[ti]location[/ti] PRECIPICE SHRINE

She was PUMPED she was READY.

Gex was not- He sat there, watching his trainer jog in place. "We've got this, Gex." She said, looking down at him with intense eyes. "That dura-whatever? He's dead meat." She drew a finger across her neck. Gex winced.

Silvermoon sat on a rock, facing the Shrine. But their attention wasn't on it. Kintsugi was laying against them, armored head resting in Silvermoon's lap. Silvermoon couldn't pet their head, like you could a cat, but... They stroked down Kintsugi's neck, just taking the moment to sit, and rest.

It was a lot nicer with someone else there.

M'Foxy retreated back, sevral paces. Closer to the shrine, closed to the dark pit. The venipede was still there, still watching. It scuttled, a bit, legs rustling against the grass, eyes bright and luminous. M'Foxy turned away, to keep from looking at it, but the terrible sound remained. With any kuck, the shrine would continue to keep it at bay. Maybe forever. Maybe it would get bored and leave.

Orion spent a moment reflecting on all that had happened here, the ice skating incident, the fight to free the timberlands from the long night, and all of the hauntings he had faced in this forest.  On one hand, he wished none of those things had ever happened.  People had suffered, endured all sorts of pain and walked away with trauma at their very core.  Yet...on the other hand it had made him stronger.  This shrine and it's former ruler had bestowed upon him a curse that had made him a force to be reckoned with, and taught him that the mind could propel the body to do things it never thought itself capable of.  It had given him a tool to protect people, it had made him stronger, and it had allowed him to help those he cared about and dispose of the false tyrant.  

Taking a deep breath, he clenched his hands into fists.

There was much to do still, and he wasn't done growing.  Neither was his team, and while this shrine was likely long since done providing him challenges to grow, it was still nice to stop and think about.  How far he'd come, and how far he'd go.  Walking away, he took a deep breath.  This wasn't his first stop here, and so long as the coffin in his crypt kept spawning him there it wouldn't be the last.

They take a quick break, though returning to the shrine is a much longer endeavor as Tepig refused to be carried or returned to his ball.

“Not sure if your stamina’s really what you need to work on here,” Kazuki says, taking millimeter steps to stay right behind Tepig, who is currently traveling at the pace of a slug. His little nubby legs are trembling as he waddles up to the abyss, at which point Kazuki takes the lead.

“Let’s get you topped up.” He kneels down at the edge, looking over into the portal and waiting for its strange energy to seep into his tired pokemon.

Strangely, despite the fact that it had unnerved the hell out of her to begin with, Precipice Shrine was quickly becoming her preferred place to heal. As uncomfortable as the gaping maw made her feel, Taylor found herself drawn to it. Perhaps it was because it made her so uneasy that her mind couldn’t stop thinking about it…

This was the first time she’d considered using the sacrifice feature here. She had a new Pokemon in her inventory that she knew she didn’t intend to keep, but the wording of “sacrifice” just sounded so… ominous. Crouching at the lip of the chasm now, she hovered over the options presented. “Exalting” was also an option, and sounded much less severe, though she suspected it was just another word for the same action, present to excuse the associated guilt.

Still, there was only one way to find out, she supposed. Tapping the “exalt” option, she selected one of the three recently caught Magikarp and waited to see what would happen.

As it turned out, not a whole lot. The named pokemon disappeared from her box and a small chime sounded in confirmation. She stood, perplexed, before noticing a small, orb-shaped item on the ground by her feet. Reaching down, she made to pick it up but shrieked at the texture.

“Is that… an eyeball?!”

Taylor exalts orange dapples Magikarp to the shrine