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When I recorded this I had no votes so I picked a low-commitment, single-update option on the offchance I got votes while recording (hey guess what happened); that's right guys we're doing the beach episode! Woot woot!
First things first, let's do a bit of cleanup on things I've missed; talking to this rock gives us the TM for Brine! It's a solid water move; 65 damage special move, and if the target is below half health the move's power doubles. Very nice.
We're going to be doing a lot of catching this update. Let's see what Shrine of Silent Gods has in store for us!
Clefairy, the three Johto starters, Jigglypuff, and Swablu! They're all fairly low level, but they're all solid mons who are a big boon early-game. Interesting almost half the encounters here are fairies (half if you count swablu cause altaria mega evolves into a fairy) and we're right outside of the dragon cave. No clue if that's smart world design (fairies keeping the dragons in the cave) or just a funny coincidence.
We got overheat last time, which is a fantastic move that could mean the difference between KOing something in one turn vs not. Apparently Cyndaquil could learn overheat via level up or TM in the base games, but even if they couldn't it doesn't matter here because it's a fire type move TM and any fire type pokemon can learn fire type TMs.
Catching all 6 of the encounters here brings us up to 10 caught pokemon; lets go get our prize!
I find the "hey, that's you!" here more cute than it has any right to be. Anyways, we got a thing called a Shred of Hope! What is it?
It's a consumable that raises your pokemon up to a specific level! These can be found every so often, and they're the main way that weaker pokemon can stay caught up in level. They also have a secondary use; they'll revive the pokemon they're used on if said pokemon is fainted. The only catch is that they have no effect on pokemon who are higher leveled than the level the shred will raise you to.
That's going straight to Kyubey; Mimikyu is a really good Pokemon.
With a new level 15 under our belt, let's get these LameKeepers out of the way.
Effortless.
Dusk stone! This can evolve Murkrow into Honchkrow, Lampent into Chandelure, or Eevee into Umbreon. I personally have my sights set on Vaporeon for Eevee due to natural bulk and just on the offchance they make it to the Champion, as I don't believe they have anything strong against water types.
: precise. It looks machine-rendered.
We enter the cavern of Molten Sorrow. There's a weird diagram here that I imagine is tied to lore; I never found a way to interact with these otherwise.
Trick room TM! I imagine used in the right hands, this is a really useful TM, although I'm nowhere near competent enough at Pokemon to use it; that level of setup and team synergy is beyond me.
There's an item over to the left out of reach. We can't ever actually reach this item; it's just there to tempt us forever.
: It spontaneously combined the Withdraw and Deposit functions into a new one: "Organize Boxes".
Something spooky is going on with the PCs.
Another statue! Two of these are easy; we already have Cyndaquil, and Growlithe can be found right in this very cavern.
Unfortunately, Monferno is found deep in the, well, deepwood. Unfortunate!
Speaking of things that can be found in this very cavern though, lets catch some mons!
There's some very good mons to be found here; Braixen is a first-evolution starter, which is already pretty good. Charmander is found at a fixed level and comes with nasty moves right off the gate. Fletchinder evolves into Talonflame, who has a busted ability in Gale Wings. Vulpix can set up sunlight on entry, buffing fire type moves and weakening water types. Tepig is a cute pig. Fire type enjoyers are eating good tonight.
Pictured: me having a heart attack realizing I'm one failed-catch from being one-shot. Thankfully our great balls came in clutch.
But that's not all! Call now and we'll throw in Salandit, Magcargo, and Torkoal! Salandit has a unique poison-fire typing, and the one we caught is female so we can evolve her into Salazzle. Magcargo is beefy. Torkoal is even more beefy, and can also set sun when entering with drought!
Heading outside, we're blocked from entering the main beach area by a tuber. The beach uses the Undella Town theme from Black/White.
They're a pushover.
In general, trainers just say "..." after beaten. I'll make note of any exceptions (like the Flamekeepers earlier).
Trainers don't really have real names for the most part. Lost Child of Sand, Flamekeepers, Discarded...
The lass was guarding Volt Switch; another decent TM in the right hands.
I find this sign really funny, even if it wouldn't fit in your usual Pokemon game.
Flame orb and poke balls! This Flame Orb might be a chekhovs gun; I used it to cheese a normally pretty difficult battle on my first playthrough, and there's a chance I might do the same again.
Now lets enter this cave and
what the fuck.
: Uprooting PC from location NOT ADVISED. Reality compression UNSTABLE. Do NOT REMOVE PCs from the WILD!
Something really spooky is going on with the PCs.
: Someone truly believed that people can change their nature.
Well duh, yeah, people can change. I'm the biggest proof of that to myself.
Hell yeah; we can use this to change a pokemon's ability to their hidden one. Unsure what to use it on though, so I guess we'll keep it in our back pocket.
Exiting takes us not back to the beach, but to the dragon cave instead, and the entrance has disappear behind us. What the fuck was going on there?
We're on a ledge we couldn't get to before, so we can nab these now. Hey, it's our first Ashen Shard!
Since we're here, might as well clean up the encounter list here.
A few cuties to be found here! Drakloak in particular will come in handy in a sec.
It took me 10 minutes to find this guy; for an almost 8% encounter rate I felt pretty unlucky finding him.
Don't mind me, just bringing you with me...
Dig TM! Not a huge fan of moves that hit on the second turn but it's cool to have anyways.
Another shred of hope; this one level 10.
It's going straight on Eevee.
Another energy powder; can never have too many healing items.
No fun allowed.
These trainers kinda have a bad vibe. They don't have real names, they say creepy or unhinged stuff... It's unsettling and I don't like it.
Yeah, no I'm not dealing with that right now.
I Jumped down the ledge, so I have to fight this guy to get back out.
Thankfully he's a chump.
Pryde comes before a fall.
: Something happened in the Deepwood. I'm certain of it.
Hmm...
Don't mind me, just switching drakloak to be my second pokemon.
Can you guess what this guys deal is?
Explosions. He's running an explosion team. Sure would be a shame if both of my lead pokemon were ghost type and were immune to explosion!
PP ups are nice, but...
This is the real prize.
For once I didn't use all caps on the name. This brings us up to 24 pokemon caught too!
There's grass on the other side of this trainer. I could wait for Rock Smash, or come back stronger, but you know, I just got a shiny new level 20 forretress, I'm sure I could take this.
I'm sure nothing could go wrong.
Everything went wrong 
The only survivor was SpinToWin. I spinned... but I didn't win.
How ironic that I find Sunny Day, when my team is anything but Sunny right now.
I guess meet the new team!
Our old team is gonna be out of commission for a bit. Fainted pokemon are darkened in the PC so you know they're fainted.
An Ether and the TM for Mega Punch. It's... kinda mid? 80 power normal type move is alright, but that 85% accuracy kills it. That's as accurate as Fire Blast, a move where the low accuracy is the downside to a really good 110 power move with a 30% burn chance. It gets upgraded to 96 power with the ability iron fist, but like... just use an elemental punch move? 5 less power for 100% accuracy and the ability to be supereffective.
: Only those in Queen's favor are worthy of catching these powerful pokemon.
That cave will take us pretty close to one of our two objectives.
Needless to say, we aren't getting past this guard given the travesty that just happened.
I catch myself a clauncher and replace totodile with it. I also teach it Brine to replace water gun, as brine is better.
This brings us to 25 caught pokemon; we'll be turning that in before the end of the update.
I also catch a pelipper and a psyduck. I don't bother catching every single pokemon here just yet, but the encounter list for here looks like this:
15% Krabby (Lv 14-17)
15% Marill (Lv 14-17)
15% Marshtomp (Lv 14-17)
15% Psyduck (Lv 14-17)
10% Clauncher (Lv 14-17)
10% Palossand (Lv 14-17)
8% Castform (Lv 14-17)
8% Pelipper (Lv 14-17)
4% Crawdaunt (Lv 19)
Few worthwhile encounters here, I might be back later.
Youngster Pyro has a level 38 Talonflame. We aren't beating him currently.
X Special Attack over here. I never really use X items, but they're really good.
Item hoarding is lame! Use it or lose it, that's what I say.
This is the non-hidden ability variant of the ability patch. It swaps between the regular abilities.
Crab rave!
Snip snip to you too.
On my way back I find this trash trainer. 4 pokemon, but they're all kinda easy.
Another Ashen shard and some money, that's pretty good.
We need 1 more shard to get anything. We hand them in sets of 3, so every 3 shards we get a goodie.
Lets see what our reward is.
I'm not sure whether to be blown away or disappointed.
Next time: Sorrow's Path.
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