[ti]closed[/ti][C/Altair][TUTORIAL] Here, Kitty!

Josh at first ignored Altair's snide remark before quipping back, "Desire sensors, man. I swear every game has one. Knowing my luck, it'll take ten spawns before the cat decides to show up. Did I tell you I still haven't found a Ponyta in the Steppes? I've been there for... what, twenty spawns and still haven't had one show up? And I want two." One Kantonian and one Galarian. The fire horse was speedier, but the psychic horse would be a fantastic healer after evolution.

The sass earned a scowl from Josh. "Good luck getting a saddle made for a flying Pokémon at your level. The game's teasing me right now. It's telling me I can ride Pazuzu once he evolves next level... but you think I can fit on a Pidgeotto's back?" The answer was no, but perhaps his impatience would lead him to... de-age his avatar. Likewise, Josh could not battle with any Pokémon except his Charmander; Granmarg was strictly a way to trip the encounter rate faster.

"I do," Josh answered. "I don't have any real-life riding experience that would carry over. Comes with living in a large city, sadly." He watched Altair's Froakie chase away a Lillipup, experience scaling making the win worth next to nothing for the blonde's team.

"It's also an issue of raw level. I don't know if it's the way I answered the survey, or however it was determined, but I need to be a certain level to ride Pokémon. I actually already have a flying mount. It's one of those...Invasive Species from Ostellia. But my level is way too low to ride one. Besides, apparently they can't be used outside Ostellia anyway." It was less they couldn't be used and more they couldn't be controlled. A Venoshock to the face would almost certainly wipe him out in one hit, what with how soon he was going to get the Player class and have to worry about his own HP.

"There's the issue of size, too. I wonder if there's somewhere in UNOVR I can... de-age myself," he mused. "Make myself a kid."

"That's Mistra," Josh corrected. "And believe me, you don't want to go in there. There's a very angry and giant Zapdos that even I wouldn't dream to saddle. Raising them from eggs is a pain, requiring love, care, and a fat wallet, but I can't imagine how rewarding it will be afterward."

Those downsides were one of the big reasons Josh preferred taking the scenic route: he could truly see the world. Of course, fast travel was nice for when he genuinely needed to get to a specific area with all due haste. If not, though, there was something special about feeling hurricane-force winds in his face: something he could only abuse with reduced pain thresholds. Even so, a visor might not be a bad investment.

"I don't even know how expensive," the blonde mused as the Froakie chased off their unwanted pest. "I have yet to find a shop that offers that service. It costs 400 BYTES to reskill, so I imagine it costs at least that much."

"Correct," Josh answered. "In one sense, I'll miss the height, but I think they'll still let me play poker at the Firewater. I'll be pretty distinct, too: I'm gonna make myself as short as the game will let me." It would make climbing onto some of his existing steeds a challenge, requiring them to fully crouch for him to do so, but having a wider menagerie of steeds available was worth the trouble.

"Once we're out of here, you want to check chat to see if anyone's found any dungeons or instances?" the young man asked. "I found one a while ago that was the inside of a tree. Couldn't complete it. Ran out of resources. And by the time I went back to try again, it was gone." He watched the Froakie chase off yet another Lillipup. This was going to be like the Ponyta hunt all over again, wasn't it? Josh needed to get back on that grind...

"...Very fair," Josh replied after a moment of silence, his Pokémon still darting about in search of an elusive, purring Dark-type. "I've still got some quests to turn in myself. But I get the feeling I'm going to be back here, helping my friends get started when they inevitably join the server."

Josh chuckled at Altair's line of logic. It would have been true in the real world: someone his age would never be allowed to step into a casino or eat at a bar. In a video game, though, it was a bit different. "In every other mainline game, the protagonist is ten years old, and they let him into the casino. Celadon, Goldenrod, Mauville, Veilstone... they all let you walk right in. Then after that, they stopped putting casinos in the games for some reason. Probably marketing." After all, in the real world, one had to be either 18 or 21 years of age to gamble, depending on national laws.

"'Course, could be different here. It's not like the gambling games here are for premium currency or BYTES anyway. At the Firewater, they have this funny money currency you build up by being a regular patron there, and that's what you play with. Almost like playing for store credit."

The Froakie would find... another Patrat. Rolling his eyes, Josh sighed, "I think that's every spawn except the one I want." Even Granmarg was starting to be worn down from all the small hits he was taking...

Altair's approach was valid, too; perhaps they wouldn't be bugging him in his Quest list if he was so inclined to finish each one of them as soon as he could. There was something about coming back later for overall efficiency when Josh had more friends to introduce to the game. Something about impressing players once he had befriended a steed as fast as a race car.

While his favorite wasn't in the game yet, Galarian Zapdos was close enough. There were flightless birds in the real world that could be trained to bear a person's weight, but they were also fickle. "I'm sure all the new players you run into will appreciate the help," Josh agreed, Granmarg tromping over the Lillipup on the way out of the Tall Grass.