SURGE STEPPES SPAWN: <OZONE>

And so begins the ordeal of attempting to climb what may look impossible to climb, the lack of grip of his stylish shoes definitely being to his detriment in this (arguably foolish) task. The spires are mostly smooth, with no obvious spots to grab hold of, but thankfully, Oz had learned a thing or two from his time bouldering and parkouring.

"Fuck!"

He falls. Of course he does. Even in a deep dive VR game, pulling up all of your weight with one hand while firmly holding onto the tiniest grip that is actually no more than a dent is no joke, and no matter how many pull ups Oz may do when going to the gym, of course he won't be able to pull this off on his first attempt.

Who the fuck had convinced him to use realistic pain settings?

The fall is loud and painful and would have been likely to leave him with a colourful array of bruises if this were IRL. But, since it's VR instead, what it manages to do is scare away the poor Ponyta that had been grazing nearby.

"Aw, man..."

Onwards he goes, now with a Rowlet in charge of grabbing onto his robes (they're robes, right? That's technically what his fancy outfit classifies as?) whenever he's about to fall. Greens struggles to hold up his weight in those occasions, but she seems to manage it well enough, and after a bit, they achieve a sort of rhythm in this totally-necessary and not-at-all-pointless ordeal Oz had decide to put them through.

A while really is A WHILE, though.

Climbing the spire takes time. So much time, in fact, that a small herd of bull-like Pokémon (Tauros, Oz doesn't remember the names of every species, sue him) appears in the distance over a hill, hangs out for a while to graze on the lush grass nearby, and then leaves.

No signs of any Rufflet in sight.

Should he really keep this up? What if he hits a height limit or something?

Oh well, he had already gone this far. No point in quitting now.

One more push, some more effort, and there it is.

The top isn't really the top but as far as he can realistically manage to climb without ending up putting himself in a precarious position, and from up here, sitting in what is far from the most comfortable ledge in the world, there really is a privileged view of their surroundings. It could be pretty much called bird's-eye: this sight of the plains from up above, watching the way the grass sways with the winds as if it were waves.

That's the problem, though.

It's fucking windy up here.

Can his avatar realistically get blown away? Do real world physics apply here?

Good fucking god, he hopes not.