Tales of Shadows

(Energy 22-10=12)

The dark embrace of Shadowhue Forest was few looked forward to. Not to useful for those unwilling to transverse through the forest. However those looking for a place to lay low found this otherwise lightless forest perfect as Ket had found out in his earlier years. He reminisced using this forest to hide in when he got into the occasional scuffle. This nostalgia was the reason driving the lone zangoose into the forest that day. Ket was passing by the area bored and since he wasn’t on a schedule of any sort decided to take a detour for old times sake.

He entered the forest and began to wander deeper in glancing around for ferals. After several minutes of walking he paused to take in his surroundings. Never really bothering too much when he had visited before he had finally decided to finally appreciate the nature surrounding him. The tall trees went on for miles on end accompanied by the sea formed by the canopies blocking out the sun giving the forest it’s name. Rays of light poked through the otherwise undisturbed leaf blanket causing a break in the darkness on the forest floor.

It was quite the scene and perhaps maybe in another world somewhere Ket would of found the image displayed before him now wonderful on a painting. Too bad Ket never really cared much for art except for the, in his opinion, arbitrary price tag shoved onto them. No all art to Ket was something for those too lazy to go out and enjoy the outdoors themselves to horde over. Ket rolled his eyes at the idea of him enjoying the, “artistic value” of art. Finally he continued moving on deciding on going slightly further before turning back.

energy, mission, equipment'n'bag, and other info:

Shadowhue Forest contains one of the three leads Yooka found on some rare and weird wild Pokemon. Those ones with the weird markings or bizarre behavior... It's not as important to most Peeps but it certainly is sometimes annoying to come across. Especially those with the odd behavior. Ok, the leads are not Pokemon themselves... It's what could be causing the markings on pokemon to appear, or act the way they do. It's not a guarantee that it could be within the places though, it's just a lead.

The location of the one here is behind a waterfall further in. It's called Monochrome Ruins and the last time she was there, it didn't go so well... Or should she say, she can't quite remember what had occured. HOWEVER, she's not necessarily here to go there again, maybe. She's actually here to find a familiar Pokemon's 'toys' and to prepair for an extremely long journey to Mt. Frostmeer to check that place's lead first. As that one is the hardest one and the longest to take of the three she's found. Better to do that one and get it over with than having to waste material on the easier places.

Speaking of toys... This place was practically her playground. A training sandbox of fun. Purely because of all the easy places to hide! She can simply, and easily, blend in with the shadows. Even make said shadows form illusions if she so pleased, somewhat. Not necessarily manipulate all the shadows, just hers. She just likes finding new ways to use her shadow, especially against those that are pretty nervous in this place. She finds it funny. Too bad she can't mess around with that idea willy-nilly. She's a Guildmember and would like to keep on the good side. Although, she doesn't care what actually happens. Heck, an outlaw could hire her, but she'll be making the choices on the outcome of that outlaw's request.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, she was on-duty at this time. So she can't have fun not aslong as she doesn't upset the ecowhatever of shadowhue too greatly. There actually isnt a law against wrecking the place but she just figures there is one for just-in-case purposes.

Right now though, Yooka was currently under an exeggutor's sleeping powder's effect. Unconscious, silent, and laying on her stomach and chin at the edge of a random path. The exeggutor went chicken and ran after doing so, it feared what Yooka was planning to do. Which, unknown to it, she wasn't even aware it was around. She was just getting bored and decided to start climbing the trees for fun and when she climbed on and inbetween the short exeggutor's heads, it panicked. She wasn't even trying to cause a problem, like usual.

Ket was still strolling down the beaten path, mind lost in thought until a rustle of leaves shook him from his state of calmness. He stopped and looked down the path at the source of the noise. Partily hidden by the trees Ket was barely able to make out an exeggutor running away looking disturbed by something. He stood there watching the coconut pokemon before it dashed out of sight curious to what had disturbed it. Ket began to debate whether or not to check out what had made the exeggutor flee before boredom won and he diverted from his course to see what had happened.

Walking through the shrubbery towards to sight of the disturbance he stumbled upon the exeggutor’s tracks and traced them backwards until he found quite an unexpected scene. Before him was kecleon passed out face first in the ground. Ket deducted that the kecleon must of done something to the exeggutor he had seen before causing the exeggutor to use sleep powder.

Well my gain, thought the zangoose as he moved in to loot whatever was on the kecleon. That was until he stopped and thought over the situation again. Sure he had robbed people before many times beforehand and it still wasn’t beneath him but atleast he robbed them when they had a chance to fight back, even this below him. Slightly annoyed at his small yet growing conscience he began to walk away until another feeling came over him, loneliness. It had been a while since he had engaged in a long conversation and while he did enjoy playing it safe, what possible harm could come from one small chat.

Turning around again Ket strolled over to the kecleon. He didn’t have any Chesto Berries with him, but he tried to wake up the unconscious pokemon anyways by shaking them and yelling, “Hey pal wake up!”

Funny, Yooka swore she was climbing trees just a moment ago. How'd she end up on the ground? She got up near instantly and brushed off dirt. The only thing that came to mind was that she lost her grip and fell but that exact memory was too fuzzy to of happened. Whatever, she was on the ground, no need to dwell.

"Back to looking it is." she sighed. except she started to hear something a little ways off. The trees started shaking in sync with the noise and despite the ground moving beneath her and her sense of direction getting messed up with the noise, she felt nothing. Just a weirdly, a giant Tyrantrum crashed into her clearing causing an earthquake. What was IT doing here!? The massive Queen squinted as it looked at Yooka. It opened it's mouth to speak but just as it happened Yooka jolted awake.

She instantly felt a grip on her aswell as whatever had a grip on her giving her a shake. It was also practically yelling to her to wake up. Yooka instinctively shoved herself away from the being, practically sliding across the ground a little while staying on all fours. Yooka failed to think as her concentration was squarely focused on what is occuring, who was waking her, aswell as the pain covering her body. Nothing serious, just a feeling of a long ago injury that is now just a bruise. It was a bit annoying. She couldn't quite get a look at the character due to the lighting and her state of drowsiness. It took her a few seconds to really do anything besides stare intensely while on all fours towards the being.

She didn't try to show any hostility, or thought she didn't. All it was doing was waking her, so far not much else to declare it as an obstacle. Nothing's really her enemy unless they wish it or force her into it. When she finally did something, which was a simple 'blink', she abruptly stood up and just said, "Oh." followed by an, "Uh..." with a quick and confused, "Thanks?"

She then had a memory at Pricklemist Hill of another Pokemon of the same shape and size. It finally clicked to her on what species it was, a Zangoose, but something was slightly off with this one. It seemed less powerful, by alot. Still... curiosity took over and instead of just walking away she said, "Should I know you or~?" Yooka paused as she realized just now that she was indeed asleep and this guy just happened upon her, and just woke her up... aaand literally nothing else. No one except 'Darcys' would do such a thing. Actually, Darcy would add, 'are you ok?' at the end so this guy wasn't a pure Darcy. Yooka relaxed to that but she put her hand up to interrupt herself, or him. Then proceeded to re-adjust her sun and lunar wraps while saying, "No, wait, that doesn't matter. I'll just say, 'need anything?' but i'm sure the only thing I can do right now is be amusing."

Yooka shrugged with a single grunt. A poor laugh for a poor joke that probably wasn't even seen. Yooka had also managed to weigh her bag enough while adjusting the ribbons in her slight delays to note nothing was missing, like any of it was important anyway... and to take in the surrounding area. Not much to note outside of this being a pretty bad spot for a casual conversation. It was just too little space to have a good reaction time. If something were to pop out she'd have to be a brute to escape. However, the good news was there was no sign of anything except the Zangoose currently nearby, so she doesn't care.

Ket was about to give up trying to wake up the kecleon before him until they exploded in a cacophony of activity. The kecleon shoved Ket off them causing him to stumble back a little before quickly regaining his footing. They kecleon propelled themselves backwards several feet before stopping themselves. Jeez talk about a light sleeper, he thought to himself as he watched the shocked kecleon reorient to their surroundings. The kecleon blinked once before rising and responding to him with a confused thanks.

“Yeah uh… No problem.” Ket said back to the kecleon who now seemed to be out of the grasps of sleep. Ket was trying to think of something else to say to prevent an awkward silence in this already awkward situation. However the kecleon, who Ket had now identified as female, saved him the trouble by asking him if she should know him. He was about to respond before he was once again cut off by the kecleon. Their new response however confused Ket, the joke flying past his head.

Ket noticed the kecleon subtly checking her bag, and checking her surroundings. Alright then not dealing with someone who’s never been outside then it seems, the zangoose thought. She didn’t look like one of those spoiled pokemon which satisfied Ket who might of just changed his mind on the spot and robbed her. Speaking of checking one's surroundings Ket quickly scanned his own, noticing that it would be easy for someone to sneak up on him. He didn’t hear anything so he hoped that it would be fine for now.

Still while continuing the conversation he turned his head around quickly to scan behind him, “So you know how you ending up out cold in the middle of Shadowhue Forest?” Ket turned back to face the kecleon satisfied nothing was coming up behind him, “Wait before that, names Ket, sorry for the rude awakening by the way.”

Yooka felt like a fool for sleeping on the job and to start a conversation with something so random. The question she kept asking herself was 'how did she fall asleep?' All she remembered was climbing and then a having annoying feeling in her nose. ofcourse... she had to of been covered by either powder or spore. Figures... probable grass or bug type and their statuses.

The Zangoose infront of her followed up on her thought, it would have been strange if she didn't have an answer. Which actually wouldn't be surprising really. She nodded and said, "Yooka." then shrugged for a second time. "I had a run-in with either some Grass or bug type. Dunno what or when, it just happened. I do hate it when I end up sleeping on the job-" She paused when she said 'job'.

"-ah, right." Yooka unclipped her bag from her back and showed him the badge on it. "Yooka of the Grassveil Guild. I'm more mercenary than anything else. I'm actually on an apparent low-ranking mission alone for some random pokemon in this forest. The mission is a bit awkward to really explain and it's taking slightly longer than it should for... reasons. she said 'reasons' like it was some form of bad word to say but had to say it.

((ooc: You can use my pokemon rolls if any if you want.))

Ravio carried out 1 launched of one Mission Dice :

2

Ravio carried out 3 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

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Ket watched as the kecleon told him her name, Yooka it was. It was an interesting name one Ket had not heard before. Apparently she had some run in with some grass or poison type pokemon and blanked out from there. It seemed to of fit with what Ket had seen so that was not of interest to him. However the job she was here on was what caught his attention. Before he could ask her however she answered it for him.

She shifted her bag and pulled out a badge showing it to him. Ket knew the identification before she announced it, Grassveil Guild. He had a few run in with them before, lucky for him he ditched before anything came of it. Great a guild member, thought Ket. He had always disliked guild members and just cause he didn’t rob this one on the spot had a small chat with her didn’t change that. He was about to walk off until something else she said something else which caught his interest, being more of a mercenary? Now he had to ask.

“A mercenary in the guild? How does that work? And this mission you talked about. Do you mind telling me more about it if you don’t mind. I have all the time in the world to kill, believe me.” Perhaps he might still walk out of this with some gain.

CrocketChowder carried out 2 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

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Phrasing. Why did the way he said what he did make Yooka go on edge. Her philomathic mind recognized his slight change in attitude. It was familiar to being interested but the way he said it was more on the lines of scheming. Yooka made a silent sigh as she reclipped her bag back on.

She didn't really care if he was even scheming something. Alot of memories went through her head of all the illusions and/or deceptions she went through. It gave her a headache but maybe it was just what happened between climbing trees and waking on the ground. She wanted to laugh in disappointment for both cases but headaches were never fun. Especially when something could happen at any moment.

"Heh, well it's just as it sounds. I'm a hired hand, a body guard, an informant, the list could go on..." She was losing interest on the Zangoose, but she matter aswell find out what he'll do anyways. She was too bored to ignore this. "The mission I'm on is more of a personal 'why not'. If you really want to know, then good luck reading it." She slipped out a copy of the mission and handed it to him. Even if he successfully completed the mission by himself, he'd need to have her badge. And even then he'd need to be on her team or have her present at the Guild. There's no risk showing him the mission, outside of him just being a nuisance to her while she did it.

If he actually helps her out with no strings attached, it would literally be the first time it happened. Funny, the only other one that helped was the Queen of Blacktooth but by the end the Queen practically had to destroy everything to finish Yooka's mission. That was also the most dangerous F-rank to ever exist, well, to Yooka's opinion. It should've been more like B or even A rank... The target wasn't even normal, or even sane! It was hyper aggressive and infected with something according to the results. Yooka's headache spiked at the thought of the Queen's Earthquake that nearly killed everyone present and of the Queen's proud look because of it's show of power. She gripped her right frill and growled to herself as she said one last thing to the Zangoose, unknowingly, "Damn Headaches. Been getting them more often since the other Zangoose and Seviper encounter."

(Energy 12-10=2 Poison negated by Immunity)

Hearing the response Ket thought to himself, Didn’t know you could do other jobs while being in the guild. Not like that mattered to him, him in the guild? Yeah right. What brought him back to the conversation was her handing him the mission she was currently on. He began to read it over, well actually that was a lie he skimmed over the bulk of it and skipped straight to the rewards.

Then the realization hit him. He had no way of claiming that reward. Scowling mentally to himself and looking back to the kecleon he noticed two things, first of all he was losing her interest which was less concern to him than point two, she was on to him. He might not be a good conversationalist but experience made him able to read some people like books.

He quickly rethought the situation over until he came to a conclusion he never thought he would think of. Why not help her on the mission. He wouldn’t really be risking much. Help her and gain some good faith, squash the boredom that had been looming over him for the day and if this kecleon was like most pokemon she might just offer a portion of the reward. Walk away and all he would really accomplished was walking into a forest, annoying a kecleon and being bored to death. He just needed to keep his guard up.

He was about to give a response until he heard some noise behind him. Distracted by reading the mission he had not checked behind him. Glancing back he noticed two pokemon off in the distance. They weren’t that close but not exactly too far either. Lucky for him they hadn’t noticed the duo standing in the small clearing by the path.

A sudden motion from Yooka brought him from his scouting. He glanced back at the kecleon and saw she was tightly gripping her frill emitting a growl. While mentioning something about a zangoose seviper incident and headaches. This just kept getting more interesting.

“Hey uh  may I suggest we move, we aren’t in the best spot for a casual conversation. Also you ok? If you don’t mind me asking you said something about a zangoose and seviper incident, I assume fight, causing you headaches?”

Yooka snapped to when he began speaking and hushed herself. However she couldn't help but get redistracted by that memory when he kept the thought up. "More like devoured really, er... Yeah, no, I guess you can say that. Eh... Also..." She paused to take a look around for what he mentioned, only to his sides and behind him. She didn't see anything but she did hear something. Just one thing and it was rather small. She shrugged to herself and just moved to the side of the path emphasising that he should go first, like a butler holding a door. "--Considering it looks like your agreeing to join me and your, ehem, obvious interest in the reward and not the story... ...yeah, I was testing you. I don't mind working with your type as I actually worked with some pretty shady peeps to get certain information. I'll just say this, most of the reward is yours but your going to have to handle yourself if something occurs." Her voice was back to relative normalness, if that was even a thing. Her interest in the Zangoose was back as she now wants to see what he'll do from here and what he'll think of her during this. but she now knows a little about his thoughts so it's should sortof be easy but depressing to figure out.

Yooka laughed as she finished talking just to notice the source of the rustling noise from earlier. Just a single Shroomish from the looks of things. She went silent for a few seconds as she stared at it, then laughed some more. "heh, don't get me wrong. I'll still attempt to save you if you do happen to get into a serious bind. Hell, I may be annoying to be with, but once you get to know me... I don't know... I may be just another random idiot to you, I don't care. Mind my words, I ment no offense if you don't want to hear such stuff. Stuff like that tend to slip. I do have personal codes to keep. I don't want to be a bad kind of person, that's just how I am. I'll talk about the why's later if your even interested."

Yooka re-emphasised that he should move first and in the opposite direction of the Shroomish. She then looked at it and coughed before waving her hand in dismissal towards it. Like a noble waving a peasant while also ignoring it. Her shadow took that as it's moment to go. It slid across the ground practically invisible due to the natural darkness of the forest, and it was silent too, as it was just a shadow and not an object with mass... till she manipulated it's density to attack or defend that is. It rippled across the forest flora unhindered of the multitudes of obstacles inbetween Yooka and the Shroomish. The only sound to be heard was the cry of said shroomish when it took a surprise heavy hit from Yooka's shadow sneak attack. Despite the easy win, Yooka was unaware of the floating tiny flower thatwas just out of her sight and above the Shroomish.

[energy¦18]

Ravio carried out 3 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

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Devoured eh? Pleasant thought, not really. Ket watched the kecleon motion for him to move first. He would of prefered to of gone behind the kecleon just in case but he doubted she’d accept that so he began to walk forwards. She proceeded to call him out on the fact he couldn’t care less about whatever mission she was on and just in on the profit. Lucky for him she didn’t mind. She continued on warning him that if things went south he was on his own.

“Believe me, I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now.” He responded to the kecleon. He heard a rustle behind him and heard her laugh. He turned around to see a shroomish appear. Ket looked back at the kecleon who had resumed her laughter. Ket face-palmed as he realized he had been worried over a shroomish before groaning out loud.

Ket looked back towards Yooka as she began to talk and motioned for him to move on. Ket walked forwards slightly more before turning around and watching the shroomish being dispatched with ease by an impressive shadow sneak, sure that effect was diminished by the fact it was on a shroomish but still impressive.

Ket responded to what the kecleon had said before the interruption, “No offense taken, honestly if you're working with me you should know something, I put my survival at the top of my priority.” He was about to continue his walk before he noticed a Flabebe hovering above the now defeated shroomish ready to attack the kecleon. Arceus at times like these he wished he had a ranged move, maybe he’d find one of those TM things.

“Hey watch out above you!” He yelled out to the kecleon.

"Convenient. That shou-- eh?" Yooka was about to say she doesn't care for her own safety sense wounds of any kind ended up being trivial if she stays conscious. Then there's the ever so overused Reviver seed... Nothing to continue about other than it's obvious she can take a hit and keep in a fight all day. especially sense If she were to ever get tired, she'd just pop a recyclable Max Elixir. However, now that she remembers what she brought... she forgot the seed. So when she heard his warning she cringed, ducked, and quickly moved to the side while looking up. Her fist started glowing as the saitama like p-up punch formed but it dimmed when she realized it was a flabébé.

She backed off and groaned with a slight worry on her face, She started muttering, "Fairy wind. Don't have it." She looked around for a way to hit it. She could just use her shadow but it wouldn't do much. Despite the small size, Flabébé always gave her the hardest time. Noticing a few ways she called to Ket, "That one is trouble, for me anyway. It's wind is just annoying."

It hovered closer to the shroomish than them and it seemed to be focused on the shroomish. Perhaps they could just leave it. Yooka started off away from the tiny flower. Ignoring the path she emphasised the Zangoose into following. She decided to head off to the river, IF she could ever find out which way was North-East...

[OOC: I'm rolling, again. I don't mind you using my Pokemon rolls. so by all means, Have fun inserting them when you please. I tend to use +energy traps as a 'Good Luck' trap or it affected 'them' trap. Oh, and just bewear of final evolution pokemon as I go by minimum level for those, unless it's specified higher or lower. I specifically hate exeggutor... >υ>]

energy¦ 15:

Ravio carried out 4 launched of one Shadowhue Forest :

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Watching Yooka move away from the Flabébé Ket got up and began to move over to see if he could help. Instead she called back to him before she moved away down another path. Ket watched the Flabébé for a while. It seemed to be solely focused on the shroomish almost as if they were watching over them. It almost seemed like they were friends. Was that even possible with ferals? Ket thought about the idea for a second before deciding it was not the time to get philosophical and tossing it out of his head. He could've fought the pokemon and be done with that, but he really wasn’t in the mood not to mention he didn’t want to lose the kecleon so he left it alone and continued down the path Yooka had gone down,

Ket was following the tracks left behind by Yooka as he let his mind drift again soaking in the scenery once more. A feeling of familiarity came back however as Ket watched as an exeggutor casually strolled beneath one of the many of shadows cast by Shadowhue and fall asleep as if it owned the place. He was pretty sure that it was the same exeggutor he saw early which landed himself in this situation. He chuckled to himself about the coincidence of the matter before continuing on catching up to the kecleon.

LONG OOC, also... holy **** there goes my energy. Exegguter huh? energy is bound to be 0 then:

Yooka did not notice the exeggutor that Ket did. Instead she saw a Shedinja clinging to a branch. No, wait... it was just hovering, the breeze moved the branch and the pokemon didn't move with it. Yooka had the urge to poke it... ...with a stick.

Despite the many times she comes to this forest, she's never seen a Shedinja. She was distracted by it. She went directly under it. it didn't move nor care of Yooka's existance. She looked around for anything else. When she looked at Ket she whispered, "Can you keep watch for a second, I'd like to catch the bug. First time I've seen it. Might not get another chance."

When Ket had caught up with Yooka he saw her staring intently at a shedinja flying in the air. He watched her walk under it before telling him to keep watch, intent on catching it. Ket gave the kecleon a curious looking before shaking his head and sitting down. He knew the guild had some younger members but this was plain childish. She wasn’t even a child either. He rathered just get this thing over with.

He might of said something if there wasn’t a reward at the end of this. He might not like it sometimes but he knew when to keep his mouth shut. Alright maybe he was being too harsh, maybe it was his experiences talking. Still doing this in the middle of a job seemed pretty unprofessional coming from a guild member.

Deciding to actually do what Yooka asked of him he looked around to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them before resuming his previous activity of watching the kecleon and the shedinja. Deciding to kill some time while waiting Ket asked, “So what pushed you to join the guild anyways? Honestly from what I’ve heard it doesn't sound like that helping others or greater good faff. Correct me if I’m wrong.”