The walls of fog are invisible to me. All I see around me is a gray whiteness and the barely distinguishable shadows of trees. Mewtwo is the one that guides our way through it all. With the night fully blanketing what little light had streamed under the forest, we can only rely on the slight glow that seems to permeate the fog. I tried to put a torch out, but the result was immediate blindness. The fog turned almost solid the moment the torch was taken out, the barely discernable shadows disappeared and Mewtwo and I almost lost each other. I stored the torch back in my inventory immediately.
We walk through the fog labyrinth for who knows how long. We watch as sometimes trees move and try to confuse us. We listen as cries of unknown creatures echo through the forest, their distances impossible to determine. We walk, and slowly, I can see we are approaching the inner part of the forest.
As we approach, my map slowly updates. Each meters we traverse inward means a new meter far ahead revealed. And what is revealed is quite interesting. Further within, I can see the shapes of possibly massive trees, possibly bigger than any I have ever seen. Small clearings are visible beneath their canopy. Some seems to have stone structures within. I try to zoom in, but the pixelated view turns into a magnified pixelated view. In other words and big soup of colored squares that become impossible to make out. The journey is slow. The biggest problem seems to be whoever is behind these walls. For every passages we find, Mewtwo suffers painful psychic backlash.
Even with one of the new paths he unlocked, whoever is retaliating to his advance is strong enough to bypass the defenses he tries to mount up. But still we persevere.
Another passage is found, and another headache strikes Mewtwo. This one, however, seems different. I almost see the form of the strike around Mewtwo's head. As he wince from the latest assault, strange light dances around his head and leaves him teetering. His eyes are unfocused, and he seems to be disoriented. His tail swipes left and right, his head darts all around him, as if trying to find something.
"Mewtwo?" I cautiously call out. My call is ignored.
Mewtwo suddenly focuses on something, and jumps. I grab his long tail just in time. I cannot see the walls, but I know roughly where the one we pass are. And Mewtwo was jumping straight at one. Mewtwo's strength almost takes me off my feet, and I barely stop him. "Mewtwo! What's happening!" I call louder.
Whatever seems to have ailed him leaves, and Mewtwo snaps out of his strange confused state. Astra? How did you move so fast? You almost touched a wall! He sends me, distraught.
"What are you talking about?" I answer back, confused, "You're the one that suddenly tried to jump into a wall."
We both look at each other in confusion for a few seconds, before the sound of branches cracking makes us jump. A tree is next to us. "Mewtwo where is the next passage?" I ask cautiously.
Mewtwo is silent for a couple seconds, before answering. This way, he points to our right, Not too far.
I nod, and slowly we move around the tree. As we make our way toward the hole in the invisible teleporting wall, our eyes never leave the tree. It slowly disappears into the fog, turning into a shadowy stick. We pass the next wall and Mewtwo braces himself. But no headache comes this time. He looks around, confused, before sighing in relief, only for a pulsating ball of shadows to explode against his back. He cries out and stumble forward. He barely stops himself from falling, possibly into a wall. I look back around in alarm. This did not come from the tree, we were looking at it the whole way. Childlike laughter echoes all around us. I gulp. I saw the label on the tree. And I have a good guess as to what is laughing in the darkness.
This forest is filled with trevenants and phantumps. The trevenants are the reason the trees around us seem to constantly move, and the phantumps must be the ones crying in the fog. And now that we are so deep within they are acting more violent. But why? Did Princess not inform them? Does she have no control over them? We'll ask her when we finally pass the wall.
Mewtwo is already recovering, looking around wildly. It seems he is unable to see or sense his attacker. The WAYLA header has also disappeared from the tree. Is it because I am too far? Or something else? We need to get to the next passage. How much farther do we need to go?
I consult the map, and wince. If the width of the walls are about two meters, and the space between each ones is roughly five, then we might still have dozens of walls to pass. "Maybe thirty to fifty walls, maybe more. That's the best estimate I can give."
Then we are going to pick up the pace. Mewtwo growls. I can tell he is getting frustrated by the constant attacks.
We resume our journey, with our pace hastened. We pass walls after walls, the space between each slowly closing each times, making the possibility of dodging slimmer and slimmer each time. This change comes with more attacks against Mewtwo. Each walls we pass come with a slew of weak shadow balls, and with the walls closing in, Mewtwo has a harder and harder time avoiding them. The damage he suffers might not be much, it is accumulating.
After another wall is passed, I slam Mewtwo down. Most shadow balls pass above us, but a few still hit. Good news, they do not hit Mewtwo. Bad news, they hit me instead. The icy sensation that seeps from each impact would be almost welcomed, if not for my vision blurring and filling with strange artefacts. I wince at the white noise that fills my head and ears.
Mewtwo looks back at me. Are you okay?
"I'll ma-ma-manage." My voice comes out hashed. Okay maybe tanking ghost type moves is a bad idea. But Mewtwo can carry me and I need him to sense the walls.
And for the next walls, we take turn in tanking the shadow balls. Mewtwo recovers through life dews, offering me some as well each times. But we can feel we are nearing the limit of our ressources. Our food supplies are exhausted, Mewtwo can feel his own stamina dwindle with each life dews. Yet we persevere. We have come too far to turn back.
After a dozen or so more walls, we finally find a change. the walls of fog open up, and we enter a clearing. The fog seems to linger at its edge, and the only light comes from a large ball of fire hovering above its center. Beneath it, sitting atop a large web of roots, is a stocky palm tree, complete with three yellow coconut-like fruits just beneath sparse green leaves. Mewtwo and I both freeze.. The cracks of moving trees echoes all around us, and soon the entire clearing is lined by a wall of trevenants. they do not bother to hide anymore. The black, ghostly matter beneath their hollow trunks is fully visible now. The clearing feels like it is lined with red dots as their eyes lock on us. Tiny wispy creatures fly between them, distorted childlike laughter echoes from them. Their red eyes, beneath stump shaped wooden masks, are filled with glee and anticipation.
We are trapped. We both prepare ourselves. I prepare to defend myself and Mewtwo keep scanning the entire place, ready to react to anything. Neither of us hold much hope though. The moment these pokemons decide it, they can end us in moments. The WAYLA headers tell me quite a lot about our chances. Most of the phantumps are surprisingly low level, the highest I can find being level 6. The trevenants on the other end, are no less than level 60, with the highest being 83. What makes me shiver though, is the palm tree at the center of the clearing. It was my understanding that pokemons were limited to a hundred levels. What stands in the center of the clearing is an exeggutor. And its level is listed as 142. Seeing the roots he seems to be connected to, I assume he was the one teleporting us.
The three coconut-shaped tree all open a pair of eyes and they open their mouth, as if to speak verbally.
INTRUDERS! TELL TRUTH. WHY INTRUDERS HERE?
The three voices scream in my mind, even Mewtwo recoils at the violence of the exeggutor telepathy. "We were following Princess, a florges, but we lost her the moment we entered. She was the one guiding us." I manage to stammer, still reeling from the strong psychic scream.
THIS TRUTH. BUT NOT ALL TRUTH! WHY INTRUDERS HERE?
Why are we here? That... is an actual good question. Why did we seek Princess out? Safety? Mewtwo proposes to my silent question. And maybe answers... And help. We need help. The Trio did not chose Aster's soul for no reasons. they must have anticipated that his old team would survive and be able to aid us. They must have known Hound would keep watch for Aster's return. And by finding him, we would obviously stumble upon the rest, wherever they may be.
We had hoped Princess could help us as the village of Hound has. We are new to this world, and have been burdened with a grand quest. Any help we can get would be immensely welcome. Mewtwo articulates our thoughts. This is indeed the best way to put it. We are still trying to complete the quest for the marble of many realities, and without Hound help, we would have already been dead. Not sure about Princess right now though.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The exeggutor seems to converse with himself. His three heads hiss and whisper with each other for a few minutes before he turns their attention back to us.
THIS TRUTH. CONFUSED TRUTH, BUT ALL TRUTH. YOU PASSED LABYRINTH, YOU PASSED STRENGTH TRIAL. YOU WELCOME HERE.
The trevenants on our left open a path for us, and we slowly make our way toward it. The passage looks like a long hallway of bark, with multiple trevenant eyes bordering each walls. I go to take the first step, but Mewtwo stops me. It's a trap. He flies a pebble into the passage, only for it to instantly disappear. The laughter of the phantumps echoes all around us and then the exeggutor joins as well.
YOU PASS TRICK TRIAL! YOU ENTER. NO MORE TRICKS. ONLY FORWARD.
A similar passage opens, this time behind the exeggutor, and the one before us shatters into pieces, revealing a foggy hole instead. That was devious.
We head for the new passage, and Mewtwo launches a pebble once more. This time, it does not disappear and we proceed into the dark passage. The trevenants close it the moment we step in, and we proceed onward. The red eyes dotting the walls of bark and black ghostly matter soon become our only light, bathing us in their eerie red glow. The oppressive atmosphere makes us shiver, but we continue.
We walk for... some time? The hallway, straight at first, start to twist and turn. I try to see where we are going, but our marker on the system map seems frozen, it only rotates in in response to the turns we take. However, as we go deeper, the walls change. Slowly, the trevenants disappear. One after the other, the eyes close, and soon, only a couple remains.
We take another turn, and only one remains. One final turn, and the hallway turns dark. No light filters from above, no more glow comes from the trees. We are plunged in utter darkness. Mewtwo makes his hand glow, and I get out a torch. The trees are still there, their bark no longer have cracks or gaps within which the black ghostly body of trevenants flows. They are just trees now, plain and non-possessed trees.
We turn around, and there is only the hallway behind us, seemingly stretching to infinity. If this is another illusion, it seems to confuse even Mewtwo. I cannot feel any sort of energies at work. He tells me.
"Well, let's trust the exeggutor then. Only forward." I say,
Only forward. He echoes with a nod.
Torch in hand for me, hands aglow for him, we carry on. A minute passes, maybe more, and something changes. In the distance, an iridescent glow appears. "The light at the end of the tunnel," I joke.
Let us hope it is not that tunnel this expression refers to. Mewtwo jokes back. We both chuckle and each remove our source of light.
The closer we get to the new light, the more its source, or more exactly sources are revealed. Glowing patches of moss cover the trees further down the hallway. The patches are small at first, and few and far between, but the closer we get to what appears to be the exit, the more numerous they are. The come in many hues. Ice blue patches coexist along green ones, deeper blue ones mount along the bark surrounding us. Rare pink streaks are sometime visible.
Then come the mushrooms. Growing along the bark or between the roots, the fungi glow with a similar low radiance. Bulbous deep purple ones pushes themselves up between the roots, flat orange caps sometime grow along the bark and large yellow plate-like ones stick out in between. Added with the moss, they form a wonderful kaleidoscope of color all around us. As we finally reach the edge of the hallway, the light becomes brighter, and it takes our eyes a moment to adapt to the new light.
Once they are, we behold an incredible sight.
The air seems to glow before us. Small lights of many hues float all around us. The moss patches and fungi are more numerous than ever before. The trees... the trees. I knew there were big trees in the forest, but there is knowing and beholding. Massive. The trees are massives. I follow one all the way to its top and have to crane my neck back just to see it all. Its canopy is so thick no light filters through it. In the distance, one of the clearing is visible, only because of the pale rays of moonlight lighting it, giving it an ethereal glow. I am speechless. And my wonder only grows as I look all around the flora.
Among the trees, in the grass, all around us are pokemons.
I recognize the trevenants as well as the phantumps. But I also spot many others. A colony of caterpies is making its way along a dead tree trunk, the green caterpillars waddling cutely along the bark. On the smaller parts of a tree, dozens of yellow cocoons have their eyes locked on us. The kakunas seem apprehensive. A clefairy is looking at us from behind another tree, its chubby star-shaped body not so clearly visible at first glance thanks to the ambient light. Many, many more walk, slide and mingle all around us. Some stop to look at us, all that do shiver at my sight and quickly hide or move away.
Why they fear me is obvious. They fear me because I look human. And the few humans I have interacted with are clearly not the kindest to their pokemons or pokemons in general. I offer an apologetic smile at those that look our way.
Mewtwo is the one that stops me from my contemplation. He taps my shoulder and silently points behind us. I turn around and see that the passage is no longer here. But somehow, it does not bother me. There is sense of familiarity now. I... Aster came here before, many times, and his nostalgia fills me with wonder and sadness. This place is as beautiful as he remembers, but the reactions of pokemons toward me paint a sad story.
Someone clear their throat and we look at the source of the sudden noise. Dressed in a casual shirt and shorts, is a teenager. Although he does not a remains just a teenager for long. The moment I look at him, a header pops up above his head. Zoroark, level 187. Oh... Oh that explains the illusions.
"That was you!" I exclaim.
The boy jumps back in surprise and even Mewtwo looks at me in confusion.
"He's the one that made us go in circles in the hallway." I explain.
The still human looking pokemon looks at me in confusion, but no sounds escape his mouth. "He's a zoroark." I spell out.
Really? Mewtwo I am serious, no sarcasm please.
The zoroark sighs, and his human body glows for a few seconds. His form elongates, upper arms and torso thin, forearms gets covered in fur, with three claws poking at the end. A long mane extends upon a vulpine face. The light dims and colors are revealed. The fur covered upright fox is gray, with a long spiky deep red mane cascading along its back. He opens his cyan eyes eyes and huffs in annoyance.
That would explain why I could not see through the illusions in the passage. Mewtwo comments. Do not ignore that fact that you did not believe me a second ago.
The gray fox preens at that and then gestures for us to follow. He falls on all four and starts leaping away, deeper into the forest. We follow, and almost instantly stop as pop-ups appears in front of us.
You have entered a Sanctuary.
Another chosen has spent time and soul coins to create such place.
Pa#-@==]) { ()()() } \Err0r\ -Syst3m AcqU@r1mùnt- { ~X~ }
{ =^w^= }
Achievement got: Find a Sanctuary
Some of the abductees sometime gather enough ressources to create domains and whatnot that would be safe for them and others. These domains, of course, require upkeep from abductees to conitnue operating for abductees.
Only Abductees need to pay.
You are not an abductee.
(Also hypocrisy much calling your prisoners 'chosen ones'?)
Reward: Give us minute, it's coming.
Notice: Deploying new compatibility patch.
-Deploying assets...
-Reworking current lattice...
-Undoing local restrictions...
-Transferring ownership-
Error: previous owner presence required.
Error: Previous owner present/Not present
Error: Please reach Sanctuary Altar to resolve Ownership transfer.
I look at the two new colored windows. What the fuck just happened. I feel a bit hot, and somewhat dizzy. Mewtwo looks as puzzle as I am. Our new guide also growl in puzzlement, as he is unable to see what we are seeing and why we have stopped. A new marker has appeared in both our vision. Its label is simply 'altar'. And, coincidentally, it seems to be where we are headed.
Apologies, something just came up. Mewtwo placates the zoroark. We are ready to follow you once more.
The fox just shrugs resume his guidance. We walk through the forest for some time, and I can see we are closing on the altar. It really is our destination. We pass through a large hollow log, and finally arrive at the altar.
It appears as a large stone structure within a small clearing, with a rotating bowl floating above a pedestal. A blue flame burns within the bowl, and the familiar diamond shaped eye of Eziakophael decorates it.
Before the altar is Princess. She looks at us as we enter and huffs.
Thou have kept us waiting. No prove thine words. She declares, and she points at the structure behind her. Trio I hope you know what you are doing. Because we are NOT winning against a level 412 florges. What the fuck is the limit of levels here?