Back to Route 2, and hopefully into the forest for real this time!
Huh, just realized that the nurse says this instead of "we hope to see you again". Brings back memories of those old silly theories about how the nurse wanted you to injure your pokémon so the center would have more business or whatever.
Okay seriously back to the route now.
Hey, look, flowers to run around in! Good news: there are wilds in here, too. Bad news: help I can't breathe.
Anyway, there don't seem to be any new wilds here beyond polbee and eearr, so I mopped up a few more trainers, got a few berries from a girl and some berry trees, then headed all the way to the west end of the route and entered Avocet Forest.
Hey, eyecatches! There's even a little verdva in there and everything! Very nice.
Darlin', as long as there's cash to be won, I'll go anywhere. Bring it.
...hojacoon? I guess this is what Kilasdann will be evolving into next level up.
(...a million tackles against a +6 defense hojacoon later...)
This one right here, in fact! First evolved pokémon, here I come!
...Except apparently that hojacoon was underleveled, because Kilasdann didn't even try to evolve. That's... that's mean, Perihelion guys. ;-; She'd better evolve at level 8, dammit!
*sigh* Oh, well. Let's see what's in the grass. That old guy who gave me antidotes said I'd need ‘em for this place, so there must be something that can cause poisoning around here...
My guess? This setik thing. Looks like it's supposed to be translucent and you can see the poison/blood/digestive fluid/some other sort of pleasant liquid inside it. Pretty neat. Doubt I'll use it, but let's try to catch it anyway!
Aww.
Oopsie, the gender symbols kinda cover up long names. Surely there's room to move them closer to the level?
Varasinya: beautiful mythical elvish queen by day, ruler of the horrible innard-liquefying spider people by night. Or actually, both of those, all the time. The horrible spider people are deceptive like that. Imagine if Shelob looked like Galadriel. Good thing she's probably not actually real. Probably. I'd stay out of the woods just to be safe.
The fakemon nerd in me feels compelled to point out that shield dust probably isn't an appropriate ability for a tick thing (the "dust" is really meant to be lepidopteran wing scales... in fact, the Japanese name is literally "moth scales"), but this thing is so cute I can let it slide. You can have whatever ability you want, Varasinya. Probably still not gonna use her this time around, though. What else is skittering around in here?
I dunno, haven't found anything else new yet (pokémon seen here so far: setik, avinch, verdva, bambouse), but before I beat the TV money out of this young man, check out that inaccessible great ball over there. I wonder what sorts of items are in great-item-balls?
Whoa, what? Maggona? I... guess this is the evolved form of setik. Hm, so setik is the second early bug/cocoon line, and polbee is something else? Well, whatever it is, it's getting tackled to death. (Please learn peck or something soon, Ragno.)
Wow, all that damage after just two tackles? If it hadn't hardened it would already be down. You're awful squishy for a cocoonmon, Maggona. Literally, I guess. What with the poison sac and all.
Yaaay! (And then double yay, because he actually gained enough experience to get to level 8!)
I still haven't found any new wilds, so there may not be any more. I guess if there are only fifty pokémon in the demo and that has to include the evolutions for all these guys, you can't have too many new things in each area. Maybe there'll be a few more in the full release, but then again it's not too uncommon for early areas to have pretty shallow selections. Kalos has spoiled me.
What I have discovered is that there are a lot of different paths you can take through Avocet Forest, and I basically have no idea where to go aside from "west, kind of? maybe?"
Well, that's unhelpful. How else am I supposed to take your money and buy a TV?
What she does do is clear up the mystery about where I'm supposed to be going: Longspur City is indeed to the west, but if I search around down here first I'll find some cool stuff. I'm all about cool stuff, of course, so south we go!