How to Lose

That mission tho:

After a very.... interesting encounter with what he'd originally thought to be a glaceon, Sova had mixed feelings about how his day had gone thus far. He'd had quite the unpleasant experience with a rather unappealing ditto; the second one of the day; but he'd also completed the missions he'd taken that were holding him back from progressing toward his true goal. In fact, the second ditto had actually been just who he had been looking for in order to complete one of his missions! Now, he could move on to the ruins, where he hoped he would find something that could solve his issue. This issue was one he'd kept mostly to himself, but it was one he shared with his group. Or at least, he shared a similar problem with the ones he'd chosen to come along with him.

He knew that he couldn't exactly send Dusk back to Grassveil alone, which meant she'd have to come with him and would inevitably figure out that he was going to the Snowcloak Ruins.... and, of course, she would figure out why. The glaceon knew this, but he still planned to keep her in the dark for as long as he could. It was something private to him that he wanted to keep between himself and those he'd entrusted with it for as long as he could. Plus, he figured Dusk would just try to convince him not to if she figured out. He didn't need any more forces tugging at his emotional state than he already had, and he certainly wasn't interested in being told he was wrong by someone who couldn't possibly understand.

The hail had stopped and he could now see the others thanks to the increased visibility. He looked over to the charmeleon next to him and spoke up: "Looks like we're home."
He had been planning to let Garnet respond, but then he spotted something that made him want to speak once more. The other umbreon Dusk had brought along with her was scurrying over to the two of them with a bag full of.... sticks. She seemed to be more focused on Garnet than himself, and since he didn't want to get sucked into any more social situations, he simply backed away and allowed the charmeleon to handle it. "Looks like you've got a fan," he joked.


Dusk was alone with Acro, watching over him while the rest of the group was either out or just avoiding the poor guy. She'd previously had company, but this company was.... dismantled by her after they pushed her to the point where she simply could not handle having them around. "He did what you hired him for, now get out of here! Can't you find something better to do!?" she thought about what she had said to get the odd duo of clients to leave the bird and herself alone.
She'd gotten a bit pushy, but it was only because they had refused to leave otherwise. She was just happy that now, she could get to know Acro a bit better. She could only hope he wasn't upset about the fact that she'd kind of chased his clients off. Surely, it would be fine, since he had already completed the mission.

"So, what's your team? I don't follow guilds too much," she questioned in an attempt to get to know Acro a bit better.
She was curious to know the name of the team the archeops was a member of, and she didn't recall asking him before. He seemed to be the leader, or at least the figure of authority between himself and.... Linus.... Dusk didn't like Linus, as he seemed to be the opposite of what she imagined a member of a guild as. Then again, Sova wasn't exactly what she felt a guild member was supposed to be like either. Still, she knew Sova at least seemed to do the right thing when it mattered, even if it meant putting his own life at risk. The umbreon had also come to understand that perhaps in the line of work of doing "right," Sova may have had to put his morals aside at times and thus, he looked like an ass.

Dusk was so distracted with the archeops before her that she failed to notice that the rest of the group was getting back. She had taken it upon herself to be Acro's guard, even though she knew he was stronger than her. The issue with his strength was that he was exhausted and had probably caught hypothermia. At that, from what she'd been told, the archeops had a rather crippling ability that was probably still active.


Krikka had become incredibly bored with her situation and ended up laying in the snow despite how cold it was. She was on her back, doing her best to get a good look at some of her pretty blue rings. In other words, she was indulging in a bit of narcissism to sate her boredom, as there was always one thing that never failed to entertain her in times of need. Herself. It was herself that she could always count on to cheer her up when the world was failing her, and the world failed her quite often. Perhaps she was just very picky and hard to please, but she didn't care. She was awesome! Her rings looked so much cooler than the tacky yellow that was on the lesser umbreon!

Despite being enthralled by herself, she still had her attention split enough to notice when the the glaceon and that foul charmeleon had gotten back. When she spotted the latter, she immediately rolled back onto her belly, pushed herself up off the ground, and shook the snow off of her. She then immediately got to work with her part of the revenge plan and trusted Linus to do his part. She put on the friendliest smile she could and began walking with a disgustingly happy skip in her step. This was to make her seem innocent, but it was also to make her look like a tripping hazard, like she could fall over herself at any second. She intended to fall, after all, so she needed to make it look like an accident. "Hiiiiii~" she waved a paw in the direction of the two returning members of the group. It was meant specifically for the one she was after.

Krikka intended to fall over like a klutz as soon as she got close enough to the charmeleon to potentially knock him over. She would, of course, try to put as much force into her little stunt as she could without making it obvious that she wasn't exactly falling. She figured the lizard was stronger than her, so she very much hoped she would have the element of surprise. Even if she couldn't knock him to the ground, she figured she would still be able to get him to hold still by pretending to be hurt and getting him to check her "injuries." He was with guild members, so he had to!

....Right?

Home...that was funny. Whether the glaceon was serious about it or not, Garnet saw no home in these pokemon. He barely knew any of them and even then he barely knew Sova. He still considered him a friend despite all of his issues, but hey this was a guy that was not a huge asshole that was fine with him having bullied someone into suicide.

Oh god why was the umbreon approaching him. Oh well he would just let Sova handle this-wait what no where was he going!? COME BACK AND SUFFER WITH HIM HE SAVED SOVA DAMMIT! Well, he was not really too upset about it, but he certainly was not looking forward to interacting with the happy joy joy headed his way. Luckily for him, her movements practically broadcasted her clumsiness. When she tripped, he merely moved out of the way and allowed her to fall, "Watch your step," he advised as he simply kept moving away from her and towards the Popsicle stand of an archeops.

He hated the yippee skippy of the umbreon. Not even Jade and Namataki were that happy-go-lucky. All it did was bring up bad memories and he wanted away from that. As he put a minor amount of distance between him and the shiny umbreon, he heard a loud THUNK behind him. He turned around to see what happened to see a large tree branch in between him and the umbreon, just barely missing him and the umbreon. He looked up to see the honchkrow who gave a simple, "Sorry!"

...He grabbed the branch and dragged it along with ease. They would need to get a fire going.

--

While talking was good for keep the archeops awake, he really just wanted to sleep. Sleeping was a bad idea in this environment. He had to think for a brief moment in order to recollect his thoughts before he spoke, "Roark...we-er, I used to work at Grassveil. Transferred to Ailreon though," he spoke simply and briefly. He watched as the charmeleon approached with a branch. The lizard turned and held his tail to the branch. Soon warmth began to flood the area as the fire started up. The branch was big enough to last for a few moments, but he figured after that he would be good to go into the ruins...

--

There! They had returned! Linus could already see Krikka moving into action. He grabbed the branch and began to fly upwards, each beat of his wings proving to be one hurdle after the next in his task of revenge. To his disbelief, she failed to get the charmeleon to stop. He tryed to drop the branch before the charmeleon could get some distance, but the branch only ended up landing between the charmeleon and the shiny umbreon. He gave an ever so heartfelt "Sorry" but the charmeleon remained silent and merely dragged the branch along to burn.

Sova simply ignored the clumsy umbreon, thinking nothing of her. Of course, he intended to stop if she was seriously hurt, but he watched the fall and decided it didn't seem like something that was likely to bring about any severe injuries. Sure enough, after some pathetic whimpering, the umbreon got back up like nothing was wrong. In fact, she seemed to switch from hurt to just pouting awfully fast, which made him question if she'd ever been hurt at all. Maybe she just wanted attention or something, he figured. Or maybe it was something that wasn't as harmless. Either way, he didn't care to do anything about it aside from keeping a closer eye on her. Besides, he couldn't do anything without some kind of real, substantial evidence, and he figured she was probably just an attention seeker or really moody.

Speaking of moody, the glaceon opted to stay a considerable distance away from the fire when it lit up. This was partly due to the fact that he was an Ice-type and thus wasn't particularly fond of the heat. In fact, the cold actually felt quite nice to him and soft snow was kind of like a fluffy bed. The other reason for staying away, though, was that he just wanted to avoid everyone for a while. He'd left the group to have some time to himself, and the fact that he wanted this time alone hadn't changed. He still wanted to keep his distance, and he had plenty of reasons for his antisocial behavior. Besides, he wanted to have a good view of the entire group.


As Acro's self-appointed guard, Dusk remained near him despite no longer needing to now that the rest of the group was back. Besides, she was interested in the conversation they were having. Roark was a team name she'd heard about, though what she knew about it was limited. It was just a name she'd heard before, unlike Sova's team, which she knew quite a bit about. She knew Sova's team because she knew Sova, though, so that wasn't really a fair comparison. "Well, looks like the party's here," she changed the topic to the fact that the group was all back together.
She looked around at everyone and smirked when she saw the other umbreon fall over and be denied any form of assistance. That made up for all the inconveniences she'd had to go through so far.

When the charmeleon lit up a fire, since she was close to the guy it was mainly for, she got a fair bit of warmth. The warmth was welcome, since she'd had to tolerate the cold for a while and was freezing. She knew Acro had to be in a worse condition, given he had literally been frozen, but that didn't mean she was any more comfortable.


Krikka felt like she'd performed nicely, at least enough that no one seemed to be giving her any suspicious looks, but it sadly wasn't enough to immobilize the charmeleon. She tried her best to whimper and make it sound believable, and when that didn't work, she whined more loudly. To her annoyance, nothing seemed to make this lizard care in the slightest about the probability that he could have just seriously hurt someone by opting to let them fall instead of catching them. It was at this moment that she concluded the charmeleon was probably not a guild member. She was just about to get up and attempt once more to physically stop him when a large branch suddenly dropped from the sky and ALMOST HIT HER. She was willing to understand that maybe Linus wasn't the most accurate with dropping branches on others, but he'd almost hit her!

Krikka rose to her paws silently, trying very hard not to look too upset and to appear more sad than mad. She still needed to keep up her sickening act, partly because she didn't want to make anyone suspicious and partly because she still had plans for the charmeleon. If she couldn't get him to feel bad for her, then obviously, he was the type to care more about himself. She was just going to drive him insane with this annoying, friendly, energetic personality until he snapped. Maybe he'd hit her, in which case the high-ranking guild members would surely restrain, scold, and maybe even punish him! And if he didn't, then that just meant she would get to continue breaking him down until the end of the trip. Regardless, she intended to get her revenge and make sure he learned NEVER to tell her to do anything again.

Silently wishing death upon the charmeleon, she followed back to the fire and intentionally made sure to stick near him. She brought her sticks along just to have a reason to be near the guy, though many of them had broken and become somewhat less useful. For now, she would be silent, but as soon as they got moving, she was going to kick the "niceness" into overdrive.

The group had rested up and it was time to get moving. Garnet's chest was feeling a bit better either that or it had gone completely numb and he could no longer feel pain there at the moment. Either way, he was good to go. The archeops had thawed out and warmed up significantly, the annoyance of clients had disappeared, and he was free to use his fire moves as he pleased. They were approaching the entrance to the ruins, a cavern gaped open that was the entrance. His eyes scanned their surroundings to see pillars of ruins that had been frozen over. He figured there were some that were even buried around here.

He remained silent as they moved towards the entrance, not quite in a chatty mood. He made sure to take the lead, that way if anything happened to ambush it would jump out at him first thing. He was less likely to be spoken to and he would even reach the destination sooner even if it was by seconds.

--

Acro was feeling much better, his energy had returned and he was no longer feeling like a complete frozen Popsicle. The archeops admired the ruins around them a bit more than Garnet, pausing and hesitating in his steps to observe the frozen pillars and stones that lay around the entrance. He figured there would be more readable ones somewhere around here, but he was quite interested in seeing the place he somehow missed last time he came here.

How was this simply looked over for so long? Was that the power of a mystery dungeon? Would a mystery dungeon be capable of simply popping up out of nowhere in the middle of someplace important, like Grassveil? He couldn't wait to get his hands on that item. He looked ahead at the tunnel ahead and spotted a brown fluffy figure sitting at the entrance, it was the eevee mentioned in one of the missions...had it been sitting there the entire time?

--

Linus was sour. Linus was cold. Linus was not happy. At least when they got into the caves then he would no longer be assaulted by any random cold winds that did not originate from a certain glaceon. He stared with an angered and irritated expression at the mouth of the tunnel, he just wanted to get in and get out. His body shivered before he picked up his pace a little, he was too cold to fly. The winds might suddenly blow him away as well, who knew with how unpredictable this damn place was being?

As nice as the heat that he couldn't and didn't want to enjoy had been, Sova was glad to be on the move again. He felt a tingle on his spine as the group neared the entrance to the cavern, causing the fur along his spine to stand. The Icy Lands in general stressed him, but Mount Frostmeer.... and worse, a cavern within it.... was about as bad as it could possibly get. He tried to tell himself, though, that it was not the same cavern as the one that haunted him. He knew it wasn't, which was the only thing keeping him stable at that moment. Still, he felt particularly at risk of.... snapping, and since it'd already happened once earlier in the day, he knew the current risk was very high. This meant he'd need to be careful, not for himself, but for those around him. He'd need to make sure to keep himself emotionally leveled, and more importantly, to avoid being hurt too badly at any and all costs!

He'd had his doubts about a lone eevee making it all the way out to such a harsh place, but sure enough, there was an easily recognizable ball of brown fluff sitting in the entrance to the cavern, leaning against one of the cold walls. There appeared to be a purple stone hanging around its neck, tied to a loose, white ribbbon. It was hard to tell from far away, but he guessed it was an eviolite tied to a guild ribbon. As he got closer, he could see the expression the eevee wore was one of annoyance and displeasure. Great, he'd only just reached them and already, he'd done something to upset them. With a sigh, he began to speak: "What's-" but was cut off as the eevee suddenly started speaking.


This eevee had been waiting for quite some time and had gotten very bored of the whole thing. She'd ranked the mission high enough that surely, whoever had accepted it had to be competent enough, but yet here they were, making her wait. She was relieved that they had shown, and the group was large enough to give her some hope, but that didn't mean she was happy about how long she'd had to wait in the freezing cold. The glaceon started up trying to talk, but she wasn't interested in hearing it at the moment. "You're late," she remarked in an unamused yet calm tone.
It showed she was somewhat annoyed, but also didn't really care too much about being kept waiting for a while. The only thing that really concerned her about the wait was the fact that this group had been delayed, and she could tell.

They were injured, or at least most of them were. As far as Shara was concerned, this meant they had to have gotten into at least one fight one the way to the ruins, which had likely been what'd kept her waiting. This was how she knew for certain that they were actually "late" when a meeting time hadn't even been set. But what was more concerning to her was the fact that they had gotten hurt on the way to the ruins. If they could barely handle the trip to this dangerous place, they were all going to die inside. Which meant she'd have to protect them.

She was concerned.


Once the group got moving, Dusk followed along near the archeops, hoping to chat more with him about something. Sadly, she was having trouble thinking of any good conversation topics. She'd given up on talking to Sova as he was being stubborn and it would only be a matter of time before she would learn what he was keeping from her. No one else in the group seemed particularly appealing to talk to, so that just left Acro. Something that was beginning to concern her was that she was starting to feel thirsty, which she figured was as good of a conversation topic as any. She had a disorder, after all, so it seemed pretty important to bring it up. She figured maybe someone had some water they were willing to share, like Acro. This seemed like a better conversation starter than anything else she could think of.

Before she could say anything, though, Sova spoke up toward the eevee she hadn't noticed. She spotted this eevee once the glaceon drew attention to it, which brought more questions than answers to her mind. The eevee's response just made her even more confused: she gathered that it was probably a client, but that was the end of her understanding of the situation. "Who's that?" she questioned Acro in a quiet tone, not wanting to interrupt what was going on.
Surely, the fellow guild member who was exploring with Sova knew what business he had with some random eevee, and more importantly, why there was some random eevee in such a dangerous place. Given how rough it'd been on her so far, she couldn't imagine how a mere eevee had managed to make it so far, seeming no worse for wear.


About the time the big hole in the mountain came into view, Krikka was beginning to internally applaud herself on being right. This group she'd gotten herself involved with was going after the cursed treasure! Or at least, she assumed she was looking at the Snowcloak Ruins and not some random cave these idiots for some reason wanted to explore. It looked awfully fancy to be just some cave. She spotted the eevee waiting at the entrance, and after listening to a bit of dialogue, it wasn't hard to guess that this eevee was a part of another stupid mission and would probably be tagging along. She decided to stay silent and let the appropriate party handle the rabid eevee, as her only concern was getting to the treasure. If the treasure even existed, it was far more personal to her than most treasure would have been, because she had something to prove by getting her paws on it. She wanted to prove there was no curse, no magical superstition that her idiot sister would believe in.

Of course, driving the charmeleon mad was still a concern as well. It just wasn't her priority, though she doubted it would get in the way of getting some of that treasure. For the time-being, she was trying to keep a safe place in the middle of the group so that she didn't have to watch out in front of or behind herself, but she still had every intention of talking lizard boy to death.

The eevee had ever so rudely interrupted the glaceon and Garnet was not a fan of that. He snorted, already not liking the first impression the eevee had given off. "We had a to take a detour," he spoke simply, not quite giving a full explanation. He walked past the eevee and into the mouth of the cave, desiring to get going into the cave so that they could go get their treasure. He stared up at the ceiling, checking for any signs of potential cave-ins. His tail lit the way in the darkness, proving that he was going to have to play the role of flash light...again. Hopefully this would not end in him being brutally beaten again.

--

Acro looked to Dusk as she spoke to him, "Oh," he spoke simply, "That's another guild member. She's coming along with us for Sova's mission. She's supposedly pretty strong, but I haven't heard much of her myself..." the archeops responded simply, keeping his tone hushed as well so as to not distract what was going on. He also did not want to call Dusk out in front of the others, just in case she was keeping quiet for a particular reason. He did not want to be a jerk about all of this.

--

Linus, meanwhile, was continuing to merely stare at everyone as he walked along. He followed the source of warmth into the cave, finding it was more comfortable to stick near the charmeleon despite his annoyance with the lizard. Who knew something so infuriating could be so useful? The honchkrow turned around in the cave to gaze back at the others, wondering what was taking them so long to get a move on.

Linus: 10
Acro: 48
Garnet: 11
Linus

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

Acro

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

Garnet

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

The answer the client received was not satisfying, as it did not address her true problem with the situation.  She wasn't mad so much as she was worried, because her "help" had obviously had difficulties just getting here and would be expected to somehow perform well enough to actually be useful and not die!  "You got hurt on the way here.  Do you have any clue how dangerous this is?  If you can barely manage out there, how can I count on you to-" she started up, but someone decided to get bold with her and cut her off.
The glaceon of the group decided take the blame all onto himself, claiming that it was his fault they'd gotten into trouble.  She didn't care whose fault it was, and as far as she was concerned, everyone who was hurt was just a walking hazard in this place.

The eevee darted in front of the group to stop them as she was not yet done speaking.  "Listen, this place is dangerous.  It's way worse than anything out there, and you all seem like you barely made it here in one piece.  Be.  Careful.  Let me take the lead, and do as I say," she urged, taking a very serious tone near the end to emphasize how important it was.
Perhaps it was a bit pushy, but she didn't want anyone to end up dying.  She felt like she'd made a pretty good speech, but to her dismay, the glaceon began to start walking again in an attempt to pass her.  She jumped in front of him in an attempt to stop him again and spoke once more, this time pleading more than demanding: "Your leg....  Come on, let me lead so I can keep you all safe."


Sova continued moving along behind Garnet, as he wanted to hurry things along and figured the client would probably be satisfied with the explanation that had been given.  To his disappointment, he was wrong and the eevee voiced her views on the situation once more.  She seemed like she really wanted to be in charge, though he didn't know how he felt about letting someone boss him around.... or about letting an eevee lead the way.  Sure, she'd managed to get all the way out here alone without getting hurt, but still.  He also didn't want everyone else to be lectured for mistakes he'd made that had led up to everyone getting hurt more than once.  The ditto attack was undoubtedly his fault, as it'd been a personal vendetta against him.  The thought of the sneasel he'd taken in having died was still eating away at him.  The second fight had been caused due to him silencing Linus and giving the enemies the information that they were worthy target.  "All me.  I made some bad decisions that led to conflict.  They're not stupid," he tried to reassure in the hope that the topic would be dropped.

The client merely responded by pushing even harder for an authoritative position.  Even if he were to accept this, he knew there were certain members of the group who would be.... less willing.  Even so, that didn't matter since he wasn't interested in following anyone else's lead in such a supposedly dangerous situation.  HE needed to take the lead if it was truly such a big deal, so he decided to just ignore everything the eevee had said and silently pass by her.  Then something unexpected happened: his client.... actually made him want to listen to her.  He looked down at his injured leg as it was brought into the argument and avoided eye contact with the small fluff-ball.  The bossy attitude had slowly faded until it was almost like begging, and he could no longer find it in him to ignore it.  He merely sighed as a response and waited for his new leader's orders.


Dusk tried to pay dual attention to both her conversation with Acro and the eevee client's rambling.  She didn't blame the eevee for being worried about them, or at least about her, but she couldn't help but doubt something like her prevolution could possibly back up such big talk as to talk down to the likes of powerful guild members.  Surely, Acro and Sova could dance circles around a little eevee, right?  Nonetheless, she felt it wasn't her place to say anything in regards to who led the group since she wasn't even really supposed to be there, so she decided not to chime in.  Basically, it was none of her business.  She silently watched and listened as the eevee somehow managed to talk her way into getting Sova to listen to her.  It was a feat that Dusk had to respect, but she wondered if everyone else was going to be so easy.

"How do you feel about 'em?" she questioned the archeops, still keeping a low tone.
Personally, she was a bit conflicted, as she wasn't fond of taking orders from anyone.  At the same time, she could tell the eevee clearly didn't want anyone to get hurt, so it was kind of hard to be too mad about it.  Besides, it wasn't like she wanted to lead, so she really didn't care who ended up taking that position.  She was happy just having someone to keep her company since she felt otherwise alienated by the others: Sova was the only one she actually knew and he was pretty much refusing to talk to her at all.


The eevee annoyed Krikka, and she could tell she wasn't the only one who felt this way.  Sova and the charmeleon clearly weren't particularly big fans, first off.  Then there was Linus who just seemed to hate everyone, which she figured applied to the random eevee.  She wondered what gave this eevee the right to issue orders without getting beat down or at the very least told off.  Whatever it was, she wanted some of it for herself.  Was it just an exceptional talent with words, or was this some kind of god-eevee?  Perhaps she was giving a heavy payment in order to make sure everyone coming along did what she wanted?  After all, the only one who seemed to be conceding when they didn't want to was Sova, who was a guild member.  She had gathered that the eevee had to have been a client, so she would be keeping a very close eye on the non-guild members to decide whether or not it was just a large reward that was giving the little pest authority.

If she decided it was something in the behavior of the eevee, then she was going to use this as a chance to try and improve her skill in manipulation by studying someone else.  She hated thinking she was remotely inferior to anyone, but she hated actually BEING inferior even more, and the only way to improve was to be willing to do whatever it took.  This included being willing to learn from and mimic someone who could potentially show her something new.... whether they wanted to or not.

(Sova - 97 energy)

Lord E V carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

(Dusk - 7 energy)

Lord E V carried out 7 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , ,

(Krikka - 5 energy)

Lord E V carried out 5 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , ,

Sova had been stopped by the eevee, but Garnet had continued forward as he ignored the eevee entirely. He was leading, he was getting there, and he did not care. Besides, they needed him to lead, sort of, he lit the way with his tail. The only one that would be able to see in this darkness were the two umbreons and the honchkrow, and they were all weaklings.

He remained silent as he moved forward, stopping suddenly as he heard a rumbling in the tunnel around them. A growl grumbled from within his throat, preparing for any enemies that might appear. The opening of the cave had been growing higher with the mountain, allowing for more space in the room. He figured the birds could even fly comfortably in this place if not for the lack of winds.

--

Acro shook his head to the little umbreon, "I'm...not sure," he spoke. He figured the eevee meaned well considering it was in the guild and all, but he was a bit hesitant on how the chemistry of the eevee's actions would work with the team. It was just a little eevee, not even evolved, but then again he could be underestimating it? He was not sure what to make of this situation too. The archeops could only wait as he watched the scene before him.

"What about you?" he asked, wondering what the umbreon thought of this new addition to the group.

--

Linus had stopped when the eevee had stopped them, he was too busy glaring at everything to really say anything or even think about saying anything. The honchkrow huffed as he waited, wondering what to do with this situation himself. He just wanted to leave, he hated this place, and he hated this mission. The honchkrow stared with narrowed eyes at the eevee, not objecting, not defying, not doing much of anything.

What a relief it was to the client that most of her hired group seemed to be sensible enough to listen to her, even if some took a bit of persuading. She was not aware that the glaceon was technically the only one who was actually contracted to her and that only half of the group were even guild members. This wouldn't really have mattered to her even if she'd known, as she still considered it a moral obligation to keep them safe, which meant doing what she was doing. This also meant handling the one issue in the stubborn charmeleon who was ignoring her. A rather ominous noise from within the walls of the ruins brought a sense of urgency to the situation and made her feel more desperate than she'd previously been.

"Hey, problem child," she bolted in front of the one who was refusing to stop and attempted to cut him off.... again.
"Please let me lead. I know what I'm doing; I've researched this place and I know the profiles of my targets; so please," she practically begged.
This behavior was quite different from how she had originally been acting, because the more the charmeleon put himself at risk, the more it worried her. She barely knew him, but she didn't want him to die being stupid.


The glaceon followed behind the two who were battling for the lead, not saying anything and not trying to pass either of them. He kept close, though, just in case anything attacked and either of them needed help. If his client's hype was to be taken seriously, he really needed to be careful with this area. It certainly wasn't somwhere Dusk and her oddly quiet friend needed to be, and he had doubts about even bringing Linus and Garnet along. The prior didn't even seem to have much reason for being there, as he hadn't heard about the bird needing anything.... fixed. Meanwhile, he understood and respected why Garnet wanted to come along, but that still didn't stop him from worrying. Plus, he had to worry about his disturbingly self-confident eevee client getting hurt as well. Apparently this eevee was strong, but he was having trouble believing an EEVEE was stronger than him.


The archeops' answer wasn't quite the most satisfactory thing in the world, but it was.... well, about expected. Dusk suppressed her disappointment at not getting any useful insight from the experienced guild member. She looked forward at the others and couldn't help but feel that there was going to be conflict between the eevee and the charmeleon.... and with what she knew of Sova, she knew he'd likely get himself involved as well. Her mind didn't get much time to think about this before Acro reflected her question back at her. "Uh...." she thought the question over.
She had no clue what to think of the client, hence why she'd asked someone ELSE about it! She knew nothing about this eevee other than that she seemed really worried about everyone.

"Well, she doesn't seem.... mean. Maybe a little bossy, but she's got a point. I mean, all of us are hurt, and if this place is really that bad.... I'm just having trouble imagining she's so much more capable than someone like you or Sova," she responded honestly, still keeping her voice low, and now for the reason of not wanting the client to hear.
With how much the eevee was stressing that the area they were in was dangerous, she was beginning to regret coming along just a bit.


Krikka just followed along and tried to occupy her time by eavesdropping on conversations. The easiest one to hear was the one primarily centered around the eevee, thus it was the one she paid attention to. She was very curious to see if this eevee could actually get the jerk-lizard to concede and show a bit of obedience. Not only was she interested in seeing how it would turn out, but she also wanted to know if this eevee really did have some kind of gift with words. However, she disliked the fact that the charmeleon's attention was being taken by someone else, which meant she couldn't really go be annoying to him without looking all rude and causing conflict. At that, she wasn't particularly fond of running all the way up to the front of the group where it was particularly unsafe just to annoy someone she personally disliked.

(I'm not a satisfied customer. HOUSE ORB.)

Lord E V carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

Garnet had been intercepted again. He stopped and stared down at the eevee, he would not be so easily persuaded. "I don't know exactly who you are or why you're here, but if I die it's my own fault. I'll sign a waiver or something if I have to, but I'm going forward. All I know is you need to kick some butts, so its better if we not waste time bickering among each other and just go," he stated simply before moving to walk around the eevee and get moving once more.

--

Acro was not quite liking all of this one bit. He listened to the umbreon as she spoke, she was able to peace together words he was unable to form a lot better than him. He nodded in understanding and agreement, "I think...i'm just going to keep an eye on her, just in case," he mumbled to nobody in particular. He glanced over to Sova, mulling over things a bit. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never had a chance to talk to the glaceon about what happened with Linus, but figured now was not a good time. He instead stood up from his seat, standing tall as a great bellow echoed through the caverns. There was something big ahead...

--

Linus was still being a little shithead and was pretty much just standing there doing nothing while hating everything. He was truly being a spiteful little bird right now as he felt the urge to just try and cut everyone down before him. He was not going to go through with it, but that did not stop him from imagining it in his own little world.

(I'm not a satisfied customer either.  USING SOVA'S HOUSE ORB.)

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

The charmeleon wanted to just be allowed to die, but Shara was having none of it. She stepped back and moved to keep ahead of and in front of the guy, showing she wasn't going to budge quite that easily. "I hired you, so-" she began, but suddenly cut herself off as she realized something fairly important about the way the charmeleon was behaving.
She looked around at the rest of the group, the gears in her head turning. This guy didn't know who she was or what she was doing.... "You're.... not.... I'm not your client.... Why are you here? Who brought you along to a place like this??" she started up questioning.
Her questions were mostly rhetorical, as she didn't care enough about any of that at the moment to remain on the topic long enough to even get an answer.

The eevee looked back at the rest of the group and took her attention off the charmeleon. Before giving him a chance to even respond, she started up questioning the rest of them: "Which of you are here for the mission, and who brought along a friend!?"
She wanted to know how many real, signed allies she had that she could actually tell what to do, and more importantly, she wanted to know who'd decided to bring company to the deadly ruins.


Little eevee was starting to get frustrated. Sova kept out of the situation, not really wanting to get between his friend and his client. He held a hope that the two would work things out on their own without needing his intervention. In a way, he was sort of right.... almost? The eevee seemed to realize not everyone was there for her mission, which he figured was his fault, just like everything else was his fault. When questions were asked out to the group, he raised a paw nonchalantly and responded: "Me and me."
This didn't make the feisty eevee happy.

Her response came in the form of: "Wha- I said two experienced teams! TWO! Not one clueless guy and his clueless friends!!"

That, he couldn't help but chuckle at. He knew for a fact that everyone with him other than the mystery umbreon had at least some level of experience in the field, even if they weren't all guild members. At that, he had followed the guidelines in the mission and brought another team along.... technically. "The birds are a team from-" he began to explain when a roar of sorts stopped him dead in his tracks.
While he rarely feared for his own life, he held plenty of fear for those around him. Now, he was making his way toward the front of the group. Suddenly, the eevee was silent, which was a contrast that deeply concerned him.


Dusk nodded back to Acro's conclusion to just keep an eye on things. She figured that was probably the best thing to do, and maybe she could keep an.... ear on things? After all, she had big ears, so using them was the only way she could really think to help. Then, as if to mock this decision on her part, the sound of something very big - and she assumed angry - pierced her ears. Everyone had surely heard it, which meant her ears had done no good in this situation. That was not the main concern at the moment, though. The main concern was what in the world had made such a loud and rather intimidating noise. She fell completely silent and just stared ahead into the darkness, waiting for something to jump out. She could see in the dark fairly well, but so far, she could see nothing.


Krikka had to hold herself back from grinning as the tension just grew greater and greater. The little eevee seemed like somewhat of a hothead, though perhaps that was just due to dealing with a group of idiots. She could understand getting annoyed at the members of this group, since she felt similarly about them. Of course, she knew that from the eevee's perspective, she was a member of the group as well, but she was trying to blend in. Therefore, she just took it as a job well done, rather than a personal insult. She was enjoying that the charmeleon she hated seemed to be the main focus of the wrath of the fuzz-ball. Her enjoyment ceased when a bellow shot through the cavern, echoing off the walls. It would have sent a shiver down her spine if she'd had a bit more sanity. She decided to back up a bit more toward the back of the group, not desiring to be on the receiving end of the first attack from whatever had made such a noise.

(I see how it's gonna be. RNGsus, my old friend, there are more House Orbs where that came from.)

Lord E V carried out 10 launched of one Snowcloak Ruins :

, , , , , , , , ,

The eevee irritated him, more than she probably should have. The way she spoke and the way she spoke to his sole friend of the group along with how she had spoken about him did not help this any. She bombarded him with questions just to turn around and snap at the group without awaiting an answer. He growled as the roar echoed throughout the cavern. He did not care about some damn roar, even if it seemed to scare everyone. He had survived a blast from a demi-god, he would damn well deserved to die if he fell to something within this cave.

"If you're going to ask questions at least have the decency to let someone answer them!" he snapped, his rage beginning to build, "I am not some clueless guy, I know you need to bash some heads in, so we're going to go bash some heads in. I don't know about the two umbreons over there other than they weren't SUPPOSED to come along, but as Sova was saying, the two birds are a part of a team from Ailreon. You know, the high and mighty place in the sky. Seems pretty capable to me." Garnet wondered if he should bother mentioning his accomplishment with the genesect just to get the vixen to shut up, but figured that it would mean nothing to her and kept his trap shut about it.

Even then, he had figured that he had barely done anything in the fight. Hell he could barely remember anything past evolving, other than taking a direct Thunder attack. The urge to hit the eevee was rising, but he figured it was best to can it and save it for something more deserving. It also helped that something inside him was screaming at him to not even try this little eevee. With that, he turned around and started headed in the direction of the roar just as it was accompanied with a different deeper roar. The second one was one to cause him to stop. That one...that one sounded familiar.

--

Oh god Garnet was talking back to the eevee quite harshly. Acro figured it was time to step in, and moved in to speak. He was unable to as the charmeleon gave no pauses. Acro was not quite able to interrupt, still a bit worried by the roar from earlier. The charmeleon fell silent at last and he opened his beak to speak, only for another roar to cut him off. He was getting quite annoyed with things interrupting him lately! Once the roar was finished he tried to speak up, only to be INTERRUPTED A-FUCKING-GAIN.

--

"Can we get a move on?" Linus huffed to the group in general, "The longer we sit here the more likely it is the criminals are going to find out we're here in the first place. I would rather not get ambushed thank you very much." His face held quite an uncaring expression. In fact, he expected another slap from the glaceon this time around...he did not care.

The unruly client's lecturing was finally halted at the distant noise, and her favorite Fire-type in the whole world decided to use her silence to get in some.... choice words. However, she actually wasn't annoyed, at least not nearly as much as she probably should have been. Rather, all she had gotten out of the charmeleon's little show was that he wasn't quite as much of a clueless idiot as she'd thought. There was no reason to be upset about such good news. Plus, there were things that were ever so slightly more concerning than the fact that someone had an attitude. Things such as the menacing noises that were coming from further into the ruined cave. She still wasn't going to let someone just walk right into whatever was waiting ahead, and while she had the reassurance that the charmeleon at least undestood the basics of not dying, she wasn't entirely sure he was the type to.... not willingly walk to his own death.

The edgy, moody honchkrow finally revealed that he had a voice box and suggested for them to get going. Shara simply got right back in front of the charmeleon as he tried to pass her once more, but this time, her attitude was a bit different. She held a lighter atmosphere around herself and didn't bother to stop moving. This time, she just focused on staying ahead as she responded: "Maybe you won't die after all.... but I'm still leading. It's a good thing you don't have a problem with that, or else I'd have to withhold your friend's payment."
Her hope was that the charmeleon was intelligent enough to understand her not-so-subtle threat. It was real simple: since the guy didn't care about himself, she was playing dirty and using the one who'd invited him along against him. Surely, he at least cared about not hurting his friend in such a way. She didn't ACTUALLY plan to do such a thing, but that wasn't something she had to tell anyone.


More fussing, more roars.... Sova just wanted the argument to end already so that they could all focus on the things that were supposed to be important to them. He just wanted to get the missions over with and find the treasure place in the ruins he'd come so far for. The roars weren't a particularly big deal to him considering he'd heard plenty of things roar before and he was alive to tell every tale. He was still worried about everyone else getting hurt, but he was at least hopeful with such a large group, they'd be able to handle whatever was hiding within the darkness o the ruins. His priorities shifted around a bit when he heard a certain comment about withholding his pay, though. "Hey!" he called out just to remind his client that he was RIGHT THERE and could hear how she was trying to use him to threaten his friend.
Not that he cared about the threat since Garnet was just about as much of a jerk as the eevee, but what if she was serious!? He wanted his money!


Dusk questioned the fact that they were making their way straight toward the noises. It seemed like those who were battling for the right to lead the group weren't paying much mind to what they were actually leading toward, instead seeming too caught up with winning their little argument. She figured there weren't exactly any other paths to take, but that didn't mean she was in full agreement with just wandering forward carelessly and making a ton of noise. Still, she tried to just ignore how dangerous and stupid the whole thing sounded. She figured maybe Acro wanted to keep talking, but when she considered speaking to him, she saw that he was trying to get a word in.... and failing. She decided to just leave him to continue trying to join in on the conversation with the evil eevee.


Krikka continued with her exceptionally slow pace, purposely trying to get behind anyone and everyone. The distant noises were continuing, all while the band of idiots walked straight toward them. She did not have a death wish and thus was planning on using the rest of the group as meat shields when something inevitably attacked them. Either they would beat it, or she would turn around and get out of there while her new friends distracted whatever "it" was. There was no way she would be staying if they ended up in such a bad situation, not even for the prospect of the cursed treasure. Sure, Linus was okay other than almost dropping a tree limb on her, but she still wasn't going to put her life at risk for him. She was certain the honchkrow would understand and agree with her course of action. In fact, he'd probably already decided that he would run off as well if the exploration turned bad!

(Don't worry, RNGsus. We're not done here. We'll continue this conversation in about 4 posts.)

The charmeleon walked along with the eevee for a moment as he thought about the threat. It was a few seconds before he simply spoke, "Nope." In one smooth movement as he spoke he turned right around and started heading back the way they had all come. He seemed a lot calmer now, though there was a certain tense air around him that suggested that he was not really as composed as he seemed to be. Garnet was going to walk back. Far back. Away from this pest of an eevee before he ended up trying to kill her or something. His method of dealing with this issue would most certainly not be accepted by the others, so he did what was considered the intelligent movement of walking away.

He no longer cared about getting their sooner, as his top priority was not trying to tear into the eevee that was trying to threaten him with his friend's money. They could decide how the hell they were going to see without him, they could decide who was going to lead, but he would be so far back they would not even see the tail of his flame. He would be away from the nuisance, and he would be alone and no longer risking his friend's reward. He might even take out some anger on a few pillars back there as well.

--

Acro was quite shocked to see the eevee simply threaten the reward of the mission from Sova. It clicked to him for a moment as he watched the charmeleon walk past him. Wait...she couldn't do that. He stared at the eevee before speaking up, making sure he would be not be interrupted this time, "You cannot do that. So long as the mission is carried out the rewards would be split. It may have been a while since I worked at Grassveil, but I doubt their policies have changed that drastically. To withhold a reward despite its success is not fair and I know for a fact Faye would disapprove and enforce the ruling herself." The archeops spoke with confidence, he was not meaning to be rude, but he was not liking the abuse of power this little eevee was presenting.

--

Nobody had any real reaction towards him it seemed, so he simply shut his beak. On the bright side, they had gotten moving. The charmeleon was having a moody streak, but hey, he really did not give a shit. The honchkrow kept towards the back as well despite his lack of care for the roaring ahead. He figured he would let the suicidal pokemon take most of a hit if something decided to attack. He was pretty sure one hit from the wrong mon would just make him end up dead.

Finally, the charmeleon conceded and gave up on trying to lead the group to their death. Shara didn't understand why in the world the guy wanted to lead so bad anyway, especially when she was more qualified in every way and, more importantly, the host of this trip! Well, perhaps her authority was less than she'd originally thought due to to the fact that only one member of the group was bound to the mission. Regardless, they were all listening for the time-being, and it seemed they at least slightly cared about not completely ignoring the mission. She disliked that the firelight was getting so far away from her, though, as she'd appreciated having the light near her in order to help see. She would have considered trying to apologize and get him to at least stick near her.... if she'd actually needed the light.

It seemed someone was concerned with her method of dealing with the charmeleon and probably saving his life. That was understandable, since she'd just threatened to take her client's pay away as blackmail. The threat had still been hollow, but it wasn't like she was openly announcing that it was just a lie to get the guy to listen to her, so she figured she probably needed to give something in defense of herself, at least until the lizard was far enough away for her to speak freely about her intentions without being overheard by him. "You're right: as long as the mission is carried out, I'd be expected to hold up my end of the deal. But if someone compromises it, I'd be expected not to pay, which is why I stopped him before he did anything stupid," she responded with no hostility at all toward the archeops.
It wasn't exactly the truth, but it was close enough.

Assuming she was no longer going to be interrupted, the eevee started walking forward along the path, expecting her somewhat-hired group to follow. She couldn't really see without the light, so she just decided to close her eyes and get rid of that distraction. She then began to deeply focus, drastically heightening her senses within moments. She could now hear well enough to easily catch any oncoming threats before they would reach her. This was normally a defensive move she used in order to avoid being hit, as it extremely amplified her focus in order to near-perfectly detect oncoming attacks. The only issue was that it took a whole lot of effort to keep it up at full force for more than a few seconds, but she figured she could just heighten her focus a bit to hear around her every few seconds and be fine.


In truth, Sova didn't feel that the reward for this mission was worth the arguing over it. He wanted to be paid, sure, but he already had plenty of money and supplies. All he really cared about getting out of this trip was something to solve his problem, which had nothing to do with money. He'd already tried and confirmed that no amount of money could solve his problms. Garnet seemed perfectly fine with being blackmailed into backing off, which told him Garnet was anything but fine with it. As far as he knew, Garnet wasn't capable of being "fine," especially not in such a situation as the current one. He watched as his friend passed him, contemplating following along to try and patch things up a bit. He was also beginning to want to give the client a piece of his mind about the disturbingly sociopathic treatment his group was getting, but he decided to hold off on that for the time-being.

He followed after the charmeleon and spoke once he was close enough to keep quiet and keep the conversation semi-private. "Garneeeet, come on, remember why you're here. Putting up with.... that.... is worth it, right?" he tried to reason.
Needing space was fine, but he was worried that Garnet would end up doing something stupid. Plus, while the eevee seemed to have some real nerves of steel, he himself wasn't particularly fond of the idea of wandering through the dark. If Garnet was moving, he had half a mind to follow if only for the light. He had more reasons than just wanting to stay near the mobile light source, but that was definitely on the list.


Dusk didn't really appreciate Sova's reward for a mission being used in order to force someone into submission. It just made the whole situation worse that a guild member was doing it, and while she didn't know much about guild policies, she still felt there was something very wrong with that. It seemed she wasn't the only one who disliked it, and unlike her, it looked like someone else knew his way around guild rules well enough to argue against the treatment. Of course Acro, having been a member of two guilds, would have known whether or not such a thing was allowed! And according to him, it was very disallowed, which made sense. The eevee didn't really seem to care much about any of what had been said, though, and just shrugged it off with a slightly more acceptable response. Dusk still didn't like what had clearly been a threat, but at least now the eevee was being somewhat more tolerable.


Random eevee was turning out to be quite bold in very fun ways. Krikka quite enjoyed seeing the current bane of her existence being threatened into submission, but more importantly, she got quite a kick out of seeing a guild member doing such a thing. It was the kind of thing she would have thought someone more like herself to do. Actually, manipulation was something she in specific did fairly often and quite enjoyed. However, she wasn't a very big fan of the idea of her only source of light just leaving! If the charmeleon was just going to leave, she intended to follow him rather than stick around in the dark. Given she'd only just recently evolved, it had not occurred to her that she now had night vision. She hadn't exactly done extensive research on umbreon before evolving. She'd literally just seen Dusk and thought to herself: "Ooh pretty."