Okay. In Chargestone Cave. I'm setting aside Relic Passage for now until I get a second Pokemon who can use Strength. Onward!
I cross the bridge which was supposedly broken earlier (Oh. A literal Broken Bridge. Ha. Haha. Ugh.), and before I can even see the other side I hear somebody going on about formulas about electricity, Pokemon, and protecting a friend, but whoever it was is gone before I can reach them. Soon afterward though, a random trainer decides to have a triple battle with me. Weird.
Well, they're all a couple of levels higher than my first three pokemon, so after lots of switching pokemon around, I eventually win without any losses (although it got close a couple of times).
Second floor!
...Damn. Sauerkraut lost to an Excadrill. With how badly I'm doing, I figure I should leave, grab a new Pokemon, then return once I'm level 35ish. Maybe 34. Not wanting to use Dig or an escape rope, I slowly make my way out... But on the way, Lentil evolves into Lairon. Cool.
Replacing Sauerkraut shall be San Pedro, to fill in my "resists electric" gap otherwise only occupied by Pica. Back to training.
Hrm. This may take some time. I'm not going to leave you guys a puny thing like this though, so instead I'll just continue it tomorrow from where I left off, after some grinding. Laters.
...Well that took a while. Not that you guys are really gonna notice a difference.
So I got all my mons to level 35, Confit evolved into Swanna, and I'm now standing a few dozen steps further into Chargestone than I have stood before, with Bianca barely in view ahead of me. Past her I see some stairs up, while in the other direction there are some stairs down. Seems fishy.
When I walk up to her, she - oddly - doesn't talk to me first. And unless I talk to her now, this is probably going to bug me for ages, so I see what she has to say... Which turns out to be that she's there to be Juniper's lackey, in order to research Tynamo. Not sure I've seen one of those yet. (As it turns out, I have not.)
Seeing as how she's being such a pushover right now though, I leave the professor's pet to her thing and continue on my way. Seeing as how I want to leave, I head up, rather than down. Heading downstairs can come later, when I'm too overpowered for this place or need more Pokemon. I wanna be outta here sooner rather than later; my only counter to Ferroseed is Angkokear, due to Ferroseed having a Bug attack. Moving on.
Continuing up through the cave, the first foe I meet seems oddly aware that she's called an "ace trainer"... why is the player character never aware of what they themselves are called though? No fair. That aside, this place doesn't give me any troubles at all.
...Okay now this bugs me. I left the previous city at the north west, headed up the route in what was probably a NNW direction (maybe even NNNW), entered a cave at its south west entrance, exited it in the north east... So now I'm basically north of where I started. In the next town. Yet the map tells me I should be distinctly north west from where I started. Was the original Chargestone Cave & Route 6 this bad?
As I enter this new town, I'm greeted by Juniper in person, who - since she's so close - should stop leaving work to Bianca, who clearly has her own goals. She checks out my Pokedex, and gives me a Master Ball "for how well I've done"... even though I bet she'd do the same if I only had three Pokemon, and never evolved any. The local gym leader Skyla turns up to giver Juniper a lift to an otherwise unreachable city, but the lazy one says she has other things to do first. Lazy and negligent. Gotcha.
That done, I explore the town... Which is oddly small. Only two actual houses. Oh, and Skyla turned the only aeroplane hanger into a gym, which is incredibly self-centered of her. There's also a cargo terminal thing, which I have little use for right now, but purely thanks to owning a flying type Pokemon, I got some Net Balls. (The excuse being that I helped a guy reach something which was high up. Which you'd think is what ladders were for.)
Since I don't want to be underleveled for the gym (again), I head out to Route 7... And fall into a bad habit of mine: I see shaking grass, I head straight for it. Thusly, my new potential pokemon is Audino. Simply caught, I figure it being a "Hearing Pokemon" means I should name it something related to that. Like Polenta! I doubt I'll use this Pokemon, but it'll be good to have it just in case.
...Okay, I'm good now. I think I'll do some exploring, then start up the next installment when I find something notable enough for it.
Pokemon:
- Pica the Magnezone, Lv.35
- Zoroark, Lv.35
- San Pedro the Maractus, Lv.36
- Angkokear the Joltik, Lv.35
- Confit the Swanna, Lv.35
- Lentil the Lairon, Lv.35
- Gummalapur the Liepard, Lv.32
- Necco the Alomomola, Lv.5
- Polenta the Audino, Lv.32
