《Chasing Darkness》Chapter 9
Advertisement
A town lay out before Lilith’s eyes. A dirty run down town, but evidence of civilization nonetheless.
Calling it a town was a bit of a stretch however.
‘It’s so small.’
Four main structures lay before her. One large road cut the complex in two. The road led to a Hut nestled right inside the plateau. To her left were two buildings, one really tall building that looked residential, and the other a Pokemon Center. It had a large Pokeball right above where the door should have been. Despite the greenery that covered the building, a bright red paint-job could be easily seen.
It had all the indicators of a Pokemon Center.
‘There should be a Pokemon Center in every Town, right?’
To the right was a long flat building that served an unidentifiable purpose. It was so wide that its base more than doubled the two buildings it sat across from. Despite its width, the building was only tall enough for a ground floor.
No more than a hundred people could have lived here at some point.
Despite the sheer cliff of the plateau, some small footpaths were in place, leading down to the ground. They wound down the mountain, and in some places her feet barely fit on the ledge.
‘This could be a goldmine.’
Lilith tried not to get her hopes up. The place looked wrecked. Glass was smashed, vines grew on the sides of buildings, and grass even grew on top of buildings.
‘I’m no historian, but this place hasn’t seen people in decades. Not unless some Pokemon accelerated all this.’
The footpath down the mountain took longer than expected. It did lead right to the base of the road. Lilith inspected the road. It was flat and smooth as anything she had seen on Earth.
Her attention then turned to the Hut it was connected to.
Two blue pillars held up either side as the building emerged from the cliff wall. Above the door sat a large black and silver pickaxe.
Advertisement
‘So a Mine of some sort. Pokemon really do love their pictionary. I wonder what they were digging for.’
After peeking inside, Lilith decided to stay clear of the area. Everything about it screamed danger. The last place she wanted to be was in a dark linear tunnel. No place to hide, and only one direction to run in. Lilith had no idea how deep it went or how dangerous it could be.
‘So this is an abandoned mining outpost.’
Lilith turned her attention to the other buildings.
The order ultimately didn’t matter because she had no knowledge to back up any particular decision.
Lilith approached the wide building with only one floor, as it was the closest. The road did well to keep the grass back, so approaching was easy. The windows were large, and low enough for her to look inside.
‘Nothing?’
Shelves lined the room. They all stood empty aside from the occasional empty box turned on its side. Dust littered the room. It appeared to be some sort of storage facility. The facility was removed of all objects before being left to rot.
‘No one will miss it.’
Lilith grabbed a carabiner from her bag. Using part of the bag as a glove, her hand descended upon the window.
Unexpectedly, the carabiner bounced right off.
“Ahh” Lilith cried as her arm started to tense up from the impact.
She swore and stared at the carabiner. This only made the previously broken ones all the more troublesome.
Instead, Lilith had to find a fully broken section before she could enter. This had been easy, the window right next to it missed its glass. Once one had been found, she climbed over the window, into the warehouse. There was no evidence of Pokemon in the room. The dust was so thick, Lilith had to wipe it away before she could even try and read anything. The boxes were her first stop.
‘What?’
The writing was unfamiliar to her. Strange symbols dotted the box.
Advertisement
‘Are those Unknown?’
The symbols slowly became legible. The language read like English, but was based on the Pokemon Unknown. The species bodies were morphed into different shapes, forming an alphabet.
‘Poketch?’ Lilith read the box.
Each box she went through had the Poketch logo. The company was known to produce wristbands that functioned like cellphones; it was odd to find them in charge of an operation of this sort.
Lilith continued to scour the room. In one box, she even found half of a disk.
‘A broken T.M.?’ Lilith identified the object that helped teach Pokemon how to learn moves they normally wouldn’t in the wild.
‘Are they single use, or was it broken by different means?’
Either way, it could not be used. Lilith tossed it aside. Nothing of value was found in the area.
Lilith walked towards the door at the far end of the room. The hallway it led to had three other storage areas exactly like the one she had just left. She estimated that the storage rooms took up most of the inside of the building.
The hallway eventually opened up into another large space. Chairs and desks were thrown aside. Few were even up right. Cubicles lined the walls.
‘Office space.’
Nothing of value was found in the cubicles, just like the storage room.
‘This might make a good base.’ Lilith evaluated the area.
This section eventually led to a reception area. The main entrance was to the left with a central lobby. More offices lined the left wall as one entered. Those doors had name tags that were barely legible.
These offices were just as plain as the areas before. It was as if Lilith had walked into a ghost town.
The last office in the building proved fruitful. Its door was initially closed, but the door swung outward once turned. The office had a much larger desk than the previous. After fumbling through the side cabinets.
Nothing so far. Lilith checked the desk drawers.
It appeared that someone forgot to clean it out. Shards of something were scattered in the central drawer above the sitting position. The one to the left creaked open and revealed nothing. Lilith did the same for the right.
The Desk held broken Type Gems. Each increased the lethality of one attack of the corresponding type. Even if unbroken, they would not have helped her.
The gems appeared to have been used long ago and thrown to the side.
‘Damn.’
Lilith started to grow frustrated. This place held nothing of physical, or educational value, only more questions. She brought her fist down on the table in a fit of rage. The desk shook and made a grinding sound. Desks didn’t make that sound.
After much scrutiny of the desk, a small button underneath the central panel was found. Once pushed, a false bottom fell out.
Inside were many good things.
‘Jackpot.’ Lilith’s pulse grew.
What caught her eye first were the multiple colored tablets. One was light green, the next was light blue, and the last was a dark black.
‘Are these Type Plates?’ Type Plates boosted the use of moves that corresponded with the Plate’s Type. The Flame plate boosted the use of Fire Type moves. Each Type had a corresponding Plate it was compatible with.
The last one gave off a fuzzy feeling she couldn't quite place. It was hard to turn her eyes away from it.
Two other objects sat within. One was a sharp crystalline diamond. It gave off a pale yellow glow, with a thunderbolt down the center.
‘Z move.’ An overcharged attack that needed a primer from a special glove. Useless to Lilith.
The last was oval-like. It was both bumpy and shard like with a slate gray color.
‘Moonstone.’ A special stone that Evolved certain Pokemon
An evil smile spread across Liliths face.
‘These must be what they were mining for.’
Advertisement
- In Serial20 Chapters
On the Road to Elspar (Book 1)
The year is 1329. The Huntress' War has entered its tenth year, inflaming competing nationalisms and pitting the Confederacy of Caldrein against one of the continent's superpowers, the Tenereian Union. Desperately outnumbered, the Confederacy has relied on the prowess of its famed Caldran mercenaries, with highly-trained and experienced warbands returning from foreign conflicts to the defense of their homeland, and it is on their backs that Caldrein has successfully mounted a valiant defense for a decade. But they are losing, and day by day, with all the grace of a sledgehammer, the vast Tenereian armies take one more bit of Caldran territory, one footstep at a time. Sixteen-year-old Neianne from the village of Caelon has submitted herself to Faulkren Academy, one of the centuries-old institutions established to train the next generation of Caldrein's elite soldiers of fortune, to learn the ways of wars for three years before embarking upon the defense of her country. Her dryad family once hailed from reclusive woodland communes isolated from Caldrein's complicated mainstream society, and her upbringing leaves the shy village girl unprepared to suddenly train alongside other apprentices from backgrounds as low as the dirty slums of Caldrein's cities and as high as the halls of aristocratic power. Yet the war is eroding the norms and traditions that the Caldran people have long considered part of their national mythos, and the tensions within the confederacy that have long simmered under the surface - race, class, community, identity - are slowly but surely dividing its people, and Neianne must grow and discover who she really is, even as the war that she is steadfastly training for comes to its inexorable end... On the Road to Elspar is a fantasy quest - a work of interactive fiction wherein readers get to vote on what happens next at critical junctures - that is the first entry in a story that follows Neianne of Caelon, which first began on July 20, 2016. Originally a three-part in medias res prologue to a larger story titled On the Elsparian Road, it was eventually decided that this section - which covers Neianne's three years at Faulkren Academy - become its own independent story due to length, structural, and accessibility reasons. Despite this being a reader interactive work of fiction, due to logistical and verification concerns, voting will only be counted on its thread on the forum Sufficient Velocity, where this story originally began. As such, the content here on Royal Road serves as a story-only archive. You are, of course, entirely welcome to enjoy On the Road to Elspar as a conventional work of fiction, just as you are welcome to comment, discuss, and provide critique. But if you would like to participate in the voting, then I would be honored to welcome you on Sufficient Velocity. To facilitate accessibility and to ensure the best reading experience, this story-only version of On the Road to Elspar will be updated at a periodic pace, even though further content exists, so as to not overwhelm new readers on Royal Road. If you enjoy this story, wish to binge it, and/or want to participate in voting immediately, you may of course read all additional content via the link provided above. This paragraph will be removed once the content on Royal Road catches up with what has already been posted in its original thread. Cover artwork by DreamSyndd.
8 334 - In Serial6 Chapters
New World: The Tales of Everything that is Wonderful
An exciting adventure that starts off with a scream! This is a tale of magic and swordsmanship that surpasses human logic as the characters find themselves in hot, freezing, or sticky circumstances. Everything and anything is possible in the New World!
8 154 - In Serial21 Chapters
Zane the Mad :Part of the Legendary Interviews
Manna runs through the Multiverse like water through the mud. When it gets to a new world it is never the same often many lives are lost, some adapt quickly and grow into gods with the new power. Some of those gods have been working hard to help new worlds with the changes that are coming. They watch the worlds and find ways to use those worlds culture as a guide, but even gods make mistakes. This is the interview with one of the fist of world 997188 to be exposed to the mana and system made to help him. (Please note that this serves as an error report due to the anomalous nature of this subject.)
8 202 - In Serial31 Chapters
The Whitechapel Murderer
While Hebrew stood there attending the phone call a newspaper slid under through the door of his small apartment. The headline said nothing else just, “The Whitechapel Murderer has returned....” Making him gulp and shiver at his own place. ~~~~~~~ Ten years later, after a notorious serial killer who had murdered five women went inactive, murders are being committed once again in the same way how he used to do. The murderer was never found and so, he was declared dead by the society. Could these murders be committed by him again or...there's someone else behind them. Flynn Hebrew has to been summoned by the crime branch to solve this case as he is the finest one among all. But what conspiracies lie behind these murders and who is the one attempting them...Hebrew is the one to find out. ~~~~~~
8 197 - In Serial131 Chapters
The Brotherhood Archive:Crossroads(Revised)
All people great or small have a story - Patriarch Lord Theris'Heron Soletus, was on the verge of becoming a warden in the Dias Brotherhood until his father holds him back. Instead of proving his skill with culling monsters that plague the land, he is given an assignment different assignment. It isn't one that test doesn’t test his physical strength, but his strength of character. He is paired up with a shy and traumatized boy name Mien. Between Mien’s anxious behavior and the crime he committed, Soletus doesn’t know what to do or what to think. He wasn’t trained for the duty he is performing and has no idea if he is doing the right thing. However, when Soletus’s resolve to help starts to waiver, Mien does something unexpected and Soletus decides that the boy deserves a second chance not as an act of duty but as a friend. Hy'Ruh-Ha is a what I consider a chronicle fantasy. It is a fantasy drama coming of age story inspired by slice-of-life stories I've read and watched. It is heavy on the slice-of-life and does move slow. It is low-stakes fantasy. This particular story is romance free.(2 out the of 4 is re-uploaded under this title) And if you are someone who cares, the POV character is asexual. Crossroad(formally labeled as the intermission stories)- is a novella collection continuing the tale where Hy'ruh-Ha. The collection as followed: Wolf- After spending several months in the swamp post, Oeric'Sheldmartin returns to repair the chasm between him and his son, Soletus. However, a ghost from his past comes to haunt him and could ruin the life he's made completely. Note: Wolf is a bit of a character piece. POV character is Oeric. The Priest and the Priestess- A novella written in the POV of Mien and then Kiao after a series of unexpected events that change their lives. Mien's POV- Mien has spent the last couple of years working not only in the infirmary but training to become a combat chanter as part of his penitence. Then one day, a drug addled elf comes into infirmary and changes his perspective of a friend and puts his knowledge to the tests to figure out a mystery effecting children in town. *Spoiler warning* Kiao's POV- Kiao spent most of her time in the infirmary living the same daily secret filled life and until Mien changed it. Now she has to figure out her future in ways she never thought she would. I'm going for a Tues and Thurs day schedule for the re-upload. I may or may not stick in extra days.
8 164 - In Serial28 Chapters
It was always you jordan Phillips
It's always been me and him
8 91