CH97 (711), Interesting Clues
Hearing Hades/Gengar and Phantump's laughter, Duskull, who had just regained its bearings, Leered at the laughing duo before blowing them a raspberry. It actually turned around and patted its buttocks in a provocative manner, or at least the general area of it before attempting to dive through the closest wall. Well, more like it tried to do so. Unfortunately for Duskull, Hades decided to keep it here, so he gave Duskull a Mean Look before grabbing it with a spectral hand formed by Shadow Punch.
Duskull, who had been captured and dragged before Hades, looked quite scared. Hades gave it an impassive look before he licked its face or rather more like half its body and laughed, breaking the serious atmosphere that had formed. Phantump who had been quiet until now to not break the heavy atmosphere joined in as well, leaving Duskull a bit dumbfounded. Whether it was because it thought that it made it through a crisis and was releasing its stress /anxiety or because it thought in hindsight that the situation was funny I didn't know, ghosts were odd like that, but Duskull began to laugh as well.
I waited for Duskull to calm down a bit before asking it something I could not help but be curious about. I wanted to know why the number of ghosts we had seen was so low when this place should have been full/teeming with ghosts. I had honestly forgotten to ask the Shadinja about that since their numbers made me forget about it for a moment, but seeing Duskull had me remember the low number of regular ghosts we had seen so far.
"{Oh, that's because of the outbreak}," Duskull answered casually, leaving me just as confused as before. "Outbreak? What kind of outbreak?" I could not help but ask. "{No idea}," Duskull said confidently, leaving me staring blankly at it, while Thor nearly face-faulted. Mothra/Butterfree, Hades, and Phantump, who found that hilarious began to laugh, and I had to sigh before focusing back on Duskull, who began to fidget under my stare.
"Alright if you don't know, then you don't know," I finally said after making Duskull sweat for a bit. "Since you don't know what the outbreak is, why did you say that the outbreak is the reason for the low number of ghosts roaming around," I inquired and Duskull perked up at that. "{That I know}," it said enthusiastically. "{It's because of the rule made by the Guardian}," Duskull said without elaborating any further, leaving my question half-answered, or rather it caused more questions to crop up. I honestly could not help but wonder if Duskull was purposefully messing with me or if it was just that clueless. *sigh*
"What rules, and who is the guardian?" I asked after releasing a sigh to calm the annoyance I was starting to feel. My Pokemon who had noticed my waning patience, stared/glared at Duskull, making it discard its seemingly blasé attitude and give me a much more detailed/serious answer.
"{The Guardian is the boss of all ghosts and of our home. He's a Dusknoir that's suuuper old and mega strong. Definitely much stronger than her}," Duskull said, visibly puffing up when he mentioned that the Guardian was a Dusknoir before pointing at Mothra for the last bit. It also gave us a no-so-subtle side-eye when it mentioned the Dusknoir's supposed strength but ended up being disappointed when it noticed that we were not intimidated.
"{Tell us about the rules}," Mothra spoke up in a no-nonsense tone, and I had to smile at her reaction. It was clear that she did not appreciate being used in an apparent intimidation attempt. Duskull directly nodded, clearly intimidated by her, which was not surprising since Mothra released a brief flash of her might to show Duskull her power. While it might be true that the Dusknoir was stronger than Mothra, that did not mean much when Duskull was with us and not anywhere near the Dusknoir/Guardian.
"{The elders have said that we are not allowed to leave our home when the Guardian declares an outbreak}," he seemed a bit sheepish when he said that, which was not surprising since he had obviously broken the rule, and we knew that he was not the only one to do so.
We had after all seen a bunch of little ghosts during our exploration so far, though his words did explain why their number had been so low. The ghosts we had stumbled upon must have been the mavericks that went ahead and broke the rules of their elders. Regardless, seeing us stare at it Duskull quickly continued.
"{The strongest of our tribe had to go join the Guardian, and they instructed the rest of us to stay put before leaving. I slipped away when the appointed supervisors got distracted by someone playing a prank}," Duskull said the last bit proudly, not minding one bit that he had apparently broken the instructions of his elders.
"Do all tribes send out their strongest to join that guardian of yours?" I asked and Duskull first nodded before shaking its head. "{Only those with really strong elders}," Duskull said proudly before elaborating. "{Weak groups like the ones in the outer circle only have to stay put and keep out from the inner circle}". Duskull threw out two more keywords that caught my attention, so I directly followed up on it.
"Inner circle, outer circle. Where does one end and the other start?" I inquired and Duskull replied without hesitation. "{The Guardian lives in the core, and the tunnels close to the core are the inner circle, while the tunnels far away from the core are the outer circle. The ghost energy is richer the closer one lives to the core so the strong groups generally all live in the inner circle}," Duskull said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Whether Duskull knew or not, its explanation allowed me to draw multiple conclusions. First of all, there was a very high chance that whatever was responsible for this cave system becoming inundated in spectral energy was located in the core area. It was likely that Dusknoir did not only live at that place because the spectral energy was at its densest/most abundant there, but also because it was watching over whatever caused this overabundance of spectral energy. Hence, why it was being called Guardian instead of something else.
I could think of multiple things that could be the cause for the overabundance of ghost energy, but without actually checking it out or asking someone who knew the answer I couldn't be sure which one was right. Still, among the ideas that came to my mind, some were more likely than others, with the possibility of there being a (sealed) gate/portal to the spirit /spectral dimension being the most likely one.
The reason I thought that was Dusknoir's reputation as a guide to the spirit world and/or sentinel of spirit gates. If this was true, then the outbreak was likely the periodic opening of the gate, whether that was just a bit or even fully, which caused spectral energy to spill into the cave system. Consequently, the reason Dusknoir called for backup was to reseal the gate or to simply wait things out until it closed up on its own, while (possibly) also preventing spirits/ghost-types from entering our world.
Another possibility was that some super-strong ghost type was sealed here and Dusknoir's job was to ensure that it stayed sealed. The sealed ghost being too strong would explain why Dusknoir would require support, and the spectral energy from the sealed ghost slipping through the seal could be the reason for the increased spectral energy within the cave system. I was not excluding the chance that things were perhaps even purposefully arranged like that to prevent the sealed being from recovering its strength.
Yet another possibility was that instead of a "live" ghost being sealed in the core area, it could be either the remains of one or some super potent spectral item that was sealed there. The outbreak in this case could be the seal weakening and needing reinforcement. Regardless of which option it was, all things hinted that the Dusknoir/Guardian was indeed very strong.
In fact, it was possible to make assumptions regarding Dusknoir's strength from Duskull's words and our own experience. Duskull said that the weaker groups stayed at the outer circle and the Shadinja group we found did not mention anything about any members having gone to help with the "outbreak". Since the strongest members among the Shadinja were at the gold stage, and assuming that this was not enough for the Shadinja to establish themselves in the inner circle, that likely meant that the strong elders going to support the guardian according to Duskull were at least at the dark gold stage.
Now based on that, we could also make an assumption on the guardian/Dusknoir's strength. Considering that the Guardian was able to command all ghosts/Pokemon in the cave system it had to have a certain level of strength to convince all parties involved. If we assumed that the ghosts Dusknoir called for support were at the dark gold stage, then the guardian had to be at the higher end of the platinum stage at the minimum to control everyone/everything.
Unless of course, the guardian position's prestige helped its rule/control, but even then I believed that it would need at least platinum-stage prowess to keep things under control. Either way, unless the Dusknoir was at the palladium stage, we should be able to at least defend ourselves from it and retreat safely even if we ended up coming across it. Honestly, I was quite curious about what exactly caused the outbreak and I was inclined to find out.
Duskull's next words temporarily stopped my musings. "{When the Guardian gives the order the elders go to the core, and it usually takes a day or two before they come back}" Duskull shared. "{That's why I dared to slip out}," he said before putting on a slightly smug look. "{The supervisors don't tell the elders anything even if they notice my brief absence since they don't want to get reprimanded for allowing me to slip out}," Duskull followed up proudly.
I learned two more important points. One, the outbreak was going to continue until at least tonight, possibly until the end of tomorrow. Two, until the end of the outbreak the strongest ghosts outside the core area were most likely going to be at the gold stage, leaving them ripe for the taking. Well, maybe not that exaggerated, but the groups were definitely easier to deal with than they would have been otherwise.
Now the question was if I should make use of the absence of the stronger ghosts to explore the inner circle or if I should head to the core area and make use of the fact that Dusknoir and his assistants were likely busy/distracted to see what the outbreak was all about. The latter had a certain degree of risk since there was a chance that our presence might f**k things up which could go very badly if something malevolent or harmful was sealed there.
On the other hand, there was a not inconsiderable chance that Dusknoir could detect our approach without the distraction from the outbreak, so the question was whether a general risk or a personal risk was more important. I eventually decided that it would be for the best if I called out Fortuna/Togekiss. I would let her toss a coin with one side being the option to explore the inner circle and the other side resulting in us heading to the core area.
Decision made I brought out Fortuna and told her what I wanted her to do. She confidently told me to leave it to her. I placed the coin on her feather crest and she flipped it by moving her head upward. The coin rose through the air before falling back down. It hit the ground and bounced once, twice, and a third time before finally coming to a stop.
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