he certainly tried, at least, oblivious to the fact that he might be useless despite trying his best. There was supposed to be another staircase in the next room, going down rather than up. When the door was opened enough for the Pokémon to slip through, the bird landed on the floor and peeked inside. But... There was no staircase, no matter how hard he tried to look for it. There was a rather nice chandelier, however – and another door they could take!

"Oh," the Swablu chirped as Sova explained. He didn't doubt his friend's words, surely the room had been different when he looked at it last time. But this room didn't look bad either!
"Maybe we shouldn't close the doors if we want to go in the room we see?" Varda asked, starting to waddle into the room like he had been suggested to do. He squeezed past the gap and took his first few steps into the larger room... And he stepped on something, hearing a small click before feeling his strength being drained from him.
"U-Ugh!" He gasped, shuddering.

Sova shook his head at the idea of not closing the doors, as he did just that and closed the door behind him after slipping through the gap. "The house doesn't care if the doors are open or not," he explained, having experienced doors moving away or simply completely disappearing in this place before.
He knew for certain that having one open would not stop it from changing. "Only way through this place is just to keep walking until-," he paused as Varda let out a sound that signaled the bird had gotten hurt in some way.

"Are you alright!?," he questioned in a clearly worried tone as he hurried over to the swablu.
He looked over the little bird's body frantically, but didn't see any injuries.... Perhaps Varda'd just stubbed his toe or something? Or maybe there was a hidden enemy somewhere! His fur's icy armor had just begun to melt and crumble away, but with the thought of more threats, it immediately solidified and re-formed as he prepared for another fight. However, upon looking around the room, there.... didn't seem to be anything, really. Maybe something hiding in the walls or the floor or something?

Varda stepped backwards quickly when he felt like he could do it, his body still feeling oddly exhausted. He looked down on the floor, but... He wasn't sure if he could really see anything. Was whatever he stepped on invisible, or was there something under the floorboards...? He had no idea, and it did puzzle him.
"Oh," the bird chirped when he heard his friend's voice, turning around to look at Sova. He had almost managed to forget all about the Glaceon when he was busy staring at the floor! Varda put on a smile to reassure his friend, seeing how Sova had noticed his reaction and was understandably worried.

"I... Think so! I think we might want to avoid that area, just in case," the Swablu motioned towards the spot where he had felt the strange feeling with his wing, and as an example, walked around the spot as he started to waddle deeper into the room. His eyes wandered on the floors and walls, but he couldn't see anything that stuck out like a sore thumb. No music box pieces, either...
"Should we just go through the door?"

Sova sighed in relief as it seemed Varda was alright. He nodded in agreement at the suggestion to go around some spot on the floor, the only reason for which being that something there had hurt the swablu or something. Maybe an enemy, or some kind of trap, he figured. Either way, he wasn't really interested in figuring it out himself, so he decided to just avoid the area too. He heard Varda question if they should just go through the door and upon observing the inside of the room, that seemed like the best option. There didn't really seem to be anything in here and they didn't exactly have all the time in the world to sightsee or rest.

"Sure, why not," he replied as he approached the door.
There certainly didn't seem to be any point in NOT going through the door, at least. Except maybe.... He turned around just to check if the door they'd come in through was still there and sure enough, it wasn't. It had managed to just disappear in a few seconds of them not looking at it. "We're definitely getting out of this room the way we came in, at least," he commented before moving towards the only door available and pushing it open.

(Y'know, new page, you can roll if you want.)

Varda kept waddling towards the door, as they really didn't have any other way to go, right? This room actually seemed to have a ceiling, so he couldn't just fly up and see if there was something interesting if they continued further up. When Sova commented about the way they came into the room, the little bird glanced over his shoulder as well. And indeed, the door behind them... Was gone! He hadn't expected that, that had to be the direction they came from, right? What if the other door would disappear too and leave them in the room with no way out? That would be a really bad thing, so Varda just picked up his pace a bit, wanting to get to the door as fast as he could.

The Swablu aided in pushing the door open, and this one didn't resist much. On the other side there was a long, narrow corridor with peeling wallpaper and some awfully normal-looking paintings of Pokémon on the walls, all illuminated by some more candles. If one looked further in, it seemed like the room wasn't just this one corridor, however. Another one intersected this one, and another, and another... The further one went, the more corridors one most likely was going to find. Was it a maze...?


((A lot of this page left, so we should probably use some of those Pokémon rolls first.))

Sova waltzed right through the door rather carelessly as he noticed what was on the other side, wanting to get a better look. "What....," he muttered, realizing how much of a pain this house was being today.
How were they EVER going to find their way through this? For a moment, he just seemed to be in awe at the long corridors. He was experiencing a lot of things today that he didn't knew this Chateau had in store, that was for sure. However, his emotional state soon turned to nothing but agitation, with him gritting his teeth and just beginning to walk. "I wonder what else could possibly go wro-," he began, but was cut off by a sudden black orb flying so far down from the other end of the corridor that it was difficult to see what'd caused it, as if to answer his question.

Figuring that if he avoided the attack, it would risk hitting Varda, he instead just took the Shadow Ball head on, like he'd already done a few minutes ago. Yet another black explosion surrounded him and this time, a bit of his icy armor could be heard falling to the ground before the black smoke even cleared. However, it began to reform almost instantly and it had luckily absorbed most of the blow. Still.... whatever had attacked was stronger than the things they'd fought before. "Stay behind me, Varda," he said to the swablu, figuring he could take the hits easier until they figured out how to deal with their issue.
He just barely managed to spot a familiar pink-tan color disappearing into the floor on the other side of the corridor as he spoke, giving him a good idea of the species of the thing attacking.

(Could always have a monster house show up and get Sova and Varda separated because "gtfo so I can blow this room up." Under the assumption we roll a lot of pokemon, of course.)

Varda let out a coo as his eyes explored every nook and cranny they could see. Long corridors as far as the eye could see... But no doors as far as the bird could see. Would there even be doors? Would they be found at the end of each corridor or would there only be just one right path to take, only one door? It seemed like a very helpless situation. The Swablu even glanced up, but no luck: there was an actual ceiling and he couldn't fly over to see where they should be going. But there was nothing else they could do, right? They'd get to the end eventually as far as they kept walking...

The bird turned to look at Sova as his friend started to talk, not sounding like he was very happy about this room. But they couldn't lose hope! Before Varda managed to reply – and before Sova even managed to finish, however, an odd dark ball suddenly approached them from the corridor. The Swablu didn't have time to react before it exploded in the Glaceon's face, enveloping the two in a thick layer of wispy shadows that soon dispersed.

"Ah, Sova! Are you alright?" Varda chirped. This wasn't looking good at all! Someone was attacking them – and thanks to how narrow the corridors were, dodging wasn't going to be easy. But if they were just going to stand there, they would definitely get hit!
"We um, should get moving, right?"


((Pfft, you know that they would never find each other again if they were separated...))

"I'm fine," Sova replied to the swablu as he waited to see if the enemy was going to show itself again.
A maze was difficult enough, but now they had to worry about THIS on top of it. As Varda pointed out that they should get moving, he did just that, slowly moving along. His breath dropped in temperature to the point that it appeared as icy mist in preparation to attack the gorgeist. However, there was no sign of the pokemon in the area. It was probably going to try and attack when they let their guard down, he figured.

"Stay close, okay?," he repeated, wanting to make sure that Varda knew to stay near him.
"I can take these hits. Dunno if you can, but I'd rather not find out," he added on.
It hurt, of course it hurt, but that didn't matter! This thing was weaker than him and its attacks weren't hurting him enough to cause any serious injuries. Of course, he'd get whittled down eventually just like anyone else, so he needed to find the gorgeist and take it out as soon as possible. Trying to find an exit to this place was also an option, but there was always the very real chance that it would just follow them if not taken care of.

Just then, the gorgeist peeked out from inside of the floor again and fired another Shadow Ball in their direction. This time, he was ready, blowing a blast of Frost Breath to intercept the attack, creating a mix of pale blue and dark purple in an explosion in the middle of the corridor that quickly faded.

(Y'never know, maybe the house is in a good mood today.)

Varda started to flap his wings, rising up into the air. He didn't have much room to maneuver, but this way their attacker would have two moving targets to try to hit – and the bird was a lot faster on his wings than his feet, those short stubby little things weren't very agile at all! They couldn't stay still.
"If we keep taking the corners, it shouldn't be able to have a clear shot at us, right?" The bird chirped at his friend, noticing that Sova was being rather careful. One one hand, careful, slow movements would be better as they didn't know what was waiting for them. But then again, even though the Glaceon claimed to be able to take the shots... Even a weak attack could defeat a strong Pokémon if it was repeated often enough!

Another ball of shadowy energy was launched at them, but this time Sova was ready and took care of it with his own attack. The air filled with shadows and frosty breath, dissipating into nothingness. Maybe they had a chance to go now!
"Come!" The Swablu cooed, trying to speed up... But clearly he wasn't too keen on leading the way if Sova was planning to stay behind. After all, the Glaceon had told him to stay close, and he wanted to do that. He just wanted to go faster than this and avoid the attacks rather than try to tank them!


((Is it ever, though? IS IT?))

Sova growled in frustration as Varda completely ignored his directions.  How could he shield Varda if he was BEHIND Varda!?  He immediately bolted in front of the Swablu to catch up, then just kept going.  He stopped at the first intersection and made a right, figuring that Varda would probably suggest it anyways since it was the "right" path.  "When I said stay close, I meant BEHIND me, so I get hit instead of you!," he exclaimed as he ran along.
However, he stopped as the gourgeist suddenly flew out of a wall nearby, but it didn't seem to be him it was after.... it was.... Varda!  Its body glowed an eerie purple as he tried to intercept it with a Shadow Ball, but just as he fired the projectile, the enemy.... vanished!

The Shadow Ball exploded against the ceiling, luckily not creating a big enough explosion radius to hurt Varda.  After a bit of a delay, the glaceon was beginning to wonder if the thing had perhaps just run away.  It didn't seem to be attacking anymore.  However, his thoughts were quickly put to rest as the gourgeist suddenly re-appeared over Varda with its hair-arm-things stretched out at its sides and its entire body still glowing purple, ready to attack with Phantom Force!

(The day the house is in a good mood is the day the evil legendary wakes up.  Heh.)

Varda took off when the Glaceon did as well, gliding through the narrow corridor. It certainly was a good thing that he was so small, imagine if he was a larger Pokémon with a bigger wingspan that couldn't even fit here! They had to keep moving – and the best way for them to go was obviously right, right? They took the sharp corner and turned to the right, another almost identical corridor spreading out in front of them. The Swablu continued to fly straight, looking for another path they could take.
"No one is getting hit!" He chirped at Sova, not happy with his meat shield plan.

Considering that he had to concentrate on flying, the Swablu couldn't keep an eye on his surroundings properly. The ghostly plant was clearly nearby considering that Sova had attacked, forcing the bird to steer clear of the floating shadowy ball that hit the ceiling above him. There was a moment of silence where it almost seemed like their attacker had given up, but Varda wasn't ready to stop and believe that just yet, his body still screaming for them to keep going. He could only barely see the plump shape of the strange Pokémon above him, glowing purple as it descended on him from nowhere with an attack...

And... Nothing. The Pokémon passed through his body ineffectually, he didn't even feel anything. It didn't hurt. At first the bird was suspecting that maybe the effect was a delayed one, but... Nothing.


((What, that would neveeeer happen. Nope. Not here. Also tfw Varda is half Normal-type.))

Sova gasped as the enemy attacked Varda, and after a pause, realized how stupid it'd been to worry. Of course, it'd been a Ghost-type attack.... and Varda was partially Normal-typed.... right.... The glaceon's breath turned a visible light blue color as he prepared to counterattack while the gourgeist was still surprised, but it seemed to also figure out what'd happened fairly quickly and immediately dive into the floor. A moment later, it came flying out of the ceiling, but this time Sova was ready. He blew an icy breath at it, managing to hit it before it got too close to Varda to safely attack and knocking it out of the air.

Much to Sova's confusion, the gourgeist did not fall through the floor. It actually landed on the floor behind Varda, yet it was clearly still awake, so it had to have been on purpose. Not wanting to wait and figure out why, he prepared to attack with more Frost Breath, but the enemy's body suddenly glowing white made him pause. It seemed to glance up at the swablu for a moment, having picked its target for Pain Split.

(Energy - 48.)
(Yfw I forgot about that but rollin' with it. Oh and YOU DIDN'T ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLL.)