[ti]location[/ti] PRECIPICE SHRINE

Shrines, huh? Taro had not visited one before, but now they're here to heal up their pokémon a little bit. After all they'd gone through, it was a well deserved rest. Except....

"What kind of activity do I need to perform in order to recover? A prayer? A ritual?" The masked mystery figure wasn't quite sure how to actually heal up. After inspecting this odd place for a good chunk of 15 minutes, Taro figured it out through in-game logics. He took a deep breath and looked down into the abyss-like portal. He wasn't going to jump in, instead he would just stand there for a bit in silence, waiting for the healing energies of the Precipice Shrine to do their job...

These shrines were new to them, and they definitely were a little bit weird to work with... But hey, they'd better get used to them if they wished to survive in this game.

Tiernan sat, at the edge of the Shrine. His pokemon sat beside him, tired. Rae's eyes were closed. He gently stroked Fal'inrush's feathers, letting the quiet of the Shrine wash over them. "I'll do better about protecting you in the future." He promised, voice soft. But how was he to do that? Was the fighting not their natural drive?

How was he to interfere with that? Should he?

A brief visitation, because it had been a while since he stepped into UNOVR, and it looked like a figurative storm was brewing. The raid was only the beginning to something much, much larger. He would need to be prepared to see it through, because it felt like he was tangled in too deep to just give up and never know what was going to happen next.

<So what's the plan, Master?> Aegis asked, lightly shaking his head to shake off the chill from the imposing hole.

❝Well, we will fight. We need to prepare.❞ he muttered. ❝Ready to grow stronger?❞

<Oohh, will I get bigger again?>

❝I guess so. I haven't seen an evolution where a Pokemon doesn't get bigger, I think.❞

A teenage girl in a baseball cap stood among the flowers, looking down into the vast, closed eye of the Precipice Shrine.

In the right light, the surface glimmered with a faint, soap-bubble sheen. She remembered seeing it for the first time when she woke up here with the others, laying near the mouth of the pit with dawn bright on the horizon. It had all seemed so hazy at the time. She hadn't been able to remember what had happened on the other side in the Princess's realm. Even now, the details felt muddy, like something she'd dreamed long ago.

"Hey, Articuno," the girl said. "I mean, King Articuno." She made as if to kneel, then bow, then awkwardly got on one knee like she was going to propose. She cleared her throat. "It's me, Yggy. I mean, Duke Yggy. I don't know, maybe you don't remember me."

In truth, she was barely acquainted with the storybook king. She had done him disservice after disservice, stabbed him in the back more than once. She'd voted for the Princess. She'd refused to deliver his dying words to Zapdos.

"I brought you this Houndour to... uh, like, help protect the shrine," Yggy said, in an inspired attempt to sound contrite. She managed to pull off 'guilty'. "Just don't eat it or anything, okay? Those bat wings were gross."

Yggy exalts houndour to the precipice shrine

He wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten to the shrine in the end. He knew he'd started on Route 3, but he'd been wandering for so long that he was pretty sure he'd long since left the Surge Steppes. It was so easy to get lost in this game, to stare at the scenery around you with your little battle pals for company, to dream up adventures as you looked out over maps and quests and other things open for you to get your hands on, and to just enjoy... walking. Sauntering. Strolling. It wasn't something he'd ever thought he'd miss, always more of a 'destination' person than a 'journey' one. Whether it was UNOVR that was changing his mind on that or other circumstances in the real world, he wasn't sure, but either way, it was quickly becoming an in-game hobby.

For not the first time, he'd whiled away hours accidentally, and it was only reaching the shrine that had really alerted him to that. A gaping hole in the ground was interrupting his leisurely amble after all, and it couldn't help but refocus him on more than just observing the world around him. Shrines healed you, right? It was probably good to know where one was then. He pulled up his map, taking in where he currently was and trying to work out where he'd come from. Okay, cool, from here, and he could get to it from here too if he went this way, and there was a symbol like this over here too, and yeah that made sense. Closing the map with a bit more understanding of where he was, he walked up to the large hole and peered in at the strange void deep within. This game had the weirdest scenery, probably all connected to lore that he hadn't unlocked yet. Oh well, he had all the time in the world to learn about it really.

He was SO damn close! Almost halfway in the damn thing's HP! But he wasn't gonna give up! He was gonna get KFC ready again for another round of trouncing. Whether it or the stupid Phantump! "Heal it up already, I wanna kick that stupid ass Pokemon's ass." He frowns at the abyss. "Hurry up, I got places to be."