Violet City (Arrival)

Violet City (Arrival)

Battling Elder Lee in the Sprout Tower

Now that your team is ready stop by the Pokecenter for a last heal and save, and then continue along the path into town.  Directly ahead of you as you go north is the Pokemon School -- you could just go inside, but doing that will deprive you of the joy of meeting the teacher!  So follow the road to the left until you reach the Pokemart and you will spot a man standing in between the Gym and the Mart -- go have a chat with him, and tell him that you did NOT beat the Gym Leader yet.

He takes off running -- and you follow him -- and he leads you to the entrance of the school.  Head inside and speak with him again to learn that his name is Earl, and this is his school!  As you watch he will cover the basics of the care and leveling of your Pokemon.  After he finishes talking head to the chalkboard behind him and read up on stat changes in battle -- basic info on the conditions Poison, Paralysis, Sleep, Burn, and Frozen. 

If you are new to the games reading these little lessons will teach you what item each condition requires to cure, and any special notes on the conditions -- for example when your Pokemon is poisoned you learn that the damage that stat change does continues after the battle, so that each time you move you continue to lose HP.  If you keep walking and fail to correct the stat change, your Pokemon will eventually faint when it runs out of HP.  Using an antidote will cancel the Poison stat change.

After you finish reading the board stop by each of the seated students and talk to them to hear about berries, abilities, trading, and the fact that Pokemon can hold items, and held items will transfer if you trade the Pokemon that is holding the item to another player.   On the right side of the room is an NPC who will tell you about groups -- and will walk you through creating and naming a group.  Obviously as you are alone at the moment you are the only member of the group, but hey, now you know how to form groups!

Exit the school and head west down the road past the mart to a house, inside of which is a girl who names her Pokemon after her favorite foods.  That takes care of every building in the town save for the Gym itself, so why not head over there?

When you enter the Gym you will notice that it appears to be suspiciously empty save for one man, and by the way he is dressed it is a safe bet that he is not the Gym's Master.  Go have a chat with him and he will provide you with a hint on how to proceed from here.  He asks if you are there to fight Falkner, who is the Gym Leader of course, and then he mentions the Sprout Tower -- suggesting in a vague way that seeking training in the Tower is a good idea.

The Sprout Tower is north of the School, so head back towards the School and then follow the road over the bridges to the north.  There are two NPC's on the road you may want to talk to: the first encourages you to beat the Gym Leader, the second talks about Pokegear.

-- The Sprout Tower --

Sprout Tower Beasties List

-- Gastly #058 (Night) Normal
-- Rattata #017 (Any) Normal

Inside there are a variety of NPC characters from whom you can acquire useful information and tips, and learn about a special move that can be obtained here by the successful trainer.  Climb the ladder on the left of the main room and head to the right for your first battle with a trainer named Sage Nico.  You face a total of three Level 3 Bellsprouts, gaining 162 XP if you beat them all (you should easily do that considering that you have leveled every member of your team to 12).

After the fight head down the ladder to the right of Nico and grab the Paralyze Heal potion from the treasure ball below.  Follow the hall to the west to encounter Sage Chow, who has three more Level 3 Bellsprouts.  You will handily beat him, and then climb the ladder nearby to return to the second floor of the Tower.  To the north is a treasure ball with an X Accuracy item.

If you are not familiar with the items in the game, now is a good time to take a look at it and learn what it is!  Tap the card for your bag and then highlight the Battle Items Pocket, and you will see that this pocket now contains the item that you just picked up!  Move the cursor over the item to highlight it and its description will appear on the main display: "An item that raises the accuracy of a Pokemon in battle.  It wears off if the Pokemon is withdrawn."

These are useful if you are facing a Pokemon that has a move that lowers your accuracy like smokescreen, but be aware that these are one-time-use items, and are destroyed when you use them.  As it notes above, the bonus to accuracy only lasts while the Pokemon you used it on is your active Pokemon -- if you switch them out during the battle you lose that bonus.

Head south along the hallway here -- but be aware that from here up you can have random encounters with wild ghost Pokemon!  Remember the comment you heard from one of the people you met on the way into town about there being ghostly activity at the Tower?  Right!  The thing about ghosts is that physical moves do not effect them -- but fortunately for us the Pokemon here are all low-level!   The first wild Pokemon you are likely to encounter here is a Gastly -- who has the natural ability to paralyze and to put you to sleep using the move Hypnosis. 

For this fight I chose to use my Spinarak, Spidey, who has the natural ability of Insomnia, which prevents him from being put to sleep.  He also has the move Leech Life, which is effective against ghost types.  Leech Life will do small to medium damage to the foe, which is good as you want to weaken but not kill them so that you can capture them.  In theory you could just start chucking balls in the hopes of getting a lucky capture, but at this stage in the game we do not have an abundance of balls or money, so that may not be the smartest way to proceed.  Once you have weakened the Gastly and captured it, depending upon how much damage you had done to you it may be a good idea to retreat to the Pokecenter and heal up before you continue...

Follow the path east and fight Sage Edmond, who like the previous Sage's has a trio of Level 3 Bellsprouts.  Defeating them gains you another 162 XP and some money which will come in handy later :)  Now head up the nearby ladder to the top level of the Tower!

First grab the Potion from the treasure ball to the left, then fight Sage Jin, who has a Level 6 Bellsprouts worth 108 XP,  Sage Neal, who also has a Level 6 Bellsprout worth another 108 XP,  and Sage Troy, who has a Level 7 Bellsprout and a Level 7 Hoothoot.  Once you defeat Troy he tells you that it is not far to the Elder... And it is not!  Head around the left side of the pillar and you will encounter your Rival, who it seems has just defeated the Elder himself!

As you observe, the Elder gives your rival the Technical Machine (TM) that is the reward for beating him, and then uses a special item called an Escape Rope to instantly depart from the Tower.  Above and to the right in the corner is a treasure ball with an Escape Rope in it -- go ahead and grab that now -- then walk over and speak with the Elder.

Elder Lee tells you about his function in the Tower, and then the fight to test your bond with your Pokemon begins!  Elder Lee starts with a Level 7 Bellsprout, then a Level 10 Hoothoot, and finally another Level 7 Bellsprout to finish the fight.  You should easily defeat these, and then you will be rewarded with your own copy of TM70, which is called Flash.  This TM is what you need to be able to enter the Dark Cave that we saw when we were entering the town.

Now that you have passed the test leave the Tower either by using the Escape Rope or simply walking out if you want to save it (those things are handy for getting out of caves when you have gotten lost so you may want to consider holding on to that for when you are in an area not so easy to navigate out of).  Either way, head over to the Pokecenter to heal up!