"Good save, Julia," Shalin breathed a sigh of relief as Momo's
ROCK TOMB ensnared the Braixen. Two of them were crushed by the stones, but the third was able to warp out of the way in time. Right in front of Shalin and her Kommo-o, at that. With only a split second to react, she set the dragon's reins down and covered her ears. With Treble's Close Combat not being helpful against the Braixen, he had to take more drastic measures.
Her mount's
CLANGING SCALES overloaded the fox's hearing, even Shalin with her ears covered flinching at just how loud the rattling scales all over his body were. While her hearing was strained but intact, the rider's sense of touch was greatly impaired after the powerful Dragon-type attack. Every single one of her Pokémon's scales was vibrating fast enough to hum, which would have made quite the eerie sound if that of the scales bouncing into one another didn't drown it out. At the attack's peak intensity, the feeling she experienced was alien at best, and even somewhat painful at worst.
The last Braixen could no longer keep its pounding head up, and it collapsed on the floor, the three of them vanishing. All four of Shalin's limbs felt like jelly, trying to remain as still as possible. Her sense of touch in all four limbs had been replaced with a tingling, almost shock-like feeling after being rumbled around with the kind of power the Kommo-o displayed. The closest parallel she could come up with in her head was the freakishly odd concept of sitting on one of her Flygon's wings and having her use
SUPERSONIC or something similar.
Shalin's blurred vision made it difficult to notice anything other than white lights glowing on the north and west walls, door-sized spaces appearing where the door frames once were. Moments later, a column of flames shot up from the room's center for a few seconds, leaving behind a small, metallic chest. With his trainer still swaying in the saddle from extreme dizziness, Treble kicked the lid open, revealing within a small key ring modeled after a Klefki's key ring. On the ring was a single, chrome-colored
SMALL KEY. With Shalin still dizzy, the Kommo-o handed the key ring to Julia.
You obtained a SMALL KEY! Use it to open any one lock in this dungeon.It took a number of minutes for Shalin to be able to see and feel again, though her limbs still felt like circulation to them had been cut off.
"Whooooooooaaaaa..." her voice droned, still a bit dizzy, though she was cognizant enough to direct her Kommo-o around. Even the self-proclaimed "wildest rider in Hoenn" had her limits, and a Clanging Scales run on a Kommo-o's back broke those limits... for now.
Once she was able to keep her head steady, Shalin advanced north, finding an enormous dining hall in eerily good condition. Furthermore, she could have sworn she heard human-sounding murmurs coming from the table, though there was not a trace of anyone at the table. "You hear that?!" she asked Julia. Even the normally confident Treble took a step back.
Even the curtains, decorated with a Kantonian Ninetales motif, were in pristine condition. The decor here, unlike every room they had been in so far, looked like it was being actively maintained. Of course, the entire room still visually wavered back and forth like a blazing, clear afternoon in the Great Desert. This chamber, though, had a much more visually intense effect than the others.
"Bye-bye!" Shalin sharply reined her Kommo-o in the opposite direction and retreated.
Regardless of whether Julia wanted to get a closer look, Shalin guided her Pokémon through the west opening, through a hall that was a bit cramped for the mounted explorer. At the far end was a spiral staircase leading upward. As the dragon-type walked down the hallway, the two felt the temperature dropping. A lot.
"What in the world? First it was searing hot, and now it feels like a fall day," Shalin asked herself as she waited for Julia to catch up before proceeding further. This place was getting more eerie by the minute.
Julia Davis Keys: 1NAME SPECIES STATUS
♥
Shalin Human ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Kiara Pyroar Good
Prance Wyrdeer Good
Levy Milotic Good
Treble Kommo-o Good
Sandy Flygon Good
Queen Zing Beedrill Good{WC: 699}
{PC: 5}
