<b><span style="font-size: 15px">Round Primary</span></b><br/><br/><br/><br/>Eleyna had been following behind Jake as he led the way, pressing on through the wild. She had spent so much of her time focused on watching the ground after the first several stumbling near-falls, that she hadn't noticed that Jake was no longer in front of her until she had paused at the rock. When finally she did realize, she looked around, curious to see where he had gotten to. She found him only a few steps behind. He looked off to the south, away from the path they were setting. Something had caught his attention.<br/><br/><span style="color: blue">Jake?</span>She asked tentatively glancing in the direction he was looking.<br/><br/><span style="color: darkgreen">I’m going to head out that way for a little bit. I am curious what I can find in the area.</span>He told them, pointing then heading in the direction.<br/><br/>Eleyna, alarmed that he was leaving on his own, as the forest still seemed a a potentially dangerous place.<span style="color: blue">Wait - I mean don't... shouldn't we not... go... oh.</span>She attempted to protest, deflating a little as it went unheard. She had always been dreadfully bad at being assertive, and Jake was intent on seeing to whatever it was he had seen.<br/><br/>Eleyna gave a look around the rest of the group, at Scarlett and Naomi and Aisha. For the moment at least they weren't going anywhere, though Eleyna felt the sooner they were clear of the forest the better. It was so close in the forest, the trees made the world seem so dense, towering over them, looking down from high above. She felt very small and isolated in the shade of such a forest, no roads, no signs where to go, which way was forward. She steadied her footing with her hand against the rock, briefly inspecting her boots. Her hand upon the rock detected something beneath the thick layer of moss and lichen that had grown like a skin around the monolithic stone. She cast her fingers about, certain she felt something unusual. Eleyna frowned and gave the area a closer look, running her hand over the surface. Having no pressing concern while they waited for Jake to return, she dug in her finger tips and gave the patch of moss a soft tug until the overgrowth pulled away.<br/><br/>Beneath the overgrowth, the rock was veined by tiny brown roots which had clung to it for centuries, now cutt off from their body. Eleyna reached out to the exposed grey stone surface, and ran her fingers along grooves of erosion upon the stones tilted surface. It was an odd thing, the marks of weathering upon the stone. The subtle indentations and grooves, worn so smooth, were hardly detectable, but to Eleyna's mind there was an odd happenstance of nature before her. The erosion looked almost like a picture, like nature had seen fit over thousands of years to carve, in a haphazard fashion, a series of grooves and pits that resembled something like a carving upon the rock's face, which seemed itself to be not unlike a face turned on its side. A little nose, eyes and chin in a sort of odd profile.<br/><br/>Before she could marvel further at the peculiar thing, Aisha's voice caught Eleyna's attention. The pink haired girl spoke sweetly, as if to a child. Eleyna saw her extending a little pink Pokepuff skyward. A half frown on Eleyna's mouth became a gasp of surprise as she looked up and saw a half dozen little monkey Pokemon, Pansage if she was remembering correctly, looking down at them from above. Eleyna took a step back from the rock, looking at the curious little eyes above. She smiled as they hid behind the tree trunks and leaves, poking their heads out one eye at a time.<br/><br/>Slowly, and ever so cautiously, the Pansage, who had been keeping a curious eye on Aisha, descended the wide trunk of its tree. It was skittish, pausing at any sound or movement, its eyes often darting to the other Pokemon trainers. Another of the Pansages hissed and hollered at him in fright as he neared Aisha's level. The Descending Pokemon hissed back up at him, angry and continued on regardless of the protest. He came down just above Aisha's head, holding tight to the tree. At first, he took no action, just clutched the bark and moss, watching her, and looking at whatever thing it was she was holding. His little nose sniffed at the air and and the Pansage smacked his lips a few times as he caught a scent of something sweet. He reached tentatively toward the offered morsel, pausing just short as she quickly looked about for signs of treachery, then reached out and plucked the thing from Aisha's hand, and scurried back up the tree in a flash. The other nearby Pansage all hopped from branch to branch to see what it was that had been given to them. Any of them that tried to take it from their triumphant cousin were summarily smacked. The Pansage began nibbling on it experimentally, and soon shoved the entire thing in its mouth munching merrily with stuffed cheeks and a satisfied smirk on its lips.<br/><br/>Content with its assessment of the treat, the Pansage scurried back down the tree, several of its group following. He reached the ground and hopped over toward Aisha, giving any of the trainer's Pokemon a cautious and wary watch as he approached her. As she extended her arm in his direction he hopped back a step, then, recollecting his courage and recalling the tasty thing this odd tall creature had produced, he hopped up to her and reached out, grabbing Aisha's fingers in his small hands looking at them curiously, sniffing her palm. Finding nothing of interesting he clambered up her arm with his hand like feet hanging on as he sniffed at her much closer, fascinated by this odd creature before it. He continued up onto her shoulder and leaned over the top of her head to look down at her face from above, blinking.<br/><br/>The other Pansage looked on in fascination as their brother gave this new thing a thorough looking over. They all came hopping down, looking about the group of girls, nimbly moving across the forest floor, hopping up onto tree trunks, examining the humans in search of something interesting of their own. Eleyna crouched down as they came down, smiling brightly and talking to them in a sweet little voice.<br/><br/><span style="color: blue">I've never heard of Pansage being so friendly.</span>She remarked and she reached out to one, looking at Naomi and Scarlett.<br/><br/>The Pansage that had been enamored by Aisha had meanwhile abandoned its search for more puffs when it came upon a far more perplexing mystery about the creature it was climbing on, the great enigma of breasts. It gave Aisha's endowed chest a prod and its eyes widened at the soft protrusions, cuddling right up to them and sticking its face down in Aisha's cleavage, sniffing for some treasure that may be hidden between.<br/><br/><br/>---<br/><br/><br/>There was something unsettling in Jake's stomach as he made his way cautiously between the large spotted flowers, something that made him glad he had kept Eve close. In and among them now, he could smell their fragrance much more acutely. There was a bitterness beneath the sickly sweet odor. Like something toxic being covered up. Small little particles, like dust or pollen hung in the air above the flowers, floating.<br/><br/>Jake was nearing the grove, the parting in the trees not but a scant two dozen feet away. As he proceeded, his right in among the flowers was a rustling and pop, then heavy whoosh. One of the flowers had risen several inches and dropped, snapping its pedals up then down like a sheet being popped to rid if of dust. Cast from its pedals was a cloud of particulates that hung in the air like a fog, slowly rising and spreading. Then like an animal's yawn spreading, the nearby flowers shuttered and and trembled and did the same, puffing their peddles, casting more of the dust into the air. A cascade began, the whole field like a spreading wave began to shutter and throw the dust into the air, the growing cloud blocking the way back! Jake had a scant few seconds to move as the flowers around him began to shutter - he had to make a dash for the clearing or discover first hand what the dust was!<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>