[[DNA-T]] [DNA Nera Tracking]Dialup

Satisfied with her progress that afternoon, Dialup had a collection of jars that she was sure would make for fine vessels for Nera. She lined them up on her table, turned to Wattson, and paused. "Keep the Gible Gang in line while I'm gone. Remember to ball them up if they get too rowdy, cause too much of a fuss. Dinner's in the fridge, you know what to do." He nodded once, offered a jaunty salute, and then held out her travel pack. She smiled, and shouldered it, then set to work tying on her Nera jars for the journey. It'd be her third day in a row heading out on an adventure, and, to her surprise, she was actually enthusiastic about it. Not as much as she would be sourcing rare and elusive clockworks, but it was present all the same.

A deep breath in, a slow exhale as Wattson clapped his broad hands together, and rubbed his palms- an uncannily human gesture, one he'd picked up from her- and went to go find all the little ones. She locked up, and then started her jaunt to the hover-car hub. Back down to earth, sauntering along a path until Dialup reached the start of the untamed wilds of the Frozen Forest. She spared a studious look to the sky, and then nodded to herself. Checked a pocket watch against her internal chronometer, and the estimated sunset. How long she could safely be out before the Nothing started to seep in.

She set a timer, made sure to give herself a buffer of at least thirty minutes. A light tug to secure her scarf, and Dialup felt fairly confident that her mission would be a success. The crunch of her boots through the crust of snow was the only sound after an hour of steady marching, the wind gentle through the boughs. Occasionally, ice broke off the branches, and fell, but, for the most part, the woods were peaceful.

Dialup meandered this way and that, following pokemon trails in silence, breaking off twigs and dropping them to mark her path. To her limited understanding, Nera tended to wander near pokemon- either as Blanks, or with the intent to fuse. So, logically, she would have to find at least some pokemon to have a chance at locating some Nera. She'd been lucky two days prior, that there had been one where she'd found the gibles. She doubted that she'd get that lucky twice in one week, and, that in mind, had opted to go elsewhere.

Which, as it turned out, lead her deep into the forest's heart, where the trees grew thickest and tall, wild berries with thin ice shells on some. Dialup reached up, plucking a few as she traipsed beneath them, knocking the ice off and popping one in her mouth, the other cold fruits put in a pouch on her pack. Here, there were more noises. Birdsong, the scurrying of some small pokemon. The hoof-steps of a herd of wild sawsbucks, who paused to stare at her, assessing. The old stag must not have minded her presence overmuch, as he lowered his head and started to nibble a few blades of grass while his does went on ahead.

They were not her goal, but Dialup did, at least, snap a few pictures of them before moving on. She did, at least, have a fair few ideas of where to look, the lay of the land- a downloaded aerial map with an approximate location of her blipping gently, moving every so often. There were caverns she wanted to explore, not too far, that usually had a veritable haven for all sorts of pokemon- not just the usual ice types, or those with thick coats, or migratory birds. She liked the solidness of ground, rock, and steel types.

Plus, the caves themselves were beautiful. As she approached the small maw of the cave-tunnels, Dialup perked up, picked up her pace. She slipped in, humming thoughtfully as she inhaled slowly. A few meters in, and it was already warming up with the lack of wind, the snow drift blocking it off mostly. The cavern walls gleamed with shots of crystal, of ice, and she traced a vein with a gloved fingertip. No more satnav, she was on her own, setting little markers into the wall on the right.

Deeper, into the darkness. A flashlight clipped onto her pack, flicked on. She moved, quietly, and, eventually, she heard- something. Saw something. A gleam of light. She pulled off one of her nera jars, and crouched. When she confirmed that it was, in fact, a filled Nera, she quietly uncapped it, and got ready to try to sneak up on it, and trap the thing.