Rocket-propelled Pokemon Tabletop

Lucian drums his fingers against the porthole thoughtfully, before realizing there's probably enough grime on it to be a Muk.

"Don't tell me there's no competition from other syndicates. Law enforcement sounds tough, but not unified, and no matter how moronic their goals may seem, new criminal organizations sprout like tall grass in even moderately civilized regions."

He very carefully fails to flip anyone off as he pushes up his glasses, and absently scans Mawile into his Dex.

Nariman desultorily follows suit; while the data loads, he slowly asks "What do you know about rare pokemon in Aroa? Does it have a lot of natives you don't see elsewhere, or should we just keep our eyes peeled for Chanseys and Dunsparces?"

"And if we find some lubrative operations, how are we to inform you of this?" Sergio asks, stroking his mushtache, then adds "do you leave region frequently?"

"It's none of your goddamn business where I go. And it's lucrative. Lu-cra-tive. Fucking foreigners... You get my number once I know you're not going to call me every five fucking minutes asking for a lift to the next town. We're expecting some initiative from you lot; these internships aren't your typical grunt work. If you can't hold down a situation between yourselves, be a bit more resourceful. Blackmail and bribery can get you more help than you need, a lot of the time.

"Don't tell me there's no competition from other syndicates. Law enforcement sounds tough, but not unified, and no matter how moronic their goals may seem, new criminal organizations sprout like tall grass in even moderately civilized regions."

Gerald just kind of stares absently at the map, then without much conviction runs his finger up the mountain range which bisects the bulk of Ship Island. He passes the coastal settlement of Rosten, then follows the road from there further up the coast. A finger taps at a hill where the road stops.

"The Stone Mines, under Mount Malacor. That's the most obvious place we'd find competition. We don't hear about political... upheaval, per se, but Aroa isn't exactly famed for its elemental stone exports. (A collective WIS check seems to support this assumption.) Someone's controlling the supply, and it isn't that bushman lunatic of a Leader Diego."

"Other than the Ridge Road, you'll hear about the odd outlaw or pack of brigands patrolling the common routes between towns. Down on Shark, there's been infighting for a few years now about some shit I never bothered to care about. Whether that's been stoked by saboteurs or mass stupidity and egos I have no clue."

"Meridion also features larceny and scam artists, but in a city of artists and other cultural shit like that it almost seems a given. Agent Marsden hasn't told me about anything worth seeing in the place, which is probably why he stays on this side of the bridge."

"What do you know about rare pokemon in Aroa? Does it have a lot of natives you don't see elsewhere, or should we just keep our eyes peeled for Chanseys and Dunsparces?"

"Water all the way round the region, with a deep trench just off the coast from Kairuk Town. That especially brings a lot of deep-sea Pokemon closer to Aroa than other places. Also makes trying to bring a boatload of Rocket grunts into a less-known port fucking dangerous."

"Because of its isolation, most what ended up here either came with humans or, if wild, is strong enough to fly, swim, or survive the drift. Course, if you wanted a lesson on biogeography, Gotta Catch 'em All edition, you're talking to the wrong guy. Talasarch university's libraries will prove more helpful. Otherwise, it'd be the usual shit - isolated areas like Anchor Island, or Shark Island's Hinderlands are where the wildest things are. Course, Anchor Island's all but inaccessible, because of that one bird fetishist who lords over Apteric City."

Sergio's eyes widen at the word "fetish", but instead he asks a question that has been pressing on him for most of the boat ride.

"Mister Gerald, you seem so full of strees. Sergio, would think you have much to look forward to on your journey home. Someone waiting for your embrace perhaps?"

CHA check to get Gerald to open up about his love life.

Edit: At hesitation, Sergio adds: "Come now, we are all men here."

Minnie exchanges a glance with Vladenie and rolls her eyes.

"Mister Gerald, you seem so full of strees. Sergio, would think you have much to look forward to on your journey home. Someone waiting for your embrace perhaps?"

Gerald makes an angry little noise in his throat. His Mawile bounds across the table, then blink-and-you'll-miss-it twists sharply and slams its opened jaws into the side of Sergio's face.

The Faint Attack deals (2)+(10)+8 damage, plus 16 damage off its Swords-Dance boosted ATK for 36 damage to Sergio's face in total.

"My personal life, rookie," Gerald explains nice and clearly, "is none. Of your fucking. Concern."

Nariman watches dispassionately.

"I don't think I have any further questions for you. At least, aside from 'how long until we make landfall?'."

Lucian clucks under his breath. "What a delightful start to our operations together."

"With your permission, sir, I'd like to- no, that's not right... It would be best if this... man survived to actually start work, and I'd appreciate some additional experience patching wounds if... this is to be a common occurrence. Unless someone else would...?"

Lucian's tone betrays only a hint of pleading at his last comment. The shudder, somewhat more.

Sergio, not unaccustomed to a near-lethal slap in the face, decides now would be a good time to FEAT: TREAT WOUNDS, and starts to remove his first aid kit.

He's dissapointed at the lack of an answer, but Sergio will find out. Sergio always finds out.

He turns to Lucian, "Do not worry for Sergio. The gentle touch of rejection is not unfamiliar. Medicine has many benefits in work like ours. And Mister Gerald, he is good trainer. One with soft voice and firm hand appeals to Sergio. It will beneficial to pleasure him."

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Spoileralmost wrote: "pleasure him, and his boss." but when I say "boss" aloud in Sergio's accent I realize it comes out as "balls" and that might just cause Gerald to outright murder the guy.

I'll save that one for later.

Lucian pinches his brow. "I'm beginning to see why this one's being sent to Aroa. ...How often do recruits go missing, again?"

Upon the obvious accusation:

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Spoiler"No, no, I'll give it time. Can't say yet; haven't really met the rest of... the team. Might prefer suicide." He shakes his head. "But more than that, there may be a pattern. Regularity in the times of the disappearances, or the locales in which you lose contact... You'd be the one to know if anything funny's up, though; I'm not the one receiving classified reports."

Vladenie just stares blankly at Sergio and blinks a few times.

The lanky teen leaning against the wall at the back can't help but break his affected "mysterious silence" in order to snigger at Sergio.
Sure it's bad luck to antagonise the doctor, but what's a man to do? It was funny!

His quiet hadn't just been an act, he also legitimately didn't really have any questions. He quite frankly didn't much care where they ended up as long as there were people there, and if there weren't people then Team Rocket presumably wouldn't have been interested. Besides, he always considered himself better at thinking on his feet than making plans over the long term, though whether his self-evaluation was actually to any degree accurate remains to be seen.

Though... now that it had been long enough that he could pass it off as his own idea rather than simply copying someone else, he tried waving his pokedex in the general direction of the boss's little pet. It was a pretty mean looking guy, might not be a terrible idea to keep an eye out for one less liable to bite his arm off and get him fired if he tried to snatch it.

questions:

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SpoilerHow much do we know about each other right now? Like, do we know each other's specialties and general abilities?

If not, can we just all promise to open up about them later.

If not, i guess can sergio do a WIS check to see which he can infer?


OTHER QUESTION:
What denomination of bills has Gerald given us? Are we just walking around with a 2000 poke-bill? or like 2000 1 poke bills? or is this unspecified and we won't have to worry about making change or finding a bank.

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SpoilerHey dudebros, sorry for the hold-up. Exams were an aforementioned thing and I'm taking my sweet time as usual. The map's not quite done, but Ship Island has pretty much been mapped out (and, having rather more things to do upon it compared to our other two islands, is where you'll be starting for the first bit) so you can get acquainted with the place names upon it.



If this new retroactive information leaves you asking any additional questions, Gerald will be more than willing to answer them in a caustic and unpleasant fashion.

Thanks for your patience, I'll answer the next batch of questions after I get some sleep, too!

Hah! A map. Sergio has no questions about a simple map. Sergio knows how to read a map! Of Course if someone else with more map-related experience wanted to point out a few things to Sergio that wouldn't be a problem. Sergio will probably just follow someone with good map-related skills, not because he doesn't understand how a drawing properly represents a real world series of directions, no that would be silly.

Lucian asks about:
- The the significance of the towns' coloration.
- The proximity, or apparent on-top-of-each-other-ness, of Rosten and Petroica.
- The giant gaping pit(?) east of Kairuk.
- The observatory/waterfall/giant lollipop south of the Hydro Station.
- The mental and physical well-being of the cartographer.

The mental and physical well-being of the cartographer.

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Spoilerrude |:c

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Spoiler

The mental and physical well-being of the cartographer.

rude |:c

8 Cha, Schaz. 8 Cha.

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16 CHA
Sergio complements the cartographer, suavley praising the intricate detail and forethought that obviously goes into designing an excellent map. Which he can totally read.

He then invites her back to his apartment for "consensual discussion". The floor may or may not be very sticky.

Mr. Mime quietly watches from the corner.

"I'm beginning to see why this one's being sent to Aroa. ...How often do recruits go missing, again?"

"If you think you're being smart-"

"No, no, I'll give it time. Can't say yet; haven't really met the rest of... the team. Might prefer suicide." He shakes his head. "But more than that, there may be a pattern. Regularity in the times of the disappearances, or the locales in which you lose contact... You'd be the one to know if anything funny's up, though; I'm not the one receiving classified reports."

Gerald fails to fail a "patience for this asshat" check, to the detriment of anyone who wanted Lucian to take a Mawile to the face. He shoots him a healthy glare, though, which convinces the Researcher to mutter a "never mind."

Lucian asks about:
- The the significance of the towns' coloration.
- The proximity, or apparent on-top-of-each-other-ness, of Rosten and Petroica.
- The giant gaping pit(?) east of Kairuk.
- The observatory/waterfall/giant lollipop south of the Hydro Station.
- The mental and physical well-being of the cartographer.

Gerald sighs, looking really hard at the map to avoid thinking about inflicting grievous bodily harm on a second recruit.

"Fuck if I know what was going through this... Olivia's head," the Rocket shrugs, ceasing his scrutiny of the map's documentation, "but if there's any significance in the map colours - beyond making them more visible against the endless tracts of mountain and forest in this region - I'm not seeing it."

"The 'pit's' Petroica town, by the looks of it. It's a logging camp. Actually," Gerald says, as though something just dawned on him, "the last team of interns - other than those fuckwits who got detained by Aspen - did check in last at Kairuk, before heading for Rosten. They might well've made it to Petroica without any problems, communication from there's mostly with flying messengers. Hard to say, though. Either way, Rosten and Petroica are on opposite sides of the Notables. Not as close as the mapmaker's shoddy labelling would lead you to think."

"You're right, that is an observatory. The Opus basin's a dry, mostly-inhospitable shithole, but it makes for clear skies for those astronomer types. It belongs to Talasarch University."

"I don't think I have any further questions for you. At least, aside from 'how long until we make landfall?'."

"This ferry normally would've pulled into harbour this evening, but you might recall there was an incident with a whole pack of Rattata running loose in the cargo hold before we departed." Nariman did recall something like that. "Yeah, that was deliberate. Even at top speed, they couldn't shave more than four hours off the trip, so they're setting anchor a few miles offshore and harbouring in the morning. Less of a hassle for the passengers. After that, a colleague of mine will bring some transport and get you lot to the mainland.

We'll be conducting this operation around 1am or thereabouts, so make sure you're well-rested."

questions:

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SpoilerHow much do we know about each other right now? Like, do we know each other's specialties and general abilities?

If not, can we just all promise to open up about them later.

If not, i guess can sergio do a WIS check to see which he can infer?


OTHER QUESTION:
What denomination of bills has Gerald given us? Are we just walking around with a 2000 poke-bill? or like 2000 1 poke bills? or is this unspecified and we won't have to worry about making change or finding a bank.

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SpoilerDepending on your character, you might've bothered to Do The Research before you got on board the ferry. You might've even spotted one of your companions on the ferry in the days leading up to your arrival in Aroa. The ferry disapproves of impromptu Pokemon battles, and the region at large frowns upon importing Pokemon in bulk without approval. Which means you might not even know what kind of 'mon your coworkers are packing

As for the cashbucks: 4x500P notes. Let's assume for the purposes of convenience everyone always happens to carry exact change for things.

"Hmph. One last question from me, then. Probably not much intel so far south, but what..."

Lucian points to the southernmost unlabeled peninsula, and the lone tree occupying it.

"...Is that?"

"It's a tree ain't it? And I thought you were one of the smart ones..."

Sigh.

"I-"

Siiiiigh.

"I am aware that it is a tree. But it is a tree that has the importance - or actual, physical size - of a city. Those trees," indicating the region around Petroica, "aren't individually labeled. Why is that one a landmark?"

"Oh, that one. Yeah, having never seen it myself I can't verify whether it is actually as big as they say, but it's always drawn on the maps. Especially when the cartographer's a native Aroan - from what I've read, it's part of their folklore."

Lucian's features draw into a concerned cluster, and he scrutinizes Gerald for a moment. "That... reminds me. Who's been looking after Port Charm in your absence?"