Part 7: Chapter 4: The Gatekeepers Part 1

A new day of training begins with Team America getting yelled at.















But today, my dad gave me his duty of updating the boards. That's why I can't man my post. It would be great if someone could take over my sentry duty for today. And that's why you're here. Please do a good job for me. Bye!



Even little Diglett has no qualms about foisting grunt work onto the rookies.



Huh?! I didn't follow that at all! Why are we involved in this?





NO MORE BELLYACHING! GO DO YOUR DUTY!

Ow... My head is pounding...

Team America takes a fade-out to recover.



Climb down this hole and stand guard. You're on sentry duty!





We can't have suspicious characters coming into the guild. So we station a sentry below the guild entrance to evaluate Pokemon visitors. When you first came, you had your footprint evaluated, right?



Babar thinks back to a few days ago.





I stood on the grating, then someone shouted up at me. It was startling!



The tunnel down there leads to the sentry post.



Diglett burrows through it and pops out underneath the sentry post.

























That couldn't have been clearer. (Also, it would suck to get yelled at again.)

Good! Then let's get to WORK! Buck up and do a GOOD job!

Michael and Babar shimmy down into the hole.



We'll have to feel our way...

They make their way through the tunnel.

Well, we should be getting close to the sentry post... Oh! There! I see light, Michael!



HOW'S IT GOING?! Have you taken position at the sentry post?!

Yes! We're in position!

GOOD! Pokemon visitors will step onto the grill above the sentry post! Identify them by footprint, then inform me! Got that?!

Yes! Understood!

GOOD! Let's get started!





I hope you wanted a minigame, because we're getting a minigame!

You can only get two wrong, OK? Babar will keep an eye on things!

The two mistakes are tracked by those exclamation points in speech bubbles on the top screen.

Here comes a Pokemon! Check its footprint and tell me what it is!



There's a time limit for each footprint, indicated by the yellow bar on the top screen. At first, all you get is a footprint and four Pokemon names.



After a second, facepics appear next to the names. Some will show the Pokemon's foot, but most do not.



If you mess up twice on a footprint, Loudred will yell at you when he lets the Pokemon in and sees you identified it wrong.



If you guess correctly...



...The Pokemon enters the guild...



...And you get points.

This game came out in Generation 4 of the Pokemon series. Back then we had 493 species, and the Pokedex included a footprint feature for every monster you caught. Except for the ones who didn't have feet, of course. Sentry duty includes only a fraction of those footprints, but even then, not all of them match up exactly with the ones in the Pokedex.









Even so, there's a lot of variety in visitors. Sometimes it seems the print belongs to three different Pokemon. Other times, it's a bird print, and there's only one bird to choose from.



Then there's Bellsprout.



After six visitors, Diglett returns to his post.

Babar and Michael! That'll do it! Now get back here!





Let me review your sentry-duty performance... Well, well! Your results were... completely perfect!



We got confetti! Does Diglett get confetti for doing this every day?





We'll reward your effort! Generously, I might add!



As the reward for a job perfectly done, Michael's team received 500P! In addition, the team also received a Joy Seed!

When consumed, Joy Seeds raise a Pokemon's level by 1. They're pretty hard to come by.

Not only that, the team also received a Ginseng!

Ginseng raises the power of the topmost move on a Pokemon's movelist. It only works for damaging moves, and can increase power by +1, +2, or even +3 in one drink. Ginsengs are even rarer than Joy Seeds, especially at the start of the game.

But that's not the end of it! The team also received a Life Seed!

Life Seeds are also rare. They permanently raise a Pokemon's max HP by 3 points when eaten.



Sentry duty happens again later on, but the first is the only time you get rewards this awesome for doing it perfectly. That's what savestates are for.





Afterwards, our sentry prodigies eat dinner and go to bed. What will the next day have in store?