Pokémon PMD Guildmaster Sim (Reader Participation Quest)

[The Walrein]

You convince Chrysa to exclude the call-out of Rose’s amulets, reminding her that the guild can’t afford to take on any kind of financial risk at the moment, and approve Sargas’ skits idea. He might not be the greatest at dungeoneering, but he knows what he’s doing when it comes to comedy. You hope.

***​

The day of the first seminar arrives, and a decent-sized crowd of Pokemon fill the rows of the theater. After a brief introduction, Chrysa begins the seminar with a thrilling story about a time Team Sensation had to escort a client deep into the second layer of the deadly Grinding Gearworks dungeon. By exercising extreme caution and careful attention to their surroundings, everyone managed to escape unscathed.

Next, Chrysa starts going over the standard dungeon safety rules and how each of them applied to that mission, backing them up with other anecdotes as necessary. The crowd learns about the importance of sticking together, not using unidentified magic items, treating every lek as a potential threat in a way that doesn’t provoke the lek into an unnecessary fight, and more. She speaks so well and with so much energy that everyone almost seems disappointed when she announces there’ll be a short intermission for Explorer Darmanitan to demonstrate some of the consequences of not following the rules.

Roll: 1d10 + 1 (Sargas’s Socialite trait) = 3 (Failure)

Unfortunately, the audience isn’t nearly as amenable to Sargas’ brand of comedy, and the skits are marred by several mishaps. The first issue occurs in a skit supposed to demonstrate proper item storage procedure, where Sal Teddiursa – a Pokemon Sargas recruited from the kitchen staff – carries a blast seed in his paws instead of a bag. When a lek played by Sargas suddenly emerges from off-stage screaming “Booga-Booga!” (this is not something leks actually do), Sal runs away in a panic and stumbles over a rock, dropping the blast seed onto his foot.

In reality, of course, it’s only a smoke bomb. For one full breath, you experience relief that Sargas chose to represent the gory consequences of dropping a blast seed on yourself with nothing more than tasteful cloud of smoke. Then a fake Teddiursa paw rockets out of the smoke with incredible force, and smacks a Primeape in the front row right in the face.

Outraged, the Primeape scrambles onto the stage and gets into a heated argument with Sargas, which quickly devolves into a physical confrontation. Embarrassingly enough, Sargas actually seems to be losing the fight by the time other guild Pokemon step in to break it up, despite being substantially stronger than his much smaller assailant.

Perhaps against your better judgment, you agree to allow the rest of the skits to proceed as normal. Nothing as bad as the Primeape incident occurs in the rest of them, although there’s still an awkward moment where Calla Steenee goes ‘off-script’ in a skit intended to show the dangers of bringing food into a dungeon (as it can easily get contaminated by environmental toxins). Undeterred by Sargas’ increasingly frantic signals, she delivers a long, dramatic monologue about the choices in her past that led up to the moment where she died of explosive diarrhea after eating a tainted peach.

Even the skits without serious malfunctions don’t seem to be particularly well-received by the audience, though. Although many of the younger Pokemon snort with laughter at the severed limbs and over the top slapstick, almost all the adults know at least one or two Pokemon who’ve died in mystery dungeons before, and some find it quite distasteful. A few even leave in disgust partway through.

Given how badly Sargas’ comedy went, it’ll take a real miracle to make the seminar anything other than a complete disaster...

Roll: 1d10 + 1 (Chrysa’s Charisma trait) – 2 (bungled comedy) = 9 (Success)

...but Chrysa Noivern manages to pull it off! She’s at the absolute top of her game tonight, delivering every line and gesture of her speech with exceptional energy and aplomb. Her years of hard-earned experience at surviving dungeons are apparent for all to see, and she makes every one of the safety rules she explains sound so obvious and commonsense that Pokemon are amazed it took hundreds of years to standardize them.

In the end, you feel that almost everyone (who stuck around through all the skits, at least) came away from the seminar with increased respect for the wisdom and expertise of the Starlight Guild, and it’s quickly agreed that the seminars will become a regular occurrence, to be delivered once every season from now on.

Late Spring, 896 CC

You’re finally making some progress on the recruitment front! For the first time in over a year, an eager young Pokemon has applied to the guild and passed the entrance exam with top marks. Of course, given how your luck’s been going, there’s bound to be a catch…

“Guildmaster, I only started to exist five days ago! I’m too young to die in a dungeon!” a curly-haired Pokemon screams.

“I was also born five days ago, but I’m not afraid!” a short-haired Pokemon next to them shouts back.

“I’ve wanted to join an exploration team my whole life! Your selfish desire can’t stop me from following my dream!” a long-haired Pokemon proclaims.

All three of them are technically the same Pokemon – a Dugtrim, a steel and ground type species very similar to Dugtrio. The difference, other than the typing, is that each of the three heads of a Dugtrim has a unique pattern of metallic hair, and tend to be much more individualistic than Dugtrio heads are. This comes with some advantages and, as you’re learning today, some distinct disadvantages.

The curly-haired head snarls and glares at you like you’re the source of his problems somehow. “If you let these two maniacs drag me into a dungeon against my will, I swear I’ll sue! I don’t know if it’d be considered kidnapping or coercion or what, but I’ll sue your guild for everything it’s worth!”

“No, if you forced the two of us to stay out of the guild to satisfy the one of you, that’d be the real coercion! I’d sue ourselves for everything we own if that happens!” the long-haired head threatens.

Legally speaking, the older head is correct – if at least two-thirds of the heads of a multi-headed Pokemon agree, they’re considered to have the right to make decisions about the whole of the body, even against the wishes of the other heads. Even so, you don’t know if it’d be wise to admit such a conflicted Pokemon to the guild – being an explorer requires complete dedication to the job, and any sort of internal dissent could quickly prove fatal on a dangerous mission.

On the other paw, it was very impressive that the Dugtrim did as well as they did on the entrance exam even with one of the heads trying to sabotage them all the way. You feel that the long-haired head, at least, has the potential to become a great explorer, and he seems really determined to do so.

Hmm. Maybe you could provisionally accept them into the guild for a year, and only allow them to stay beyond that point if the three heads have reached unanimity by that time? The curly-haired head might come around once they’ve had some training and are more familiar with what being an explorer entails. Of course, it’s entirely possible that they might not, and you’d have wasted a bunch of resources training and feeding a Pokemon for nothing.

“Please, guildmaster! That dumb Metagross Guild already rejected us! This is our only chance!” the short-haired head pleads. Bracing yourself for the inevitable disapproval from at least one head, you announce your decision…

: Accept the Dugtrim into the guild.
: Provisionally accept the Dugtrim into the guild for a year, only allowing them to stay longer if all three heads agree by that point.
: Don’t admit the Dugtrim.

 

[The Walrein]

You provisionally accept the Dugtrim for a year. Time will tell if that was a good decision or not…

Early Summer, 896 CC

To your mild surprise, the curly-haired head changes his attitude after the first month of training. Apparently what he was really most afraid of was dying without having had a chance to travel and see the world, but since travel involves a substantial risk of getting called into dungeons when passing through less populated areas, becoming an expert at dungeoneering is the only way he sees forward.

Although the three heads continue to have occasional heated disagreements, they’ve managed to agree on a new name for themselves: Lerimi, a combination of ‘left’, ‘right’, and ‘middle’. Team Long Shot has happily welcomed Lerimi as the fourth member of their team – they might not fit the ‘elongated body’ theme, but the other three Pokemon can easily fit into the tunnels Lerimi digs, making them a solid addition.

Your impression of the Dugtrim’s high potential appears to have been correct – now that all the heads are working together and they’ve had a month of training, you’d say they’re almost at the level of an apprentice who’s been with the guild for a year! Of course, it remains to be seen if Lerimi will start having second thoughts once they finish training and start experiencing the true dangers of dungeon exploration…

Mid-Summer, 896 CC

A new group of outlaws has arisen in the north. Their leader, Myratius Flygon, wears gaudy golden jewelry and proclaims himself to be the reincarnation of Rayquaza (you weren’t aware they had ever died!) and accordingly names his group the Warriors Of Rayquaza. The gang is comprised almost entirely of flying Pokemon, and carries out aerial raids on ships crossing the Shimmering Sea north of Windhaven.

This wouldn’t have been a viable strategy before the Age of Dungeons, as airborne groups lack the carrying capacity to make away with significant amounts of cargo. However, these days almost half of all sailors carry some sort of magical item to enhance their strength or stamina, and it is these items which the Warriors prioritize, having great value for their weight.

The gang has been very successful so far, taking all their victims completely by surprise – captains report a flock of thirty to forty fliers descending upon their vessel, many of them boosted, without having seen even a single scout in the skies beforehand. As the gang consists of former soldiers from the collapsed island city of Kandar, they have a military level of skill and coordination, and are more than a match for the civilian crews of the small to mid-sized ships they target.

Given that the gang has more members than your entire guild, non-explorers included, there’s nothing you can really do about them. You trust that the Windhaven navy will take care of them sooner or later.

Late Summer, 896 CC

Deputy Noivern and Tristram Slurpuff, the leader of Team Sensation, enter your office late in the day with a greedy look in their eyes. For the past two days, Team Sensation has been on a mission to track down an outlaw who vanished into the hills southeast of the city, a mission which they returned from today, unsuccessful but in an oddly cheerful mood.

Although technically no longer a part of Team Sensation, Chrysa Noivern still joins in on a lot of their missions – with Jan Noctowl carrying Tristram, and her carrying Yves Indeedee, the group is air-capable, meaning they can respond to rescue requests quickly without needing to hire other Pokemon.

“Guildmaster, it is my most considered opinion that we’ve discovered a means of alleviating the recent financial difficulties experienced by the guild,” Tristram announces. “It is a venture not without risk, but I recall a certain speech to the theme that we must all adopt a daring spirit to get these tough times.”

“We tracked Blast Wand Benny to the entrance of a new dungeon in the Selden Valley,” Chrysa explains. The Selden Valley is an arid, desolate region that was lightly inhabited even before the Age of Dungeons began. Now it’s completely deserted, a prime example of the lands known as ‘dungeon wastes’. “We’re almost certain he died in there, but don’t have evidence good enough to claim a bounty on.”

“But the contents of the dungeon was the true bounty! Warehouses full of spices of every variety – Saffron, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, tumeric, cardamom, lavender! Hundreds of thousands of thalers worth of them!” Little drops of drool are forming on Tristram’s tongue.

“It’s an outdoor dungeon, actually – seems to have a sort of spice plantation theme. Rows and rows of crops and a tropical atmosphere. But there are poorly guarded warehouses stacked with harvested spices mixed in there,” Chrysa says. “The main danger are these giant machines which drive around, grinding up any leks or crops in their path. Not a problem if you can just fly over them, and they don’t go into the warehouses.”

“The warehouses do have traps of course – heavy crates toppling off high shelves, sacks of poison dust mixed in with the spices – but nothing that can’t be dealt with. Especially not if you have my nose for toxins.”

You ask what the ‘risk’ he mentioned earlier was, then.

“Ah, well… it so happens that the dungeon – we’re calling it Plentiful Plantation – is located so far south that it falls into that region of the Selden Valley claimed by Riverfort.”

Riverfort is a large agricultural city to the south of Windhaven, serving as its primary trade partner on the continent of Sommer. It’s dominated by two great families – the psychic Solar House, and the dark-type Lunar House, which switch control of the throne every twenty-five years or so. Currently the Solar House’s King Wobuffet is ruling, although the Lunar House occupies about two-thirds of the positions in the Cabinet of Ministers, an advisory body to the monarch with substantial autonomous power.

Explorers are only allowed to tap “economically valuable” dungeons – which you’re sure ‘Plentiful Plantation’ would get classified as – in Riverfort’s territory after purchasing a very expensive royal license. In theory, the money from it goes towards the good of the kingdom’s citizens, but in practice it just goes towards lining the purses of whichever House has currently wrested control of the license granting process.

“We were hoping that with all of your merchant connections, you might know a carter with a poor sense of direction. Someone who could help us carry out all the spices we’re going to loot from the place without realizing exactly how far south the dungeon is,” Chrysa says.

“And then of course, we were hoping your merchant friends could take care of the details of selling all that spice as well,” Tristram adds. “No need to mention it came from us – we’re very modest Pokemon, you see, and really it’s poor Blast Wand Benny who deserves all the credit for discovering the dungeon.”

Ah. You see what this is, now. Given your checkered past, you have more experience with selling goods discretely than your average guildmaster, and you do still have a few contacts in that line of work. Then there’s the fact that most merchants bear very little love for the Riverfort government, irked by the constant small bribes they have to pay to members of the Solar and Lunar Houses to get any business done there. Many of them wouldn’t think twice about helping you get one over on old King Wobuffet.

Although you’re almost certain that you could move and sell the spices without detection, it’s still a serious risk. Few Pokemon venture into the Selden Valley for any reason, but sooner or later, someone else will discover Plentiful Plantation and report it to Riverfort authorities, who might put two and two together if there’s been a notable increase in the supply of spices lately.

...but would they really suspect that the spice smuggler was someone in Windhaven, though? Most likely, King Wobuffet would assume it’d have been someone in the Lunar House, his traditional rivals, who’d been tapping the dungeon illegally. And if that led to any increased conflict between the two houses, well, that’d hardly be noticeable against the entire past centuries of conflict between them.

The more you think about it, the more appealing the idea seems, given your still ongoing financial troubles… Really, the only question is what percentage of the profits you’re going to extract, right? Guilds usually take about 10% of the value of goods exploration teams sell to them as a sort of “middlemon’s fee”, but in this case, you think that the added risk that you’re taking on, in addition to your invaluable smuggling expertise, should entail you getting a much larger cut of the pie. Maybe as much as thirty or even fifty percent would be appropriate!

: Report the discovery of Plentiful Plantation to the Riverfort government.
: Tell Team Sensation that you won’t report the dungeon to Riverfort, but you won’t help them smuggle spice out of it, either. They’ll have to arrange the details of that themselves if they want to, and if they get caught, you never had this conversation with them.
⬜: Help Team Sensation smuggle spice out of the dungeon.

: Keep only a standard 10% “middlemon’s fee” of the value for the guild. (Estimated +0.2 points of wealth per month until the dungeon is discovered)​

: Tell Team Sensation that you’ll want to take 30% of the value for the guild. (Estimated +0.6 points of wealth per month until the dungeon is discovered)​

: Tell Team Sensation that you’ll only help for a full 50% take! (Estimated +1 point of wealth per month until the dungeon is discovered)​

Note: Votes for the last three options will be combined together before being compared to the first two options. E.g. if there’s three votes for option 1, two for option 3, and 1 each for options 4 and 5, then that would be treated as four votes for the smuggling option, which would win out over the three votes for option 1. Then the decision would be between the three options for determining the percent of the cut, which the 10% option would win in this case.

 

[Negrek]

hell yes let's commit some crimes

 

[The Walrein]

Tristram and Chrysa quickly agree to your request for 30% of the spice smuggling profits, making you wonder if you could’ve asked for more. Oh well, best not to get too greedy, you suppose. Shortly thereafter, you make a low-key announcement that Team Sensation – as well as Deputy Noivern – will be going on a semi-vacation with reduced duties to cover for all the time they’ll be spending tapping the Plentiful Plantation dungeon.

Early Autumn, 896 CC

Roll: 1d10 + 2 (Theseus’ Sly trait) + 2 (sympathetic merchants) = 8 (Success)

So far, so good! The first month of your newfound career in the spice trade has gone off without a hitch. Profits are coming in at about the level you estimated, and nobody seems to suspect a thing. Your old contacts have proved as trusty as ever, and when the money’s flowing, even the merchants outside your network don’t care to ask too many questions.

It also helps that the local trade guild has their attention fully occupied by the Warriors of Rayquaza, who continue to be an issue in the north. The navy has been searching the Shimmering Sea for the location of their base, but given the Shimmer’s abundance of tiny islands crammed with concealing jungles and winding cave systems, it’s an arduous and almost hopeless task.

The attacks have been getting bad enough that some crews have been forgoing bringing any magical items on their trips at all, even though this slows them down and increases the risk one or more of the sailors will get called into a mystery dungeon mid-trip. But even that desperate tactic might not be enough to save them, as you heard a rumor that the Warriors raided such a crew once and then sunk their ship out of spite after they saw they had nothing worth stealing.

In more positive news, explorer Trent Skiploom of Team Bloom has evolved into Jumpluff! His team throws a small party to celebrate, and you make sure to drop by to congratulate him.

Mid-Autumn, 896 CC

One day after you finish a late meal in the dining hall, Chef Meganium makes a casual comment about how great a deal she got on cardamom recently, and you barely manage to suppress a nervous twitch. Team Sensation has been tapping the dungeon for two full months now with no sign of slowing down, and the amount of spice you’ve been moving has started to have a visible effect on the market, with prices of all different kinds of spices starting to fall.

Merchants and buyers are starting to ask a few questions about what’s causing the recent rise in supply, and guild Pokemon have been commenting on the length of Team Sensation’s little ‘semi-vacation’. You consider that it might be wise to start cutting back on the spice harvest, or even cease it entirely, especially considering that you’ll make a little less money now due to the decreasing prices.

Then again, none of the questions have been particularly pointed or come anywhere close to the truth, and nobody outside the guild seems to have noticed Team Sensation’s reduced activity – one of the virtues of relative obscurity. And although the money you’ve made so far has delayed bankruptcy for another year, you still don’t have a lot of reserves for emergencies. With your skill at concealing the links in the chain between supplier and end consumer, you could probably get away with tapping Plentiful Plantation for one or two more months…

: Ask Team Sensation to stop tapping the dungeon entirely.
: Tell Team Sensation to halve the rate at which they tap Plentiful Plantation. (Estimated +0.25 points of wealth per month until the dungeon is discovered)
: The spice must flow! Keep tapping Plentiful Plantation at full capacity. (Estimated +0.5 points of wealth per month until the dungeon is discovered)

 

[The Walrein]

Spoiler: Votes from SpaceBattles

1 for Tell Team Sensation to halve the rate at which they tap Plentiful Plantation.

You ask Team Sensation to ease up on tapping the dungeon. Tristram Slurpuff and Chrysa seem relieved – you expect they were getting bored with running the same dungeon again and again – but Jan Noctowl and Yves Indeedee are a bit disappointed.

Late Autumn, 896 CC

Roll: 1d10 + 2 (Theseus’ Sly trait) + 2 (sympathetic merchants) + 1 (reduced tapping rate) – 2 (suspiciously high spice supply) = 5 (Partial Failure)

It turns out you aren’t the only one who’s getting nervous about the questions Pokemon are asking. All the merchants and carters in your clandestine chain of deals have gotten spooked, and are demanding larger cuts of the pie in exchange for the increased risk. You have no choice but to comply, although with the halved tapping rate and the decreased spice prices you wind up making essentially nothing this month.

In other news, Team Nap Attack surprises you by announcing that they still intend to go on the Jirachi quest, which you assumed they’d completely forgotten about! However, their schedule, heavy on training “sleep-fighting” techniques but light on actual dungeoneering, has left them with little funds to procure the abundance of snacks they plan to bring along, forcing them to delay the expedition for another year.

Early Winter, 896 CC

The inevitable has finally happened: A group of prospectors looking for precious minerals in the Selden Valley stumbled upon Plentiful Plantation, and now the dungeon’s officially on Riverfort’s books. Although Team Sensation’s decreased tapping rate over the past month meant that the spice prices have gone up again slightly, you still fear that the Riverfort authorities might put two and two together...

Roll: 1d10 – 1 (decreased spice prices) + 2 (inter-house rivalry) = 7 (Partial Success)

King Wobuffet does indeed notice something’s suspicious about a dungeon full of spices turning up right after there’s been a noticeable increase in the spice supply, and orders a full royal investigation! Luckily, the investigation is almost entirely directed at merchants associated with the rival Lunar House, and ends up producing nothing but frustration and bad feelings. You breathe a sigh of relief, having gotten away from this caper richer and scandal-free.

Team Sensation has also come away quite well from the venture. You can tell they’re trying to avoid flaunting their newfound wealth, although Yves’ new Kommo-o scale armor is hard to ignore.

***​

Nell Lilligant, veteran leader of Team Bloom, asks to have a private meeting with you at your earliest convenience. You oblige, and she arrives at your office the next morning. She has an annoying habit of showing up early to meetings, and although she insists she doesn’t mind waiting if you’re not ready by the time she shows up, you always feel rushed when Nell’s waiting on you to begin. Luckily, you’ve learned to schedule meetings with her a half-bell later than when you actually want to have them.

“Trent Jumpluff is struggling,” Nell says after the initial exchange of pleasantries. “He’s always had difficulties with dungeoneering, but he hoped those would end after he evolved. Sadly, that hasn’t been the case, and it’s left him very demoralized. I think he’s giving serious thought to quitting the team and getting a job as a crop duster, like the rest of his family.”

That isn’t good. Trent is close friends with Grover Cacnea, who you expect would also leave Team Bloom if he did. That would leave Nell, who’s old and looking to retire within a few years, and Calla Steenee, whom you’re starting to suspect joined the guild solely as a means to get “authentic experience” for the purpose of landing acting roles. Although you don’t think there’s any danger of that happening anytime soon given her shaky theatrical ability, she’d probably quit the guild as well if Grover and Trent did. In short, if Trent leaves, there’s a solid chance Team Bloom will entirely fall apart!

“The problem is that Trent’s issues are mostly psychological, which evolution didn’t help with. He has a tendency to over-react to his mistakes – if he’s too cautious one time, he’ll be too aggressive the next, and vice-versa. Additionally, after an incident where he accidentally paralyzed a client with stun spore, he’s terrified of using any of his spore or powder moves on escort missions.”

You ask Nell what she thinks would be helpful. She sighs. “I’m not entirely sure what to do at this point. Trent thinks it might help if some members of Team Skyguard worked with him personally on his aerobatics, to take full advantage of his Jumpluff agility. I don’t think that would address the real root of his problems, although I suppose there’s a small chance some of Team Skyguard’s notable talent could rub off on him.”

Hmm. You have no doubt Team Skyguard would agree to train Trent if you asked, but you don’t want to spend their time and favor frivolously – they’re your most elite team, bringing in as much revenue as Team Sensation and Team Hodgepodge combined. (Or at least, they do when Sensation isn’t engaged in any lucrative spice smuggling.)

“My own suggestion would be for Trent to re-train to a more support-oriented role, as opposed to being a forward scout, which I don’t think suits his temperament very well. If he learned aromatherapy, helping hand, and grassy terrain, I think he could be a great help to the team,” Nell continues.

Huh, you didn’t know Jumpluff were capable of learning those moves.

Nell’s petals droop slightly. “That’s the catch: Those are typically inheritance moves for a Jumpluff, and Trent’s parents know none of them. It’s possible for an expert move tutor to teach them regardless, but it requires careful instruction over a period of several months, and the benefit of a few consumable items. Expensive items, in addition to the considerable fees charged by move tutors of the necessary expertise. Even if our team pooled together our funds, we’d still need some help from the guild.”

She presents you with a tablet bearing an estimated summation of costs involved, and it takes all your guildmasterly fortitude to avoid visibly wincing when you see the numbers. After pondering the tablet for a few moments, you ask Nell what binding magic item Trent usually brings to dungeons. “He uses a minor detect band, since he’s nervous about getting hit.”

You nod sagely, paw on chin, then suggest the possibility of loaning Trent your old power band. Although it would be almost useless for a Jumpluff, you could make up a story about it having potent-yet-vague special abilities that helped you find success as a dungeoneer. The perfect thing to boost his confidence, and if he ever discovers it’s just a normal (albeit somewhat weak) power band, you can reveal that the true power was inside him all along! That’s the sort of thing that always works in sappy plays and ballads, right?

Nell looks at you for a moment, then gently reminds you that you aren’t living in a play or ballad. You respond that that’s correct, but note that your plan has the virtue of costing the guild essentially nothing. However, if Nell doesn’t think it’s a good idea, you have another one: convince Trent Jumpluff to move to Team Nap Attack! Nell looks at you even longer with a concerned expression, then asks what your reasoning is.

It’s simple, you reply. Trent only looks bad compared to the other apprentice members of Team Bloom. Grover Cacnea is a tough and reliable (although somewhat uncreative) dungeoneer, and Calla Steenee, for all that she’d rather be acting, is genuinely quite talented. However, next to the pair of complete slackers on Team Nap Attack, Trent would look like a star explorer, which would be certain to remove all his self-doubt. Who knows, maybe he’d even inspire Nap Attack with his example and get them to stop lazing around so much! But if the influence flows the other way and Trent becomes a demotivated lay-about, that also works, because it would mean Trent would stay at the guild, and that would mean Grover and Calla would stay at the guild!

After a moment of silence, Nell allows that it’s at least a creative approach, and asks how you’d even go about convincing Trent to join Nap Attack. You reply that you could sell it to him as Nap Attack being able to offer him some special training, maybe in that “sleep-fighting” style of theirs, and point out that even Pokemon on different teams within the same guild still have a lot of chances to spend time together, so he’d still get to see his friends on Team Bloom. As for getting Nap Attack to take him, you have a lot of leverage to ask them for favors, given how forgiving you’ve been with their slacking so far.

Nell sighs and says that she hopes you’ll consider the matter very carefully before making a decision on what to do. You promise that you will, and she leaves your office after discussing a few other matters. Later that day, you make your choice…

: Ask Team Skyguard to give Trent personal training.
: Pay for Trent to learn the moves needed to switch to a support role. (Estimated cost of 0.5 points of wealth)
: Loan Trent your old Power Band, and tell him it has vague special abilities.
: Convince Trent to move to Team Nap Attack.
⬜: Something else? (Write-in).

 

[The Walrein]

The more you think about it, the more you like your Nap Attack idea, with its potential to solve two problems at once for free. You locate Rin and Chester and ask if they’d be open to accepting Trent as a new member. Both of them are enthusiastic about the notion, believing that he’ll help them accumulate funds for their upcoming ‘Jirachi Quest’ faster. Great, that’s one part of the plan down! Next, you just have to convince Trent to switch teams…

“Umm… you think I should switch teams to Nap Attack?” Trent asks, bobbing up and down in mid-air uncertainly, bewildered by the notion. You nod and explain that you’ve heard he’s been having some troubles lately, and think that getting some experience with another team could be helpful. There’s a lot Team Nap Attack could teach him, such as their famed sleep-fighting techniques.

“Guildmaster, is - is ‘sleep-fighting’ really real? With all due respect, I thought that was just something Rin and Chester made up to pretend like they were training every time they take a mid-day nap.”

You confidently state that you’ve never seen Team Nap Attack lose a fight while asleep. Granted, you’ve never seen them win a fight while asleep either, but you don’t mention that. Instead, you ask Trent to keep an open mind about Nap Attack’s strange but unique methods.

“I… okay… if you really think that would be for the best, I can join them...” Trent says at last. “It’s pretty late, so I guess I’ll tell them tomorrow...” Great! It seems like your plan is going perfect-

Roll: 1d10 = 1 (Critical Failure!)

The next day, almost immediately after you step out of your bedroom, Chrysa Noivern is at your door with some urgent news. Apparently after your conversation yesterday, Trent was unable to sleep last night – very unusual for a grass-type, who usually become quite drowsy after the sun goes down. He apparently started spontaneously crying, waking up Grover Cacnea, who asked what was wrong. Trent confided to him that due to how badly he’d been screwing up lately, the guildmaster now thought so poorly of him that he wanted to move him to Nap Attack, the “team of failures and slackers”, so that he wouldn’t be able to sabotage one of the “good teams” anymore.

Unfortunately, Rin Jigglypuff happened to be awake at that moment, having a very irregular sleeping schedule due to frequent training naps, and also was in earshot of Trent’s conversation, having been passing by on a ‘snack run’. He understandably got quite offended at Trent’s characterization of him as a ‘failure’, and burst into Trent and Grover’s room and started an argument. This soon led to Rin challenging Trent to a fight for Nap Attack’s honor.

Trent accepted, and quickly lost, being unable to resist Rin’s sleep-inducing song so late at night. Embarrassed at the loss, and now believing he’d let down Team Bloom and was obviously unwelcome in Nap Attack as well, Trent declared he was quitting the guild and fled in the middle of the night.

When Chrysa finishes recounting the tale (which she pieced together from Rin and Grover’s explanations), you call in Team Bloom and ask them to come with you to find Trent and see if you can’t clear up his misconceptions and get him to reconsider. Nell has some harsh words about your ‘move Trent to Team Nap Attack’ plan, but eventually you track Trent down with a little help from Team Sensation.

Unfortunately, you’re unable to change Trent’s mind, and instead seem to only harden his resolve. Perhaps you should’ve given him more time on his own rather than immediately pressuring him, you think. Team Bloom’s now down a member, and it remains to be seen if the rest of the team will soon follow…

Roll: 1d10 – 2 (close friendship) – 2 (bungled plan) = 3 (Failure)

As you predicted before, Grover Cacnea quits the guild soon afterwards, with his closest friend gone and being somewhat upset at how you handled the situation with Trent. It’s a real shame – he was a good explorer and an upstanding Pokemon, and seemed fairly close to evolving, too.

Roll: 1d10 – 2 (tenuous motivation) = 1 (Critical Failure!)

With half the team now gone, Calla Steenee follows suit – she wasn’t great friends with either Trent or Grover, but they were still the two Pokemon she interacted with the most at the guild. However, a week later, she changes her mind about quitting the exploring life, apparently after her auditions to join several local theater troupes failed. Unfortunately, this time she decides to apply to the more prestigious Metagross Guild, and is easily able to get in with the benefit of her prior experience. Oof. You can only hope she doesn’t gossip too much about your guild’s recent difficulties where Guildmaster Metagross can hear…

Shortly thereafter, Nell Lilligant decides to retire. She’d been planning to do so for several years, intending to wait until Grover evolved so she could ‘pass the baton’ to him. But with Grover – and the rest of Team Bloom – gone, there’s nothing keeping her attached to the guild. You thank her for her years of service, and host a what turns out to be rather-depressing retirement party.

Mid-Winter, 896 CC

There’s one silver lining to the recent fiasco – Rin and Chester, apparently having been stung deeper than it first seemed by Trent’s impression of them as slackers, have been working harder lately, picking up some of the apprentice-level missions Team Bloom used to handle. They still don’t take on nearly as many missions as you might expect from a team that’s been around as long as Nap Attack, though...

***​

A new play has become popular in Windhaven recently, called Life ‘gainst Love, Or: The Magby’s Choice. It’s a sappy romance about a Magby who falls in love with a Quilladin who lives in an idyllic pastoral hamlet of the sort that doesn’t really exist anymore. (Most Pokemon with the means live in an urban community, and commute to their farms to work on them – living in a place with low population density means you’re much more at risk of getting called into a dungeon. Small farming villages still exist, but they tend to be rather gloomy places, mostly inhabited by Pokemon too poor to live in a city (and a few who prefer the risk of dungeons to urban life), constantly on alert for the possibility of one of their members receiving a sudden urgent call and disappearing into the wilderness without a trace.)

The chief dilemma is that if the Magby evolves, she won’t be able to live in the Quilladin’s village (which he can’t or doesn’t want to leave for poorly-established reasons), Magmar being unable to avoid igniting grassy village fields merely by walking through them. However, if she doesn’t evolve, the Magby will die at a much younger age than she otherwise would’ve.

Somehow, the playwright needs the entire first act to set up this simple premise, and then the second act drags on with a tedious plot about the Quilladin pretending to love a different Pokemon than the Magby in an attempt to get her to evolve and not die young. After a long series of misunderstandings, contrivances, comedic mishaps, and angsty monologues, the action finally picks up in act five, where the Magby hears about a powerful magic item, the Viridian Globe, which makes all plants and grass-type Pokemon in a broad radius immune to fire. However, the Globe was recently stolen by a notorious bandit, Strix Decidueye, Thief-Queen of the Desert.

The Magby evolves, believing that she’ll be able to stay in her lover’s village if she can acquire the Viridian Globe. She locates Strix’s hideout and confronts her, leading to a conversation where the two explain their backstories to each other. Strix’s backstory is an improbable mirror of the Quilladin’s, having also lived in a quaint farming village she couldn’t leave for whatever reason, and fallen in love with a Magby. However, Strix’s Magby chose to die young rather than evolve, leading Strix to sour on the entire concept of love, which somehow eventually led to her life as a bandit.

The Magmar protagonist disagrees that love is terrible, and the two fight, with the Magmar quickly getting the upper-hand due to “the fire of her conviction”, as if this somehow makes a recently-evolved city-slicker a match for a Pokemon who’s spent her entire adult life fighting (type advantage or not), and who would realistically have much better equipment too if she’s really been such a successful bandit. However, the Magmar tackles the Decidueye mid-fight and realizes that her flaming body’s hurting her, whereupon Strix reveals that the Viridian Globe she stole was actually a fake and doesn’t work.

Despite now realizing she can use type-effective moves against the bandit, the Magmar is so shocked by the revelation that she evolved for nothing and can’t live with her Quilladin lover that the tide of the battle instantly turns, and Strix mortally injures her.

As she lays dying, the Magmar expresses a hope that she might be able to live with the Quilladin in her next life. However, Strix sneers and says that she’ll never get to reincarnate, and takes out an Itemizer Orb (an extremely rare and powerful single-use magic item that can permanently transform any creature into a random other magic item). For apparently no reason other than pure spite, she decides to use this incredibly expensive item on an already-defeated foe, which, by sheer incredible coincidence, causes the Magmar to transform into a real Viridian Globe.

Moments later, the Quilladin arrives on the scene in pursuit of his lover. Strix tells him that the Magmar cowardly retreated after a brief fight, having been convinced that she didn’t love the Quilladin enough to risk her life for him, and vowed to give up on love forever like she has. Disbelieving this, the Quilladin kills her and finds the Viridian Globe among her possessions. Unknowing that the globe is actually the Magmar, he sets out in search of his lover, believing that he now has the key that will allow them to live together. A narrator announces that he spends the rest of his life searching for her fruitlessly. The end.

You thought that the plot was pretty clichéd, but the play did have one innovative gimmick: Almost all scenes had only two characters in them, who always stayed on either the left or right side of the stage. Two teams of psychics worked together at each performance, telepathically broadcasting what the character on the left or right was supposed to be thinking to the corresponding half of the audience, so that you’d have to watch the play twice to hear everything.

Apparently the gimmick worked, and a lot of Pokemon did see the play twice, and the ending where the Quilladin tragically wanders the world in search of the lover who’s with him the whole time in item form brought most audiences to tears. You’re certain that this will spawn a whole host of imitations which will probably have plots with even more ridiculously contrived tragedies, which will also be incomplete experiences unless you pay to see them twice, and despair for the future of Windhaven theater.

Late Winter, 896 CC

Wynna Flygon drops by your office one day with a bit of trivia: Apparently Quinn Orbeetle, the playwright of Life ‘gainst Love, got part of his inspiration after hearing about an Amaura who was traveling across the Shimmering Sea to Windhaven after falling in love with a Pokemon there, only for the Warriors of Rayquaza to raid her ship and steal the weather band she’d been planning on using to tolerate the warm Windhaven climate. You mumble something about that being interesting, more focused on scrutinizing the details of a proposed contract with a greengrocer for bulk food purchases.

Wynna then mentions that she did a little research, and discovered that a Frosmoth started flying with the Warriors of Rayquaza not long after the weather band was stolen, and surmises that they were probably the recipient of the item, being almost as averse to warm temperatures as Amaura are. You ask Wynna where she’s going with this.

“It’s the perfect opportunity for a publicity stunt. If we were able to steal the weather band back from the Warriors of Rayquaza and return it to the Amaura, we could prove that, unlike sappy plays, real-life can have happy endings! Given how popular Life ‘gainst Love’s been, I’m sure everyone would eat it right up!”

Whoa, hold on, she wants to go fight the Warriors of Rayquaza now? The notorious outlaw gang that has at least two times, perhaps even three times the number of fighters as your entire guild? The gang that the entire Windhaven navy has thus far been unable to deal with?

Wynna grins, exposing her sharp draconic teeth. “That’s just the thing – we don’t have to defeat the entire gang, just a single Frosmoth. Here’s my plan – Team Skyguard will get berths on a small merchant ship of the sort the Warriors like to raid, and wait until they attack either us or another ship within our patrol range. It might take a while, but we could help out the crew with any mystery dungeon calls in the meantime. And to be honest, we could use a bit of a vacation.

When the Warriors appear, our entire team will focus on taking out just that one Frosmoth in the chaos of battle, and stealing their weather band. Once we have it, I’ll use uproar, which can be heard from very far away, to signal a water-type we hire to trail a mile or two behind the ship. They’ll activate a rollcall orb our team is attuned to, immediately warping us away from the battle, which should give us enough of a head start to evade the Warriors’ pursuit. After that, we’ll make our way back to Windhaven.”

You point out that this plan seems a lot more dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming than simply buying a new weather band to give to the Amaura.

“Sure, but who would care if we did that? She’s probably already bought another weather band! What’s important is that we prove we can stick it to the Warriors, just like the Quilladin who’s name I can’t remember was able to defeat the bandit queen who’s name I can’t remember in the play! Just think about it – everyone would be talking about how the Starlight Guild was able to do what both the navy and the Metagross Guild couldn’t!”

Absently tapping a claw against your desk, you take a moment to think, then ask if Team Skyguard would be using their own considerable fortune to hire and provision the water-type rollcall orb carrier.

Wynna scratches her neck with her own claw. “Well… I was kind of hoping that, since the reputation benefit of pulling this off would be good for the entire guild, the guild might help cover some of the costs.” She proceeds to reach into her satchel and extract a tablet. “Actually, there’s a number of other magic items besides the rollcall orb I was thinking could be useful for the plan...” You wince on pure reflex before even seeing the figures on the tablet, then make another, even larger wince once you do see them.

“Um, if you’re worried about costs, I’ve listed the items in order of priority. Just the top half of this list would be enough to cover most of our bases, although some of the ideas I’ve been tossing around with Flinn really rely on having all the items and would need to be reworked otherwise, and also, you know, a little mouse told me the guild just acquired a lot of money to spend recently...”

Wha- someone on Team Sensation must’ve blabbed about the spice smuggling operation! Annoyed, you immediately fire back that that little mouse, having gotten seventy percent of that money, is in a much better position to fund things than the guild, which is still having budget problems, not helped by the recent departure of Team Bloom.

“They said that they sorta already spent all the money? On various exploring equipment, mostly, but I think Tristram also made a big donation to a charity for dungeon orphans. As for Team Skyguard’s own fortune, we’re kind of saving it up for a secret project, and would prefer not to dip into it for this one.”

A secret project?

“Ah, probably shouldn’t have mentioned that...” Wynna mutters. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out about that eventually. Maybe. But back to our plan – I figure that we’ll probably wind up fighting a few other Pokemon than just the Frosmoth, realistically. Anything we take off them, we’ll give right back to the guild to recoup some of your costs. If you fund us, of course.”

Hmmm… This is certainly a risky venture, in more ways then one. Team Skyguard could end up wasting months floating out in the middle of the Shimmering Sea, accomplishing nothing. Or if they do end up fighting the Warriors of Rayquaza, worst-case scenario is that they die in the battle. However, Team Skyguard does typically know what they’re doing, and Wynna’s right that the plan could provide a huge boost to the guild’s reputation if it works…

: Attempt to discourage Wynna from pursuing the plan.
: Don’t discourage Wynna, but refuse to provide guild funds for the plan.
: Agree to pay for half the items on Wynna’s list. (Cost of 0.5 points of wealth.)
: Agree to pay for all the items on Wynna’s list. (Cost of 1 point of wealth.)

Voting will be open until 10 PM GMT time on Sunday 8/21.

 

[The Walrein]

I've got an announcement to make: I've decided to reboot this quest on the Sufficient Velocity forums, here. Thanks to everyone who read or participated in this version of the quest - in particular, thanks to AbraPunk and ShiniGojira for being such consistent voters, from the beginning to the end. You have my apology for not being able to carry this version through - this wasn't a decision I made lightly, but in the end I felt like the quest would be best served by the larger reader-base that comes from moving to a larger forum than Thousand Roads. I still have a lot planned for this game, and welcome anyone here who wants to continue playing over on Sufficient Velocity.

 

[Negrek]

Sorry to see this one go, but thanks for sharing the beginning with us! Best of luck with the rest of the quest.