[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Lord Windos]

Spoiler

When those runes are etched onto the stone, the tunnel becomes even more silent. A Vigoroth and a Slowbro waddle up behind the party and act like they're standing in a queue, waiting. Geodude comes too. The air becomes thick with power, and the runes age right before your eyes. Little flecks of lichen grow on them, they erode noticeably, a few chips appear. A cylindrical depression sinks into the top of the pillar.

Calam looks pleased, so Dizzy looks pleased too. Gothitelle has her arms thrown back - soaking in the feeling of immense power. Kirlia is grim. The other sensitive Pokemon just look excited.

In complete silence, the pillar begins sinking into the ground, widening as it goes. It forms a staircase of black stone, spiralling into nothingness. The Vigoroth gestures you forward, and you all descend into the pit. Your feet don't even make a sound on the stone steps.

At some point in your timeless descent, you realize you are looking DOWN toward the tunnel of Mt. Sentry. Above you, the direction you now climb, you see a featureless sky. You step up out of the pit, and the staircase folds itself into another patio.

To the west, the patio becomes a beautiful stone plaza, surrounded by a Barrier of psychic force. Designs of fossil and Primal Pokemon are worked into the floor, much like the puzzles in the Ruins of Alph. Each stone glitters with a smooth polish. Thrusting up from the center of the plaza is a structure that can only be the Gauntlet. It's shaped like a clenched fist on the end of a thick arm, knotted with muscles. Runes cover it, in the same style as the Relic Stone, and it's the same obsidian material. The fist is plated with steel.

North of the plaza is a dilapidated shack. It's literally falling apart, with planks, nails, and guttering frozen in midair where they've begun to fall. Apricorn bushes grow around it, partially obscuring it from view. A lake glimmers all around it, trickling out into the grouting of the plaza.

You're unable to go that way due to the forcefield.

The force field seems to emanate from a low wall running east-west. At its eastmost point, it rises to be a grandiose stone staircase, the envy of any courthouse or capital building on the planet. White marble pillars follow the stairs in geometric precision, and more at the landing. Set into each pillar of the landing pillars, in a little nook, is one of these:

There are six in all.

Four of the pillars contain red Apricorns.

Behind the landing is a huge white door. Living Unown hang out above it, recessed into the marble archway.


The door is locked with four keyholes. A bunch more Carbink are hanging out above the doorway, smiling.

Ventus did not like Antheneum.

At all.
 
That was his general attitude he held towards the place ever since he heard of the unearthly power this mystical, arcane location, and being in it only reinforced that feeling.

Now that he was actually at and in the place, he could add one more ambient feeling to his mood.

Fear.

He wanted out of this place. To escape it, never look back, and condemn it once more to the lost timeless antiquity where it belonged, never again to be found by the foolish hands of man or Pokémon alike.

It was too late for that, though. He was stuck here with the rest of the group until they solved SOME of the mysteries of this secret library and secured it against the Scimitars, as he had sworn to do.

Didn't mean he was going to be even remotely happy about this duty, though.

He considered this whole quest by this point a dangerous, mandatory, and begrudging responsibility to keep Antheneum out of the Scimitars foul, corrupted mitts, not some epic, transformative journey like others would, and he was quite honestly done with having either by this point in his long, suffering life.

Still, he must endure this all. For the shake of himself......and the group.

Once his eyes landed on The Gauntlet, he knew it for what it was and took measures to be as far away as possible from the terrible thing. As he had said to the Slowking, becoming 'more' than human was a thoroughly wretched thing that he wanted no part of. Shiva's polar opposite reaction to the thing earned a sharp frown from the researcher, the disappointment and unease from her interest in it all but palpatable, but seeing as he would not go anywhere near the Gauntlet and would not/could not interfere with the group's desires to interact with hit, he let go to it unchallenged.

Make no mistake, he was still unhappy about it, but he has since learned that he couldn't control or protect everyone in the group as he would like on this journey and that coddling his girlfriend would only lead to disaster, so he could accept this.

For now.

Ventus was swift to immediately recognize the statues as either recreations of the Zen Mode form of Darmanitan, or the actual genuine article. It was hard to tell, given how both showed signs of visible life just as well as the other.

Right now, the sociologist choose to remain absolutely silent, keeping his own company away from the bulk of the group (and far away from The Gauntlet), pondering just how to get past these guardians and unlock the gates into Antheneum for them. Either that, or seal them si tightly that nothing would be able to enter or leave them ever again......

(I would like Insight Rolls of some kind for Ven to help solve the puzzles/clues, as I am notoriously bad at doing such organically except on rare occasions. Anything he can do to help without interacting with The Gauntlet, the better!)