Please Tell Me We're There

Her? A teacher? She visibly hesitated about this. She...didn't actually know a lot about Aura...or teaching. She was moderately decent at it, but she was no master. There was also no way to tell if she was perhaps doing something dangerously "wrong" of sorts. Kira thought about it for a moment, "Well...I guess, but...i'm not exactly a 'master' myself...and I don't really know how good of a teacher I am-wait where are we?"

Her eyes snapped wide open as she realized that the entire environment around them seemed to changed in the blink of an eye. A grand hall of sorts with a fine dining table in the center. A throne stood at the end of the room, regal and daring just as last time.

"Oh...we're here." she finished, completely sidetracked.

"Oh, you don't have to-!" Lincoln started to interject. However, he too got sidetracked when Kira pointed out that they had entered an entirely different place within the house, almost in the blink of an eye. Jeez... not even his newly-formed sixth sense could give him any hints on the inner workings of this place!! "How does it do this? It's like... we stop paying attention for a second and then suddenly we're in a different place!!"

He looked around. There was a whole table set for... somebody, who knows, and a lot of chairs... the whole room seemed pretty ornate, as well. Kira seemed like she knew the place, so Lincoln deferred to her. "Do you recognize this place, Kira? Are we getting close to the end?" he asked. He felt his heart stirring up in excitement at the prospect of finally seeing the bright forest that the house was hiding.

Lincoln the Lucario - 12 energy

Her attention focused on the throne. The more lincoln spoke, the more irritated she became again. "Shh!" she hushed him with a finger(paw?? Toe???) over her mouth. Her ears perked forward, she tried to stretch out and feel the aura around them, but the headache only made it difficult. She didn't....feel anything hostile at the moment?

Once she was somewhat confident, she spoke with a hushed tone, "Almost there...the entrance was over by the throne last time I was here..." Despite what she said, she knew that the entrance was probably no longer an entrance. If it was anything like this house, it probably shifted and changed much like the inner workings. It made her wonder though, was the underground forest a pocket dimension of the house?

"Stay quiet, don't touch anything, and stick with me." she instructed as she cautiously stepped forward.

Lincoln was promptly hushed with a whole entire paw, and he was beginning to feel the buzzing of that out-of-body headache that he had felt before. He obediently acknowledged her request, deciding this place must have been very dangerous if she was so insistent that he stayed quiet. He nodded his head and clenched his jaw in order to remind himself to be quiet.

He watched Kira survey the area, trying to follow her as quietly as possible. He made sure to leave her some space to maneuver in as well, so that he didn't trip her up. She mentioned that she thought that the big, chair-like throne was the entrance... but Lincoln wasn't sure how that could be? Maybe they had to move it- oh, but then she told him not to touch anything. He wasn't supposed to talk, he wasn't supposed to touch... was he supposed to try and help with the riddle at all??

He resigned himself to just keeping a lookout while she handled this entrance she was talking about, because it seemed like that was what she wanted... and ultimately, it was probably for the best.

Kira wanted to make sure this place was completely safe before they went around touching things. The Lucario quietly yet quickly approached the throne. She looked down at the floor and took note of the marks near the throne. It certainly looked as if it's been moved, but something felt off. She took another quick glance around, before she placed a paw under the handle of the seat. She attempted to lift it, but to no success.

She looked over to Lincoln, and nodded towards the other side. If she couldn't lift it herself, then perhaps the help of another could work? She tried it again just by herself, but it was too heavy. It only lifted ever so slightly off the ground before it would make a quite thunk as she dropped it back into place. Strange, it certainly didn't look that heavy...

((Heads Up: You can roll in your post))

The persistant silence was beginning to skeeve Lincoln out a little. Maybe a little more than a little. Why did they have to be so quiet and not talk? He very badly wanted to ask Kira about this, but he remained stubbornly in control of his urges for the moment. He trusted Kira, and she had been here before. She knew how this room worked. Perhaps there was some kind of trap in the room, something activated by sound? Granted, it also made sense that she would be trying to avoid hostile pokemon- but they talking hadn't been an issue in all the other rooms with hostile pokemon in them...

Finally, finally Kira gestured to him, giving him something to do. He might have jumped for joy were he not so on edge from all of this silence. She gestured to the other side of the chair that she had been toying with, which Lincoln took to mean she was struggling on her own and wanted his help to move it. He wasted no time, though he waited patiently for her to try again once more on her own. When that didn't work, it was his time.

He grabbed his side of the chair and prepared to lift it with her. He hoped it wasn't too heavy... or maybe it was more accurate to say he hoped he wasn't embarrassingly weak.

Lincoln the Lucario - 12 energy

FoxFireAlchemist carried out 10 launched of one Ruined Throne :

, , , , , , , , ,

With a heave and a ho, the chair...wouldn't budge? Even though it could clearly be lifted, now that the two of them tried to move it, it seemed bolted to the ground. She switched the tactic to push, but still, it was as if it suddenly spread roots into the floor boards. She eventually gave up with a sigh and a head scratch before her gaze flicked back to the room around them briefly. Everything seemed the same...almost exactly the same actually. It was kind of disturbing.

She observed the throne once again before she looked behind it, being thorough about her search for...literally anything at this point. She felt alone the back of the chair before she dared to get on her knees and check the darkness under it. She focused her attention, ready to-OH GOD WAS THAT A GLEAM IN THE DARK?

The shine of a gem followed by a wicked wide smile spooked her into throwing herself away from the throne. Her fur stood on end as she picked herself back up. "Kekekekekeekeke~" the sableye laughed as it crawled out from under the chair and up the back of the throne. It sat on the top of the spine with its legs kicking into the air. "Looking for something~?" it sang.

Kira Energy: 34

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Ruined Throne :

, , , , , , , , ,

"EEE!!!" Lincoln shrieked, breaking his silence in just about the most emasculating way possible- again. What was it with this house and making him make high-pitched noises?!? He knew it was supposed to be kind of like a spook house, but did it have to be so literal? He clutched his chest and took a breath. The pokemon was small, thankfully. He didn't look very intimidating at all, and Lincoln was about to make a comment- but then he remembered that Kira had shushed him, and he wasn't sure if whatever danger she had been referencing had passed...

Then a voice chimed in and did Lincoln's thing for him. "Really? That's not impressive or clever. And it gets old," a voice chided the Sableye from above. All at once, a plethora of groans sounded out from all angles of the room.

Lincoln, being surprised, surveyed the area and started to notice that there were lots of swords and things on the walls... and the swords all had blinking eyes!! He closed his eyes and- there were so many points of glow it almost hurt. There were some on the ceiling too, where the voice had come from. Looking up, he could see at least one of the pokemon from before, along with some bigger ones. They were attached to the ceiling like the other two had been.

"Seriously? You do this every time!" one of the duoblade complained as they floated down from the wall they had been "mounted" to. "You always have to start on this!"

"Well, we're not wrong. The 'spooky room with floating things' act is very played out at this point. How many times have we been forced through this charade now?" a slightly different voice replied.

"If you have a better idea, why don't you try contributing something?? Instead of just constantly hanging around!" the duoblade seethed.

"Oh, yes, because canting my voice in an overplayed fashion is exactly how I want to stay the existential woes that come from indefinitely being used as a lamp."

"IT'S NOT MY FAULT YOU GOT STUCK UP THERE!!! WE DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW YOU ALL GOT STUCK UP THERE," the duoblade raged exasperatedly.

...Was... was Licoln still in the room? He wasn't sure.

"Oh would you all just shut up already? You're going to upset the unown again!" Another talking sword spoke up from closer to the throne.

Kira was spooked yet again by the sudden voices that chimed up out of seemingly nowhere. Her fur stood on end as jumped up to her feet, ready to do a violence if anything expressed hostility towards her. Fortunately, the sableye that sat on the back of the throne only pointed at the two lucario as it cackled maniacally. It laughed so hard, that it felt backwards onto the cushion of the seat.

She could still hear the sableye's laughs echo, but she could also hear the murmur of other voices within the room as well. It was as if once the silent was broken, everyone there decided it was time to speak their mind. The general consensus seemed to be that everyone needed to shut up, but they all seemed to bent on being the one to get final say that they simply continued.

Her heart pounded in her chest, but she gave a quick glance to Lincoln just to check on him. Once she was certain he was fine, her attention flipped back to the area around her. It seemed like they were being ignored for the most part. So, she was not going to question that. "Alrighty then..." she spoke to Lincoln in a whisper, "Look around, but try to touch as little as possible. If you see anything that looks particularly out of place, let me know...try not to piss anyone off too...just in case."

"Oh come-on, you're the one that's still blathering!"

"Can't we just do something different for once? I'm kinda with Hilta on this one. It's boring."

"I dunno, tradition's tradition..."

"Oh... okay then..." Lincoln responded. He was a bit unsure of how to handle the situation, but Kira seemed to know, so... best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, then? He started by identifying a likely location for secret trap things to be hidden- that seemed to be the throne, at first. There was still the little guy on it, but he seemed to be laughing pretty hard at nothing so it was probably fine...

As soon as Lincoln took a step, however, one of the swords took notice and flailed their ribbons angrily. "Hey! You stop that! Wait until we figure out what we're doing here!" they cried.

"Oh, come off it. They'll never solve the whole puzzle before we finish, anyways," yet another, different set of swords huffed as they descended from the wall. "Honestly, you all are so easily distracted. You can never agree on where to corner them, or what moves to use when... the fact that anyone takes this place seriously is the only truly scary thing about it."

Hilta turned to look at the third set of swords with a dismissive scoff. "Oh, look, high-and-mighty Halloway is getting his ribbons in a twist over nothing. Take it down a peg, Mr. Perfect- it's not like we've had this problem before."

"Just have Guy sit on the throne so that it can't be moved for now, the Chandelure suggested.

All the pokemon seemed to agree this was the best solution, so a nearby statue suddenly tore itself up from its perch- revealing itself to be yet another pokemon, and then squatted down over the throne. It wasn't quite actually sitting down- that much weight might have instantly destroyed the chair.

....Welp, that ended that investigation. Lincoln looked to Kira with a confused look- was this... just how it was going to be? He had expected a lot more... something that wasn't this protecting a glistening nirvana forest, but he supposed that it was impeding their progress. Well, if the throne wasn't available... the table seemed like the best place to look for a wonky hidden puzzle. The taller lucario made his way over to peruse the setup.

The fact that the statue just tore itself out of the wall was honestly terrifying. Kira watched with wide and surprised eyes as the massive pokemon then began to squat over the throne. The sableye underneath it seemed perturbed now that it had to stare up at this Golurk rather than the ceiling.

"HEY! I'M SITTIN HERE! YOU DON'T NEED TO GET GUY INVOLVED YOU JERKS!" it screeched from its seat.

The lucario took one glance at the scene and decided to search at a much faster pace. This was nothing like what happened last time, but honestly this was ten times scarier. She began to inspect the chairs thoroughly. Under the table? Near the fireplace? In the fire place? What "puzzle" was there?

"You all do realize that we just look absolutely ridiculous now, right?"

"Well if you would all just follow the tradition then we'd at least be an average amount of horrifying and not absolutely silly!"

Lincoln looked at the table, and at first it appeared to be nothing but an ordinary place setting. There were candles in the center, and each chair had a neat array of silverware and plates set in front of it... nothing out of the ordinary at first glance. He leaned forward and looked closely at all the place settings, and at the pieces that made them up.  The most glaring thing that caught his eye was the napkins that were folded into triangles and were resting on the plate. They had blue trim embroidered on their edges, and their long edge pointed down towards the back of the chair. One a few chairs down, however...

That napkin had a red trim, and it's corner's were rotated 90 degrees, towards a column made of stone against the wall.

"We look redicuolous no matter what; this changes nothing. We looked ridiculous when we did this last time- now we just look as ridiculous as we do on a day-to-day basis," the chandelure argued back from it's perch on the ceiling. Hilta closed her eyes and shook her self from side to side, as if to say "no."

"Alright, alright- enough of that- we still need to figure out what we're actually doing," she argued, staring at everbody until they got themselves together. "Any suggestions?"

Meanwhile, Lincoln was sneaking towards the pillar that the napkin was pointing to. He suddenly had to duck as something whizzed past his head- more pokemon?!? They... they looked like letters, and they had eyes, but they weren't like anything Lincoln had seen before. They were strange and dark, and the way they seemed to be floating around indiscriminately in a panic. A few of them were lingering kind of close to Lincoln. Were they... trying to spell something? Was this communication?!? They were saying......

"AAAAAAAAA"

...Yeah no that couldn't be anything. Just a coincidence.

Back to the task at hand. Within the pillar, Lincoln found a loose stone that revealed a hidden chamber... which held a slip of paper within? Lincoln held it up and signaled Kira with it. "Kira, look!! There are secrets!!" he whisper-called.

Secrets? Secrets! Secrets were good! At least so she thought. She was quick to rush over to Lincoln's side, though she remained weary of the unown that floated about. This whole experience seemed so strange compared to last time. The unown didn't even seem that hostile. What changed? Did it have to do with the glaceon that was with them?

She observed the spot where Lincoln found the little note, being sure to check around just in case there was something he missed. After leaving several paw mark on the dust of the pillar, she looked over to Lincoln with the slip of paper, "Well? Go on and read it. What does it say?"

The sableye on the throne, however, seemed thoroughly irritated that he was plain ignored. He dropped himself down from the seat and flung himself onto the table. He scampered down towards the center before he stood up. He made certain that the his voice cut above the others as he screeched, "HEY! I SAID I HAD THIS! HOW ABOUT YOU ALL JUST GO BACK TO SLEEP OR SOMETHIN!? LET ME HAVE A LITTLE FUN FOR ONCE YOU A-HOLES!" It shook its fist as it circled around to make it very clear that he spoke to every one of the other souls within the room.

Lincoln opened the slip of paper gently, trying not to damage it in any way. It didn't seem that old... but it had been in a wall so it had had to have been there forever, right? Either way, Lincoln wasn't taking chances. The note on the inside read, "It's time for tea. Search the four corners for the creamer..." Lincoln blinked. Oh, no... was this a fetch quest?!?

"Oh man... I think it's going to make us find items for the table," he partially observed, partially lamented. "I bet... the table is a switch, like in the stories. We probably have to find all the items and put them on the table so the hatch opens, or whatever we're looking for...? The chair? If you search the two left corners, I'll search the right!!" Lincoln didn't wait for a reply before running off to pursue the search- this couldn't be that hard with his new sensing abilities, right?

"Oh, please. You have plenty of fun when the others aren't around, Sas. Isn't that right? When you jump up on the table and we have to endure you screeching something mildly resembling musical lyrics while you flail your arms and pretend to play the plates as percussion?" The other chandelure on the ceiling commented calmly in response to the Sableye's howling. A few pokemon, including Hilta, could be heard chuckling at this.

"...Really? You do that?" Hilta questioned, trying not to further betray amusement.

"Oh, absolutely. Twice a week, at least." The chandelure commented back with an unseen eyeroll.

Lincoln the Lucario - 0 + 32 (reviver seed) = 32 energy

The sableye was absolutely abhorred by the ghostly pokemon's behavior. Why, his musicals were absolutely perfect in every way! The tormented soul of an artist was wounded that day, as the Sableye clenched its fist and raised it up once again, "I WILL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT MY MOM SAYS MY SONGS ARE BEAUTIFUL!" the gremlin cried, "I SPENT YEARS LEARNING HOW TO DO THIS! I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY IT!"

Kira's own spirits sank upon realizing that this was supposed to be some sort of puzzle. What? Why a puzzle? Why couldn't it just let them in? Was the security for this place upgraded or something recently?

Lincoln popped off before she could even think much of it. Fortunately she at least had some instructions to try. She didn't have any better ideas, so why question it? Kira bolted towards where she was assigned. The lucario checked under the chairs, under plates, napkins, silverware, and even under the table. That final spot, however, was where she struck gold. Another note! She snatched it from the spot. She looked over to Lincoln and held it for him to see without making it too obvious to the others that she was up to something...if they even cared enough to notice.