[crow]

The Loudred certainly had a willing audience, considering she was going to tell them what they were here to find out--- presumably, anyway. That was what she had said, after all. She seemed pleased, either at their obedience or at the amount of attention she was getting. "Welcome, everyone, to Kingdra's Exploration Guild headquarters. I presume you're all here because of the notice we put out concerning the mist?"

There was a general murmur of assent that went through the crowd. The Loudred nodded.

[crow]

"Good. That's what we're going to be talking about. If you're looking for something else, I suggest you go to the help desk, since I'll be relating information to do with the mist here. Those looking to submit missions to the guild should head directly into the next room."

She indicated a direction with the wave of one hand. Interestingly, there really were a few individuals who broke free from the crowd and left the room. Apparently some poor souls had actually gotten lost.

[crow]

After coming in here, the crowd had made it difficult for them to figure out what was going on, so they hadn't cottoned on that they were in the wrong spot. They must have figured it was better to stay and find out... Maybe they thought it was some sort of exciting event, what with all the other Pokemon gathered here.

In a sense, if that was the way they were thinking, they weren't necessarily wrong. But it wasn't a celebration or a giveaway or anything like that.

[crow]

It wasn't even a meet and greet for some sort of famous figure, like the guild leader himself. It was just an information session about the mist.

But with those individuals cleared out of the room, Loudred was finally able to get to the heart of the matter, which was the mist.

"I'm sure you all have a great deal of questions," she began. "We'll try to address them all in time. However, our first order of business is this: If you're here to make a report on a sighting, please follow Mallow here to fill out the appropriate paperwork."

[crow]

This time, Loudred motioned to a Liligant, who dipped a little curtsy. She wasn't standing on anything, but Loudred was clearly pointing her out, and she wasn't so short that she would have been utterly invisible, like Nico would have been. Even the Pokemon who couldn't see her could definitely see Loudred though.

A few Pokemon pushed through the crowd at that instruction too. These made up a higher proportion of the crowd than did the people who simply happened to be lost.

[crow]

In fact, their numbers were quite a surprise to Nico, since Nico had had great difficulty yesterday finding even two people who had seen the mist themselves. Yet today, at the guild, there was... perhaps not quite a dozen, all making their way to fill out those reports!

But Nico knew better than to wonder at the reasoning behind it. He could already figure it out. It wasn't that difficult a concept: this was merely the power of a big, well-established guild like Kingdra's.

[crow]

Just how many Pokemon had heard the announcement? Even he couldn't hazard a guess. Given the reach of the announcements, the odds of hitting an individual who had seen the mist themselves was much higher.

Moreover, the size and legitimacy of the guild implied a certain level of incentives for those who came forth with information. If it were important enough for the guild to have expended all this time and effort to do this, then they must really have wanted to know about this phenomenon.

[crow]

Even if you didn't understand the significance of it yourself, you could use whatever information you had to bargain for some sort of compensation for it, if that was what you were interested in. Or maybe the guild would already have a system in place to compensate you for your troubles... and possibly for not going to another guild with the same information.

It sounded a bit seedy, but stuff like that really did happen. It was the name of the game, on occasion.

[crow]

The guilds were in competition with each other, after all, and sometimes when it was a competition, you had to try and block your opponents too.

Nico sorely wished he could interview those individuals himself, but what could he offer them? And moreover, what could he offer the guild, to let him profit off the benefits brought on by their scale and scope? He hadn't even seen the mist himself, so he couldn't use any information of his own as a bargaining chip.

[crow]

And the information he had aggregated second-hand from yesterday... That was way too little for what he was asking for from them.

No, it couldn't be contemplated.

Eventually, the number of Pokemon who were wading through the crowd diminished, and the Loudred turned to address the crowd again. "Alright, the rest of you are here for information, I presume. Some of you will be here looking to sign up for the expedition, but we'll address that at the end. In the meantime, the guild has decided it's best to brief you regardless."

[crow]

There was another wave of murmuring through the gathered Pokemon. It wasn't dissenting, merely speculative as of yet.

The Loudred didn't immediately push for silence either, when the murmuring began, but let the get it over with on their own. She didn't seem surprised that it had happened. She must have been doing this for a couple of days now, since it had been about that long since the notice went out. Maybe she had gained some experience from having done this before.

[crow]

Then again, it might have been experience from doing this sort of thing in general. That was more likely, given the short time frame of the whole mist business thus far. And it seemed like the Loudred's purpose within the guild was pretty well established, which made sense given their unique talents as Pokemon.

When she was satisfied that it was sufficiently quiet, she started up again. "What we know thus far is that the mist has appeared in several locations," she began.

[crow]

"We've had confirmed sightings from several locations from our own agents, and they appear to be quite widespread in terms of distribution. We haven't managed to deduce a connection between the locations of the sightings, but we're currently working on investigating any possible links. We'd appreciate any information you can provide us in the coming days."

Nico frowned in thought. It seemed like they didn't know all that much about patterns in the appearance of the mist either, despite their larger quantities of intel.

[crow]

But then, maybe it wasn't all quality information they were getting either, at least from the sources that were external in nature. There was a downside to being able to give incentives for those who provided you with what you wanted to know. If you went that route, there was bound to be a few unscrupulous Pokemon who chose to fake information to get a reward.

The guild naturally would anticipate this, either from experience or because... well, it was a fairly predictable outcome.

[crow]

As such, they would have set up ways to screen the informants coming in, as well as the information they were giving. Possibly it was even Psychic types; Nico didn't know. Still, it meant that not every individual who came in had something useful to give them.

And, for that matter, even if a Pokemon had come in with the best of intentions, there was nothing stopping them from giving bad information anyway. A poor memory, for example, might ruin the usefulness of an account.