Session 13, VP1

Eager to begin their search, our heroes split up. Gunnar headed to the Pokemon Center, to switch some of his Pokemon to others that may be more helpful in the search. While he did so, Bergie explored further down the right hallway of the temple, while Naivara went back to the lobby to see if she could find any significant runes or clues.

First, Naivara examined the designs on the lobby floor, and the two rooms branching off of it. Unfortunately, nothing in particular caught her eye. Undeterred, she set out down the left hallway of the temple to continue.

Meanwhile, Bergie made his way down the right hallway, finding several closed doors leading to dormitories & private rooms. Eventually, the hallway began to slant downwards at a small angle. As Bergie came upon a turn in the hallway, he noticed that this area of the temple had an excess of dust and cobwebs, indicating that it was not used very often.

Back at the Pokemon Center, Gunnar swapped some of his Pokemon out, and inquired with the nurse on staff if Erling happened to be there at the moment. She informed him that there had been some commotion back at the quarry, and she believed no one had returned from there as of yet. Gunnar asked her a bit more about Erling and how he came to town.

The nurse told him that many months ago, Erling and his crew came to Drillsberg to excavate & renovate the ancient Jousting Arena. After they had finished their work, they wanted to stay one month more, to see if any issues with their work arose. At some point during this period, Erling had evidently been contacted by someone from outside Drillsberg about a job regarding the Frigga Temple.

Satisfied with what he had discovered, Gunnar sat down, and grabbed a piece of nearby paper. While keeping an eye on the nurse, he feigned writing a letter. Waiting for a moment when the nurse was distracted, Gunnar slipped into the door to the guest rooms of the Pokemon Center, to see if he could find anything amongst Erling's belongings.

Working her way down the left hallway, Naivara came across some unoccupied rooms that appeared to be guest quarters. Each of the rooms was unlit, and as she approached the fourth doorway, she saw a shadow moving within. Quickly, Naivara ducked back around the doorframe, & released Peach to generate light.

Once she had steeled herself, she leapt around into the room with Peach, calling out a greeting. Whatever the small shadow she had seen inside was, it had immediately dug a tunnel straight down into the floor, disappearing before Naivara's Pokedex could register what it was. The hole was much too small for her to fit through, so Naivara went back into the hallway and continued down it.

The right hallway eventually terminated in a very large circular room. Odds and ends seemed to be stored haphazardly around its exterior, while a large amount of crates, barrels, and casks took up the middle floorspace. After confirming there was nothing of interest around the walls, Bergie headed over to the center of the room. Picking a barrel at random, he managed to remove the lid, revealing preserved fruits.

Clearly, this was a stockroom for the temple. Still, Bergie had a feeling there was more to be found. Choosing the largest cask, which looked to be the most ancient thing in the room by a wide margin, Bergie delicately popped off the seal. Inside were 20 tightly wrapped parchment scrolls, each sealed with wax. Curious, Bergie grabbed one at random and opened it, discovering it to be some sort of record written in Ancient Runic. Unable to read the scroll himself, Bergie decided to try to meet back up with the others.

In the left hallway, Naivara entered a descending spiral, which led to an immense burial chamber. Seeing several caskets and grave plaques nearby, she felt unnerved, and began trekking back to the lobby to regroup.

Gunnar entered the lobby in time to run into Bergie & Naivara. The three returned to the study hall they had been using to research earlier, and Bergie handed Gunnar the scroll. The language the document was written in was a much older version of Runic than what Gunnar was familiar with, but he managed to parse enough to determine that it seemed to be part of a history about the temple, and Drillsberg's founding.

He explained what he had gleaned to the party, and Naivara shared that she had encountered some Pokemon that had dug a large hole. This caught Gunnar's full attention, and he set off to go examine the hole. Meanwhile, Bergie & Naivara headed back to the storeroom to gather the rest of the scrolls.

Working together, they managed to get 15 of the 20 scrolls back to the study hall. As they removed the final 5, Naivara noticed that something seemed off about the bottom of the cask. Given the depth of the cask, Naivara was unable to reach the bottom when leaning over the cask's edge. The two agreed that Bergie would hold onto Naivara's ankles, and lower her into the cask; to free up his hands, Bergie put the remaining 5 scrolls down on some of the nearby barrels.

Naivara was able to feel that the bottom of the cask felt like it could move, and seemed to have a hinge of some sort. With Bergie bracing her, she managed to push hard enough to force the hinged bottom to open. Beneath it stretched a space too devoid of light to see into it. Bergie pulled Naivara out, and they decided to tie Naivara's rope around her waist, then have Bergie lower her into the hidden space with a candle.

While this was happening, Gunnar had reached the guest room containing the hole Naivara had found. Unable to fit in the small tunnel, Gunnar sent Bjargulf down, telling him to return as soon as he found anything interesting. After 15 or so minutes, Bjargulf came backing down the tunnel, and got stuck in its entrance. Gunnar grabbed hold of him, and managed to extricate Bjargulf. After being freed, it was clear what had gotten Bjargulf stuck in the first place: he was dragging back a piece of a thick, red shell of some kind.

In the storeroom, Bergie once again lowered Naivara into the hidden space. It was much too dark to see more than a few feet, even with the of the candle. To help, Naivara sent out Flamon, and asked him to scope the area out some. It took some time for Flamon to complete a circuit of the room and return. As best as he could, Flamon indicated to Naivara that the room seemed to be quite large. In response, Naivara instructed him to fire Ember off in a few directions, watching to see what the fires would hit.

One of the walls was rather close by, while the others were very far off. When Flamon fired a blast straight down, it travelled about 20' before fizzling out on a body of water. Bergie hauled Naivara back up, and the two debated what to do; this hidden space certainly needed exploring, but they believed it would be better to explore it as a group. Turning to grab the last 5 scrolls, the duo saw that Bergie had accidentally placed them on top of the barrel he had previously opened. Unfortunately, the scrolls had sunk into the fruit preserves, and begun to disintegrate due to their age. Sheepishly, the pair headed back to the study room.

There they found Brenna, and explained where they had discovered the scrolls, and telling her what Gunnar had been able to glean. Bergie made sure to make it clear that "this was definitely all of the scrolls we found." Brenna was extremely interested in them, and had clearly not known of their existence.

Meanwhile, Gunnar had decided he wanted to explore the hole further. He had an acolyte go and bring Brenna over. When she arrived, Gunnar explained that he wanted to use his Pokemon to widen the tunnel, in the hopes of making it large enough for him to explore.

Although she was very hesitant, after Gunnar assured her that he would repair/undo any damage he caused, she gave him her permission to continue. As soon as the words left her mouth, Gunnar had already thrown Mary out and instructed her to use Bulldoze. Brenna hastily left to go ponder over the discovered scrolls.

Mary successfully managed to widen the tunnel to a reasonably traversable size. With her work done, Gunnar recalled Mary, and threw out Skeldr. Gunnar started to explain that he wanted Skeldr to roll down the tunnel, and Skeldr rolled himself with no reservations. Gunnar slid into the tunnel head-first after Skeldr.

After travelling down quite some distance, Skeldr got lodged in a tighter portion of the tunnel. Gunnar had Skeldr use Rock Blast in an attempt to dislodge him, but Skeldr had ended up facing back towards Gunnar while sliding. Shaking off the rock to the face, Gunnar began shaking and wiggling Skeldr as hard as he could to break him free.

When the wall lost some of its integrity, Skeldr took off rolling once more, at a much faster pace. With Skeldr no longer in view, Gunnar continued down the tunnel himself, until he reached a very sheer slope. His Pokemon nowhere to be seen, Gunnar managed to slip on his hardhat and turn around so that he could head down the slope feet first.

With the steep descent of the tunnel, Gunnar sped further underground. Finally, he found himself in freefall, before landing hard on a rock surface and skidding forwards. When his momentum ceased, he realized that his legs were dangling over the edge of a vast chasm. A few feet down the chasm's rockface, Skeldr was hanging on desperately with his tongue. Gunnar helped him up, and used Skeldr's flames to create a torch. Now equipped for travel in the dark, he started to follow the chasm's edge.

Naivara & Bergie realized that it had been some time since they last saw Gunnar, and decided to check in with him. Seeing the mess in the room with the tunnel, the pair sighed, recognizing Gunnar's handiwork. Unwilling to leave their friend alone, Bergie jumped into the tunnel, with Naivara following close behind.

Just as Gunnar had, Bergie came to a stop close to chasm edge, only to have Naivara then barrel into him from behind. Thankfully, Bergie was able to dig in his heels and prevent himself from falling into the chasm. Not seeing Gunnar anywhere, they decided to also follow the chasm edge further along.

Ahead of them, Gunnar had discovered a large underground lake. While navigating one of its narrow shores, he heard something scrabbling on rock around the corner. As he began to to run towards the sound, it became much louder; when the area came into view, there was nothing to be seen except another small tunnel, this time burrowing into the rock wall of the cavern.

Once more, Gunnar had Mary use Bulldoze to widen the tunnel. This time, her move was so strong it ended up knocking a sizable chunk of the wall down, revealing an offshoot tunnel. Gunnar, Mary, & Bjargulf set off running into this new space.

Naivara & Bergie eventually came across the same underground lake, but ended up following the opposite shore that Gunnar had explored. The water here was extremely still, save the occasional drop of water from the ceiling's stalactites. The cavern shortly led to a smaller, curving hallway, which led to the hidden space they had discovered beneath the storeroom. Hitting the dead end there, they circled back, following the opposite shoreline they had before.

Meanwhile, Gunnar had noticed that the passage he had discovered was sloping upwards. As he continued down it, the floor became covered in sand, and the temperature increased. In the sand, he could see the oddly circular tracks his prey had left behind. Proceeding with a bit of caution, Gunnar found that this passage opened up into a massive cavern that appeared to be close to the surface; at the far end, the dim light of the moon and stars could be seen shining through an exit.

In the center of this cavern was a roiling mass of small, red forms. As Gunnar watched them from a distance, he determined that there were several hundred of them milling about. Every few seconds, he could hear a small buzz coming from above; all along the walls and ceilings, he could make out winged insectile forms.

As Gunnar debated what to do, Bergie & Naivara came across the wall he had knocked down. They followed the passage, and eventually came upon his tracks in the sand. A few moments afterwards, they bumped back into Gunnar.

With the party together, Gunnar pointed out into the cavern, and explained that he thought these Pokemon might be responsible for the horrendous droning that was giving everyone headaches. Using the moonlight filtering in from above, they were able to scan the two types of Pokemon in the cavern: Trapinch & Vibrava.

Given the massive amount of Pokemon clearly in the cavern, our heroes decided to sleep until dawn. After setting Peach up to take the first watch while mentally linked with Naivara, the trainers snuck as much sleep as they could. Thanks to Peach, Naivara was woken a few hours later with a warning: Pokemon were approaching from the direction leading back to the underground lake!

Naivara quickly woke the rest of the party, and they readied themselves for battle. A few minutes later, 2 Psyduck & 3 Golduck came into view. The creatures' eyes were all a disgusting milky-white as a result of living underground for their entire lives. However, they psychic abilities seemed to make up for these lost senses, and they began attacking the party. After a few rounds of combat, and a few successful captures, the party had resolved the ambush.

When they checked the time, they saw there were still a few hours until dawn, so they returned to sleeping. As the sunrise began on the surface, all of the Vibrava began flapping their wings, creating an intense buzzing sound. Our heroes braced themselves as the buzzing continued for a further 5 minutes as the Trapinch & Vibrava headed out onto the surface.

With the coast clear, our heroes made their own way across the cavern. Their exit found them surfacing on the outskirts of Frigga's Womb, a few hours trek from Drillsberg. Weary and worried about the impending Council, the party managed to reach the town without anything slowing them down. After recovering at the Pokemon Center, they returned once more to the Frigga Temple.

They conferred with Brenna once more, and gained her permission to explore the subterranean burial chambers. Naivara led the way to the burial chamber. Once there, the party could see that there were many sparsely decorated caskets close to the entrance. They continued deeper, and the caskets surrounding them became more and more ornate.

Unlike the caskets closer to the front of the room, these ones would occasionally de dedicated to honored Pokemon. After a half hour or so of walking further in, they party reached the end of the space. No caskets or grave plaques decorated this space, so they began to knock on the walls to see if any were hollow.

Unfortunately, this proved fruitless. In response, Gunnar threw out his Nosepass, and asked it if it could sense anything magnetic nearby. The Nosepass quickly made its way over to one of the corners of the room, and pointed itself towards the floor.

Gunnar managed to have Mary carefully Mud Slide the floor in the corner. This revealed another hidden passage underneath of them. Tying a rope around his waist, Gunnar dropped into the hole. Thankfully, there was only a short drop into a cramped tunnel lined with ores and natural geodes. After informing his friends that the room seemed safe, Gunnar began to follow the passage. Naivara & Bergie dropped down after him, dogging his trail.

The ceiling of the tunnel continued to get shorter, until it reached a height of only 4'. Mere feet farther, the passage ended suddenly, revealing that itself to be about 50' down the chasm they had encountered earlier. It was difficult to make out detail, but our heroes could faintly see what appeared to be a man-made structure further down on the opposite chasm wall.

Gunnar told Bergie & Naivara to wait for a few minutes, and ran back to the Drillsberg market to purchase some basic climbing equipment. When he returned to the temple, he ran into Brenna in the lobby, and informed her that the party had discovered some sort of ancient structure. Once Gunnar returned, he equipped his climbing gear, and created a makeshift parachute.

Bergie & Naivara watched in horror as Gunnar began scaling his way down the chasm. The further down the chasm he climbed, the more Gunnar could hear that there must be an underground river somewhere far below. After descending 100', Gunnar leaned away from the wall, hoping to get a glimpse of the structure. In his haste, he accidentally lost his grip on the wall, and began to fall. Naivara & Bergie froze as they saw Gunnar's headlamp suddenly begin to fall away from the wall.

Gunnar's makeshift tarp-parachute was unable to catch enough air to properly slow his fall. Luckily, the chasm grew tighter the further down it went, and Gunnar managed to angle himself towards the opposite wall. Slamming hard into the rock, Gunnar tried to dig into the wall with one of his hands to slow himself.

With a sickening crack, his right-hand ring finger & pinky broke. Pushing through the pain, Gunnar swung his legs towards the wall, and pushed off as hard as he could to transfer some of his momentum into a horizontal movement. Amazingly, his aim was true: Gunnar managed to impact painfully into the ledge beneath the odd structure. Although heavily damaged and wounded, Gunnar had survived his 50' fall. Once he had recovered his breath, Gunnar tried to think of a way to help his friends reach his position, hopefully in a safer manner.

Releasing Skeldr, Gunnar hefted him into his arms. With Gunnar aiming him, Skeldr was able to fire rocks into the opposite chasm wall, creating a dangerous, but usable pathway. Due to the distance, Skeldr's attacks were unable to fire far enough to make the ledge reach the tunnel entrance above.

Naivara shifted into her Abra form, and climbed safely down to the beginning of the shaky pathway down. Unable to do anything similar, Bergie instead looped a rope around a nearby rock, and had Froza freeze the rope in place. With the ice holding the rope tight, Bergie managed to lower himself to the pathway as well.

A few hours later, the party found themselves reunited at the level of the structure, but on different sides of the chasm. Tapping further into her Abra capabilities, Naivara was able to Teleport herself to Gunnar's side of the chasm.

Realizing that potentially flying across the gap was the only option, Bergie hesitantly released Millie. The Machprey appeared from her Pokeball, and took no time at all to begin acting aggressively towards Bergie. It looked like having Millie attempt to carry Bergie across would not be an option. Thinking creatively, Bergie began to posture oddly at Millie while blowing in her face, hoping to goad her into using Whirlwind to blast him across the chasm.

Already nonplussed, Millie was clearly getting angrier and angrier. With a shriek, she hunkered down, spread her wings, and fired jets of water from them. Launching forwards like a rocket, Millie slammed into Bergie, crashing the two of them into the ledge beneath the structure in a heap. Thankfully not too heavily injured, Bergie recalled Millie and dusted himself off.

Together, our heroes took a closer look at the structure in front of them. Standing roughly 20' tall, it was octagonal in shape, and seemed to be pushing out of the rockface. The material of its construction was a mystery; a deep black, it did not reflect any light like obsidian would. All along the walls of the octagonal structure, there seemed to be no doors, windows, or seams.

They ascended the stairs that led to one of the faces of the octagonal structure. When they were a few feet away, a message in Ancient Runic lit up in red light on the face in front of them, surrounded by the thin outline of an octagon. Gunnar was only able to decipher a few short words and phrases from the message. (BEEN, FOR, WAR, & NO stood out as either single words, or parts of larger words.) The three trainers puzzled over what the message might be trying to convey. Naivara's mystical senses were unable to pierce, or even detect the structure.

Bergie and Gunnar ran their hands over the glowing runes while attempting to figure out what they could mean. Interestingly, a bright orange light trailed behind wherever their fingers made contact with the cool stone, fading away after a few seconds. Gunnar tried touching a few different runes in sequence, but this did not seem to have an effect. After all of their efforts to reach this tomb, our heroes were loathe to leave with nothing. In a moment of inspiration, Gunnar traced his fingers across the octagon that encircled the runic message: when tracing the lines of the octagon, the orange light persisted!

Gunnar traced the outline of the glowing octagon, stopping short when he reached the final side. The party exchanged silent glances, unsure if they should continue. Checking their clocks, it was already 3pm, and the Council would be held at 7pm. If they proceeded with trying to open the tomb, they may not be able to arrive back to Drillsberg in time to attend the Council.

None of them breathed a word.

Gunnar traced the final side of the outline. The outline's glow began to wax brighter and brighter, and the ledge beneath their feet started to rumble. They had spurred something into action, thought what, they did not know. The glow became blinding, enveloping the entire side of the octagonal structure. The tomb was opening......and what lay inside began to stir.