Roughly 25 to 30 minutes or so after our agitating encounter at the Gyarados home zone, we came across a sudden but impossible to miss change in the channel. We all unexpectedly burst forward for a few meters. Once we adjusted to the decrease in resistance we suddenly experienced, I checked the area around us and noted a second change that was definitely connected to the first one.
The current noticeably weakened, and I was pretty sure it was because the channel became wider by more than a few meters at once. Until now the channel had been growing wider the further along we went, but it had been a slow increase. Now however, the channel width increased by at least 7 to 8 meters at once. That expansion was roughly the same quantity we noted over the 10 kilometers we explored so far.
The channel had slowly grown from 11-12 meters to 16-17 meters, before suddenly jumping to 23-24 or so meters. There had been a steady decrease in current speed along with that width growth, but that felt hardly discernible compared to the speed shift we just experienced. The current had slowed down by more than a third, which was what caused us to suddenly speed up without putting in more effort.
It was interesting how this change happened at roughly the 10 km point, and to me, it seemed too coincidental, so much so that I thought that it felt kind of deliberate. Since I doubted that the stretch I had explored so far had been narrowed down on purpose, I suspected that the channel had been artificially expanded until this point by someone. My prime suspect was the mysterious Uberboss of Milotic and co, though I was not sure why they stopped at this point specifically.
Well, maybe I was reading too much into it, and it was a coincidence after all. Regardless, I made a mental note to inform the Goldeen I met at the first part of the (under)water channel; Or was it the last part of the channel? Either way, I made a note to inform the Goldeen of the decreased current speed and greater width of this part so that they could migrate over here since living here would be easier for them.
I was pretty sure that they had never been this far down the channel, and I felt they would be interested in the place. I was not sure if their journey would be entirely smooth, but I was certain that the majority could make it. Admittedly, I was not yet sure how high the number of Pokémon living here was, and if the greater width also resulted in a greater number of available food sources. I guess it would be better to confirm that before I decided whether to inform the Goldeen or not.
Anyway, having determined the reason for the sudden current speed shift we resumed our S-patterned swim, and just a few minutes later we saw part of the next home zone. We stuck to our s-pattern, so it took us another 3 or so minutes to arrive in front of the home zone. I was not surprised to see a Gorebyss waiting for us at the periphery of the home zone since we had already known that the home zone was shared by a Gorebyss, Starmie, and Cloyster.
However, when we spotted a second Gorebyss watching us from further inside the home zone, I could not help but be a bit surprised regardless since I had honestly not expected there to be a second one. I kind of thought that any extra materials found would go to Starmie or Cloyster since they were generally stronger than Gorebyss. Either the scales that helped them evolve were not as uncommon as I thought them to be or they were just really lucky.
Putting that aside, I greeted the Gorebyss and we went through the usual routine. I told it why we had come, following which it let its gaze wander over our group before it told us that we could do so as long as we caused no problems and that it would accompany us. We had barely swam into the home zone when Starmie joined us. I had seen the other Gorebyss head deeper while we were talking with its boss, and it seemed it had gone to call a second boss to reinforce the first one, which made sense given our numbers.
The Starmie briefly greeted us before following along beside the Gorebyss. During our exploration, I noted that there were a lot more evolved Pokémon than I had expected, which indicated that the evolution triggers were not as uncommon as I thought them to be, though the number of Gorebyss was significantly lower than that of the Starmie and Cloyster, so I was at least right on that front.
We also noted that the channel was not the only thing that had grown in size; The home zone had followed suit as well, which allowed for more Pokémon to live there. We saw a lot more Staryu, Shellder, as well as Clamperl than before, and as I said, there were quite a few evolved ones there as well. Excluding the boss trio, I counted 11 Starmie, 9 Cloyster, and 4 Gorebyss. The ratio did not really match the ratio their prevolutions had, which I reckoned to be close to 5-3-2, with 5 Staryu, 3 Shellder, and 2 Clamperl for every 10 Pokemon.
Moving past that, the number of evolved trigger Pokémon kind of forced me to raise my expectations regarding the abundance of special materials, though the same number made me assume that most of said objects got intercepted by these guys and gals. Putting aside the Gorebyss, which I had seen nowhere else in the exploration so far, the number of Starmie and Cloyster was more than triple the number we discovered along the whole channel so far.
That made it kind of hard to believe that they did not get the majority of the "harvest" that came down the channel. Well, them and the Tentacruel/Tentacool that lived in the area ahead of them. Still, with that being the case I had to wonder if they had any of those items stored away, so I asked Gorebyss as well as Starmie if they did and if they were willing to trade it if that was the case.
They denied having any mysterious materials at hand, and unfortunately, as far as my senses could tell, they were telling the truth. According to them, the materials were precious enough that they were utilized immediately to avoid any possible mishaps. It did not matter if it was materials that could trigger an evolution or something that could work as a supplement, they were all used as quickly as possible.
In fact, in the prior case the ones that found the item ended up directly evolving the moment they came in contact with the object, unless the finder had already evolved, in which case they were free to choose whom to pass the item to. Admittedly, while I was somewhat disappointed at having missed out on the chance to Observe one of the objects and possibly uncover their source through the description, I understood the logic behind their actions so I let it go. I would still be getting my answers one way or the other later on. I just had to wait a bit more.
Putting the whole mystery object matter aside, our tour affirmed that the home zone was multiple times bigger than the previous home zones, and accordingly, the number of Pokémon was much more abundant as well. Seeing the number of Pokémon present, I decided that there was no need to feel bad about catching one or two that caught my interest due to their decent potential, which was why I ended up capturing 2 Staryu, and 2 Shellder by the time we finished our tour. None of the few Luvdisc we saw were good enough for what I wanted, so I did not bother catching any of them.
Even among the Staryu and Shellder I captured, none of them were truly good enough to make it to the reserve team, much less the main team, but they were good enough that I felt that adding them to Utopia was not a bad idea. The two bronze Staryu had light green potential, which turned to green and deep green after Utopia's treatment, while one of the bronze Shellder had light green potential with the other one having green potential. Both ended up with deep green potential, which was decent enough.
There had been others that had greenish potential as well, but these 4 were the ones that had been open to joining us/me, and I did not force the issue with the others, so we ended up with "only" 4 additions. I had to admit that I would not have minded adding a Cloyster or another Starmie to the reserve team or one of the water teams I was planning to set up in the future, but unfortunately, neither of them were good enough for that. Maybe I would come across one that was good enough later on, or one of their future kids would end up lucky enough to get a spot.
Anyway, after leaving the home zone, I moved on to the next and possibly final stretch of our channel exploration depending on how the subsequent events played out. I had honestly expected to come across the Tentacruel home zone roughly 5 to 6 hundred meters after leaving the mixed one, which would have placed it at around the 11 km mark, but instead, we started seeing a substantial rise in Tentacool at that point.
Aside from that, I also noted that the height of the channel had grown a bit as we progressed further along the channel. The difference was less than 2 meters, but it still stuck out to me during our S-pattern exploration since it turned my 2-round swimming exploration into a three-round one, resulting in tighter S-curves to avoid missing out on anything of interest. Not that we had come across much that really caught our interest.
Regardless, the actual home zone became visible after we explored a bit more than another kilometer, bringing us close to the 12.5 km mark if my mental math/map was not wrong. Seeing the Tentacool and Tentacruel watch us as we came to the border of their home zone I could not help but get some ideas. Milotic had told us that a few Tentacool would head down the channel to inform the Overlords once we attempted to head further along the channel.
Having come to this point I could not help but contemplate whether we should isolate the whole area and attack as well as capture all Tentacool/Tentacruel within to prevent them from informing/calling the Overlords. I knew that this would only be a temporary solution even in the best case since the Overlords were already aware that we were here and that we were heading deeper.
Still, the potential delay would buy us time; Time which could potentially allow us to find the Uberboss and the suspected resource point before the Overlords could bother us. Honestly, I was really tempted to give it a try, especially since I could just teleport away or potentially hide in Utopia after satisfying my curiosity, at least until the Overlords gave up trying to find us.
There were just two points that had me hesitating. The first one was that the noise our fight generated could alert the Overlords of our efforts, rendering the whole thing futile. The second one was that one of the many Tentacool could end up returning to the home zone right after we leave, which would then alert everyone else, including the Overlords. There was also the risk that attacking and capturing all Tentacool/Tentacruel could result in the Milotic turning from neutral/slightly friendly spectators to adversaries as well.
I had an easy solution for the first problem. I could let someone set up an ice layer followed by Jade creating a vine layer to isolate the area. That would hopefully stop as much of the noise as possible before the ice rerouted as much of the leftover noise that managed to pass through the wood/vines into the ground as possible. The combination of both layers should allow us to minimize the sounds that could escape.
Compared to the first problem where I had at least an idea how to resolve it, I was pretty much helpless as far as the second problem was concerned, especially since the second problem could happen while I was trying to implement the first one's solution. I could not guarantee that no Tentacool would try to return to the home zone while I was attacking it, so I had to weigh whether the risk was worth it or not.
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