Mysteries and Riddles Solved

Lumina trotted up to the shrine, laying eyes on the mysterious place for the first time. The shrine was small and rather old looking, and held a candle and stone tablet in its front with strange lettering and symbols on it.

The vulpix pawed gently at the tablet, feeling the grooves of the symbols under her paw. She blinked at the strange lettering. It definitely wasn't the footprint runes she was used to seeing. They looked like various unknown, carved into the rock. She knew that unknown pokemon variations represented the letters of the alphabet, though, so she set down to try and decipher the symbols.

She brought out her journal and flipped to the back cover, grabbing her charcoal pencil in her mouth and carefully writing the translation down in footprint runes -which she was far more familiar with.


She groaned, bringing a paw to her head. "It's scrambled... Great. I hate word scrambles..." she grumbled under her breath. Thankfully, the word scramble wasn't too hard to figure out, and eventually she came up with the right words.


When she was done, she put her pencil away and ripped the page out of her journal, stowing her journal back into her pack. She picked up the page and turned to her companions. "So this is the riddle we have to solve," she said, setting the page down in front of them. "The gengar I met with told me the pattern he thought was correct but I want to recheck the information. What do you guys think?"

Miss T hovered behind Lumina, who seemed to act as their leader. The Misdreavus didn't mind it altogether, but she wanted to at least have a good look at the shrine. She wanted to solve it in order to truly prove her intelligence, after all.

When they approached the stone with engravings on it, the book worm's brain immediately got to work, ignoring all else that occurred around her. Instantly, she was able to figure out that the writing was in Unknown Characters, a writing she had familiarized herself with in all her studies. She quickly deciphered each individual letter, knowing she would remember the words that formed, but to her surprise, they only formed nonsensical things. The Vulpix spoke, which sparked the realization that the words were scrambled on purpose. Unfortunately, doing things in one's mind wasn't nearly as efficient as doing so on paper, so Lumina was able to determine the solution and state it aloud before Miss T could even finish it herself. Her cheeks flushed purple with her anguish upon the realization that if she made a better decision, she could've solved it for her own.

"I think that... I know what we have to do. We have to burn leaves in an order, which would be Blue Purple White, but that's not just it... That's not nearly enough, and then there's this series of numbers. Three different numbers aren't listed, so it doesn't correlate with how much of each is needed. Returning to the original order set, each number must represent one leaf."

She waited for the others' opinions, realizing they were still waiting on an old acquaintance's opinion.

Izumi watched her two companions, the Vulpix sorting out the mixed up words while the spirit pokemon pondered over their meaning. Izumi began pondering as well, thinking carefully over the facts that they had already discovered. They had needed to gather these specific colors of leaves for a reason, and there were numbers mentioned in the riddle.... "Well, the numbers mentioned in the riddle must correspond to the number of leaves to burn, and how many of each..... The pattern I'm not sure of, I'm still thinking it through. The formula seems to be close....." Izumi murmured as she mulled over these thing in her head. She hadn't been at this as long as the other two pokemon had, so she still had to catch herself up on the formula and the possible solutions.

Clara
Clara had been traversing the forest for some time now, She decided to visit it once more after visiting it there with a certain friend, er.. ember bird pokemon.

She enjoyed the view of the forest, and managed to stay hidden from most of the pokemon this time. Considering there was no one with her this time.

However, at some point as she was using her shadow sneak ability to sneak across, tree to tree. She missed a branch and fell down. Into what seemed to be an open area.

Pokemon were in the area, most of which she currently didn't sense emotions from as she had been traveling.

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Dialog during travel and fall
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"This forest is amazing! I can travel it for days!" the Ralts said happily, going from tree to tree with a combination of her new Double Team ability, and Shadow Sneaking abilities. She was moving through the forest pretty fast.

"I can't wait to reach the other si- AYYEE!" the ralts started to say but got cut off as she missed a branch and fell into an opening.

She opened her eyes and was on the ground. Looking around, there were pokemon in the area. "I, um.. I am, I am so sorry!" she got up stepping back away from the pokemon.

"I think that... I know what we have to do. We have to burn leaves in an order, which would be Blue Purple White, but that's not just it... That's not nearly enough, and then there's this series of numbers. Three different numbers aren't listed, so it doesn't correlate with how much of each is needed. Returning to the original order set, each number must represent one leaf."

This observation came from the misdreavus, and Lumina nodded, agreeing with the logic set forth by the ghost type. Then the absol spoke up, seemingly following along the same lines as the misdreavus. "Well, the numbers mentioned in the riddle must correspond to the number of leaves to burn, and how many of each..... The pattern I'm not sure of, I'm still thinking it through. The formula seems to be close....."

Lumina nodded. "The gengar I met, he didn't explain his reasoning to me, he just told me the order and what leaves to burn. Your points make sense. From what the gengar told me and your observations, I think that the Blue leaf must correlate with the number one, the Purple leaf correlates with the number two, and the White leaf with number three. If we follow the pattern set forth, that would mean we need to burn a purple leaf, then a white leaf, followed by another purple leaf, then two more white leaves. But the gengar has me adding a blue, purple, and white leaf in the front as well.... Which, I guess makes sense to add the original three leaves in the front."

She looked at her two companions expectantly. "What do you th-"

She was cut off by a scream from above as a ralts suddenly fell into the clearing around the shrine, nearly landing on Lumina's paper. Lumina darted forward and pulled the paper back, to avoid it getting damaged in any way.

"I, um.. I am, I am so sorry!" The ralts stammered, getting up and backing away from the group nervously.

Lumina blinked at the pokemon for a minute before replying, "It's... alright, I guess. Are... are you sure you're not hurt from that fall?" she asked, more out of curiosity than any real concern for the pokemon she had never met before.

The closer and closer the Pokémon got to solving the riddle, the more Miss T began pulsing with an unforeseen excitement. What Lumina next stated snapped a thought in her head, a realization, rather, of what they may have to do. For the first time, she was hesitant, a sweat drop appearing on the side of her face as she could only just grasp how close they truly were from reaching her dream. In a sudden moment's end and another's start, a new Pokémon came crashing in, a Ralts, apologizing for her turning out. 
"No matter, you may join us," she decided briskly, not wanting to lose her thought on the solution. 
"What you said, about the Gengar," she refrained from growling at the memory of him, "The order must be specific, so as blue is one, purple is two, and white is three, each representation means that the pattern is Blue, Purple, White, Purple, White,  Purple, Blue, Blue." As she finished, she hastily pulled out her purple leaf, looking to the others in expectation that they may align their leaves to better put them in order. The win was so close, the ghost-type could almost taste it. She didn't care what they would get out of this, other than possible bragging rights. All her time on it was worth it, and that was all that mattered to her.

Izumi continued going over the facts in her head. The more she reviewed what she had been presented with, the more the information kept pointing towards the same pattern. Izumi became increasingly convinced that it was the correct combination the more she reviewed it in her head, and with new certainty she turned towards the Vulpix in order to give her input. "I agree with the proposed pattern; I don't see any other *CRASH*...... option........" Izumi concurred before being cut off by a sudden Ralts crashing down from the sky. "Uh... are you okay? You dropped in at the right time, actually..." Izumi asked as she padded over to check up on the small pokemon, chuckling with her last statement.

Clara
Clara stopped backing up as she noticed the Pokemon in this clearing seemed to be concerned about her well being. "I, err. I am OK..." she stated nervously.One of the Pokemon offered her to join them. She looked at that Pokemon for a moment. It was a floating a ghost type Pokemon.

She attempted to sense the emotions of all the Pokemon, but she was overwhelmed from it, especially due to her recent shock.

The one Pokemon seemed to find the whole thing slightly amusing.

"No matter, you may join us," The misdreavus dismissed the ralts almost immediately, continuing their previous conversation.  "What you said, about the Gengar. The order must be specific, so as blue is one, purple is two, and white is three, each representation means that the pattern is Blue, Purple, White, Purple, White,  Purple, Blue, Blue."

"I agree with the proposed pattern; I don't see any other *CRASH*...... option........ Uh... are you okay? You dropped in at the right time, actually..." the absol seemed to be in agreement that the ralts could join them, so Lumina merely nodded.

She grabbed the leaves out of her bag, and arranged them carefully, taking the purple leaf that the misdreavus held and placing it among the rest. She then grabbed the candle and began to burn the leaves one by one, in the pattern described before: blue, purple, white, purple, white, purple, blue, blue.

"Now to wait," Lumina stated, her voice breathless with anticipation.

Serena had stayed silent this whole time, all the while wondering why nobody mentioned William by name. Was there anything wrong with that? The Servine jumped as a Ralts fell from a tree, and then proceeded to apologize. That reminded her of Blaze... That Fennekin was pretty clumsy too.. The grass type heard Lumina speak again, and then she burned the leaves.

"Now we wait," Serena heard Lumina say.

'Agreed,' The Servine thought. Last time hadn't gone well. For her, anyway.