The Island Mystery: Into the Shrine

Akuroma groaned as he walked into the shrine, still feeling sore from the fight he had just experienced with the Ursaring back in the Fallen Leaf Copse. Good thing someone paid off the gang of Pokemon guarding this place. Akuroma was in no shape for another fight, whether he'd admit it or not.

The Gallade stretched as he looked around the shrine, eventually finding himself facing the tablet with a candle on top. The Gallade kneeled down, peering at the strange letters on the tablet. "Unown letters? That hasn't been used in a long while. Oi, Cracker, you wouldn't happen to know Unown, would you?" the Gallade said, looking back for the Aipom.

The pair of Pokemon approached the mysterious shrine at the center of the island with Cracker entertaining himself by hopping along a series of rocks staggered around the landscape. There were no trees near the stone structure, so this was his only way of keeping off the ground. He quickly ran out of surfaces to dance around on though as they made the final approach, so rather than submit to standing on the ground, he stayed put as his friend carried on.

Akuroma quickly examined the tablet, identifying the scrawling on it as Unown letters. The mention of it spurred a recollection of the Aipom's teachings. He had in fact been taught to write using those letters, as was the tradition in his ancient village, but it wasn't something he picked up on all too well. However he was more than willing to give it a shot when the Gallade inquired about it.

"A little," he said, taking a moment's hesitation before hopping off the stone to join Akuroma. "I didn't pay much attention in my classes though. Lemme see..." Climbing up onto the stony structure, the Aipom squinted at the letters, racking his brain for meaning, but it only took him a few moments to come to a conclusion. "It's gibberish," he said, throwing up one arm in a shrugging gesture. "See this word right here? It says 'wsorirar'. Wusoreerar? Wsorirawr..."

"Gibberish? That couldn't be right..." the Gallade said, trailing off for a moment. He sat there silent as he stared at the tablet. Akuroma then took out a scroll he had, laying it across the ground. "Cracker, spell out each of the words for me." The Gallade had a couple of ideas of why the words didn't make sense. Either certain letters had to be removed, or the words themselves were simply scrambled up. If he could unscramble them, it would make understanding them much easier.

Cracker scratched his head for a moment. "Spell them out? Okay, I guess," he said, unsure what Akuroma was getting at. Whatever the case, it was going to seriously test the Aipom's memory to identify all the letters. Squinting hard at the weird little symbols, Cracker dug deep into his past education to pull up the necessary knowledge.

"Okay... the first line is... B-N-U-R, T-E-H--though that last one might be an O, I can never remember--L-S-V-E-A-E, O-F... Oh, that one actually spells a word, how about that. F-L-E-A-N-L..." Cracker continued to spew strings of letter that didn't make much sense as they were. It almost felt like some sort of ancient prank. Something to which he'd take his hat off, if he had one. Leaving a stone with gibberish words for hundreds of years was the longest running prank imaginable. "T-O-W, O-E-N... Aaaand O-E-N, again. What a bunch of nonsense. There were only two actual words in all that. What do you think, Aku?"

Climbing up the tablet, Cracker sat on top and stared down at the Gallade, who'd pulled out a sheet of parchment and had scribbled all over it while the Aipom spelled out those non-words plastered on the stone. Cracker tilted his head, wondering what exactly Akuroma was up to.

Akuroma smirked, "Perfect. With those small words I can already rule out one way to solve it. That means the only thing we can do is unscramble these words," the Gallade said as he began to scribble across the scroll again. Akuroma was silent as he unscrambled the message, the only sound around the pair of Pokemon being the leaves of the forest falling onto the ground. Eventually the Gallade stopped, the parchment below him covered in several scratched out versions of what the words might have been unscrambled, the words he believed to be correct left unmarked.

"Burn the leaves of fallen warriors to receive their strength. Blue, purple, white, two, three, two, one, one," the Gallade read out loud. The first part was easy to understand, the candle on top of the shrine was meant to be used to burn leaves. Afterwards, however, the Gallade was perplexed. Fallen warriors? Perhaps it meant ghost type Pokemon in the forest. Cracker and he did run into a Phantump. Maybe they should go back into the forest and get one. There might even be Trevenant, the Phantump's evolved form, hanging around that they could bring. Though how would burning them give any strength? The Phantump they ran into wasn't very strong, maybe it was an exception to the rule and the rest of its species here were much stronger. Then there were the colors and numbers. Then it dawned in the Gallade! Reaching into his bag, the Pokemon brought out the colored leaves he and Cracker had collected. Two Blue leaves, a purple leaf, and a white leaf. The colors and numbers did line up in the riddle. It couldn't be a coincidence, could it? And what of the other numbers? The two and three didn't line up with anything. Added up they made five, and multiplied together they made six. Could they be referring to the time of day? The sun would begin to set between five and six o' clock near the beginning of the year.

Though...perhaps he was just over-thinking it. In any case, the pair happened to have the amount of leaves they needed. So it couldn't hurt to try. "Cracker, hop down for a minute," the Gallade said as he stood up.

The Aipom watched with quiet anticipation as Akuroma continued scribbling all over the scroll. Whatever he was doing, he was really into it, and it seemed important. If he had to say, the Gallade even looked a teensy bit excited, like he was working to solve a puzzle. Or a riddle? The message on the stone, was it some sort of secret code? If it was, then Cracker had no doubt his friend would find the answer. And sure enough, after a short time of silence, Akuroma voiced what he'd deciphered of the jumble of letters.

In response, all Cracker did was cock his head to the side. Fallen warriors? Strength and leaves? Somehow it made even less sense than the gibberish. And why throw in all those numbers at the end? Maybe it was a math question or something. Whatever the case, Akuroma seemed to have a better grasp of the situation. The Aipom quickly obliged, hopping down from the structure as the Gallade stood up, poring over the leaves he'd acquired on their journey.

"I wonder what it means, 'leave of the fallen'? Do we have to burn all the leaves that've fallen on the ground? Or maybe we have to set the whole FOREST on fire! Why would anyone do such a thing? This is a pretty place. And what would be the point? There's no strength in forest fires, that's for sure. Unless you mean the strength of the fire, in which case I guess it'd be pretty darn strong. Heck, this place would probably go up like kindling." As he spoke, he kicked a few leaves with his feet. "What do you think? What're we supposed to burn? And what do all those numbers mean?"

"I'm not one hundred percent sure what the first couple of number mean, but the last three line up with those colors. Those colors also happen to match the strangely colored leaves that we've found across the forest. It's possible it wants these specific leaves burned in these specific numbers. As such, we should give it a try," the Gallade said as he approached the candle on top of the tablet. Guess I should just put the leaves in the candle's flame, he thought to himself before he dipped the leaves into the flame, letting it spread onto the oddly colored plants before setting them down on front of the candle. He watched as the leaves burnt, waiting to see if anything would happen from the two blue leaves, the one purple leaf, and the one white leaf burning.

As Akuroma set fire to the leaves, the Aipom came up beside him, watching with a tinge of sadness. They'd battled a lot of Pokemon to find those leaves. It seemed like a gigantic waste to just burn them up. But if the Gallade thought that was what the riddle implied, then maybe it was for the best. He just couldn't help to feel a pit in his belly, seeing them go up in smoke.

"Are you sure that's a good idea? What if you're wrong?" he said, even though it was too late. "It'd be a heck of a waste. And what about that Furfrou who wanted you to collect these?" Cracker frowned as the leaves crumpled under the heat, blackening and falling to pieces. Nothing seemed to be happening yet, though.

Akuroma walked into the shrine leisurely, stretching slightly as if he had just come back from a work out. "Ah, back to this hell hole, you three keeping up?" the Gallade asked as he looked back. He was feeling much better since the Curse put on him by a Phantump finally lifted, though he found himself awake with a large number of Pokemon surrounding both him and Cracker. At least two of them, the Glaceon and Vaporeon who were now tagging along, helped them in fighting off the many, many Pokemon who had suddenly appeared.

Sova followed the gallade along to the shrine, seeming rather excited about something. The only other time he'd been to the shrine, his ally at the time had insisted on them retreating, so he hadn't gotten to stay there very long. This wasn't the reason he was so peppy, though. He simply liked the feeling of adrenaline.... and he happened to be just coming down from some. "Yep!", he replied to the gallade's question.

"No....", Skylar huffed, being sick of walking. She'd been walking so long and so many things had happened in so little time. She was a bit exhausted. So, when she said she wasn't keeping up, she was serious. She had fallen behind the others a bit.

Sova rolled his eyes at his vaporeon friend's comment. "She's fiiiiiine.", he insisted.

Rather than follow Akuroma as he had been prior to the new additions to their group, Cracker followed along at the rear, staying close to Skylar. Ever since he'd recognized her after the battle in the clearing, the monkey had been catching up with her, eager to hear what she'd been up to since they parted ways back in Pecha forest. As their trek stretched on though, and the Vaporeon grew tired, he stuck close to her out of concern, wanting to be there in case she needed help.

As the party neared the shrine, Akuroma checked to see if their new group members were keeping up. Sova was just fine of course, but Skylar disagreed with a huff. Cracker could see everything that had happened had taken quite a bit out of her. So when she made her frustrations clear, the monkey sprang eagerly into action.

Without hesitation he leapt in front of the Vaporeon and crouched down in front on her. He looked back with a grin. "If you're too tired, I'll carry you!" he offered. "Go on, hop on!" He reckoned it wouldn't be as easy as when she was an Eevee, since she was more than twice her previous size, but he posed the offer anyway, eager to help his friend make the last leg of their journey to the shrine.

Akuroma raised his brow at the Aipom's offer to carry the Vaporeon. "Cracker, you do realize she's bigger than you now, right? You should probably wait until you're an Ambipom before you offer to drag people around." The Gallade was curious as to why the Aipom was so close to the Vaporeon. He caught bits and bobs of their conversation, which gave him the impression that they knew each other. Perhaps they were a couple? That'd definitely be an odd couple, though, Cracker is a strange Pokemon all around. A good one, no doubt, but still pretty odd.

Though he wasn't the only odd Pokemon. Akuroma was still a bit wary of the Glaceon. He had briefly met the Glaceon back when he was an Eevee, and while they planned on going to Silent Temple, a sandstorm soon separated Akuroma from the group. Between then and now, it appeared the Eevee was now a full fledged guild member, and quite a powerful at that. What was the name of his team? Team Frozen Yogurt? No that wasn't it... Ah whatever, either way, despite Akuroma being an outlaw, the Glaceon hadn't made an attempt to arrest him. Well, they did battle, but that was for a different reason.

Speaking of different reasons, they were hear for one purpose, to attempt to solve the riddle of this shrine. The Gallade had thought of two possible solutions after he and Cracker failed the first time, however, after his battle with Sova, a new idea popped into his head. Akuroma was frustrated with himself for overlooking the quite obvious piece of information held out in front of him on a silver platter. He hadn't quite told his traveling companions this idea yet, only that he had an idea. Well, that he had "solved" it more over, and he may have forgotten to mention that it was only an idea, not a one hundred percent for sure the solution.

Akuroma's attention was soon drawn to the stone tablet that contained the strange symbol and the Unown writing. The Gallade was silent as he stared at the riddle that Cracker and he had already decoded and were now going to attempt to solve again. Akuroma sighed, "Well, here goes nothing," he said as he pulled the leaves from his bag, burning them in the way he had thought of not to long before they had arrived. Blue, purple, white, purple, white, purple, blue, blue. Akuroma stepped back as he watched the leaves burn.

Skylar nodded at the gallade replying for her. Though it wasn't the only reason, it certainly was one of the reasons she didn't want to accept Cracker's kind offer for help. "Y-yeah, sorry, I'm a little too big for that now....", she admitted.

Sova glanced back at the two who were having a chat about piggy back rides. "That's not the only reason. Feel free to tell him.", he said, allowing the vaporeon to say what ever it was that she was withholding.
As those two did that, he went up to the shrine to see what Aku was doing. The gallade at the very least seemed capable, so he trusted that if the guy said he knew what he was doing, he probably did. There was a bit of nothing, then a glow, then a few bags appeared. He peered into one to see.... money! And a Joy Ribbon! Lastly.... a fairly dull looking stone. Was this like getting coal for Christmas? He was happy just getting money and another Joy Scarf, but he was a bit confused as to why the bag contained a rock. Did the others contain the same things? He looked to the others to see, figuring he'd already had his turn and the others deserved to open a bag. Except Skylar. Skylar would be fine.

The vaporeon sighed as she was given permission to explain her situation, though it wasn't really permission so much as a demand since she couldn't just not respond now. "I can't accept any help because he's testing me to see if I can join his team. If I can keep up with him, I get to join. If I give up or seek help, I fail.", she explained.
It was a bit embarrassing to be put through such a "test" as if she was a child, but she had a good reason for wanting to join his team....