10: The Pinwheel Forest and Team Plasma Adventure

10: The Pinwheel Forest and Team Plasma Adventure

It seems that Team Plasma is upstairs and trying to steal bones form the Museum! 

It seems that they want the skull from the large dragon exhibit – and they steal it right before your eyes, as promised!

You run outside to find Lenora talking to Burgh, Castelia City's Gym Leader.  About then Bianca and Cheren put in an appearance – was wondering where they were – and everyone is pressed into service to capture Team Plasma.

You follow Burgh into the Forest while Bianca and Cheren stay there to guard the Museum and Lenora searches the town.  Bianca gives you a Dowsing Machine as you are about to leave – a key item that reveals hidden things.

Burgh leads you inside the Forest – not the part we were at before mind you – and asks you to take the twisting path while he follows the road and blocks the exit.  Before you do that – there are Trainer Battles ahead – step back outside of the Forest and chat up the Nurse from before to heal your team, and then save the game, right?  Now that you have taken care of that small chore, step back in the Forest and begin to follow the path.

Before we head along the path, there are some Trainers ahead on the road that are conveniently close at hand, so why not deal with them now?

School Kid Sammy has a level 17 Munna, and Lass Eva has a trio of Level 15 Woobat, and both give some nice XP to start off our adventure on!

A Theft in the Museum

-- The Twisted Path --

The path begins to the west of the road, so after you take on the pair of Trainers at the bridge take a few steps south and then west on to it. 

A sign at the head of the trail tips you that there are hidden items in here – so perhaps opening your bag and setting the Dowsing Machine to be the second of your Registered items (the Town Map should be the other one) would be a good idea!  In fact keep it open to that to make this easier to spot the hidden items as it is a passive device anyway!

Inside the path is your first Trainer Battle – a doubles battle with Twins Mayo & May who have Level 16 Sewaddles.  Just beyond then on the south path is a Team Plasma Grunt – so why not go say hello?

When you get close he attacks – using his Level 16 Sandile, so use your Water-type for a one-hit kill.

As we round the corner we reach our first section of Tall Grass – so it is time for the Area Pokemon Report!

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Pinwheel Forest Inside Area Pokemon Report

Dex No.    Pokemon     Rarity    Season    Capture Note
#017/511   Pansage      (R)      All       Shaking Grass
#019/513   Pansear      (R)      All       Shaking Grass
#021/515   Panpour      (R)      All       Shaking Grass
#025/519   Pidove       (U)      All       Grass
#037/531   Audino       (C)      All       Shaking Grass
#046/540   Sewaddle     (C)      All       Grass
#049/543   Venipede     (U)      All       Grass
#052/546   Cottonee     (C)      All       Grass
#053/547   Whimiscott   (R)      All       Shaking Grass
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-- Expanding Your Dex and Collection --

Yes indeed there are some nice ones to be found in here!  And as we already have one of the Monkey trio, it would be nice to have the whole set, right mate?  The thing is they are rare ones, so our work is going to be cut out for us...  You can continue with the adventure from here if you like, but why not go ahead and capture all of these now?  That is what I did – and I suggest you do the same!

So if you decide to spend some time here grabbing the new Pokemon bear in mind that the Nurse is just outside of the zone to heal up at, and this is an excellent opportunity for you to do some team leveling in the process.  What am I talking about?

Simple enough really – set a target level in your mind – Level 25 sounds good to me as that will give us a nice leg up at the next Gym Battle won't it?  Not too close to the Level 30 Control Cap to make us nervous about proceeding from here, but high enough so that it gives us a decided advantage at the next Gym.

Start by trolling the grass for the regular sort rather than the Shaking Grass ones, and while you are at that, go ahead and grab the treasure ball below that has a Big Root in it – if you are not familiar with it, the Big Root is a hold item that allows Pokemon who use HP-Stealing moves like Leech Seed to gain more HP from the move.  A very nice find indeed!

The treasure ball above the path contains a Super Potion, and if you have been keeping the Dowsing Machine open as suggested, you should find a TinyMushroom along that narrow stretch of grass to the west.

You can battle with Pokemon Ranger Forrest in the Tall Grass – he has a Level 18 Herdier, and he pays off with a reward of $1080 which is quite nice!  He also gifts you with a Chesto Berry when you beat him.

Considering that three of the new Pokemon we will be getting here must be obtained from Shaking Grass you will not have any trouble leveling up fairly quickly either, as there will of course be more Audino than the other types, that is just the way that it is. 

That being the case, best tactic here is to use your team one by one, taking each to Level 25 while you capture them.  As you will capture all three prior to actually getting the entire team to Level 25 it would be an idea to spend the extra time to cap them all off at 25 anyway.  It is not time wasted mate, you need to level up before the next phase anyway!

And speaking of your team – you have your current ones which I call the A-Team on you, but there are the alternate members of your A-Team to be trained as well, because you do not want them falling too far behind.  Keeping them all at or close to team level is a good idea as you never know when you will need to swap them in for a Gym Battle, and we do not know what we will want to use for the Victory Road / Elite 4 stage of the game, do we?

A few of your team will have evolved by now – pretty cool process isn't it?  Makes me think of Tron for some reason.

-- Back on the Adventure Trail --

Done?  You got them all too?  Good on ya mate!  Well done!  I am proud of you!

Now back on the Adventure Trail, we follow the path to another Team Plasma Grunt who has a Level 16 Purrloin, but not the Dragon head.  Shortly after this encounter you run into Youngster Nicholas, with his Level 16 Venipede, and Level 16 Timburr.

As you progress along the path you find an Antidote inside a tree stump, and you are jumped by a Pokemon Ranger when you try to cross the gap using hollow tree – Pokemon Ranger Audra has a Level 16 Pansage.  Beating her scores you another Chesto Berry.

Continuing along the twisting path you discover that not all of the grass piles are as they seem!  Pokemon Ranger Irene pops out of one, and attacks with her Level 18 Panpour, rewarding you with a Pecha Berry for defeating her.  Then it is around the corner and up the log to the next Team Plasma encounter – another Grunt, with another Level 16 Patrat.

Just ahead grab the Paralyze Heal from the treasure ball in another stump, then have another grass pile encounter with Pokemon Ranger Miguel and his Level 18 Pansear, gaining another Pecha Berry for your victory.

At this point the path splits into to directions, north and south – to the south and then east is a set of grassy terraces at the bottom of which is a lake.  Down one level is a treasure ball with TM86, Grass Knot, so that is worth the effort to retrieve.  Across from it is another treasure ball that we can spot, but that we cannot actually reach yet.  Mark a mental note on that for later.

Backtrack to the Ranger and head north through the hollow tree to face another Team Plasma Grunt, who has a pair of Level 14 Patrat -- they are big on those yeah?  He also has a level 14 Sandile – and the Skull!  Woot!  You did it mate, you recovered the skull! 

At this point Gorm of the Seven Sages appears, speaks to the Grunt, telling them that the skull turned out not to be the one that they were looking for – Plot Point Warning.

Burgh and Lenora show up as Gorm is threatening you, and the Plasma lot disappears.  You give the skull back to Lenora, Burgh heads off to his Gym, and you get rewarded by Lenora with a Moon Stone.  Good job that!

Following them east you spot a treasure ball with a Miracle Seed just at the ledge ahead – jumping the ledge takes you to the main road through the woods, and you have a choice to make – north or south.  South will take you back to Nacrene City, north will take you to Castelia City, and to the south are also the Trainers on the bridge you have not chatted up previously.  May as well chat them up now!

Two just chat, but School Kid Mille has a Level 16 Pidove and Level 16 Purrloin – interesting combination – and then a very short walk north leads you to Castelia City and a change in the POV that is rather interesting.