I might whisk it!

(Energy: 16-10=6)

"This place... It sure earns the name. Shadowhue Forest..." Cirrus the Togepi remarked quietly to herself while slowly venturing into the dungeon.

She didn't quite know why, but she felt confident enough to try tackling this dungeon today. Some may call her attempt a foolhardy folly, that she should stick to Pecha Forest for the time being, that she would need a good amount of Reviver Seeds, and other such stuff. What she did have though, was her optimism. And it was overflowing on this particular day.

Cirrus then heard a noise. Someone nearby? A feral? Or perhaps another explorer? She would certainly love to have some backup in this forest...

"Hello? Someone there?"

(Energy: 19-10[Entrance cost]=9)
This was the third time Bui had been tripped by a tree root since he had entered Shadowhue Forest, and he had only been in the place for just five minutes or so. Getting really tired of you, trees, Bui thought to himself, getting frustrated.

He had heard of the first in passing by some random 'mon in Grassveil—heard the place was supposed to be a bit of a challenge, yet so far the biggest challenge Bui had faced was the inability to see the tree roots (which he was convinced at this point were somehow plotting against him).

He was in the process of picking himself up off the ground when he heard the voice. Someone was asking if someone else was there. I'm someone. And I'm somewhere. I think I qualify! Bui picked himself up off the ground fully.


"Yes!" Bui exclaimed enthusiastically in no particular direction, but surely loud enough for the owner of the other voice to hear him.

Particular direction or not, the reply she had received was still enough for Cirrus to get a general direction on the stranger's whereabouts. After some cursory glances to make absolutely certain that she wasn't making a mistake that could result in her getting full well and lost, she made her way towards the source of the reply.

It was definitely another explorer, which was the most favorable outcome. As confident as she was, some backup would be quite reassuring. Cirrus wandered further, having her own brief troubles with tree roots, before finding Bui.

"Hey, over here. Are you exploring this forest too?" she called out to the Buizel, trying not to trip over another tree root as she approached him.

Hearing the oncoming Pokemon, Bui turned to face the direction it was coming from. Who ever it was, they called out to him, making it easy to get an exact fix on their location. At first sight, with all the shade, Bui was not sure at all what he was looking at.

"Is that...?" Bui began to ask a question quietly to himself, but disregarded it. Surely the shadows were just playing tricks on him. Bui waved to the figure as he made his way to where it now stood. He heard her—it was female, Bui was now sure—ask if he was also exploring the forest.

"Of course I'm exploring the forest! I'm definitely not lost, I don't get lo—" Bui cut himself short once he was close enough to see the figure more clearly. He stopped and stared in silence for a moment. His face displayed obvious confusion.

"Um, hello, talking egg...?" Maybe I ate some bad berries...

Confusion was soon answered with confusion itself, before being closely followed by a flash of understanding and realisation.

"You've never seen a Togepi before, I guess?" It made sense, Togepi very rarely left their concealed valley nests prior to evolving into Togetic, and if the Togekiss mothers were anything like hers regarding the protection of their clutches of Togepi then not many intruding Pokémon aside from the likes of Skarmory would have escaped a tough fight. She couldn't really bring herself to show the slightest touch of offence over the "talking egg" greeting either. Togepi admittedly did look that way, after all...

"Well, the name's Cirrus. Nice to meet you!" she replied to him.

Togepi? Is that what this is? Bui walked around Cirrus, examining the new Pokemon. He stopped in front of her after completing a full circuit. He then proceeded to use his paw to measure up the togepi to his own height.

"Aren't you a bit. . . small to be wondering around in a place like this by yourself? Aren't you afraid you might, like, fall and crack or something?" Bui asked, not with concern, but with a simple tone of curiosity. It was clear that he knew nothing about this species of Pokemon, and had decided to base all of his assumptions about the new Pokemon on his experience with eggs (which, thinking to himself, Bui realised he had almost no experience with eggs to begin with).

"Why are you in this place anyway?"

Cirrus stood quietly as Bui proceeded to examine her from a variety of conceivable angles, looking outright dumbfounded when he measured her petit body but otherwise secretly grateful for what still appeared to be concern, even though the risk of her cracking was less than that of a Legendary Pokémon suddenly ambushing and eating the two of them where they stood with a single gulp.

"I'll be straight and honest with you here. I woke up today feeling ready for this forest, so here I am. I'm glad to have met someone else in here though." was her truthful reply. "Maybe we should do this together, er... Sorry, I don't think I've caught your name yet."

"Oh! Right!" Bui exclaimed, realising he had forgot to introduce himself. "Name is Bui—I know, terrible name, but it's all I've got, so I'm not going to forsake it."

At the suggestion to work together, Bui could not help but smirk. Something about the togepi's size and assumed fragility made Bui believe that working together would actually mean he would be playing the role of bodyguard. But this didn't bother him, the extra storage capacity added by Cirrus's bag would be beneficial to Bui's goal of gathering supplies.

"Yeah, let's travel this dungeon together. You're closer to the ground so you can make sure I don't get killed by the tree roots—it is very dark here and I think the trees are plotting against me for some reason," Bui said in a tone that was difficult to determine whether it was sarcastic or serious.

Cirrus had already found herself admiring Bui's solidarity over his less than fortunate name right off the bat. She rather liked his clear stance against getting a name change. That took a rather impressive amount of self worth in her opinion.

"Okay dokay, let's do this right!" she let out as a cheer, walking ahead to lead Bui through the mess of tree roots as per his established plan. Despite her support of Bui's opinion on that name of his, the smirk hadn't escaped her notice. She got her bag ready for any items and steeled herself up for any encounters, hoping that despite weighing very little, she wouldn't end up as merely dead weight.

[roll=Shadowhue Forest]2[/roll]

The member 'Gengarzilla' has done the following action : Dices Roll

---

'Shadowhue Forest' :

Bui's confidence was climbing to new heights. He had yet to encounter a Pokemon he couldn't handle—granted, he hadn't been adventuring so far from Grassveil before. . .

Even so, he was confident in his abilities, he was ready for anything, and now he had a trap finder at his disposal; all he had to do was keep Cirrus conscious.

Shouldn't be too difficult, how bad could things possibility get?

"Hey, uh, if you spot any danger or anything, just give me a shout or something. I'll watch our flank and the tree tops, in case something literally tries to get the jump on us," Bui said, not actually paying much attention to anything.

(Energy: 6-10=0)

Cirrus's response wasn't that of a normal reply in either agreement or disagreement to Bui's plan. It was instead that of a light growl in the direction of some undergrowth next to her, a Shroomish underneath it having previously scattered a burst of poisonous spores in her vicinity following her triggering of a trap.

Using the opening provided by her use of Growl, Cirrus resorted to an attempt at the Metronome well and produced a Fury Cutter that, though completely missing as a result of her now poisoned condition, spooked the Shroomish enough into running from someone who could potentially disintegrate it with a lucky Fire type move such as Flamethrower.

"Heh... heh..." she breathed heavily. "That... was close..."

The sounds of the quick kerfuffle ahead of him did not seem to reach Bui, and he nearly tripped over his togepi companion—only stopping in time due to picking up the distinct sound of Cirrus's voice.

"Whoa, you don't look so great, Did I just miss a battle somehow?" Bui took a brief moment to look around the vicinity as best he could in the darkness of the forest. He then added as an after thought, "Wait, was it a ghost Pokemon? Or a ghost ghost? Is this forest haunted?" Each question came with a shorter gap between the last, and each with an increasing tone of excitement. Then Bui caught himself, stopped his rush of questions, and looked over Cirrus again.

"You look tired," Bui fianlly added in an obvious tone.

[roll=Shadowhue Forest]2[/roll]

"Just a Shroomish..." she replied after Bui had finally finished up with his Rock Slide of questions about ghosts, Ghost types, and haunted woods. "It kinda caught me with poison but I scared it off..." Cirrus murmured, a constricting feeling taking hold around her chest. The poisoning was causing some mild discomfort and she screwed up her face enough to avoid visibly wincing

Seeing the Buizel's concern shortly afterwards, she formed a response that consisted of "It's not bad, I can still walk... I have my Morning Sun move ready and in reserve..." before picking herself up and walking onwards. It was only the very first feral Pokémon in the dungeon, she really couldn't afford to just book it already.

Bui nodded to the togepi. If she says she's fine, then I'm sure she's fine.

"If I see a peacha berry I'll be sure to toss it to ya," Bui blinked a few times, comparing the darkness of the forest to the darkness behind his eyelids. "Or, more likely, if I trip over a peacha berry. Wait, are peacha berries native to this forest?" It occurred to Bui that he had no idea what may be in this dungeon he had walked in to.

Without waiting for an answer to his question, Bui continued. "I have no idea what's around here, come to think of it," Bui said as he adjusted his bag—which was entirely empty. "I suppose anything would be more useful than all the nothing I currently have."

Bui gave Cirrus another look over. "Maybe we should walk side by side from now on, that way we can get poisoned together next time," he said with a grin.

Badger carried out 2 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

,