Drippy Eggs

First topic message reminder :

(Energy: 20-15=5)

"Is it even possible to find any herbs in this area anyways...?"

Those were the words forming a question that Cirrus the Togepi quietly asked to herself as she approached the entrance to the Cattail Marsh, carefully looking around for any signs of feral Pokémon or new herb varieties. Not too long ago, she had departed from Grassveil Town on a search for the latter in the Rainfront area after coming to a conclusion that she needed to expand her boundaries.

However, her previous search for them in Pricklemist Hill... admittedly hadn't gone perfectly according to plan. This had led her to the marsh that she was now walking into. "I hope I get some better results here." Cirrus mumbled.

Before the Fairy type Pokémon could voice any of her further hopes for a nicer and more fortuitous time here, her monologue was immediately snapped in a similar fashion to the twig she had unknowingly just stepped on, startling her as she quickly glanced around. Not the most comfortable way in the world to commence a dungeon exploration...

The togepi hopped right off and immediately started surveying the area, presumably checking for herbs or threats or something. Sy'rin waited at the edge of the water for her to finish, trying to enjoy the aquatic part of the environment as long as possible before they started moving. The vaporeon wondered if they'd end up in any fights, and while she wasn't exactly scared of almighty volbeat and illumise, she still didn't want to end up in any conflicts. She knew of her.... tendencies and didn't want to scare away a new friend, but she feared a lack of control over herself would come into play if fighting arose. She didn't want to be seen being.... violent, lest her new source of entertainment run away in fear.

When it seemed Cirrus was ready to go, Sy'rin pulled herself out of the water and immediately began walking down the path. She figured it was her job to lead since she assumed she was stronger than the togepi, or at the very least, more mentally capable of violence were the need to arise. She didn't bother shaking the water off of herself as it was already being absorbed into her body. She stopped almost immediately at the sound of rustling in a patch of foliage and spoke quietly to the togepi without looking away from the noise: "Stay behind me."
She figured she'd see no protest from her companion and so, kept her attention solely on the bushes. She prepared for something to jump out and attack them, already thinking of ways to quickly beat it down so that she didn't have any.... difficulties with herself.

Rather than some big, angry monstrosity, when the source of the rustling finally emerged, it revealed itself to be a simple poliwag. The lavender-colored vaporeon sighed quietly to herself with all the worry just melting away as the poliwag completely ignored her to walk across the path. It was clearly not remotely interested in them at all, let alone in attacking them. It just wanted to cross the path they happened to be on, and it had coincidentally decided to right as they were passing by. It was kind of creepy how the little thing didn't even so much as look over to them as it walked, failing to acknowledge their existence. It was hard to tell if the poliwag was antisocial or just didn't care. At the very least, she would have expected it to be a bit nervous if not aggressive, but the little thing just didn't seem to care at all about the presence of others.

(Energy: 5-9+1=1)

Cirrus was quite glad that the first Pokémon they encountered here had proceeded to pass them both by without nary a first glance, let alone a second one. It felt like some sort of lucky break. Whether or not this Poliwag had seen them at all or just ignored them, it mattered little to her. It would be one less potential feral Pokémon blocking their path, for starters.

Looking around, she soon noticed something blue tucked away underneath the growth. Upon a moment of closer examination this was revealed to be a gummi of some sort. Not just a gummi but a blue coloured one at that. Her thoughts immediately went to Sy'rin, the Water type Pokémon accompanying her throughout this dungeon. If what the Togepi heard back in Grassveil Town was correct, this variety of gummi was said to be highly favoured by Water types. One only had to put two and two together in order to understand what she had in mind for this gummi.

"Hey, I spotted something over here that I think you might like." she called to the Vaporeon, gesturing for her to come and take a look. This exploration was already getting off to a rather decent start.

Sy'rin glanced in the togepi's direction when her attention was called for, and within an instant, her attention was fully grabbed. She wanted to know what kind of gift her pet had found for her. There was an odd hope held in her mind that it would be something red, but she didn't think too much about this. Instead, she simply made her way over to the foliage that had been pointed out to her. Was the grass her gift, or.... a bush? She wasn't one to complain about gifts, but foliage was a very.... odd thing to give to someone as a present. She wasn't very confident that she could take much of it home with her, and while the gesture was nice, it didn't feel like a particularly special gift when they were surrounded by it.

Just as the vaporeon was about to try and piece together something resembling gratitude for her very interesting gift of foliage, she finally noticed the gummi so perfectly hidden among it. In reality, it was actually obvious enough, but she wasn't exactly the most attentive when it came to environmental detail. "Oh!" she voiced her own realization as to what her gift truly was.
It was candy, and at that, it was one she recognized to be her favorite flavor! Then again, it was just the favorite flavor of all Water-types, but she still felt special despite the magical candy's ability to appeal to all of a particular type and no one else. It was the perfect gift that her friend had picked specifically for her, not some random thing someone she barely knew happened to find lying on the ground. Yeah, it was definitely the prior.

Sy'rin moved a paw to pick the gummi up and suddenly froze as if she'd realized something horrifying. For her, it kind of was: she'd had a sudden moment of selflessness and realized that maybe Cirrus wanted the gummi, even if it wouldn't taste as good to a Fairy-type. She didn't want to take something from her new friend like that! At least, not without first making sure it was okay to do so. "Are you sure you don't want it? I mean, you found it," she questioned, eyeing the blue gummi the whole time.
It wasn't her intention to look so interested, but she found it a bit hard to look away. It was a very simple task to draw her attention to something.

(Sorry for the delay. Was planning on posting a week ago, but things happened. Do you actually want me to take the gummi?)

"I'm sure." Cirrus replied. She was a little glad to see that Sy'rin was taking the time to consider whether or not her dungeon companion wanted the gummi despite it being the favorite flavor of her type, but the girl only felt it right to let her have it. "I found it and immediately thought of you, Sy'rin. Thanks for thinking about me, but I'd rather give it to you." The Vaporeon had put up with her so far, after all.

As they spoke, an Illumise fluttered its way above them. They didn't look native to the dungeon, the firefly thought. She landed upon a tree and began to quietly observe the duo out of nothing more than sheer interest and curiosity. A Cheri Berry then fell from the tree she was now perching upon.

(Sure thing, it's better for Sy'rin than Cirrus.)

Sy'rin had taken the obligatory measures of politeness that were expected of all, so she was now more than happy to accept the gummi. She had made sure to take the socially accepted path as always. It wasn't entirely due to some bias toward social norms; she also didn't want to offend her company. However, she still often tried to do whatever was the most socially acceptable, just to get as many friends and as much attention as possible! Perhaps it was a bit selfish in a way, but it wasn't like she did bad things for popularity. Well.... she actually did, a lot, but not in the same sense. That was so she could become famous! ....Infamous! Whatever! Point: she never did bad things to impress anyone. Perhaps she was an outlaw, but she was an outlaw with dignity.

"I'll have to try to return the favor," the vaporeon responded with a cheery smile before bending her head down to pick the gummi up with her mouth.
Seeing no reason to keep such a thing, she decided to eat it immediately. The flavor was wonderful as expected, although it wasn't exactly based on any personal preference on her part. Gummis just always seemed to taste a certain way to those of certain types regardless of what kinds of food they normally liked. Still, regardless of the fact that she only really liked the taste due to some kind of voodoo candy magic, it still tasted good. Now all she had to do was find a.... what kind of gummi was she supposed to get for a togepi?

Well, she'd just have to figure that out later, or maybe she could give Cirrus something else in return instead. She looked up to the afternoon sky for a moment before continuing along the path they were heading down, expecting the togepi to follow. "So, why'd you decide to come down here so late?" she asked partly out of curiosity and partly out of boredom.
It was still daytime, sure, but she didn't understand why someone so small and squishy would want to push their luck by venturing into a dangerous place during the later half of the day. She was less worried about herself because she was big! And.... still squishy. Actually, she was far squishier than a togepi, at least from a literal perspective. She could literally turn into water, after all. But still, she was confident that she could survive in the harsh wilderness, as long as she could stay near the safety of the water.

Then again, she was currently being pulled away from the water by her new friend's goal.

(energy - 4)

Lord E V carried out 4 launched of one Cattail Marsh :

, , ,

"Me?" Cirrus asked as she followed Sy'rin onwards down the path ahead. "Well... I'm pretty new to this area so I don't exactly know this dungeon all that much. I wasn't really raised on tales of how dangerous a marsh could be at this time of day, if that's why you're asking." she admitted out loud. The Togepi felt it best to submit to her lack of knowledge in this case. It was better than being assumed as an expert.

The Illumise watching this duo decided to follow them, eventually collecting the nerve to pose her request to the pair of strangers. "Hello, there's something I'd like to ask your help with if that's alright..." she said, landing in front of them with a needy expression upon her face. The bug hoped they could help with that menace further on.

"Hm, what's going on with you?" Cirrus asked them, pleased that the Pokémon didn't appear or sound feral.

Sy'rin wasn't surprised that the togepi didn't know much about marshes, but she'd thought it to be common sense not to wander around alone when it was late. Granted, it wasn't dark yet or anything, but there was still the potential for unforeseen delays that could change that. "We'll be fine," she responded very nonchalantly, clearly lacking any extreme worry.
The marsh wasn't too difficult to navigate, and if worse came to worse, the things within weren't exactly grade-A threats. Or at least, nothing she'd seen or heard of thus far scared her. Perhaps things were different for a tiny togepi, but she was still there to protect Cirrus. Besides, as long as there were no setbacks, they wouldn't even have to worry about staying out past dark.

Then a setback came along in the form of an illumise seeking help with something. Despite being an outlaw, the vaporeon wasn't one to pass on helping someone whom she didn't hate, and it seemed like her companion was in agreement. With Cirrus having gotten the first word, Sy'rin simply nodded her head and agreed: "Yeah, what's up?"
Perhaps things would change once they heard whatever the request was, but for now, she was fully willing to help some random illumise with some random thing. As long as she had company, she didn't really care where she was or what she was doing. As long as she didn't have to do anything extremely unappealing, of course.

They still needed to find some herbs, but their timeframe wasn't too short. As long as this chore didn't turn out to be something extremely time-consuming, Sy'rin was confident that they would be fine. There was also the chance of getting lost, but it wasn't like that was any more or less likely to happen regardless of whether or not they took some time to help someone out. After all, the current plan was just to wander aimlessly around until they found what they were looking for anyway.

(Energy - 6)

The Illumise looked at the two of them once more. That little one was definitely a child, but her company looked like they could put up a fight. "Um... There's this feral thug of a Poliwhirl causing my Goomy friend some real headaches with their antics. Neither of us are able to do very much about this, they're just a touch too much on the tough side. If you two could drive off the pest for the two of us then that would be very wonderful indeed." the firefly told them both, posing out her problem in full.

Cirrus juggled this around in her head for a moment. Poliwhirl, like everything else here, wasn't a Pokémon species she had seen before. The Togepi didn't really know what to expect when she heard that species name. On the other hand, they had no defined location to reach at present. She didn't think it would detract from their intentions here too much. Why, it could even be beneficial to them if they were fortunate enough.

"What do you think, Sy'rin? I'm all up for helping them out but I don't even know what a Poliwhirl is..." she asked the pink Vaporeon with her.

Sy'rin fell into a silent and seemingly deep state of thought as she listened to the request. The illumise wanted help dealing with a bully, from what she was gathering. The entirety of her attention was put toward thinking about what the bug had said, giving her the obvious appearance of someone who was carefully weighing her options in considering what to do. The reality of the situation couldn't have been further from the truth, however: she had already decided to help the random illumise before even hearing what the problem was. The thought that was really entrancing her was far more simple-minded....

What, again, was a poliwhirl?

She knew the name and was certain she also knew what they looked like, but it just wasn't coming to her! Through her mental struggle, the appearance of a poliwhirl slowly came to her. She then suddenly spoke up once more, proudly demonstrating her knowledge: "It's thE SWIRLY THING!"

Her voice grew from a normal tone to a shout over the course of the statement as her sudden excitement over such a trivial thing overwhelmed her. It was such a simple achievement, but that was all it took to brighten her mood a bit. "I win! Okay, let's go do the thing!" she continued with her sudden overjoyed attitude.
Without even a moment's hesitation, she turned around and began walking, although she didn't really know where she was going. She simply planned to walk, not even thinking to ask where the poliwhirl could be found. She had a tendency to sometimes get carried away and forget important things, such as asking where they were supposed to be going to find their goal.

Cirrus watched Sy'rin dramatically declare her trivial knowledge, making it known to her younger and less informed companion that Poliwhirl was a... swirly thing... before walking off upon seemingly deciding to help out after the discovery. The Togepi took it upon herself to ask where they would actually find the Poliwhirl. All she could surmise now was that a Poliwhirl was similar to the Poliwag they'd earlier saw.

"Your friend's going in the right direction, he's not far off ahead from where we are now." the Illumise told Cirrus before she watched the Togepi catch up to the Vaporeon to pass this news along. The path was becoming more overgrown and its surroundings more dense as they went along. Cirrus remained cautious upon this, just in case their quarry decided that it would be a jolly good idea to jump them next.

Sy'rin walked along without a care in the world, lacking any concern in the slightest over the fact that she was heading straight toward conflict. She had plenty of tricks to help her avoid getting hurt, so it was no big deal. However, she also lacked proper concern for her companion who wasn't quite as fortunate. A togepi didn't have the defensive advantage of being able to melt to avoid damage, and they weren't particularly well-known for offensive power. This really was something the vaporeon should have considered, but she wasn't much for strategic thinking. Actually, she thrived on never thinking things through. Ever. It wasn't like she didn't care about her new friend or anything like that. She was just an airhead.

Despite this, she still wasn't too much of an airhead to understand that having some kind of game plan would probably be a good idea. "Sooo, if talking doesn't work.... I've got some ranged attacks that won't do much to a Water-type, but I can poison him.... 'n stuff. What can you do?" she decided to ask, leaving out the fact that she could manipulate the emotions of others and attract them to her.
It wasn't even guaranteed that she would be able to do that to the poliwhirl, anyway, so she didn't see much reason to include it as part of a plan. She failed to show any caution toward the decreasing safety and clarity of the path they were on, as she didn't really care. Recognizing the danger in things just wasn't something she was good at. Despite her lack of caution, she was at least a semi-competent fighter when she needed to be. She just.... lacked competence in some other areas. Most other areas.

(So, what do you wanna do? You wanna take the tadswole, or ya want me to?)

Sy'rin's quiet and unspoken assumptions about the capabilities of a Togepi were very much well founded and right on the nose. Cirrus didn't know any moves that would deal damage to an opponent, her only chance to take any sort of front line role in a battle for this situation came in the form of her Metronome move randomly landing on something like Thunder or Leaf Storm, particularly if Super Luck worked.

Supportive or status inflicting moves, however... "I can cause confusion with my Sweet Kiss. That would help your poison, right?" she asked the Vaporeon. This was her most recent move but she had enough working knowledge on it for such a situation. "There's not very much otherwise. I've got evasiveness, self-healing, and Metronome if the Poliwhirl tries to go for me. I'm afraid there's nothing for actually attacking."

Unlike Sy'rin, Cirrus had laid all of her cards on the table for this pre-battle preparation. She had plans to visit the dojo in Grassveil once her Rainfront trip was finished and see what could be picked up.

(I'll open the battle and you can take it from there, unless you're interested in seeing some Metronome uses in this thread.)

It seemed as if the two had a plan... or at least as close to a plan as they were going to get.  Sy'rin accepted the duty of being the front-liner with support from her ally.  She wasn't entirely sure if she was a good candidate for such a thing since she was also best in a support role with her ranged attacks and debilitating capabilities, but she figured someone had to do it, and she was definitely a better choice than the little togepi.  Besides, how dangerous could one fat swirly thing possibly be?  "Well, we don't have much going for us for offense, but we could probably just cripple it with all the shenanigans we've got between us," she stated, forgetting for a moment that the only "shenanigan" she'd mentioned having was poison.

It wasn't like her ability to attract others to her was some big secret; it just seemed like kind of an awkward conversation topic.  Besides, she figured she probably wouldn't even need to use it.  But if she did, she hoped Cirrus wouldn't get too uncomfortable.  The togepi kind of seemed a bit like an innocent marshmallow, and Sy'rin simply didn't want to explain her emotional manipulation to such a creature.  It seemed like a very awkward talk, more akin to something a parent would be expected to explain to their child.  She really didn't want anything like a child, or even something that reminded her of one.  Perhaps comparing this situation to that of having a child was just a biiiiiiiit of an exaggeration, but she was one for theatrics. But they would surely be able to handle their task without difficulties, so there was nothing to worry about in the first place.

(Sounds good.  Feel free to throw in a Metronome if you find a good place to pull some shenanigans.  I'll just roll with it if you do.)