[ti]quest[/ti]Exploring Sector Jarzick

Sidra definitely wasn’t high enough level for this. But was that going to stop her? Definitely not. She had seen the request posted on the forum and figured what better way to level up and acquire some hella-strong Pokémon than to do some dungeoneering.

And so she made her way through the ingame-map as best her limited team-composition would allow her. Sure she had yet to catch another Pokemon, but she would make do, one Pokemon was all she needed for she knew their combined fires would burn bright enough to defeat any in-game monster.

But exposition aside. Sidra casually walked to their meeting location, and as she came within reach she raised a casual hand in greeting as a “Hello there!” chipperly escaped from her. Only for her to finally notice the presence of Altair.

“Oh you are here too!” She spoke still as happily as before. Though she knew that his presence meant that had to put in actual effort rather than being carried through this.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Pokémon Team}
Fuecoco (Coco)

Tag: Altair / Josh Devlin / Alicia Westfield

When Josh Devlin clicks the message, a prominent pop-up flashes in the center of each participating player's UI:

DUTY COMMENCED.

As the badly dented, electronic door slowly creaks open, everyone's vision briefly fades to black. They feel a sensation of them being teleported to a new location. When their vision returns, they are on the other side of the now-opened door, Alicia Westfield now next to her BAYLEEF and on foot. If they were to check, Alicia Westfield , Altair , and Josh Devlin would find their "Mount" buttons on their UIs greyed out. It seems riding on a Pokémon's back is only possible in certain areas of the lab. Furthermore, their GOLDEN POKEBALLS in their inventories were greyed out.

Sector Jarzick

Audio: A Scorched Nation

The reason for the "Mount" button being disabled quickly becomes apparent: extremely low light makes vision difficult, and the hallways are narrow enough to impede all but the sleekest, skinniest steeds. What limited light filters in from cracks in the ceiling, as well as from Josh Devlin 's CHARMANDER's tail, reveals twisted metal all over the place. Sidra bumps her head against a nearly invisible electrical wire. Thankfully for her, there seems to be no power to it.

As the brave quartet proceed deeper, they find many, many doors closed with no power. The few that are open have enormous dents and holes in them or are completely misshapen, much like the ruined metal arms that once held computer monitors, small tables and shelves, and other objects one would expect to see in a laboratory setting. Alicia Westfield , being a GARDENER, recognizes the dents as the impact points of a POWER WHIP, though punching a hole through through metal with such an attack would require power unlike anything she had thus far seen in UNOVR.

Though many of the rooms look identical or similar, the party's MINI-MAP helps a lot, keeping records of where they have been, and even where progress has been stopped. It is eerily quiet throughout Jarzick's metallic halls. Where are all the wild Pokémon? And where is the source of all the carnage?

As the group reaches a dead end, Josh Devlin 's CHARMANDER provides just enough light for Altair 's GRENINJA to see a large generator. Those with Pokémon out that are trained as mounts will notice their "Mount" buttons illuminated again. The control panel for the generator appears to be quite complex, and many of the markings around its buttons are worn out. Near a desk and a bookshelf, paper is scattered everywhere. While some of it is shredded and illegible, Sidra is able to locate the front page of the manual for the generator.

Before the investigation can proceed any further, the sound of a whipcrack echoes from the distance, shortly followed by an explosion that everyone can feel tremors of.

PROMPTS

Stuck? Good story beats to hit include, but are not limited to the below:

• Search for the power generator manual
• Shed some light on the room
  
• Examine the twisted and/or dented metal
• Attempt to activate the generator

RULES

PLEASE HEED THE FOLLOWING GUIDELINES. These rules are also subject to change.

• Your Pokémon are now LOCKED IN and STATIC for the remainder of this thread. You may not upgrade mid-thread.
• Your character can have only ONE Pokémon out a time.
  
• Your character's Pokémon can only use ONE move at a time.
• Please provide a TL;DR summarizing your character's actions and/or BOLD moves/abilities used with each post.
• Characters that miss multiple rounds risk receiving reduced rewards and/or being kicked from the Quest.
• You MAY POST MULTIPLE TIMES THIS ROUND, but be mindful of giving others space and time to post within reason and with consideration of the deadline.
• After you make your final post of the round, PLEASE ROLL inside the Story Mode rolling thread. The roll will be 1D100.

DEADLINE

MARCH 27, 2024, 11:59 PM CDT (9:59 PM PDT)

He would cackle quietly at Josh’s crack the moment the other saw the Greninja. He was well-aware that the other knew he had a Rufflet, a Nidoran, and a Pidove; but nothing like the Water-type that was walking alongside them now.

“Well… for my friend’s sake,” he continued as he tilted his head in Sidra’s direction, “…I decided to poke around a little more and ended up with this.”

At least one of them had a Water-type ready to go.

All too soon the status screen on his interface would change, and they would be taken into the ‘dungeon’ proper—and he would cringe the moment ‘sister dearest’ almost hit a low-hanging power cable.

“Careful out there,” he would warn her lightly; while the Greninja continued to gently shove the inert power lines away as they moved along—

It wouldn’t take too long for them to arrive at what appeared to be a crime scene. At least that’s how he processed what he was seeing.

‘Hey.’

“What?”

‘I see something—over there,’ and the amphibious Pokémon would point in the direction of what appeared to be rusted-over generator.

Had people run amok here and left whatever it was they researched behind…? Hopefully they didn’t have to fight a boss or anything like that!

“Hm. Anyone make heads or tails of what the heck this panel does?” he would ask the room at large, having stopped in front of the control panel. Without anything to guide them, though, he couldn’t make sense of any of these buttons.

“Find anything?” he would ask Sidra a few moments later.

---

• setting up to attempting to activate the generator because who the hell wouldn’t go ‘ooh shiny’ at those buttons?!

Josh Devlin, Alicia Westfield, Sidra

Sidra walked casually, too casually perhaps as the duty began. She even managed to bump her head against a nearly invisible wire, but thought no more of it. Mostly because Altair-dearest warned her. She simply rolled her eyes and replied jokingly. “I will, I will.” She would not.

Instead she was focused more on the lack of Pokemon spawns. Usually dungeons or duties like this would spawn enemies that they would have to deal with, though that could be experience from previous games talking.

Anyhow, as they reached the dead end and began to investigate, Sindra stumbled upon something that looked like the Manual for something or at least parts of it. She tried to read it, but it all went above her head with technical terms.

But maybe Altair could make heads and tails of it. And so she moved over to her twin and offered him the item for him to read, without a single word spoken. Surely he would pick up on her intention!

Tag: Altair / Josh Devlin / Alicia Westfield

He thought he overheard an angry Charmander yowling because they rather didn’t like being picked up by the tail… big mistake, if he was being honest.

He had to bite down the snicker that was bubbling up in his throat because they had things to do, and once they were able to cobble together what the pieces of paper did, they would attempt to generate power to get the place running…

…only for a sudden explosion of sparks to catch him off-guard; he would hiss in disgust at their direction!

(Because for starters, he was a Water-specialist… for the moment. Electricity never mixed too well with Water, did it…)

While he wasn’t the leader of the joint, he would have one of those ‘aha!’ moments when he realized something—

“Do we have a map of any kind to use so we don’t end up going through the same rooms twice?” he would voice out loud; not too long before he thought he saw an Elekid happily approaching a sparking wire some distance away…

Okay, no. No, that’s just too much, he would think as he watched the small Electric-type literally snacking on the open, exposed wire like it was a piece of candy!

---

• Incorporate an ELEKID, TOGEDEMARU, and/or HELIOPTILE gorging itself on a severed live wire.

Josh Devlin, Alicia Westfield, Sidra

If any of Josh's partners checked their HUDs, they would see that the blonde had quite a bit of HP missing, and all of Ares' HP was gone. He withdrew the fire-type. "I... I'm okay. Just... shaken up," he replied as his arm convulsed mildly. It was a lot worse when he was absorbing the shocks. Even with his reduced pain threshold, it was paralyzing. One more blow like that, and he would white out. The young man withdrew the fallen Charmander for Ulysses the Seel, who promptly encircled him inside an AQUA RING. "It's not pretty, but it'll have to do," Josh sighed as REGEN would appear in the status column of his HUD and the HUD of anyone else's that showed status conditions. The health regeneration was slow; he doubted it would fill up before the boss fight that inevitably would come.

"Don't you have a mini-map, Altair ?" Josh asked. "Should be in one of the corners of your HUD." It might only give them information on places they've already been, though. Perhaps they would find a full map somewhere, but in the meantime, they would need to rely on exploration skills. Josh had played enough exploration-based video games that he had a great idea of how to route efficiently.

Heading down the hallway and taking a left through a powered door, he happened upon a log. It was difficult to read due to the paper's age and a large coffee stain, but he was able to make out most of it. He read it aloud to the group:

---

20:00 11-11-XXXX

The situation has escalated. I received word the Pokémon League was destroyed at 18:00 last night, for reasons you probably know as well as I do. Our sister lab was vaporized, as were most of my colleagues. Unfortunately, there is no time to grieve.

My work on the extradimensional portals has been coming along well, but I never expected we'd need it so soon, or in such dire circumstances.

The public is being told it was a freak terrorist act, but that story won't hold up long when it crosses the ocean and they get a good look at it. Everyone is afraid of bad press for now, but what about the lives of the people of this region?

---

Josh gasped, stopping for a moment to ponder the entry. "Extradimensional portals? This is linked to the invasive species, isn't it? And... vaporized is a concerning word. There's one Pokémon that comes to mind, and it's not one I'm eager to meet. Because no matter how skilled you are or how high leveled you are, you're not strapping a saddle to a Nec--"

The whipcrack that Alicia Westfield and Tikani picked up on reached Josh's ears, making him squint as his ears rung. "...That sounded really close. Watch your mini-map carefully. Alicia, you seem to like challenging video games. Are you familiar with... a Field-On Enemy?"