[PKMN] The Well

[knux400]

Rugose here!

Another day, another floor- although this one got pretty rough, if I'm being honest. The grass here comes up to my knees, and it's chock-full of Bug- and Poison-types jumping out at me from all directions. Bug-types I can handle due to being half Flying-Type, but Poison-Types are a sore spot for me. The very first Phantom I came across managed to hit me with another Sand Attack, so that was inconvenient until I got that out of my eyes. After that, I made the mistake of backhanding a Nidorino- and sure enough, some of those nasty little spikes broke off and embedded themselves in my arm, poisoning me. I got a lucky break later on, though, since this one Tangela just kept trying to use Stun Spore on me, seemingly ignorant to the fact that it doesn't work at all. That gave me a lot of time to use Growth, though, which kept me going for the rest of the fight- or it would have, if it didn't mysteriously vanish immediately after pummeling the Tangela into the ground.

I hadn't mentioned it until now, but Growth is a technique mostly used by Grass-type pokemon that involves taking in sunlight (or some other source of energy) and converting it into extra body mass. This has the practical effect of temporarily increasing the user's size, as well as making their physical and special attacks more powerful. I'd been using this technique every now and again for previous floors, but this was the first time I had a moment to "max out my stats", as they would say in the competitive battling circuit. Really, it's just an arbitrary limit most move registries set to prevent serious injury, both for the person using the move and the person receiving it. If someone used Swords Dance over and over all day long, they'd end up either hurting themselves or obliterating anyone they tried to attack afterwards- so the rule is usually that you can't raise your stats any higher than six stages each. I have no idea how they determine which moves raise which stats, or what a "stage" even is, but I'm sure there's a really detailed article about it somewhere. Point is, I can only use Growth six times before it becomes dangerous.

Anyway, after burying the Tangela face-first in the ground, a sort of cool breeze blew across the room and immediately removed the effects of the Growth, leaving me to finish up the rest of the room whilst also dealing with poison. These little breezes had been happening before, but I hadn't paid much attention to them- I sort of just assumed it was part of the weird pseudoweather down here. Having seen it reverse the effects of Growth, though, makes me think it's some variation of Haze that's being generated by the room itself. It doesn't seem to come from any specific Pokemon, and it occurs at regular intervals, roughly once every two minutes or so. This made dealing with the remaining inhabitants of the room a real chore, but luckily nothing else proved to be too much of a problem.

These rooms are definitely getting tougher, but don't count me out yet! After a good night's sleep and some Pecha and Sitrus berries, I'll be ready for whatever else this place can throw at me!

~Rugose