And so, with a bit of advice (thanks again!) and a hell of a lot of grinding...
(Note: Post contains an animated gif.)
Real quick: the second rare candy popcioslav was talking about is right here. Remember that ledge I passed at the end of the forest? Literally right below that, haha.
So anyway, ~grinding happened~. Have a few postcards from Avocet Forest Grindfest 2015:
Nice, flame charge.
I've decided to try and get everyone to level 16 first, then see how I feel about my chances before pushing any further. That's one down, then!
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
BIGGER MAGICAL MONSTER FRIEND :D
Whoa! Looks like this arsoline thing is fire/electric! Cool, cool!
Wow, that's really heavy for a stage 1 starter. This is going to make it harder to dance her around in front of the webcam for the cat videos.
*sigh* So much for that plan.
Not animated yet, unfortunately, but at least she's still got all her body parts!
Got Kilasdann to 16 slowly, but without incident. Durvas next. On the one hand, it's kinda nice to grind up a pokémon with hustle because its overworld effect makes the level 5 and 6 wilds more common. On the other hand she keeps bloody missing, and the wild setik poison her every other time it happens. Still...
Next time Regina tries to push me around, I'm gonna have to put my foot down.
...I'll see myself out.
Huh. Looks like the devil bears can get as high as level 7. Not that it helps much given how rare they are (especially the level 7 ones, apparently), although since hunber seem to have the highest experience payout in the area it would be nice if I could find more of them. That is, nice aside from the fact that, y'know, they are devil bears and I hate them.
Okay, Durvas and Ragno are done. Sparkly Ilario, you're up.
Wait, what do you mean, "ignored orders"? Where do you get off disobeying me, you insolent little fatbee brat?
...poop. Sparkly Ilario doesn't have my name as OT.
But... but... but still, why is that happening? He doesn't get boosted experience like an outsider!
See?! And I'm pretty sure you have my ID number, too!
*sigh* Yes, that is my ID number. So... is experience checked based on the ID alone, and obedience on the OT alone? Gah. I guess this isn't something that would normally happen in a canon game since mystery gift download pokémon always have a fixed ID as well as a fixed OT, whereas I assume here the devs only bothered defining the OT to mark it as being in honor of the one Twitch caught. It's not really a bug, per se, and I do appreciate that I was able to nickname both of my mystery gifts, but this is a setback I really don't have the patience for at the moment. We're trying to train here, young man, and we don't have time for any of your attitude problems. Back of the line, fatbee. I'll figure out what to do with you later.
A GRASS MOVE
Granted it's not the special grass move I was hoping for, but I just realized that his nature is modest and it's possible that that's the only reason his special attack is higher than his attack. (And his IVs, I guess, but obviously I can't see those and have no way to check.)
Let's see here. After several hours and many devil bear encounters, everyone (except Sparkly Ilario, who I've decided will just have to catch up when he's ready to behave himself again) is level 16. That's certainly better off than we were before, but... hm. Something's still missing... the team just needs one more final touch.
...which you'll find out about when we head back to the gym for the next post! I'm coming for you, Regina. I'm coming for you, and this time you are going down.