Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

Sadly for Chryssa, Chu-e hadn't been paying attention, either. He was to zoned out, not really caring about safety precautions or what-have-you. Living life a little more dangerous had always been fun. Plus, with the absolute hell-scape this region was, it wasn't like anything they tried to teach them would probably even matter. You can't train for gods or aliens of magic, brain-eating pillows (or whatever stupid shit would be thrown at them next). So he had just been content to play with his flashlight, clicking it on and off in an honestly kind of annoying manner to fiddle with his hands.

Chu-e looked thoroughly unimpressive. His gear swallowed him and the hint of 'sickness' clung to him extra hard today; he had been ill in the night unexpectedly and it had carried over. The frailness of his body was often frustrating in unexpected ways.

But he did assess the girl for a moment after she spoke, realizing she had been the one to be complaining about not needing this kind of thing. (He agreed, this seemed pointless. But.)

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.

"You're in charge. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing." A lie. He had done this with someone else before, less regulated, and also joined in on the Adventours, too. The girl just looked young and he was kind of a sap for giving The Youth chances to shine and be in charge. It grew confidence or something like that. "Ji-Hoon Ki. Please keep me safe from falling boulders."

And with that, he moved for their assigned corridor.

The corridor branched off in three directions, and having been given the lead, Chryssa chose the second. “Falling boulders,” she said to herself, considering things that might trigger traps based on the action movies she’d watched. Pressure plates on the ground, or arrow-holes in the walls? She supposed that meant they had to send scouts ahead. 

“Auld,” she said, releasing the yellow-eyed Claydol. Any of her teammates from the AdvenTour would have been backing away warily, but fortunately Mr. Ji-Hoon wasn’t privy to that explosive information. The huge, hovering Pokemon took up almost the entire passageway, its many-eyed head rotating freely on its shoulders like an owl. “EXPLO—oh, sorry, just a habit. Psychic Terrain, please.”

A wave of pink, astral light washed from the creature, bathing the passageway ahead of them in shimmering color for a moment before fading from sight. The terrain effect remained, however, outlining the edges of rocks, geometric corners, and— yes— several otherwise-invisible panels set in the stone floor.

“There we are! Step lightly, Mr. Ji-Hoon,” Chryssa said, easing herself around the closest and largest square panel. Auld floated on ahead, making room for the two humans in the hallway. “With this, we might just set a new time record!” She stopped on the far side of the panel, considering. “Unless it’s a trap door. What do you think?” Moving it might set off a deadly trap, but it might also reveal hidden treasures.

Chu-e Choi

Chu-e spluttered when this girl almost blew them both the fuck up. But it was more the kind of a surprised laugh rather than fear, which evolved into his giving a loud and wheezing cackle before he shoved the side of his fist into his mouth. Oh, this girl was a riot. This was going to be fun as hell.

"Ah, that was clever." Chu-e paused to glance at the terrain, eying it. He wondered if any of his pokemon could learn that. For a Fairy type expect, he had a surprising number of Psychic types at his disposal. He kind of just liked them for the color scheme, but this kind of stuff was pretty useful. He did follow after, eyes on the traps, and he only kind of wanted to step on one anyway to see what would happen. For now, restraint.

"You never get anywhere unless you risk your head to a trap. I vote we open that sucker up." Already, he tossed out a pokeball of his own. A Mimikyu appeared, silent and watchful. It was eerie, as most ghost types tended to be, watching the girl and her pokemon unblinking. "Glimmer, do that cool Ghost wall phase thing and see if you can get this open." The Mimikyu only watched, as if it hadn't heard, then slowly faded from view. A moment later the door rumbled slightly and a 'click' was heard, showing the Shadow Sneak had worked. Glimmer appeared back at his trainer's side, as if nothing was amiss.

"Now we just need to see what's on the other side."

Chryssa watched as the Mimikyu sank through the outlined plate, finagling some mechanism on the other side. It hadn’t occurred to her to use an incorporeal Pokemon to scout or dismantle traps. The satisfying click indicated its success, and the girl clapped her hands in delight. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Let’s see what’s inside!”

Wedging the tip of her cane in the crack, the girl pried it open. Fortunately, the panel seemed thin and relatively light— had they walked on it without knowing, they could have detected it by the hollow sound, or by sweeping away the dust to see it was formed of a different material. The trapdoor uncovered a lower passage. Cold air blew out of the hole in the floor, making Chryssa shiver.

It also clicked again.

“Is it supposed to do that?”

There was a crash farther up the corridor they were standing in as something large fell from the ceiling, followed by a rumble. The psychic-illuminated pebbles on the ground began to shake and jitter. Apparently it wasn’t supposed to do that. A huge, rolling boulder was crashing down the tunnel towards them, gaining speed as it tumbled down the smooth passageway. “...Wow!” Chryssa exclaimed brightly, trying to follow her own advice to stay calm under pressure. “To me, Auld!” The Claydol turned and floated within arm’s reach and Chryssa set one hand upon it, ready to teleport herself out of the boulder’s path.

For an indecisive moment, she glanced over her shoulder at her sickly-looking partner.

Were they testing teamwork, or ability?

In a snap decision, she offered her other hand to the man before she called “Teleport! Take us down.”

The world fuzzed, skewed, and she was suddenly standing in the cool darkness of the place beneath the trapdoor. There was a rumbling sound from just above as the rolling boulder crunched to a halt over the top of the trapdoor opening, extinguishing the only light source. She wondered if Ji-Hoo had actually made it down with her. It was too dark to tell. “...That was exciting! Do you still have that flashlight?”

Chu-e Choi

"Hell yeah." He watched with baited breath as the girl opened the door. Then the door clicked again, and Chu-e found himself frowning. "Oh, shit." He had already started to fumble with his belt, looking for his Gardevoir's pokeball, when Chryssa offered her hand. He glanced at the pokemon then her, but still reached out to grab her hand; she must have had some type of plan.

The Teleport made him sick as they always did. This time it was worse than normal, and before he could answer he started to gag. Thankfully, it sounded a lot worse than it ended, just with bile in the back of his throat and acid in his mouth, but nothing actually escaping him. "Mmhmm." Was all he could manage as he clicked the light back on. "Doctor says I'm not 'sposed to do that." He added, plainly, as way of a basic explanation.

"What sick ass thought it was a good idea to send a boulder at people. Who are we, Indiana Jones?" He seemed happier to grouse to himself. While the flashlight was strong, the beam wasn't very wide. This wasn't going to work. Using the light, he pointed at his pokeballs on his hips to see... and... ah, yeah, he thought he brought that one. A toss and a Morelull was released. The pokemon was scooped up and placed on his shoulder. "Can you brighten this place up for us?" The mushroom pokemon make a tiny noise before it's body shone brightly, it's Illuminate activating. While it wasn't enough to light up the whole room, it did penetrate the darkness better than the flashlight on it's own. Since he had his pokemon, he offered the flashlight to Chryssa. Just in case.

Now that the room was lit up, it seemed like some type of tomb. Since this place was being used as a teaching ground it was already picked clean of anything valuable, but the things too large to be moved stuck around. The large granite slab in the middle of the room, the carvings of what might have been a green snake coming from the sky, faded and worn, with some smaller red and blue pokemon on it's back. Some type of battle.

"Do you know what this place used to be?" He had no idea. He approached the slab, peering at the top and seeing nothing but dust on the solid surface. "Ugh, this is creepy. If there are Cofagirgus in here, I'm leaving. I hate those things." Most ghost types creeped him out. His Mimikyu was the only exception... and he was on thin ice.

It had never occurred to her that teleporting might be hazardous to one's health. Despite her... other problems, Chryssa had a surprisingly strong stomach. She'd never had any issues with flying, seasickness, or vertigo. Still, despite Ji-Hoo's retching, she was sure teleporting couldn't actually be bad for you. "Doctors say a lot of things," she said pleasantly, taking the flashlight from the man. "Some of them are even... true." Unnecessary suspense. Anyway.

Chryssa breathed out, satisfied by the phosphorescent light the Morelull produced. It made for an interesting effect in the chamber. She took the flashlight anyway, switching it on with the all-too-familiar clicking sound and shining it around. Auld continued to hover in the middle of the room, closing one half of its many golden eyes as it powered down.

"A Cofagrigus inside a sarcophagus? Bold tactic!" Chryssa agreed, looking up from the carving she'd been examining. "If there is one I'd love to catch it, assuming it doesn't belong to the proctors." She loved the idea of hiding inside of a Cofagrigus, then popping out to startle her friends/enemies. "Did you know Yamask are supposedly human spirits? The masks they carry are modeled after their real-life faces. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to die and come back as a Yamask?" 

She was examining the granite slab now. Being the only other thing in the room, they were almost certainly supposed to open it. Perhaps there was a trick to it.

"Have you tried blood?" she asked innocently, shining the beam of the flashlight onto the stone altar. 

Meeting Chu-e's gaze across the slab, she lifted her cane, sliding an inch of sharp steel away from the tasseled grip. Finger by finger, she wrapped her hand around the blade. Something dark beaded along her skin, dripping from her wrist. 

Chryssa held the walking aid out across the stone, offering the bladed edge to her companion with that same playful, fanatical intensity in her eyes. She watched him. "...Would you like to?"

Chu-e Choi

He hummed and nodded along as the girl spoke, mostly just hoping that the Cofagirgus, like, wasn't around. For real. "I hate knowing that. I hate that you know that. I hate that anyone knows that. I want the person who discovered that to live a short and painful life." Ghost pokemon... just... ghost pokemon. Why the hell were they like that?

For what Chryssa was doing, Chu-e mostly just raised an impressed eyebrow. She watched him and he watched back, unphased. "I feel like if I had a child, it would be like you. You can decide if that's a compliment or insult." Shifting his sleeve, a small knife slid into his hand, which he flipped open. He didn't hesitate to cut into the middle of his palm, a thin slash. While he did this, he also kept his eyes on her for a reaction. He squeezed his hand over the slab, a few thick drops of blood falling down.

They hovered, suspended in the air.

"Huh."

The slab slid open on it's own, stone grinding against stone, and up sat... a mummy.

Or, a Gothorita who was poorly wrapped in toilet paper. She sat up and just idly stared at the two humans, looking bothered. The toilet paper moved, her psychic abilities moving it off her body. It twisted in the air and spelled out... 'What the fuck is wrong with you?' in the air.

Fair.

"I don't think we did that right."

Fingers stinging fiercely from where the edge had bitten past her skin, Chryssa held her hand over the stone. She didn't know why her behavior made Ji-Hoon think his potential children would be like her, but it spoke volumes about him.  Her eyes shone bright as Ji-Hoo cut his palm and together, granite slab stretching between them, they made their blood sacrifice.

It opened.

Reeling from the triple-whiplash of their success, the contents, and their apparent failure, the girl contained her laugher and simply sighed, tearing off a length of toilet paper from the obscene message to wrap her bleeding hand in. "That's too bad, I thought for sure that was it," she sighed, turning away from the sarcophagus. "I guess we were supposed to practice safe behavior and not awaken the sleeping mummy." It definitely wasn't the blood ritual, that part was correct. And honestly, what kind of ruin explorer played it safe when it came to finding potential treasure?

There was a grinding sound behind them as a hidden door opened, leading to a more normal-looking passage lit with electric lamps. A loudspeaker buzzed from the entrance. "Ki, Glasgow, return to start and try again." The voice sounded very, very tired. "Please."

"We were off to a good start," Chryssa pointed out optimistically. Behind them, the stone slab slid back over its pedestal again, resetting for the next examinee. The Gothorita still had a disturbed expression on her face. "In a real ruin that would definitely have worked. Ghosts love blood." Her Honedge hadn't even objected to being used as a scalpel, that's how much they liked it.  

"Anyway, it's a training course, not an examination--so they can't fail us if we don't give up."

She had yet to put that to the test.

Chu-e Choi

"It's a shame, too. I bet in a real tomb you would get better treasure if you awakened the mummy. Like, how much are mummies worth? Didn't they used to make paint out of them? So it has to be a lot. You awaken the mummy, beat it up, sell it for paint, then you're rich. Easy." His logic was sound and in no way flawed.

Still, Chu-e followed her out, taking less care of his own wound. He could probably keep it there for later. You never know when you needed some spare blood.

"Oh, hey, this time try blowing up the boulder. That has to work." The ire of whoever was monitoring them was palpable. This was going to be a long day for the poor person behind that voice.