[PKMN] The Well

[knux400]

My name is Rugose.

Hopefully, you're reading this in a little informational pamphlet you were given before attending my daytime talk show about how I became the richest and most famous explorer ever following my groundbreaking research into a local anomaly called the Well, but it's just as likely you found this notebook on the ground somewhere right next to my rotting corpse.

Either way, hi! Glad to have an audience.

In case you need catching up on who I am and what I'm doing down here, I'm Rugose. I'm a Tropius, I go by she/her pronouns, I'm 58 but I barely look a day over 40, I like long walks on the beach, yadda yadda yadda. More importantly, I'm a long-standing and hopefully well-respected member of the Unova Exploration Guild. We go where no one else has gone yet and make maps and such so everyone else can do their jobs easier, and stay away from any dangerous places. Glamorous! Except we've pretty much covered the entire continent, so there's not a lot for us to really do anymore. Aside from a few really dangerous places that no one wants to stick their nose in, we've basically seen all there is to see around here, and as a result, our funding has been severely cut and most of our staff has had to find other jobs or go into early retirement. I was offered a pretty generous retirement package myself, given my services, but I'm not really fond of the idea of growing old in a rocking chair watching daytime television. So instead, I'm diving headfirst into one of those aforementioned really dangerous places that no one wants to stick their nose in!

Now that might sound crazy to you, dear reader, but in all honesty, I'm pretty much perfect for the job. I can grow my own berries on my body as long as I have sun, water, and seeds- so with a little time to rest, I can heal pretty much any injury entirely on my own, with hardly any need for medical supplies. I've kept entire expedition parties alive and fed for weeks, even after a particularly accident-prone colleague of mine tripped and dropped all our rations off the side of a cliff. I've packed plenty of water, as well as a reusable bottle with a Suicune™ filter in it, so if I happen to come across a lake while I'm down here, I can refill my supply. I've got a belt lined with pouches full of berry seeds, so I have access to every kind of berry one can think of, and while I'm not one of those fancy professional combat types, I can certainly hold my own in a scuffle! 

The place I'm heading into is called the Well. It's earned a reputation amongst the locals for being extremely dangerous, and for people who enter it generally not leaving it again. There's only vague accounts of what's actually in there- at least, until I'm through with it. At the top of the Well is a 50-foot disc in the middle of the ground with some ancient-looking carvings on it. There's symbols all along the edge in some unknown language, and a depiction of a dragon-looking thing caught in the center of a whirlwind. Or maybe it's causing the whirlwind? Don't ask me, cultural archaeology isn't really my field. I just find the stuff, it's someone else's job to analyze it under a microscope all day long. Anyway, on one edge of the disc is a small staircase- well, small for a Pokemon my size, anyway- leading down into a circular room the same size as and directly beneath the disc itself.

And boy, is it weird! No one's ever seen anything like it. As respectable scientists, we don't like to use the word "magic" very often. But there's really no other explanation for why the room looks and acts the way it does. In every direction- including up- a vast landscape is visible, one that's noticeably different from the actual landscape the disc is placed in. It's a sort of gentle plains, with old-looking cobblestone roads stretching off in various directions towards equally old-looking buildings. No idea what they are or what's in them, though, as the physical space one can actually walk in is still limited to the actual size of the room. The walls and ceiling are faintly visible while allowing a perfect view of the landscape beyond, and almost resemble some kind of crystal in their transparent state. There's a nice breeze coming from either the south or the north- I have no way of knowing since the sun in this room doesn't move and doesn't seem to correspond to the location of the actual sun outside, and I can't tell if it's rising or setting- and the grass beneath my feet is clean and healthy.

There's a staircase directly opposite the one leading to the top of the disc, and that one leads down into another room identical to the previous one, and another staircase on the opposite side of that room. According to the locals, these rooms just keep going down, each stacked on top of the previous one, deeper and deeper underground. Each one supposedly has a different environment inside, too- although I've only properly explored the first room as I write this. No one knows exactly how deep the Well goes, and I intend to be the first to find out- or at least gather a good amount of information about it! Of course, if it were as easy as just walking down a bunch of stairs, someone would have done it already, and this place definitely wouldn't be considered dangerous.

These rooms are inhabited by creatures the locals call "phantoms". Again, a bit whimsical for my taste, but the name seems accurate! These creatures tend to resemble Pokemon, but will attack anyone who approaches them and don't seem to respond to any form of communication. They also don't seem to be alive- at least, not in the traditional sense- as they'll sort of dissipate into a smoky substance when knocked unconscious. They come back when you're not looking, too! If you go down into the room below the disc, beat up the phantoms inside, leave the room, and then come back again, a new phantom will show up. Usually it's a different species of Pokemon than the previous one, but not always. It's unclear whether it's the same handful of phantoms spontaneously regenerating themselves when no one is looking, or a fresh batch that got spawned in, but there's always a new one in there if you leave and come back. They also don't seem to pay any attention to you if you enter a room from the bottom going up- almost as if they want you to leave. Spooky.

The first room had about a dozen Phantoms in it, mostly Flying- and Bug-type Pokemon. I think there was a shiny Shroomish in there, too. Interesting that Phantoms seem to have color variation the same way real Pokemon do. Anyway, all the Phantoms were fairly small, so they all went down pretty easily after a good smack or two. Some of the bites they left on me were pretty painful, though. I've got some leaves covering my wounds, and there's a Sitrus berry ripening on my neck as I write, so I'll be right as rain in a half hour or so.

One pair of Phantoms in particular stood out to me as being a bit different than the others- a Chikorita and a Hoothoot. They seemed more coordinated, and when I'd wounded the Chikorita, the Hoothoot flew in to defend it. Of course, it only took one well-placed backhand to smack that silly bird out of the sky, but the teamwork the two of them had was interesting. I'd initially assumed that these creatures were incapable of understanding speech, but if they're intelligent enough to coordinate their attacks...? Why do they want to keep us out of here so badly? What are they protecting?

Only time, hard work, and a little elbow grease will tell!

~Rugose 

OOC NOTE: THIS IS A NON-INTERACTIVE THREAD. PLEASE KEEP ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS TO #HD|FORUM TIME IN MATRIX, OR #FORUMS UNDER THE MORBZONE CATEGORY IN DISCORD. THANK YOU!

[knux400]

Howdy! Rugose again. I know you probably figured that out already, but I like introducing myself. It's the best part of any conversation, I always say.

The environment in the second room seems to be a bit flatter than the first, and without all those cobblestone roads and buildings in the distance. The grass is a bit more yellowy than before, which makes me think there's less rainfall here. Well, technically there's no rainfall here, since the time of day is frozen at either mid-morning or mid-afternoon, but you know what I mean. The temperature is a few degrees warmer due to the lack of moisture, and it's interesting how the air itself seems to not want to cross from one room to the next. You can literally stand in the stairwell and feel the dividing line between the two rooms. It's bizarre.

Again, there were roughly a dozen Phantoms in this room. This time it was mostly Normal-types, with a handful of Flying- and Dark-types sprinkled in. A Zigzagoon caught me by surprise as I stepped into the room and managed to land a Sand Attack right in my face. Of course it got in my eyes, and I had to take down the whole group while squinting and trying to rub the dirt away. It was clumsy work, and I took quite a few more licks than I should have, but eventually they all learned their lesson. There was a particularly annoying Fearow that almost had me worried for a bit, the leaves on my back are practically shredded thanks to the beak on that little rascal. Enough complaining, though!

No behavioral differences in the Phantoms that I can spot, apart from them seemingly being a bit higher level than the last bunch. There was a slightly larger Poochyena that seemed to act as the alpha of that room, but no displays of intelligence and coordination like the Chikorita and Hoothoot I saw before. I also found a HP Up on the ground amidst an unidentifiable pile of bones. Gruesome, but sadly not uncommon in my line of work. I sat next to them as I bandaged my wounds and swallowed a few Sitrus seeds. I've been told I have a lethal amount of enthusiasm for this job, and that I should be more careful. It's a tough thing to internalize, especially when the world is just so interesting, but seeing things like this serve as a reminder not to get too carried away.

If nothing else, there's no one to carry these notes back up to the surface. If I want the world to see my work, I'd better make it out of here alive.










...That was a bit of a downer to end things on today, wasn't it? Sorry! The next one will be better, promise.

~Rugose