bravenewworld | Exploring the Eastern Calderan ruins!

Entry tags:

Exploring the Eastern Calderan ruins!

Who: Merrill, Yuuna, Isabela, Maka, Sinbad
Where: Ruins East of Caldera
When: Early May
What: Exploring some of the ruins.
Warnings: None that I'm aware of!

[A new month, a new adventure. This really was the sort of thing Yuuna lived for. She wasn't a Seeker, true, and she wasn't a treasure hunter, it was just the thrill of the unknown. New places, new Pokemon, new...everything, really. That was what always kept her coming back, and why she'd never fit in with the others at school. She had a disease, she figured. Wanderlust.

And that's why she's pausing outside the entrance to these ruins, looking at the Magnezone with it's magnetic lamp, hand on her hip, just sort of spacing out. After a moment though, she turns to the group.]

Right. New ruins. Stay close, don't wander off, and for the love of the Savior don't pull any levers or switches without discussion. Got it?

[That seemed sensible. Though, the two young Enlightened seemed smart enough to know better anyway...]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The young man instinctively back-flipped - standing on his hands to avoid getting hit by two as his eevee and growlithe let out startled yelps, hitting the ground, the dratini around his shoulders curled tighter]

I'll try.

[Sinbad lowers himself to the ground once the immediate threat of skewering had passed and raised his voice so he can be heard]

We apologize for disturbing your nest! We are simply humble humans that wished to understand the place that you called home, We had no intentions of causing offense or harm to you.

[She may have paid attention but...what?! Who ever suspects a metal cylinder is going to be full of Honedge?!]

Zedd! Back off...

[As the Magnezone complies, she looks to Merrill and Sinbad. She's absolutely willing to let them talk, she really doesn't wanna fight at all. Stepping back, she does keep her hand on her warp band, ready for dragon-time if it comes to it.]

[Well, time to talk. Merrill steps up beside Sinbad, going down on one knee as a mutual show of respect to the Honedge.]

Yes, we're very sorry. We didn't mean to interrupt your nap.

[Ghost swords take naps, right?]

[Stunned for the moment, not speaking this entire time and then suddenly angry Pokemon coming out, Maka steps up with the two of them as well. She doesn't like the look of those swords, and they give her that creepy feeling she gets when she's around ghosts, a bad combination for someone of the Fairy and Psychic type like she is. But still, she'll try to join Merril and Sinbad.]

Please believe us, we didn't mean to bother you. It's my responsibility, I should have been able to sense that you were all there, but you were out of my range, I'm very sorry.

[Though she's very likely the weakest one out of all of them, Maka still has her conviction and speaks with it carefully. Maybe, just maybe, her empathy can reach and they'll understand how she feels.

Or they'll all get skewered. It was a good run, anyway.]

[They're being awfully respectful, but sentient swords may not respond so well to groveling and other such less than courageous responses. ...Or perhaps they're not really understanding what's being conveyed at all. Either way, it isn't long before the group is surrounded by a wall of swords, each Honedge spinning rapidly in a circle to form a cylindrical cage of pointy ends. Time to all get skewered.

...

Or, well, maybe not, since they seem to sit there for a while without moving.

Then, very slowly, the cylindrical cage begins to edge towards the stairs, herding them away from the metal contraption. They can shuffle along quietly if they want, but who knows what other plans the Honedge might have?]

Right. We should probably move with them. I'll cover for us if they try anything weirder.

[So, Yuuna at least does. But she'll do the smart thing and send away the magnetic Pokemon and replace him with a Dragonite and Flygon, letting the two of them hover protectively around her and the others. If there's going to be a fight and attempted skewering then she figures having the heavily scaled dragons who can push back might be the only way to survive. She's lacking in Teleporters at the moment.]

[Isabela grits her teeth, considering. They could almost certainly take a horde of these things, and if all else failed, she could call out her own Aegislash to boss them around, but maybe it was better to roll with it.]

They're probably protecting a nest. Which raises a lot of questions, actually, considering they're swords.

[Vivillon and the fake Vivillon hover protectively, but don't engage the Honedges. ]

Well, we were going upstairs anyway, right?

All right, all right. We'll leave your home be.

[A stray thought enter his mind that baby swords might be daggers, but he quickly dismissed it before saying it out loud - because that is a silly thought]

Yeah, they seem to want us to go upstairs for a specific reason.

[Sinbad considers the Honedges' actions - if they just want them gone-gone, it seems easier to herd them outside - he whistles, gesturing for his two other mons to follow him]

I didn't know swords had nests. It sounds terribly uncomfortable. Wouldn't they all be poking into each other all the time?

[Merrill speculates out loud as they're herded along, her Spiritomb hovering just behind her head and giving the evil eye to the assembled Honedge swarm. But he's behaving for now, and Merrill is fine with letting them lead the way.]

It doesn't really matter as long as they're not poking us.

[As much as she doesn't like being herded, it's still better than having to fight the Honedge.]

We're the ones that are trespassing here anyway, so we should follow their lead.

[Maka half says this to the group and to her assembled Pokemon, the Larvitar--Jade--in particular looks annoyed at being bossed around. But what are they HIDING! he protests and Maka shushes him. It's probably nothing, just a nest.]

[It could also be extremely rare and priceless artifacts that will never be discovered now thanks to the party's lack of proper pirate spirit. Isabela, you are failing us all.

When they make it to the stairs, the swords spin around and butt them with the hilt of their blades into the stairwell. Then they form an intricate, interlocking barrier to close up the wall behind the group. Up they go.

Nothing else springs out to assault them on their way up the stairs, but as Vivillon probably noted before, there are rooms to the north and south, a giant hole to the west, and more stairs continuing upwards.]

[That can come later. Yuuna has the adventurous, meticulous spirit of one Henry Jones Jr. after all. But for now she'll head up and look down at the sword wall. Weird.]

It's not like we can't just fly down.

[Dragonite nods, but turns to keep an eye on the troublemaking blades. Don't make her come back down there, dweebs.]

Doors? Or up? I'm partial to doors.

I like doors.

[Merrill likes everything, though. That probably isn't too helpful. She's just happy to be here.]

Where do you think we should go, Eluvian?

Spiiirrrritoooooomb...

[That probably roughly translates to 'wherever will kill you the fastest' or something of the sort.]

[Isabela is all for fighting for swag, but when her opposition consists entirely of weapons and nothing else, it gets to be a question of risk/reward.]

[She does give the sword that pummels her a serious glare, though.]

Okay. I'll scope out the south door for any of these alleged traps if the kid wants to check the north one.

[He gives the Spiritomb a suspicious eye as he's nudged forward]

Sounds good to me.

[he moves away from the sword wall, sensing the waves around him as he approaches the north door]

[A shudder is Maka's only reply at first, she's trying her best to not cast suspicion on ghosts since last talking to Rei, but that was incredibly sketchy.]

Be careful, everyone.

[Stella, however, will always feel free to cast suspicion on ghosts, she cringes at Eluvian, clinging closely to Maka as always.]

...Yuuna, what happens if we need to split up?

[Yuuna gives Eluvian a withering stare, almost as if to remind the ghost that she'll make sure he gets a nice, big fairy-typed stake drilled right through him and his keystone if he tries anything. But to Maka? she shrugs.]

We're not going to split up more than ten feet if we can help it. If something happens that does split us up, the priority is to get back together, not explore further. We don't know what's here, and there's safety in numbers.

[As Isabela approaches the south door to cautiously keep an eye out for traps, she will not spot anything particularly out of the ordinary. It appears to be a normal door - no hidden buttons, no floor panels, no arrows springing out of walls. No unusual sounds or smells, either.

The only warning that anything is wrong is, in fact, that the room she sees as she approaches is quite well lit and appears to be completely empty. It does not, however, have any windows or any other apparent source of light that would allow for that.

If she steps through the doorway, she will vanish into thin air.

Sinbad will suffer a similar fate, but he has the same warning sign and an additional very strong urge to stop moving forward thanks to his subconscious Psychic premonitions.

If Maka, Yuuna, and Merrill are carefully glancing around, they may turn at some point to see that the stairs they came up are now a nondescript wall. They are welcome to try flying back down to ground level if they like.]

((I'll respond after Isabela/Sinbad if either of them triggers the trap!))

Edited 2015-05-12 04:16 (UTC)

[He stops in his step at the threshold of the door as he felt a ripple in the waves - caution.

Part of him wanted to press on through, see why they were screaming at him to stop, but Badr's light weight on his shoulders reminded him he wasn't alone, and couldn't take the same chances he was used to]

There's something dangerous that way - I can't tell you what, but crossing the threshold is a bad idea.

Edited 2015-05-12 20:25 (UTC)

((Waiting on responses!))

[The narrator would tend to agree.]

[Yuuna walks over to Sinbad, eyeing the doorway herself. The magically appearing wall is pretty damn weird.]

And we can't go back. Splitting up is a bad idea. But there's not really any direction to go but these doors or further up...because I'm not sure I trust flying down with the way that wall just...popped up.

Edited 2015-05-13 04:14 (UTC)

Wait...

[Isabela holds up a hand.]

Kid's got a point. Something's not right here. Where's the light coming from?

[Rather than charging in herself, she takes one of the traditional tools of the sneaky thief, a small mirror on a stick, off her belt, and sticks it into the room, attempting to see around the corner. If that vanishes, she'll try pulling it back.]

[Maka waits to see what happens next. All indication, from the Honedge to now, seems to be pushing them further and further up...

It's suspicious, but the only thing that's telling her that is her common sense. There's no living person (besides her companions) to sense around, to feel, even though there's light it's very much like she's in the dark.]

[The mirror does not vanish when she sticks it through, but the image reflected in the mirror may be somewhat startling. Rather than reflecting a room, Isabela will see something very white and very shiny. The rest of the image is simply darkness.

...It might take her a few moments to realize she's looking at teeth.

That's about the same amount of time it will take for everyone else to realize that their shadows are all being stretched either north or south. Or maybe a little longer, in which case it's soon obvious it's not only their shadows being affected. Isabela, Maka, and Yuuna will find themselves suddenly pulled south while Sinbad and Merrill are dragged towards the north room. The pressure is coming from their ankles.]

So it's either down and hope we don't get shish-kabobed or trigger a...

What is my shadow doing....

[He trails off as a chill went down this spine, followed by the surprised yips from his four-legged pokemon as he tries to bolt away from the south door, but the tugging sensation persisted - and now he's being dragged]

What the hell-?!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject