Rubik's Cube

First topic message reminder :

It was an oddly cloudy day today, even for Venen Gulch and the surrounding areas. Come to think of it, it'd been pretty cloudy in.... well, everywhere lately. It didn't exactly make for very appealing scenery, but honestly, this area wasn't very visually appealing in the first place, so that didn't really matter. Sova, for one, was here for two reasons. The Grima Outpost had helped him with one of his two goals; Finding a familiar zoroark. Now he just needed one more thing.... To get back to the forest. "Trust me, you'll love this place," he assured Mirage as they neared a large, old chateau.

Following the two from just barely close enough to see them was a little silver fox-like creature, a "shiny" eevee. While this body coloration made her fairly easy to spot in.... nearly any setting, she was being careful to stay behind what little cover she could find. However, cover was rather difficult to find in a barren place like this, so she didn't get many chances to move, having to wait for the other two to get very far away. She had a black bandanna over the lower half of her face in the hopes of not being identified if she was seen as well as to help with breathing the awful air in this area.... and because she wanted to look intimidating. Not that anything could help with that last one. Honestly, how was she supposed to look intimidating as a silvery-colored eevee?

Krikka, the eevee was called, had been following not so much the glaceon as the zoroark. She knew who the zoroark was and really wanted to talk to her! Oh, the things she could learn from an avid outlaw! She was also curious to see where Mirage could possibly be going with some random guy and from what she could tell, it was that supposedly haunted house that was in the area. But why with the random guy!? He certainly wasn't an outlaw Krikka had ever heard of. Were the two.... together, or something? Impossible, surely such a high-class outlaw had standards!

[Mirage energy: 4 | Victoria: 1]

Victoria was going to insist upon herself being fine, before the glaceon suddenly and rudely walked away to bring attention to the wounds of a stranger rather than herself or even the zoroark that he seemed to be so friendly with. She huffed, obviously upset that he even bothered to ask, but decided to simply sweep it under a rug for now. Its not like she could afford to piss him or the zoroark off at the moment considering they were much stronger than her and she was all alone without her loyal subjects.

Mirage, meanwhile, gave the pumpkaboo another slash with her claws. The pumpkaboo gave a cry and fled. Mirage wanted to chase after it, but she could not exactly charge face first through a solid wall with ease like the pumpkaboo could. She pushed herself up onto her two back legs and examined her wounds. They didn't look too serious, but she may have needed to take it easy for a bit. Mirage did not quite care for it however, keeping her pride at her side, and instead ignored it. She turned to spot Sova talking to a small Eevee, "Well if it isn't the little tail-chaser..." she huffed, referring to how the eevee had been the one to follow them around earlier.
Mirage

Kat carried out 4 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , ,

Victoria

Kat carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

Sova was relieved to see Mirage handling the enemy just fine now that it'd lost its edge against her. He figured it was only right to let her have the fight all to herself, for the reason of payback. The pumpkaboo fled before things got too heated for it, though, which was disappointing. He glanced back at the oddly colored eevee as Mirage referenced it, seemingly implying it was this little thing that'd been following them. "Wow, her? When you said we were being followed, I thought you meant by something threatening," he commented, with his remark being more insulting than he'd intended.

Krikka followed the glaceon around the corner just in time to hear some of the conversation, the topic being her. Her ears flattened in anger, which she normally wouldn't have shown, but she figured pretending to be all sweet and innocent around outlaws probably wasn't going to be beneficial to her. Still, she wasn't going to try and attack a group who were likely all marginally stronger than her, so she decided to just show agitation at it instead. "Heey!," she responded, making her feelings towards the remark clear.
However, she seemed to be simply ignored by the glaceon.

(Sova - 71 energy. Pointless traps canceling each other out tho.)
(Krikka - ....Uh.... 1.)

Sova

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

, , , ,

Krikka

Lord E V carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

Mirage nodded, not caring that the shiny eevee had been insulted. She instead entered the room a hole had been blasted into, it was empty. There did not seem to be anything of interest, she scanned the room with her sharp eyes. She at last looked upward, and spotted what seemed to be a door in the ceiling. She huffed, not sure how to get up there...could she throw Sova up there? Nah, wouldn't work. She'd probably just miss and he'd smash into the ceiling...maybe that'd create a hole?

Victoria remained silent, wondering if she should leave now while she still could. She figured it would be wise to not to, they didn't seem at all outlaw-y at the moment save for the zoroark. The tyrunt decided it was best to simply just remain where she was, and wait to see if they would do anything that would call the need to run.

(Victora ate Sova's oran berry)

Kat carried out 4 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , ,

Sova waited for someone to contribute something to conversation, but it didn't seem anyone was particularly interested. Maybe he was just the only one of the group who wasn't worn out. Maybe they needed some encouragement to speak, which he felt he could provide. "Anyone need an Oran berry?," he questioned, looking around at the others.
Actually, Mirage seemed surprisingly fine, just distracted with scouting the next room.

Krikka's ears perked up as the glaceon offered Oran berries to anyone who wanted them. She'd already gotten one, but she figured she'd try her luck with getting another! "Me!," she replied, trying to seem up-beat about it in the hopes of winning the Ice-type over more easily.

"I just gave you one," Sova stated as he looked towards the eevee.

Krikka's outward mood once more switched to upset as she glared at the glaceon. "One! I've been all alone.... and I'm burned!," she complained.
Seconds later, the glaceon threw another of the blue berries at her.... not to, but at. It hit her in the face and she just managed to catch it in her paw, but since it didn't really hurt and she wasn't interested in passing up a free Oran berry, she didn't complain and just ate the berry.

(Victoria ate Sova's time-traveling Oran berry. Also, forgot burn = no energy back per page, so not counting Krikka's last roll. Woops.)
(Krikka - 10 energy.)

Krikka's REAL roll -

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

, , , ,

Mirage sniffed around, literally sniffing around. She passed up the offer of the berry, she didn't feel she needed it despite her aching body. Save the good stuff for emergencies. Suddenly, the room began to move. She felt herself suddenly sliding side ways, she dug her claws into the floor, trying to remain where she was while the room suddenly became a steep decline before the floor became a wall. She hooked her claws deep into the wall, terrified by this new change and desiring to stay put in case there was some kind of trap within the wall. The room continued to spin and spin, her legs losing their grip until she seemed to be hanging from what was snow the ceiling!

She looked down, everyone else seemed to be perfectly fine on the ground, though the two weaklings seemed a bit dazed. Once she realized that this was not a trap, she released her grip and allowed herself to drop to the floor. The floorboards cracked and snapped beneath her, but did not give up in their efforts to keep what is above them above them.

Victoria was extremely surprised by this new development, falling disgracefully with the wall as she had no method of clinging to it like Sova or Mirage. She cried out in fear, as she tumbled down and fell into the door the Mirage had spotted in the ceiling.

She landed in a mountain of bone. She looked around, bones everywhere. Bones of various pokemon, some were indecipherable and could not be recognized, while others were the complete skeleton. This reminded Victoria of her father's War Trophy room, though it was much more organized and some of the pokemon still retained their normal appearance.

She saw the Zoroark drop through the door with her, "Look out!" she cried, spotting a pumpkaboo sneaking up behind the Zoroark. The overgrown mightyena reacted quickly, grabbing a nearby orb and swirling around and punching the pokemon with the orb. The orb smashed into it, and glowed brightly before being transferred into a box.
Mirage Final Roll since last poke was negated by the Itemizer Orb

Kat carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

Sova followed Mirage into the new room to see what was so interesting that she was just roaming around the seemingly empty room. He quickly noticed the doorway in the ceiling and began thinking about trying to sprint up a wall to reach it using his ice-traction, but his thoughts were put to rest as the room began seemingly just trying to accommodate them. Or kill them, one or the other. The air around him immediately dropped in temperature and his fur flash-froze as he boosted both his speed and traction, attempting to sprint towards the wall that was quickly becoming the floor. He luckily managed to make it in time, but the room just kept moving.

The ice-traction created by the glaceon's cold paws finally gave out and dropped him as the room stopped completely upside-down. He spun around as he fell and managed to stick the landing, albeit it wasn't quite what he'd hoped. Either way, it worked. He looked around at the others, seeing none of them were in particularly bad shape, then quickly followed along as two of them went through the doorway that was now in their reach. It was quite an.... interesting place, one that would likely be disturbing to most, but to him, it was just weird. He also noticed Mirage handling a pumpkaboo rather aggressively and assumed it was due to what'd happened with the last one of those creatures they'd seen. "This is nice," he joked as he looked around the room, his attention clearly being captured by it.

Krikka gasped as the room began to spin. Given she had absolutely no way of dealing with something like this and was not in any way prepared for this type of shenanigan, she almost immediately slipped and fell, proceeding to slide into the wall as it became the floor. Being stunned by hitting the wall, it made it easy for her to fall to the.... ceiling as the room continued turning, hitting it even harder. Luckily, neither of the falls had been to hard on her, merely dazing her and making it rather difficult for her to get up. By the time her vision had adjusted, everyone else was gone. "Whaaa....?," she managed to say as she stood up and leaned against the wall.

She then noticed the doorway on the floor.... that had been the ceiling prior to this. There was a door on the ceiling? This confused her, but she decided not to spend too much time thinking about this, figuring the others had already ventured through it. She hurried along and peered through, not wanting to be left behind. There was a rather intimidating-looking room on the other side, one she very much liked. She immediately hopped down, confident she could make the jump. Which she did.... sort of. She managed to land on her paws, but immediately fell over from the shock of the impact and lack of a balanced landing with an "Oof!"
Luckily, there were no real injuries from the jump, so she got right back up.

Mirage turned her attention back to the room once the pumpkaboo had been taken care of. It seemed to be a giant mountain of picked-clean bones, had something eaten these? Were they fake? She wondered if she fished through here enough if she could find a Rare Bone to sell, or perhaps the jewel of a dead persian or espeon. Those are valuable right?

The zoroark took a step to go down the mountain, however caused a bone-slide as she slid down the bones rather than making a slow cautious decent. She was fine luckily, but the bones made plenty of noise. She looked around, her ears swiveling and alert just in case something came to attack, but there was only silence.

"Huh," Victoria spoke, "Just like father's trophy room...not very useful though since they fail to show the face of who they defeated so it's rather pointless," the tyrunt spoke. She did not quite see anything all that sickening, this was normal for a king/queen, right? She figured that there must have been royalty that used to live in this house. Perhaps that amulet she was seeking would be within these walls was the proof of it! Was the heir still alive? Could she make an alliance?

Sova followed Mirage down the rather over-the-top display of bones, being sucked into the bone-slide despite his immediate attempts to escape it. Luckily, no actual harm came to him on the way down. Actually, it just made the trip faster. He glanced at Victoria as she spoke of her father having something similar, which was.... a bit unnerving, even for him. "Uuuh.... Sounds.... fancy," he commented, not really sure what else to say.
Seriously, how does one reply to a statement such as that?

He turned back to face forward, but jumped back as one of the bones on the ground, specifically a skull, flew up towards him. He barely managed to avoid the floating skull before getting a better look at it, seeing it was a duskull. He growled in agitation at the shenanigans, clearly not entertained. Maybe knocking this thing out would teach it a lesson?

Krikka decided to take her own route down the mountain of bones, being very careful as she slowly moved down towards the floor. Seeing Mirage cause a bone-valanch only prompted her to be even more careful. Sure, it took longer for her to get down, but she couldn't really take the type of beating the two definitively stronger pokemon in the room could, so she had to be careful. Especially since she'd already been hurt more than she was comfortable with. She completely ignored the dinosaur's talk about how her father had a similar "trophy room," as the idea of something like this wasn't really something that bothered the eevee.

Mirage examined the bones, not recgonizing a lot of pokemon save for the duskull that popped out in attemp to scare Sova. She ignored the duskull, leaving it to Sova's hands, as she continued down a small pathway that seemed to lead to a rather large bone looking throne. It was nothing like the ruined throne not that she had seen it, but it looked like it had been crafted, as if some wannabe wanted their own throne. She got closer, noticing a small purple drifloon sitting on the throne. It seemed to stare at them blankly.

Victoria watched as the drifloon slowly raised a hand/string/foot, and pointed upward as if giving a toast, "Entertain me." It commanded, as a gourgiest suddenly dropped in from the ceiling. The princess gave a squeak of fear, before glaring at the pokemon for making her perform such a cowardly action she seemed to growl, before her fangs began to form icy armor, preparing to punish it with Ice Fang.

Krikka quickly caught up with the rest of the group despite her injuries, taking a place near Mirage. Her hope was to have a chance to talk to the zoroark, maybe get some useful tips about.... outlaw....ing.... However, before she could even try, she noticed the little purple thing sitting on a throne of bones. Sure, its attitude agitated her, but she didn't feel there was too much she herself could do about this situation. Besides, the point of trying to join up with this group was so they would do the fighting so she didn't have to! Suddenly, the glaceon whose name and strength level she still hadn't managed to gather walked right past her, seemingly taking up the challenge of "entertaining" the throne-brat.

Sova merely tried to ignore the duskull, but as it followed him, his agitation grew. He stayed at the back of the group, not fancying leading or annoying the others with his little tag-along. However, once he heard the drifloon, his mindset instantly changed. Such a little.... pathetic.... THING, seemingly thinking it could treat him like a court jester. Truthfully, he hadn't even considered the others, just himself. No one was allowed to try and look down on him. EVER. The duskull flew in front of his face to try and get his attention, to which he replied by simply lifting a paw and swatting the pest out of the sky, managing to knock it out with just that.

The glaceon marched past his allies, ignoring the fact that Victoria was already preparing to attack. He didn't even care about the gourgeist, honestly, but when it stepped between him and his goal, he made short work of it by blowing a visible icy breath in its direction. It fell flat on the ground and struggled to get up for a moment before being pinned flat to the ground as Sova placed a paw on its back in order to step over it. He wasn't in the mood to have to go around anything at the moment. He merely continued walking towards the little drifloon with a very unnervingly unamused look on his face, clearly wanting to handle this thing himself.

Mirage watched as Sova took on the ghost type with ease. She stood where she was, watching and waiting in case she was even needed or spotted something of value. She did not seem to care that the drifloon was ordering them around, instead she seemed to completely ignore the drifloon, and was studying the throne a bit more. It seemed fitting for an outlaw, but it just did not seem like the kind of thing she wanted, it actually made her kind of sick to think that the bones were real. She did not seem to understand why though, she was an outlaw, so why did that sort of thing bother her?

Victoria watched as the gourgeist was made quick work of. Well, that was anticlimactic. She looked back to the drifloon, who seemed to be rather unsatisfied and waved its hand/leg/thing as if dismissing them. She spotted a drifblim drop from the ceiling, it seemed to be aiming to pick up Sova and carry him into the air, "Watch out!" she cried, though she doubted that the glaceon needed the word of warning about the drifliblim.

Sova noticed the drifblim, but appeared to not be interested in attacking it. If not for what came next, it likely would have seemed to some of the others that he hadn't even noticed it. Once it neared him, reaching its appendages out in an attempt to grab him. He did nothing but continue to walk until it was mere inches away from him, at which point his fur flash-froze into the familiar spiked armor, resulting in the big purple blimp-thing essentially impaling its own arms. Red marks quickly formed on the appendages as it recoiled away from him in pain, only to have one of the two feelers immediately be bit onto, followed by the entire creature being pulled down and slammed into the ground by the glaceon's right side.

He seemed not to miss a beat, refusing to stop actually moving for even a second and only attacking between his steps, timing everything perfectly to do so. Honestly, it was mostly for show, though. He wanted this little throne-rat to know what it'd just provoked.

As Krikka watched the glaceon deal with the enemies, it became less confusing to her why Mirage would keep him around. As a guard of sorts, so she didn't have to do any fighting! The zoroark certainly seemed content with just sitting back and watching, so it seemed that was the case. "Oooh, that's why you let him travel with you?," she questioned, looking for confirmation.
It certainly made more sense than any theories she'd previously had.
Honestly, this guy could definitely fight! Probably not as good as Mirage, but still, it was a lot more than the little eevee had been expecting out of some random guy who was the girliest eeveelution possible. He had somehow managed to make being a glaceon look so much less pathetic than she'd previously viewed it as. Maybe she would take glaceon as her evolution, too, if it had that kind of power!

Mirage grunted incoherently, responding to the eevee but not actually verbally responding in a full sentence. She couldn't be bothered to answer the eevee, there were more important things at hand. For example, that drifloon seemed to be somewhat terrified as the drifliblim was mauled. She stalked up to the creature, a sly smirk across her mouth as she approached. She managed to slip behind the throne while the drifloon was distracted by the combat. Mirage chuckled, startling the drifloon as she suddenly appeared to be a spiritomb.

"Young one, seems that you're in quite a pickle," she sneered, talking in a similar manner to a spritiomb she had once met long ago.

"Wha-who...?"

"Hush...I know how to spare the life of the young prince," she cooed. The drifloon looked to her, confused. She smiled as if sympathetic, "I used to be a ruler such as yourself," she began to weave the web of lies, "my kingdom fell long long ago~. I shall spare the young prince, only if said prince gives these old souls something worth their time."

The drifloon seemed to stare at the hypnotic eye of the spiritomb as it weaved around the throne, the illusion working its magic to make the pokemon seem to stretch and swerve in the air around the prince, surrounding him.

Victoria didn't know what to do, she stared at the strange spiritomb that spoke of assisting the prince, while the glaceon seemed to be a bit busy absolutely destroying the drifliblim. She swallowed looked to Krikka, "What do we do?" she whispered, extremely confused.

Krikka actually began to have mixed feelings about coming along with this group as she realized the sheer amount of danger the entire situation was. She'd seen one member of the group prove to be extremely dangerous and she knew another to be equally as dangerous from reputation. Speaking of the latter, in her distraction watching the glaceon wreck the things thrown at him, she hadn't even noticed Mirage leaving at all. She turned back to the zoroark to try and continue talking, since the conversation hadn't gone anywhere, but to her surprise.... Mirage was gone! She noticed the spiritomb, but wasn't exactly worried about it so much as the sudden disappearance of Mirage and the clearly unstable, dangerous glaceon.

Just then, a voice took her away from her worried thoughts. She did her best to play it cool, which was pretty good considering acting was something she was pretty good at. "I don't know.... That depends on who he is and where Mirage went," she replied, being honest while not showing her actual feelings on the situation.
She certainly didn't want to show any worry and end up spreading it to the tyrunt.

Sova paid no mind to anything happening around him, though he did notice a streak of black and red heading behind the throne, followed by a spiritomb appearing. He assumed for it to be Mirage, but it not being Mirage would be no issue to him. If it were truly something desiring to help the drifloon, it could suffer the same fate. However, he kept his pace steady, figuring it was Mirage and it probably wanted to get something out of the throne-rat. He would give her time to try and get what she wanted.... but only so much of it.

Mirage spoke a bit more with the drifloon, before it finally rose and nodded, the two slipping away behind the throne to some passage way just behind it. Mirage left the door in the wall ajar slightly, if it had been closed those outside would have not been able to see it. She made sure the drifloon did not notice, and followed him into what seemed to be...a rather pathetic looking treasury. There were two sinister boxes. That's it. She stared at the two items, then to the drifloon who seemed to be wondering what was wrong.

"You think THIS is worthy of my time?" she hissed lowly, snarling as she crept closer to the drifloon who backed away. She quickly grabbed the foot of the small being, the mist changing her appearance back to her foxy form. She glared down on the drifloon, prepared to punish it for wasting her time.

Victoria looked to Sova as Krikka made it clear she did not notice who he was. She decided to tell her, as it seemed rather important at the time, "Oh, That's Sova, he's a part of the guild I think?" She looked back to the throne, now the two were gone! She looked around wildly, where did Mirage go anyways? Why was all of this so confusing? What even was this house!?