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Collected from Arsaga:

Either way, the broad path up leading up the mountain as a slope seems mostly devoid of life - apart from the occasional dry-looking bush, reminiscent perhaps of feinbos, the landscape seems to be purely made of rocks, jagged, as though the elements never weathered them away.

It was easy to get warm in the warmth-soaked air - it took both of them no time at all. It's a little bizarre, all things considered, given that the sky is so spotlessly clear, which usually drains warmth away from the ground at night at rapid speeds. But after two hours of ascending the slope - motions becoming more and more lethargic - the sky has drained of all remnants of colour, leaving the world as if encased in a black husk.

And then the world seems to dip - and the rocks part at each of their steps against the new view, yielding a bizarre sight… the half-ruined remnants of what may at one point have been a castle, particularly its left side collapsed in on itself, gothic in its designs, and the hinted specks of two other houses as the sole sign of civilisation up here… a true settlement: The gym, a PokéCenter and a PokéMart, eeriely nestled amongst the alien landscape, the highest point of the castle towering high above the rest of Sehto.

There seems to be no light here at all - but the white of a sign still prominently catches their eye in the dim starlight leaking down from above. 'Private property - do not trespass', with a smaller add-on below, in a less legible script: 'Gym circuit pokémon trainers only.'

The lack of activity is chillingly absolute, even though the air up here is, if anything, warmer than it had been immediately around Roaring Hollow, an almost soothing, inviting warmth, though starkly contrasted by the spikes of huge slabs of rock scattered around this miniature dale carved into the landscape. The castle seems unusual in some way, undefiniably unsettling, as though its heavy wooden doors might contain demons rather than a gym, and shifting them open would be like taking the lid of Pandora's box…

The PokéCenter seems to be locked and closed up, perhaps for the night, perhaps forever? It's hard to tell - it doesn't look abandonned, at least. Neither does the PokéMart, though the same can be said for it - as much as they don't like the idea, it's going to have to be the castle… or a tedious way back to Vale with no new information.

The doors seem to be heavy - several inches thick, judging from the sound of her knock - and they're huge, more like a gate than anything. Their surface is full of little, but ultimately meaningless designs - at most runes, but most likely just pretty patterns carved into the wood to make it look less boring. They wait a while - but there does not seem to be a reaction. Maybe they should try to let themselves in? Heavy though they may be, they don't appear locked.

The door moves with extreme lethargy, cracking open fractionally at her efforts - it's way too large to conveniently move, so it's natural to simply stop with the pushing and shoving once the gap is big enough to allow a human to pass through. And pass through they do, into a particularly inky blackness, the thin sliver of starlight they're letting in from outside barely making their shapes cast shadows even immediately beside the door. Silence.

In the darkness, two strange, almond-shaped magenta sources of light expand into visibility… eyes? The silence, though, persists, until that soft light extinguishes abruptly, leaving them with a more sullen sense of loneliness. Sleeping on the ground - outside - suddenly seemed like a good alternative, but something seemed to compell them to stay, like an inaudible 'Please hold the line.'

After what seems almost too much a time to be waiting - prompting Raiko to whisper: “Why are we waiting, exactly…?”, though the question itself is infused with a strange doubt, as though he was not sure an answer was necessary - a crisp voice suddenly fills the obsidian slab of night within the hall they must be in: “You are trespassing.” A subtle threat lingers in those words.

The room seems spartanically designed, with the bed set into the wall so that three of its sides end against stone. […] [There is] dim light in the room that's seemingly flooding into it from the ceilings' edges. The door seems to be made of wood, judging by its appearance, but its texture is wrong, almost like warm metal, though it seems to give way ever so subtly under pressure of his fingertips, again like wood. A design is carved into the surface, appearing like a tribal tattoo variant of an eclipsed sun - very pretty, and not anywhere near as ominous as the design might invoke in other renditions.

It's hard to view this room as a prison cell, regardless, given its design and level of comfort, but at least his rational mind was tangibly aware of the situation. There's nothing else in the room, it seems, except for… actually, except for a folded piece of paper stood on the bedside table, beside a vase. It's labelled 'To: Raiko Zelenka'.

The corridor periodically passes under archways supporting its high ceiling - occasionally, doors appear on the left and right, though they're not very numerous. Far more often, a corridor cuts their path, their left pathways always ending fairly soon and well within their view, a single gothic window high up on the thin strip of wall. The right pathways tend to be more convoluted - and after a while, he turns into one, absent-mindedly beckonning Raiko to follow as though he wasn't already doing so. This particular corridor is straight and, at half its length, seems to be punctured by a particularly large hole in its wall… they pass by it, glance through revealing an arena in the dim lighting of the cloud-filtered daylight that is let through the high, cathedral-like windows in that particular hall. The corridor ends in a T-junction into another corridor much like the one they'd initially entered.

A moment later, they've entered one of the arenas, the light filtering in from the outside granting the hall an alien glow.

And then the image of the Taqnateh settlement rises from beyond a rise, first hard to distinguish from more rocks, silhouetted as it is - before the outlines of worn architecture can been seen reaching up into the skies. A castle, or perhaps a cathedral - even if it wasn't half a ruin, it would be hard to tell. A few more steps, further up the rise. The world elbows its way back into Devi's conscious perception. “We're here,” she snaps, without intending the words to be heard by anyone, it motivated by a distant courteousness she had no conscious understanding for, not turning her head - likely oblivious as to whether any footsteps are crunching behind her or not. The path widens, winding through three short peaks, spreading into a plateau on which the entrance of the half-ruin building lies as heavy wooden doors, with a PokéCenter and a PokéMart in the other quasi-corners. Light burns dimly in latter, suggesting activity.

Devi slows to a stop as she nears the doors, craning her neck to look up at their sheer size. It looks like it may be better befit for a Tyranitar than for any human residence, dark, wooden surface littered with meaningless engravings, rune-like at best. Her fingertips trace across it, gaze aiding them in their search for a knocker, bell, or anything of the sort. Nothing. Grimacing, she gives one wing of the door a push, palms pressed against it - feeling it give way ever so slightly, extremely reluctant to move, requiring strain from her wirey arms. Gritting her teeth, she leans against it, stemming her weight against it to inch it open.

At this point, Marcus might notice that Neike is still by the shop, about a hundred metres removed from their current position, making no immediate antics to follow them. On the other hand, the door has just inched open enough to allow passage into the inky darkness beyond - a line of light from the dimming skies falls across a long, flat plane, then zigzags up what may be a broad flight of stairs or a simple seating area of an arena.

Devi slips quietly through the crack, quiet sideways steps easing her into the darkness. The sliver of light's expansion slows, driven by momentum and decceleration - and a moment later, begins to slowly shrink, even as her gaze lances through the inky black trying to find outlines, features, anything. “Hello?” she calls into it, forehead wrinkling. She didn't like the look of this place - but she was far removed from letting it get to her.

Silence is all that answers her for long moments - before a strange glow shimmers into view near the shrinking line of light. Neike's body, meanwhile, impacts gently with the door, slowing its closing, and a moment later, she's slipped in after Marcus… and the darkness becomes that much more absolute, the soft, diffuse light beside where the slash of light had been notwithstanding. A figure, vaguely human, edges of a cloak of sorts hovering near his ankles. The light bleeds out from a small, cat-like creature curled around his neck, a soft, reddish hue. “Well, that took you forever and a day,” a voice remarks, pretences of grandeur ditched in favour of a casual, biting sneer.

The chuckle echoes through the hall - whatever its shape may be, it lends itself to refracting sound. A soft thud sounds behind Devi and Marcus - Neike has let herself back against the heavy doors, intimidated by the myriad of implications of those few initial words, regretting that choice she made back in Vale. “So, come to battle, the lot of you, have you?” he asks, unmoving, the creature around his neck raising its head to look at them with bright eyes, only to narrow them slightly, its long, glowing tail curling and coming to rest across the man's chest. “I mean, beside the obvious - and I recommend you spare your breaths and keep your questions to yourselves.”

Resisting the urge to cut across either of them, Devi scowls into the darkness, trying to stay focussed, trying to take in all the new information and string it together, add it to the fringes of her own theories, grasping for consistency. It comes easily, much to her idle horror, though she expels her fear in a single snorted breath. - “Good, good,” the gymleader remarks dismissively. “Then we'll battle first, shall we? Of course only once you've listened to my terms and accepted them,” he remarks, a certain coldness lacing into those words, as though daring Marcus to continue - as though there were something special about those terms, perhaps, that few would be sane to accept.

If Devi can see him in the darkness, he can't make out her reaction - it's really quite a pointless gesture in the inky darkness. The gymleader seems to have far less issues spotting their motions, though, waiting for Marcus to complete the glance and glare before responding to his words. “A very simple one on one fight, a six pokémon cycle. A K.O. is a loss - a death of an opponent pokémon disqualifies you. If you win, I give you the Astral Badge - if you lose, you lose everything.” The last word seems hissed, though it is not spoken with any more emphasis than the rest of the neutral, explanatory words. So far unprompted, he does not elaborate.

The glance shifts aside, and those wirey arms fold before him as though battling irritation. “'Everything' means everything, boy,” he says, a definite hiss in his tone now. “Your pokémon, your other belongings, your life, your identity, anything that can be assuredly said to pertain to your person specifically in any way, shape or form. Everything.”

The hiss from 'the lady' in response to the gymleader's elaboration subsides as Marcus addresses her, making way for a tense silence. She shifts her weight, stepping sideways once, the motion evident only due to the sound. “You should leave,” Neike whispers softly, extending her right hand to brush fingertips against Devi's left shoulder, seeing her against the man's fleck of light up on the simple, bench-like rows of seats, his little contained orb of reddish, diffuse light. Devi shrugs her shoulder, though the gesture could be multitudes harsher - there's a softness to it, perhaps appreciation. “I'll battle you,” she says, strange malice in that tone, suggesting a different interpretation of those words. Fingertips slide across the fabric of her trouser's pocket. “Justly,” she adds, hissing the word - and a moment later, five thin lines of colour lash through the air beside her, shimmering a soft blue.

The moment the lines of the whip appear, the creature on Jagdish's shoulders jolts into a motion, reflexively winding itself away from the neck it had settled against, uttering a medely of mew and chirp, before it vanishes abruptly, popping out of existence, the light vanishing. In the brief moment of illumination before its vanishing, the gymleader's face could be seen to darken perceptibly, brows furrowing with some emotion quite distinct from fear. Recognition?

Briefly bewildered by the fearful reaction of the pokémon, Devi snorts softly, keeping herself tense, forcing her breathing to remain regular, forcing her voice to remain level and domineering. “I'd argue my terms are far fairer than yours,” she hisses. “Now come down and play - unless you're scared of me,” she throws up at him, voice thick with venom.

Or rather, flicks a look at where the gymleader's face had been moments ago, when there was still a hint of light in this darkness. Footsteps suggest he's moving, though it's slow and does not seem to be a descent toward them.

Devi utters something of a soft snarl, but does not bother with verbal rebuttal to the silence, instead launching herself forward into the shadows, away from Marcus and Neike, toward the sound of footsteps, lines of the whip dragging across the floor, her left hand flexing, but mostly stretched out before her, arm angled slightly to lessen the brutality of the blow should she crash into something unseen in the darkness.

The archway reveals a windowed arena, though by now only starlight is filtering in through the gothic style vertical windows, and a haunting of blue moonlight spilling across the slightly uneven, worn stone floor, markings barely visible. This place must be ancient - moreso, there must not be many trainers coming up here to battle, otherwise the gymleader would probably bother giving this place more of a modern look. In the center of the arena sits a figure with familiar blue hair, back turned to them, cloak falling around their shoulders and obscuring most of their body. They seem crouched - perhaps in idle meditation. It makes for an eerie feel, that sole sign of life in the vast hall.