Navigating the Solaceon Ruins, and its absurd number of empty chambers with branching staircases, was no more entertaining for Cecilia than the last time she had been here. She was actually tempted to label it as an even worse experience than the previous visit, because at least last time she had been preoccupied with her dilemma involving Shadow, instead of being uncomfortably aware of just how insufferably dull this place was.
The only consolation was that Kaito had quickly given up on exploring every pathway, including the ones that went nowhere, in favor of just following the route indicated by the Unown text. Words could scarcely describe how relieved the Quilava was to hear they weren't actually going to spend the next six hours looking at virtually identical rooms.
At the bottom of what felt like the tenth flight of stairs she had descended for the day, Cecilia and Kaito emerged in a much larger, bizarrely well-lit chamber. The walls were decorated with various Unown symbols, larger than the ones inscribed at the Ruins entranceway, but what struck the Quilava as particularly odd was that there was no visible light source. All the other floors had been almost pitch-black, with the absence of sunlight or torches to illuminate the area. She and Kaito had been fine, with her flames and the spheres of light he could conjure around him serving the same purpose, but this room was devoid of anything that would logically produce light.
Kaito gazed around this new chamber cautiously, and Cecilia did the same. Bone fragments littered the room, and sections of the floor were damaged and crumbled, as if blasted apart with great force. Unlike the other rooms, there was only a single staircase, located directly across the room from where they stood.
"Oh, I know this room," Cecilia announced, her blue eyes lighting up. "This is where I fought the Sigilyph! It's also the furthest I personally got into the Ruins, because I got injured in that fight and had to get bandages," she continued sheepishly. In retrospect, it was incredibly fortunate that she had been accompanied by a Pokemon who both worked at the local Pokemon Center and knew how to Teleport, because she did not relish the idea of climbing back up several flights of stairs with a gash across her hind legs.
"Hm...from what Lin and Force reported, they hadn't needed to face anything before proceeding," Kaito murmured, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, his eyes scanning the walls. "Keep a lookout for me, Cecilia, I'm going to examine the walls more closely."
"Say 'please'," the Quilava retorted, nevertheless positioning herself just to the side of the stairs, giving her a vantage point of almost the entire room without needing to turn her head.
"Sorry. Please keep a lookout for me," Kaito amended promptly, and Cecilia smiled to herself. She hadn't actually expected the Togetic to acknowledge her response, mostly because they both knew she intended to follow the instructions regardless of whether he adjusted his manner or not. The fact that he did anyway spoke volumes about how much he appreciated her assistance, especially since she had made it clear how much she didn't want to come here.
"Finding anything?" the Quilava asked, after several minutes of silence. Unlike the last time she was here, there was no psychic disruption in the air to indicate a barrier, nor did it seem like the room was in any way reacting to their presence. The sigils decorating the walls were immobile and passive, and no Sigilyph or similar guardian had appeared before them. The room was desolate and silent.
"No," Kaito lamented, his wings practically drooping in disappointment. "Perhaps because this room is lacking its guardian..."
Cecilia nodded slowly. Iris and Force had mentioned that the Sigilyph had been killed, so that seemed like a logical consequence - the room it had once once guarded was now abandoned, with nothing around to keep intruders out. "So...move on?" she guessed.
The Togetic nodded, turning his gaze to the lone staircase at the far end of the room. He started towards it, and Cecilia took care to observe their surroundings before following, just to be sure nothing would ambush them at the last moment, but she and Kaito both reached the stairs without consequence.
Even with her stomach squirming with anxiety, Cecilia noted with some enthusiasm that these stairs winded downwards, an ancient spiral staircase. It made every step feel infinitely more dramatic. It reminded her of stormy nights spent cozied by a fireplace as a Cyndaquil, with a Banette reading her stories from a large, leatherbound book. She smiled privately to herself at the memory, just as she and Kaito emerged in a massive chamber, far larger and more ornate than even the previous room.
Innumerable carvings decorated the four walls, each inscribed with the same hieroglyphic text as the entranceway plaque. Several decorative pillars stood in the center of the room, looking oddly barren, as if they once used to hold something of value, but had since been divested of their treasures.
The room felt eerily cold, as if a winter's chill had permanently taken hold of the environment. Cecilia flared up her flames a little to counteract the cold, her blue eyes scanning the room warily. There was an unsettling sensation surrounding this chamber, that made the back of her neck prickle. Due to the persistent eyeball aesthetic of Unown symbols, it felt as though innumerable eyes were following them around the room. No matter where they looked, countless eyes unblinkingly stared back, watching their every move.
"Ugh...I don't like the feel of this room," Kaito muttered, and Cecilia nodded in agreement.
"It feels like we're being watched," she noted distastefully.
"We almost doubtlessly are," Kaito murmured, and the Quilava jerked her head up to stare incredulously at the Togetic. "Like the Ruins of Alph, the Solaceon Ruins contain Unown. If you look closely, you can see that the symbols on the walls are not merely inscriptions. The majority of the Unown are likely dormant...but some are not. There are always eyes keeping watch over the Ruins."
"Um...do you think maybe that's why a Sigilyph appeared last time?" Cecilia wondered, her eyes darting about nervously, and she lowered her voice to a whisper, as if a small child was sleeping in the neighboring room. "If this room has actual Unown, then maybe Force and Lin arriving here alerted the guardian that there were intruders present?"
"Very probable," Kaito agreed solemnly. "What purpose did this room serve for the ones who built it?" he wondered aloud, peering closely at the pillars. "Was it perhaps a temple or monument paying respect to a legendary Pokemon?"
The Togetic tentatively touched the pillar, running his paw over the decorative engravings, like a blind person exploring Braille script. He then peered more closely at the markings, but the pillars were devoid of runic symbols and writing. All the carvings seemed purely for the sake of aesthetics, yet each contained an empty, flat surface, like a pedestal.
"The worst part about Ruins open to the public is that so much context is missing from the scene," Kaito lamented. "If these pedestals contained treasures, they've been stolen or removed, possibly centuries ago. We don't know what sort of objects might have sat upon these pillars, or what function they were intended to serve. Was this a treasure room, accessible only to chosen few that the master of the structure wished to show off to? Was it simply a vault to protect valuables? Did they have a religious significance?"
"But even if it was any of those things, why the huge maze with dozens of dead-end passageways?" Cecilia wondered. "Why would anyone go through so much effort to make a confusing path, if the entrance just directs you to the end? And why make pointless dead-ends at all, when you could just booby-trap the place or something for far less effort?"
"Actually, it's generally believed that the upper floors were originally intended to be a community shelter to house a large number of people, but after the builders dug into the chamber above, they cancelled the project out of respect for these grounds," Kaito mused absently. "But that just raises more questions...how much of the Ruins is the original structure, pre-dating the people who excavated the mountain? How did the original get buried so deep underground? Did the ones who found this place drop the project immediately, or did they try to integrate it with their original vision, and only ceased work upon provoking the Unown?"
"I feel like you've been sitting on this history for a while, but neglected to warn the rest of us before sending us to investigate," Cecilia deadpanned.
"The mystery is part of what makes these sites fascinating," Kaito replied. "Few things of the past have a definitive explanation. So many pieces and clues, like an enormous jigsaw puzzle missing a handful of pieces...get enough of them together for a glimpse of the larger picture, but there will always be a couple holes."
"What are we doing here again?" Cecilia asked, heaving a sigh. Kaito loved being dramatic in regards to ancient relics and sites, but the Quilava often found it exhausting to try and keep up with him. She just didn't share the same interests. None of the group really did, but they usually trusted that he knew what he was talking about and getting them into, at least until Diablos became part of the equation.
Kaito chuckled, unfazed by her exasperation. "I'm first looking to see if this room provides any clues or context to the existence of a hidden chamber," he explained patiently. "Force and Lin mentioned the hidden trapdoor, but neither could really explain how they discovered it. I also believe the hidden room itself may contain some information as to what sets these Ruins apart from the ones in Johto. Why was only this one guarded? Is there a connection between the two sites? Or is it merely a coincidence that two sets of Ruins, regions apart, both featured a hidden chamber that contained a Mega Stone?"
The Quilava shrugged and made her way towards the far side of the ornate chamber, her attention drawn by an obvious pit in the ground, a seeming imperfection that attracted her interest far more than any of the other features of the room. She stumbled briefly on the way over, and noted with some amusement that the floor was slightly uneven in places, likely due to the floor tiles not being of uniform size or thickness.
She stopped dead in her tracks as that idle thought crossed her mind, and cast a bewildered look around her. Maybe it was because she primarily moved as a quadruped, and therefore had her face close to the ground, but she sometimes felt like she noticed details that the people around her did not. Kaito was usually airborne, excluding him from noticing something like whether or not the floor was perfectly even, but it was precisely because the floor was uneven that Cecilia realized that this was the only room throughout the Ruins that had individual floor tiles. Every other floor they had visited had been constructed with solid stone floors.
For whatever reason, the builders had deemed it worth the effort to carve individual floor tiles, rather than just chiseling a design into a solid stone floor, if it was a matter of aesthetics. Hiding something underfoot was brilliant in its simplicity. One could dig out a pit or cubbyhole, store something within the cavity, and then place something sturdy over it, allowing others to literally walk over the secret spot without realizing it was there. However, this was only viable if the hidden compartment was aesthetically indistinguishable from the rest of the area.
Sure enough, as she drew nearer to the pit, she saw that a section of the floor had been pulled out from its original position, exposing a stairway leading into blackness. An entire passageway had been tunneled out beneath this room, and then concealed by a heavy stone slab that seemed far too big for one person to move on their own. Furthermore, there was no noticeable handle or other means to lift the stone free from its original resting place, but that just begged the question of how it had been moved at all.
The first idea that jumped to Cecilia's mind was telekinesis, which made sense, considering the plethora of Unown sigils decorating the surrounding walls. However, on closer inspection, she saw that the floor tile had been engraved with several peculiar runic symbols, entirely distinct from the derpy alphabetical markings that were otherwise inscribed upon ancient surfaces, and that the other tiles noticeably lacked.
"Hey, Kaito?" Cecilia called, looking over her shoulder at the Togetic, who twitched, but glanced her way. "Could you take a look at this real quick?"
"You find something?" Kaito wondered, making his way over to where the Quilava was standing. She wordlessly tapped the stone tile, directing his attention to the symbols written upon its surface. In spite of her active flames, Cecilia felt a cold shiver run along her spine, and a nameless sense of dread gripped her heart. The sensation reminded her unpleasantly of the condemned corridor at Mt. Coronet, to say nothing of the discomfort that Diablos' presence provoked within her.
As Kaito peered closer at the runic markings, Cecilia gazed around the room anxiously. The fur at the back of her neck prickled again, and the sensation of being watched nagged at her subconscious mind with greater urgency. Yet everywhere she turned, she saw only the eyeball sigils decorating the walls. Even if a few of the Unown were active, as Kaito said, it was unnerving beyond belief not to know which ones were actually watching, or whether they were going to do anything.
"C-could we leave this room soon?" she asked in a desperate whisper.
Kaito looked over at her with an expression of confusion and concern, and his gaze darted about the room, lingering on the Unown lining the walls. The confusion on his face soon cleared up, and for a moment, Cecilia was convinced he was about to tell her to suck it up, or offer some bland reassurance that the Unown were probably harmless.
To her surprise, he instead nodded sympathetically.
"All right, let's move on," he told her seriously. Cecilia blinked, hardly believing what she had just heard, but she wasn't about to give him the chance to change his mind. She started towards the stairs, preparing to spit a tongue of flame into the darkness to illuminate what lay beyond. Kaito didn't have the same problem, due to his ability to fly, but she at least wasn't dumb enough to descend a ladder or staircase leading into blackness without first confirming that sure footing existed past what was immediately visible. All the time spent exploring Mt. Coronet had trained her to always light up a darkened pit before dropping down into it.
No sooner had she reached the top of the stairs than the entire chamber went dark. Kaito let out a startled cry, and Cecilia whirled around, searching for the source of the sudden blackout. Her flames and the sphere of light surrounding Kaito's body illuminated a sizeable portion of the room, keeping them from floundering helplessly, but just as she earlier had struggled to understand how these last two chambers had been lit up, Cecilia had no idea why it had suddenly gone dark.
"Stay calm, just stay calm," Kaito urged quietly.
"I am calm," Cecilia hissed back.
"I was talking to myself, actually," the Togetic admitted.
A pair of eerie, poisonous-green flames blazed into existence from the center of the room. Each wisp burned brightly, casting a sickly glow upon the stone surfaces of the ornate chamber, but Cecilia knew at once that this was not traditional fire. Coloring aside, the flames made no sound, produced no heat, and, as far as she could tell, was not actually consuming anything, not even oxygen.
"That's some sort of ghostly fire," Cecilia murmured from the corner of her mouth. Kaito merely nodded, watching the two wisps warily.
"Be gone...intruders..." a hoarse voice whispered, sounding like it was spoken directly into Cecilia's right ear.
Cecilia flinched so badly that her paws actually left the ground. Alarm shifted to anger within the blink of an eye, and in one swift motion, Cecilia pivoted and launched a stream of fire from her mouth. The cone of fire struck the opposing stone wall, which weathered the blast with ease, leaving the Quilava looking rather foolish. Any invisible tormentor worth its salt would have made itself intangible prior to getting so close to a victim, but this realization only made Cecilia angrier.
"What's going on? Force and Lin never mentioned this happening last time!" she growled, turning in place and searching for some indication of a specter at work. Kaito had produced a blob of purple energy between his paws, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"I don't know," he answered curtly, and abruptly flung the Shadow Ball forward at the green wisps spinning in mid-air. To their mutual surprise, the wisps changed formation, and one of the flames struck the purple blob with enough force to volley it right back at them. Kaito ducked his head at the last second, and the Shadow Ball detonated harmlessly against the back wall.
"My turn!" Cecilia snarled, darting in front of Kaito and expelling a tongue of fire from her mouth, moving her head from side to side to expand the range of the breath attack, at the cost of sheer firepower. The emerald flames spun rapidly, until they could only see a blur of green in the shape of a ring, rather than two individual flames. Cecilia watched in disbelief as her fiery assault was harmlessly redirected to either side of the glowing ring, and as the spinning wisps slowed, she could have sworn that she heard snickering.
Eerie blue energy abruptly surrounded the Quilava's body, and she inhaled sharply as a cold, clammy sensation pervaded her body. It felt like her chest had been dunked in ice water, sapping her body of warmth and extinguishing her flames. The sensation was gone within moments, but in its place was a bizarre feeling of congestion in her throat and chest, as if she had been fighting off a severe cold for a week.
Cecilia attempted to reignite her flames to counteract the chill overtaking her body, but her efforts yielded subpar results. It felt almost like there was some sort of blockage between her body's core and her flame vents, and even her breathing felt slightly more labored. She growled angrily, her brain still working well enough to connect the dots and recognize the symptoms. She hadn't abruptly fallen ill in the middle of a fight, so while the symptoms resembled a cold, she knew better than that.
"Are you okay, Cecilia?" Kaito asked, visibly concerned by her sudden struggle.
"That...thing..." Cecilia growled, silently adding a few choice adjectives to describe their opponent. "Hit my fire attacks with Spite," she finished. This was one of those bizarre situations where close friendship with a Banette was a massive benefit - she knew how it felt to be placed under the effects of almost every curse or hex-based technique in a Ghost-type's arsenal. That was not to say Matthias placed such spells on her out of malice, but she had been a stupidly curious Cyndaquil back then.
"Hm...then it kind of gave its secret away here, in pursuit of flashiness," Kaito mused, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, his wings fluttering more gently. A pale blue glow slowly surrounded his body, and his eyes flew open, glowing with the same blue light as the rest of his body. The light expanded outwards in a large pulse that washed over the entire chamber.
The wave of light dispelled the veil of darkness that had taken hold of the chamber, restoring it to its previous lighting, and as the energy passed through the sickly green flame wisps, the remaining illusions dissolved, exposing the true form and nature of their unseen opponent.
The Pokemon standing before them was a biped with a black body, wielding a long bone club in one of its paws, the green flames burning from each end of its weapon. Its head was composed of a sturdy skull mask, with a curious, flame-like black marking adorning the forehead. Upon closer inspection, Cecilia was able to see that the skull was actually part of the Pokemon's face, rather than a mask as she initially thought, but it was just as effective as one in terms of concealing the Pokemon's facial expression and other tells.
The bone Pokemon seemed utterly indifferent to being exposed by Kaito's Foresight technique, as its only reaction was to idly twirl its bone club like a baton, extinguishing the green flames upon it. Kaito blinked at the skull Pokemon in absolute confusion.
"Wait, that's a Marowak, isn't it? They don't have ghostly abilities OR illusions!" he protested.
"Unless they're dead and haunting a tower of lost souls," the Marowak retorted, the snideness in its tone undeniable. Its voice was distinctly feminine, which fit with the look of its eyes and relatively thin figure, the only traits Cecilia could really use to try and navigate a social situation without facial cues.
"Who the hell are you?" Cecilia demanded, the congested feeling in her chest dampening any conscious desire to be more diplomatic.
"Yes, Alola to you, too," the bone Pokemon sneered, tossing its bone club to its left paw and twirling it idly, but it was equally probable that she was just limbering up her arm. Cecilia shot a sideways glance at Kaito, who seemed similarly baffled by this response. "Is it customary in Sinnoh to abruptly stop fighting an opponent to instead hold a conversation with them?"
"You attacked us," Kaito pointed out, his body tensing. "Are you one of the guardians here?"
"No, I was just having fun with you," the Marowak replied, snickering. "You try to use the stairs, so I'm all 'Begone intruders!' and then attack. Ever visit the Lost Tower, just to the south of here?"
"No...not recently, at least," Kaito said slowly. The black Marowak smirked.
"Shame. So no Cleanse Tag between the two of you?" she asked, twirling her bone club. Kaito glanced at Cecilia, but then shook his head. The bone Pokemon's eyes lit up with enthusiasm. "Fantastic. Then I, Seraphina, champion of vengeful souls, will-"
"You're one of Kuro's associates, aren't you?" Kaito interrupted. The Marowak hurled her bone club at the Togetic so swiftly that he didn't even have time to dodge or defend himself before it whacked against his skull. Without so much as a cry of pain, the fairy Pokemon dropped like a brick, hitting the stone floor with a quiet thump. The thrown bone club soared back to the Marowak's paw like a boomerang, and she scowled at the fallen Togetic.
"Don't interrupt me," she spat, turning her attention to Cecilia, who was staring, horror-struck, at the Togetic's unmoving form. "Cecilia, I've inherited the vengeful will of the Sigilyph guardian that was bested by you. I hope you give me a performance worthy of easing its restless soul."
"You bitch," Cecilia hissed, her body shaking with emotion as she prodded Kaito's unconscious body. His chest was moving, which was a relief, but he was now sporting a nasty-looking gash along the side of his head, blood trickling from the wound. It was one thing to receive an injury during a fight, but Kaito had been attacked so abruptly and violently that it crossed the line. Nothing pained Cecilia as much as seeing her friends get hurt...or worse. She had already lost Rio, but she refused to lose anyone else, or stand by and let her friends be attacked with impunity.
"My name is Sera, or Seraphina if you're being formal, but definitely not 'you bitch'," the Marowak retorted. "And he'll be fine, I only clocked him. Hurry up now, because if Circe finishes up here before we have a conclusion, I won't be satisfied."
Cecilia raised her eyes to glare at the bone Pokemon's face, her expression contorted into a mask of pure rage. She hadn't felt this angry since the day she learned of Rio's death. Her flames roared back to life, the congestion in her chest dissolving away as her internal temperature skyrocketed.
This fight would be her stress relief. She would fuel her flames with every drop of frustration and anger she could muster. The Marowak would just have to take it, and when it was over, Cecilia would feel at peace again. An emotional clean slate. That was how the cycle always went.
And she might even enjoy it.
