After gathering some rather useful information, we/I thanked the Goldeen before we resumed our exploration. I made sure to give each of the Goldeen I talked to one of the compressed super pellets I had made since just a verbal thanks felt a bit lacking for the information I got. The pellet packed enough nutrition to keep the Goldeen fully satiated for at least a week and stop them from feeling truly hungry for around two weeks, provided they did not burn through the energy faster by training.
I felt that was a good way to reward the Goldeen given their circumstances. It wasn't that I was unwilling to give them more than one pellet each, but they had no way to reliably store them given where we were, and I seriously doubted they could keep them safe from others if they had to. As soon as I brought out the first pellet, I saw nearly all other Pokémon focus on the pellet, and I felt a wave of envy once the Goldeen gulped the pellet down.
There was no doubt in my mind that the Goldeen would have gotten ganged up on if they had not eaten the pellet on the spot. It was a reminder of how harsh nature can be sometimes, especially in places like this, so I once again felt thankful for the abundance I had been blessed with in this life before turning my focus back to moving deeper into the channel. I noticed that the channel was widening slowly as we went further, though I probably would not have noticed it if we did not keep seeming back and forth as we swam forward in an S-pattern.
More noticeable was the increase in height (rockbed to ceiling), which had to have grown by more than 2 meters so far. Other than that, things remained the same for a while until we suddenly saw an astonishing rise in Pokémon. Mentally going over the stretch we had swum since talking with the Goldeen, I speculated that we had reached roughly 800 meters from the waterfall/mouth of the water channel, so we had covered roughly another 400 meters since then. In that case, it made sense that we were seeing more Pokémon.
From my interpretation of the Goldeen direction instructions, we had closed in on the first home zone, which was why we were seeing a bunch of Tentacool right now. The formation guarded by the Tentacruel brought up by the Goldeen as the weakest home (zone) owner had to be this one, which kinda made sense seeing how it was the furthest down the channel. I would assume that that would make it the least desirable home zone, though, given the nature of the locale, it was still a very desirable place for the locals.
I considered simply leaving the Tentacool alone and heading straight for the home zone that had to be close by. However, I could not help but think of the Pinkan Project that was still going on right now. Granted, I already had 956 Tentacool, all captured during my time here in Hoenn, and they were already part of the project. Yet, a voice in the back of my mind softly whispered to me that capturing all the Tentacool would free up the home zone allowing other poor free-floating Pokémon like the nice Goldeen to move in.
That had me consider going with it before my rational side came up with some sound counterarguments; The first one was that the Goldeen and their lone Seaking were probably not strong enough to keep/defend the home zone for long from other interested parties given their strength, or rather the lack thereof. The second one was that I already had nearly a thousand Tentacool so adding more was really unnecessary.
What also stood out was how I had no need for a Tentacruel given how it was useless for the Pinkan Project, which made the whole freeing up the home zone part void. Combining that with the fact that a mass capture like that might provoke the local overlords, especially since part of them likely already disliked, more like despised, us made the whole thing a poor idea. Hence, I ignored the whispering and simply Observed the Tentacool as we/they passed by without bothering or capturing them.
I was not surprised that none of them truly stood out; Not that I spent much time checking them since we arrived at the home zone less than 2 minutes after we began to look for it. It honestly did not look like much, or at least not as impressive as one would assume them to be considering how important they were for the Pokémon here. From what I could tell, all there was to it were 9 large rocks sticking out of the channel's (rock)bed, with a bunch of large seaplants growing in between them.
I obviously noticed that it was the positioning of the rocks to one another while maintaining just a good enough distance that allowed them to break the speed of the current around them enough for the plants to grow strong/big enough to further slow the current down. Size wise it was not all that impressive, which could be why I felt a bit underwhelmed, but by my estimation, it was less than 300 square meters.
Meanwhile, the height of the rocks reached around 3/4ths of the channel's height, so the Pokémon had a living space of around 2500 to 2800 cubic meters, which sounded more than it was in reality. A bunch of Pokémon had to live there after all, and as I saw it even a population of 1000 Tentacool would make that feel pretty cramped; That was not even considering the Tentacruel that no doubt lived there as well. I was guessing that 500-600 Tentacool/Tentacruel lived here at most, and a cursory glance/appraisal told me that it might be less than that.
Anyway, our appearance seemed to have disturbed the Bosscruel since it swam toward us, radiating some energy, probably to show its readiness. The Tentacruel stopped two or so meters away from us and asked us, or more like demanded to know, what we wanted before warning us against trying anything funny. It underscored the latter with another flare of energy.
It truly shouldn't have been so, but the whole thing felt a bit funny to me, and I could feel that the others were amused as well. It wasn't our fault. Seeing a (mid) gold Pokémon, fully evolved Tentacruel or not, trying to intimidate us like this felt slightly comical when the weakest of the Pokémon around me was Hades/Gengar, who was at the (high) gold stage, though he was hidden and could be disregarded.
BossBro and Kun/Azuraid on the other hand were both at the (mid) dark gold stage. Not to mention Mothra/Butterfree, who could go toe to toe with Platinum stage Pokémon. So, yes, while we probably should not underestimate any danger given our current position, we could not help the amusement we felt at the moment. Still, not wanting things to draw out or escalate, I signaled Kun to release some energy as well and I followed that up by radiating some appeasing/comforting aura.
Tentacruel now much meeker asked if we needed something. I heard Hades snicker at the change in tone and allowed myself a smile before I told the waiting Tentacruel that we simply wanted to check out the rock formation since this was our first visit to the channel and we had heard that these formations were the only places weaker Pokémon could live, and others could loosen up.
I did not need to read its emotions to know how Tentacruel felt about that. Its reluctance could be seen in the way its body's posture changed as soon as I said I wanted to enter its home to take a look around the place. Unfortunately for Tentacruel, there was nothing it could do to stop us even if it insisted on not allowing us to do so, and it knew that. Aware that we were asking something tough for Tentacruel to accept out of nowhere, we patiently waited for its answer.
Tentacruel let its gaze wander between us and I saw its body slump a bit before it told us that we could take a look if we wanted to, though it requested that we did not destroy any of the rocks or vegetation while checking things out. Seeing Tentacruel like this, I honestly felt a bit bad even though we weren't doing any harm or planning to do any harm.
It was a reminder of the dynamic between the strong and the weak in this world. Well, outside the framework set by some strong backing; In humanity's case that was the alliance, which by the way was also solely held up/supported by the strong ones in there. Still, I had long accepted how things worked, and I felt that as long as I stayed true to my own principles I would be fine. Hence, I calmed my slightly stirred mind/emotions and just nodded at Tentacruel before swimming into the home zone.
I was not worried about leaving my back exposed to Tentacruel due to Hades being inside my shadow and BossBro having my back at the rear. That became irrelevant when Tentacruel followed after us and caught up to me before moving just a bit ahead. It then began to issue orders to clear our way, and I noticed some of its tentacles signaling something to a few Tentacool, who then quickly began to herd a bunch of the others away.
Noticing that the majority of them were smaller in size I had to smile after understanding what they were doing. It was nice seeing Tentacruel caring for the young in this way even under pressure, so I acted as if I had not noticed anything. Instead, I noted that it had indeed become easier to swim forward as soon as we entered the home zone, and the closer we came to the first rock the easier it became.
Once we were close enough I turned my focus to the first rock. Just like the home zone, it did not look all that impressive, but I could tell that it was a naturally formed rock which meant that the formation was not an artificial one, at least as far as I could tell. Given its width, length, and height, it could probably be called a pillar even if it were not holding anything up, literally speaking.
I could see some wear and tear, which was normal, though after Observing it, I was certain that the pillar wouldn't break for a long time since it was made of a pretty durable mineral. Certain that there was nothing more to it I moved on to the next rock, and then to the next until I had checked all 9 of them. They all appeared to be natural and none were the exact same size which to me was another indicator that they were natural.
However, thinking of their distribution and positions I could not help but have a niggling feeling that something was up. It had a deliberate feel to it, like it could not have been a coincidence. Either nature had done a superb job or someone else had been involved, though I failed to spot any signs of artificiality.
Anyway, once we were done with the rock pillars, I checked out the water plants. However, other than being more tenacious than the ones typically found at sea there was nothing else that stood out, though that did not stop me from taking a tiny piece and adding it to Utopia since it was a hitherto unknown plant. Well, at least we did not have it in Utopia. I had no idea if it had been documented by any human before.
I felt Tentacruel tense when I pulled out a knife, and it only relaxed when I cut just a tiny piece of the plant beside me, leaving the rest alone. Regardless of its worry, it felt like there was nothing else to find, but just to be sure we did a quick tour along the ground to check out the bottom to see if there was anything else of note.
Unfortunately, nothing particularly stood out to me and none of my partners indicated that they found something interesting, so I decided to stop here. After thanking a slightly bewildered Tentacruel, who gave off a feeling of 'That's it', we left the home zone and continued swimming further along the (under)water channel.
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