CH55 (116), Cave (2)

After I discovered the Ancient Stone the day before yesterday, I found nothing else of importance that day. I also went about exploring the western branch of the cave yesterday. Unfortunately, I did not manage to unearth any new things, but I got to explore many passages and got into a few fights, so the time was well spent.

Still, I was starting to go deeper underground, so while doing my thing yesterday I began to wonder how there was enough air down here. I was unsure if the air produced by the moss and vegetation was enough to supply the whole cave system.

Now, I know it was actually a bit late to think about it since I had already been walking down these paths for a week, but in my defense, I had been distracted by the rush of exploration. Still, the saying "better late than never" fit perfectly in this situation, so after dinner that day I began to do some research on the topic.

As a result of my extensive research *cough* asking my parents, looking into some of the books in our library, and doing two hours of internet research, *cough* I managed to learn the reason why I didn't get any air poisoning or fell unconscious because of thin air/lacking air supply.

It was a combination of three factors. The first was as I had expected the luminous moss and other vegetation producing breathable air. The second was minute cracks in some places in the rocks walls and ceilings that allowed for air to move between the inside of the cave and outside.

Finally, the third factor was all the small and large streams that went through many areas of the cave system. The streams helped establish a natural circulation draft. One of the important things this did was to introduce new air and moved "old" air, which prevented stale air from forming.

So, not only did the vegetation and streams serve as a source of food as well as water for the cave dwellers, but they were also the source of breathable air inside the cave system.

Today was Palkiday, so it was the last day I could explore the cave for this week. Tomorrow I had to do my own training and after that was the weekend, which meant I could only resume my exploration on Arcday.

I had just finished lunch and was currently investigating the right passage of the latest fork I had come across. The number of times the passages split was high enough that I had to mark the walls at each fork to separate which passage had been explored and which one hadn't.

I made a large X on the wall at the entrance that symbolized that I had entered the passage at least once. I did this in two different places in case one of them somehow got destroyed. If I had fully explored the passage I added a large C beside the X to show that I was done with the passage.

I also created a crude map of everything I had found so far, because it helped me keep track of my progress and who knew when it would become useful. I mean as far as I knew I had discovered a giant cave system, and I was sure many people would be interested in it if they knew about it.

Anyway, besides fighting some Pokemon and coming across another stream, I had yet to find anything useful during my investigation of the passage. Nonetheless, I was having fun exploring and my Pokemon were having fun doing that as well as fighting, so that was okay.

Like at the stream I found earlier, for example, I saw 2 Seaking there just chilling in the water with a few Goldeen, so I challenged the Seaking with my bronze stage Magikarp.

I also had Remoraid and the iron-stage Magikarp fight against some of the stronger Goldeen. Since the school of Seaking/Goldeen were an agreeable bunch that was willing to entertain us, I gave them some berries in return.

As for right now, I was still going deeper into the passage, but to be honest, the air began to feel a bit heavier the further I walked. It was not because the air was turning bad or anything just that there was a heavy atmosphere coming from ahead.

Xatu, Nyx, and Teddiursa were feeling the effects as well since they were not behaving as leisurely in Xatu's case and excited as well as enthusiastic in Nyx and Teddi's case. They chose to stay close to me as we walked deeper.

While I was thinking about what could have caused such an atmosphere, three Ghastly just popped out of the wall to our right playing tag with each other. Naturally, all of us got startled by their sudden appearance and my Pokemon reacted a bit trigger happy.

Teddiursa's right hand was set alight with fire showing that he prepared a Fire Punch. Nyx was in the process of forming a Shadow Ball and Xatu was shimmering in pink energy. Seeing the situation, the Ghastly did what all sensible beings would have done, they ran as fast as they f**king could.

Despite my surprise, I managed to check their statuses, before they vanished behind the walls again and fortunately none of them had good potential. I said fortunately because they ran so quickly and I hadn't missed one with good potential.

That would have been sad because I definitely wanted a Ghastly or two for myself. Ohh, and some Duskull would be awesome as well. Anyway, seeing that the Ghastly had run away my Pokemon canceled their moves but stayed alert.

The question I had after that was if they had been here before and were the reason for the atmosphere, or if whatever caused the heavy feeling had been here first and was indirectly or directly responsible for their formation.

If it was the first then everything was okay, but if it was the second then whatever was ahead was probably a bit dangerous. Once I came to this conclusion I called out Seb and Gaia. I would have called out Butterfree, and Mothra as well but the tunnel was too small for them to move/fly freely.

Thinking for a bit, I called out Pidgey as well and told her to stay on my head and be alert. Now that everyone that would be useful was out I addressed them.

"Alright, ladies, and gentlemen, we are going to keep moving ahead, but I want all of you to stay alert. It may get a bit dangerous and if I think it's above our pay grade we'll hide inside the space. Otherwise, I'll leave it to you."

All of them gave an affirmative cry and we began to carefully move forward. I just noticed that I was not seeing any Pokemon, not even the really common ones like Rattata and Zubat.

'Whatever is causing this seems to have them spooked. It's most likely a Pokemon and the others are staying away to avoid getting eaten or something along those lines.' I thought to myself.

A few minutes later I saw that the passage led to an opening, which meant there was a room ahead of us. We were most likely going to find the cause for this on there.

"Alright, everyone. Whatever is causing this feeling is most likely in there so be on alert while we are inside." I tell them in a semi-quiet volume.

Seb and Gaia are the ones that enter first with me and Xatu right behind them. Just as we get a look at the insides of the room a green cloud, which I believed to be Sleep Powder, heads towards us.

Pidgey reacts before I can even say anything and uses a Gust to blow the cloud back to its sender. I look in the direction the cloud came from and see the largest Parasect I have ever seen or heard about. It was easily 3 times the size of a regular Parasect, closing in on the 4 times.

A regular Parasect was about 1 meter in height and about that much in width as well as length, but this one looked to be 3.5 meters in height with about 3 meters in width and length. Truly, the first Pokemon I saw with a giant gene. At least that was my assumption for its size.

It was inside the 120 meters range of my telekinesis, so I quickly checked its status to see if we had to run or not.

'Species: Parasect

Gender: Male

Type: Bug, Grass

Potential: Yellow

Stage: Silver-stage (low)

Genetic variation: ?

Abilities: ?

Talents: ?

Affinities: ?'

Well, the good news was that it was not so strong that I would choose to run away. It was at the (low) silver stage and even with the boost from its giant gene, we would be able to take it out if we all fought together. I normally did not like to gang up on any Pokemon, but if I had to I would tell them to do it.

Hopefully, this wouldn't end in a bad manner, but since this guy seemed to be the cause of this dreary atmosphere, I was unsure about that. Parasect belonged to the group that generally only achieved sapience at the (mid) gold stage and even a giant one would need to reach the (low) gold stage for it to happen I think.

So, persuasion or parley was most likely out of the window. All this took me just a moment to think of and by the time I came to this conclusion, the others had entered the room as well, while the cloud had reached the Parasect.

It naturally ignored the Spore, since it was immune to it like all Pokemon that could use the move. It had to be Spore instead of Sleep Powder since that was the one it could learn as far as I knew.

"We come in peace!" I tried to address it to establish that we were not planning to harm it, but it ignored me and initiated another attack. I think it tried to use Giga Drain since that and Absorb were the only long-range moves Parasect could learn at least as far as I knew.

Seeing its action Xatu stepped in front of us and blocked the move with Protect. I tried to project calm but Parasect did not change its aggressive stance and advanced towards us.

I did a quick sweep around the room and saw quite a lot of skeletons. *sigh* Knowing that a fight was inevitable I called out Mothra and Butterfree as well. I told them via telepathy what had happened since that was faster than talking before I addressed the others as well.

'That guy is not going to leave us alone. He's trying to eat us, so we are going to take it down permanently. He's stronger than all of you individually so we are going to attack it together, I told them and they all nodded.

'The only long-range move he should have is Giga Drain and he should be slower than all of you so the plan is to keep a distance and bombard him until he is down. Don't let him near you and we should win this one as a team.'

After my instruction everyone started moving me included since I didn't want to become a target, and in just a few moments Parasect was surrounded from all sides.

Our main damage dealers were Xatu, Mothra, and Butterfree with Psychic, and Air Slash as well as Psybeam and Air Slash respectively. Nyx did some damage as well with Shadow Ball, while Seb and Gaia only had Poison Sting as long-range moves. So, they could only play the role of distraction.

The same was true for Teddiursa who only had Sweet Scent that could be useful at long range. Even Pidgey decided to contribute by using Gust while flying above my head.

We dutifully kept Parasect in the middle while keeping our distance. Each time he tried to reach one of us the target would run away. Each time he tried to use Giga Drain Xatu would Teleport before his target and use Protect.

So despite being quite a bit stronger than any one of my Pokemon he eventually fell before the combined assault of Xatu, Mothra as well as Butterfree, with a little pinch from the rest.

It would have been a really hard crisis-filled battle if we had tried to take it on individually, but by ganging up on it, I meant with teamwork, we took it down I wouldn't say easily, but without too many hardships.

Once it was down, I checked it from a distance to make sure it was not playing possum and noted that it was just knocked out for now, but heavily injured as well as bleeding.

If left alone, it would die. At least, as long as it did not manage to dry a few Pokemon with Giga Drain. I once more swept a look at all those skeletons and thought about its attitude towards us. How many Pokemon did it have to kill and in what fashion to cause ghost types to form? Not to mention the dreary atmosphere of the place.

"It's still alive, just knocked out for now. While it won't be able to survive if it can't take care of its injuries I want to make sure it does not get the chance to do so." I swept a look at all their faces while I said that.

Xatu who got my message to fastest got a bit closer to it and used Psychic to finish off the knocked-out Parasect. I checked to make sure that it was dead and it was. Once that was out of the way I praised everyone since they did a good job.

We had a well-deserved group hug that lasted a bit. Still, there were a few points that stood out to me that had to be addressed, so after the hug I addressed them.

"All of you did your best and I am proud of every single one of you. Still, I noticed some things that we will have to address in the future." I saw them listening with rapt attention.

"Seb, Gaia, and Teddiursa need to learn some long-range moves to balance out their move set. Also, Xatu it would be great if you could try to teach the others how to use Protect." The ones I addressed nodded since they had probably noticed the fact as well, and Xatu had no problem with teaching them Protect.

I gave them another round of praises to make sure no one felt down and afterward I approached the carcass of Parasect. I knew that the mushroom on its back counted as useful material, so I was planning to harvest it.

It came from a Silver stage Pokemon, so I knew that it was going to be a D-class material. Its body could be used for food, so I was going to store that one too.

I checked the mushroom and it was mostly intact so I took out some tools and separated it from Parasect's body. It took me a while to cleanly separate the two, but I eventually succeeded. Once I did, I observed it before putting it inside my space.

'Name: Giant Mushroom

Type: Plant

Class: D

Uses: Nutrition-rich mushroom that contains some bug- and a lot of grass-type energy. This mushroom variant is much richer in nutrition and energy than other mushrooms. Can be eaten as food. Can also be used as a supplement to help bug and grass type Pokemon.'

As expected, it was a D-class material, but it seemed to be among the top of the class. I was happy that could now get more of them inside my space. Once I put everything away we checked the whole room. It was somewhat between a medium-sized one and a large-sized one.

Still, besides a lot of bones, we did not find anything useful. Our mood was a bit somber seeing so many bones. We had accepted that death was a part of nature but it still dampened our moods to see so many skeletons. We buried them all and left afterward.

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