Getting An Old One

First topic message reminder :

"Go sight-seeing," they said. "You've had enough," they said. "You only go here and to Grassveil, you look antisocial," they said. Yadda yadda yadda. It didn't mean anything until the drinks stopped coming, under the stipulation that they would return if she made one trip to see time thing other than the inn. It had been a tough decision, but the prospect of actually being coherent was displeasurable enough to get the small woman moving, albeit with no shortage of gripes. She literally just picked the first place anyone told her about, some old haunted house that had one cliche disturbing backstory or another. It was in some wasteland, which was at least attractive in the fact that at least it lacked a general populace to make her miserable. She left the next day, despite the protests from people with better sense.

"Ugh."

Well, they were right. This place was a complete wasteland, and the mansion was appropriately an eyesore in the middle of the big fat nothing. Cecíl stood there and stared up at it with distaste. It was a waste of time made crucial by this ultimatum and also by a dwindling in her funds. Between the cost of staying in the inn and the increments of money she had been sending back to her friend, she found she didn't have much wiggle room with her money anymore. By this point, she was supposed to have set up this venture Penny had sent her with and have been supported by the income from that, but... well it had probably been an overly-generous estimation of the demand for that kind of service to begin with, and honestly the petlil just didn't want to think about that right now. It was best not to think about it really. For now she just had to keep making money through other means and definitely NOT think about it.

Cecíl peered in one of the windows of the mansion, trying to get a view of what was inside. This was the first time she had been to a mystery dungeon on her own terms (kind of) and not running some trivial errand to a rescue team in a vain attempt to generate interest and need for this unfounded service. She usually tried to get right in and out again, but in this circumstance that wasn't really an option. She needed to find things that she could pawn, and also this little mandatory trip had a requirement that she bring back a souvenir unique to the house, so rocks wouldn't cut it. This effectively put any plans to go, pick up a rock, and leave off of the table. The window failed to yield any details or landmarks to her, making her pull away with and exasperated grunt. Because going into a structurally-questionable dank old house without any pretense of what she was getting into was exactly what she had been looking to do on this trip. She looked around at the dead courtyard she was in. Where were the dead tourists, anyway? Where was anybody? She hadn't exactly been expecting the place to be a social mecca or anything, but it was a haunted house for god's sake. Bitches love haunted houses. She guessed the purple death vapors were probably a deterrent, but... well, she at least knew the guild had plenty of cocky or starry-eyed  accidents waiting to happen that would eat this shit up regardless.

She kept thinking about things to stall out her entry a little bit more, just to see if anyone would show up so she could avoid getting lost and probably dying in a musty old spook house. The only problem with this was that stalling here also prolonged the time she was away from a good glass of anything that would keep her incoherent, and her current buzz would only last so long. This made her increasingly more impatient with every second she stood there awkwardly in front of this big useless house. Why did it have to take so long for someone to stumble int her???

Cecíl the Shiny Petlil - 2 energy

Alki remained relatively silent throughout the Petilil's stream of consciousness remarks regarding the yarn. It wasn't quite that she didn't care, it was more so... she had more pressing issues to worry about. A ball of yarn wasn't exactly high on the list. Even before this stupid mansion, there had been a lot going through the balloon's mind. Her new friends and her new job, and how it conflicted with her old friends, and her sister, and her old job; She had her responsibilities as a guild member that she had been shirking as of late, and a myriad of other things. Add in the haunted house, the strange headache, her... behavior before she'd woken up, add in everything else that had happened in the past few hours, and she felt like she was about to pop.

Alki shivered as she thought about everything, and all the implications of what would happen if... they didn't find an exit. Her ears began to droop again, subconsciouly, before she shook her head violently. She was silent as she did so, mentally reminding herself to not cry, to ignore everything that was happening, to ignore everything that could happen. To just focus on the here and now... And on getting out. The jigglypuff rubbed at her eyes, before tuning back in to what was going on. She had been following the Petilil subconsciously, as though in a dream. Now, however, she was, more or less, fully attentive, and hoping she'd be able to help out in whatever limited manner she could. Cecil seemed much more intelligent, and much more capable than she, so she was more than willing to let the Petilil take the lead.

"Hey, do you have an opinion? Isn't there a trick to mazes, like always turning left or something? You happen to know anything?" Alki heard, perking her ears up as she noted that the Petilil was addressing her (Who else? The ghosts?) The jigglypuff paused in thought, considering the Petilil's question. Off the top of her head, she couldn't think of anything, but if she thought about it hard enough, then surely she could figure something out. She had to!

She followed the Petilil absently, not taking in her surroundings as she tried to picture what the solution to the problem might look like. Getting lost in a maze was easy... so there had to be some way to keep track of where they were!

"W-Well, I mean..." She said, hesitating. It'd probably be stupid... and probably wrong, but... what did they have to lose? "I-If we marked where we're going, or... y-y'know, kept track of it when we came to junctions or something, then... t-then it'd be harder to get lost, right? S-So that might help... A-And then if we come to a dead end, w-we can backtrack and... k-know which ways we already tried and... s-stuff..." She fell silent, placing her right hand on the right wall absently. There was another thing, maybe, but that sounded so dumb... She didn't mention it. Better not to.

She looked up at the grass type, although she looked a bit different now than she had before. More... greyish? Transparent? Was that it? Were Petilil's ghost types?

"C-Cecil, w-why are you like that?" Alki said, sounding more than a bit frightened. She pointed at the edges of her body, before looking around for a potential cause. However, as her eyes were ill accustomed the lack of light, she failed to find anything. Instead, she opted to lean back and pick up her shadow, hoping to be able to use it should there actually be a threat. Better to be ready, right? The jigglypuff, without really thinking about it, stepped closer to her companion, hoping to feel safer if she could feel the grass type near her. To her surprise, she did. Hopefully they'd be alright...[/color]

What Alki said... actually made a lot of sense, barring one thing. Leaving landmarks wouldn't do any good, as the rampant assholes that were undoubtedly here would without a doubt mess with anything that the pair tried to lay down. That fact in itself kind of made... well, anything they could do worthless, if it wasn't something that they could have their eyes on at all times, but... well, to hell with that logic. They had to try something, or they'd be prowling through this furniture maze for centuries.

"Not... a bad... idea, actually..." the petlil stammered, still a bit dumbfounded as the beginnings of guilt and regret began to fill her. Of course she should have asked the walking brain for ideas. "Marks are easy to mess with though, so that's no good. The resident heebie jeebies will easily have us chasing our tails all over this maze. We could-"

Alki then cried out, cutting Cecíl off. "Why are you like that?!?! "Why am I like what, an asshole?" she answered back suddenly, without even thinking. ...No, no, she wouldn't take that one back. It made sense, and it was a reasonable assumption. She did actually begin to observe herself, though... and from her perspective, she looked fine. There wasn't anything on her... odd, not even dust. She had kind of expected to be covered in dust, but oh well- don't look a gift 'dash in the mouth. Anyways, without seeing anything on her, or around her, Cecíl could not fathom what was so wrong with her that Alki felt like she needed to point it out. Other than maybe her attitude.

"Well, I'm assuming that's what you must mean, because I can't see anything else wrong right now. The answer is I'm just an ass, nothing really special about it. I worked too hard and I made bad decisions and I have no friends, plain and simple." Alright, back on topic. Items. Markers. Things that could at least keep them from backtracking... assuming that's even possible in this logic-defying trip land. Something that could mark their path, but they could still have their hands on- ...

Wait.

The yarn. Cecíl pulled one of the balls of yarn she had picked up and silently turned it over, contemplating. It could work. They'd feel the string tense if anything tried to pick it up and play with it, and... well it was certainly a vibrant enough color. It would stand out against the dirty floorboards. She didn't say anything yet, being fairly certain that Alki would have some kind of response (probably not one Cecíl would plan on answering.)

The three ghost friends were watching carefully from the shadows, making no effort to unveil their presence to the two invading pokemon. It was easiest to frustrate and misdirect if the targets couldn't pin the "strange phenomena" happening to them on a clear source. Without something to blame, the fear and paranoia would eat at their minds, making the targets uneasy and more vulnerable. Ideally. For some reason the green one was just impossible to delude. Perhaps the plant pokemon was already crazy.

Instead, the Litwick decided to try bothering the pink orb. They readied a floating orb behind the Jigglypuff, ever ready to dart just out of the puffball's field of vision should she try to look directly at it. The pumpkaboo saw this and immediately began getting ideas, trying as subtly as possible to take control of the surrounding terrain. Cecíl did not notice given her "affliction," but the pumpkaboo's influence began in the floor. It almost seemed to become... unnaturally sticky. "Goopy" might be a better term. It... sucked at any feet that touched it, almost like wet mud.

Cecíl the Petlil - 1 Energy

Boss Encounter!:

Alki's face had lit up as her idea received a compliment from the Petilil, but just as soon, it was gone, as she noticed the Petilil's strange discolaration. It was upsetting enough on its own, but what made it even worse is that her companion didn't even seem to notice it at all! Alki blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes, investigating the semi-opaqueness of the edges of Cecil. "Y-You're n-not an... a-asshole..." Alki said, her voice trembling with fear as the strange visual phenomenon didn't seem to go away the more she looked at it.

"B-But... D-Don't you see it...?" She pointed one of her arms at the edges of the Petilil's body, and her arm itself seemed to tremble as she held it out. "A-Are you s-sure y-you're not a g-ghost?" She paused, and took a deep breath. She'd waited for the Petilil to finish her explanation, but... Well, she was afraid. And she felt so, so small and weak and helpless... But that wasn't an excuse! She couldn't break down again, and... well, if she was wrong, then she was wrong. She looked away from the edges of Cecil's leaves and instead made her best attempt at meeting her gaze.

"W-Well... F-F-For what it's worth... I-If we get outta here, I-I... I can d-do my best t-to be your f-friend!" She managed to stammer out, forcing a smile despite the blood quickly rushing out of her face, and her body trembling with fear. She really meant it too... She'd felt so lonely when she was smaller, and imagining her life without her few friends she had sounded horrible... If Cecil really didn't have anyone, well... Even someone as abjectly useless as Alki was better than no one, right? "I-I t-think you deserve a f-friend..."

She fell silent as she watched the Petilil begin to work at the yarn, having nothing more to say. She couldn't help but notice her transparency all over again, and--

Wait, was that a light? It looked pretty close by, and Alki turned her eyes towards it. Except... There wasn't a light. Nothing at all... Alki's eyes rested where she thought she'd seen the light, trying hard not to panic as she turned back to the Petilil. Her grip tightened on the small whip she'd made using her hidden power, hoping that she wouldn't have to use it. The shadow seemed to tremble with the jigglypuff, her body beginning to shake, and her ears twitching at every sound they picked up.

Nothing was wrong, nothing at all was wrong... There was nothing wrong with this.

Floating light, to the left. Alki pivoted swiftly and directed her Hidden Power towards the general direction of the light, barely taking any time to aim. There was nothing there to meet it, however, except for some furniture. The chair that she had inadvertently struck had its leg knocked out, and it went clattering across the floor. Without proper support, the chair, as well as a bunch of wooden boxes stacked on top of it, came crashing down to the floor, their volume tremendously, unbearably loud to the girl. Her own actions prompted a scream of fright from her, as she looked around frantically, seeming to go crazier by the second as she searched for the small, luminous orb that didn't seem to exist.

As she did so, she began to backpedal, her eyes frantically dancing about, trying to pinpoint the source of her torment, but finding nothing. "O-O-Ok, I-I-I'm s-s-s-sorry..." She stammered out softly, hardly audible as she seemed ready to run away. Before she could, though, the floor itself seemed out to get her as well. What used to seem like a dusty, wooden floor suddenly seemed to take on a different character altogether. It seemed to cling to her feet, and what she meant to be small steps backwards instead turned into a backwards tumble as her feet seemed to stick to the ground.

"Eeeee!" She squeaked out, falling ungracefully to the floor. She ended up face down, and that's where she stayed. No pretense at fighting back came from her, instead she curled up into a(n even tighter) ball, and shut her eyes tightly as she covered them with her arms. It wouldn't do her much good, but she was at a loss for what to do. Tears began to form as she prayed that everything would turn out alright. "J-Just leave m-me a-alone!" She cried out, her voice cracking as she spoke.