Truth of the fall
"We'll open that place last but for now lets get the goodies from the other five buildings." I said when my pokemon started giving me odd looks after I hesitated. They would have been more worried if they could have felt my distress through our bond but I made sure to keep that a one way connection most of the time. Doing this kept the emotional feedback loop mostly uncluttered and confusing. If I opened the connection to where my own emotions fed back to them I'd have to deal with the confusing situation where I felt my own emotions echoing back to me through their side of the connection.-
This was more of a me problem than a trainer problem as it was due to my high human race strengthening the bonds with my pokemon that this echoing happened. Anyway I moved over to the other intact-ish buildings that Gaia raised up to the surface. The first had some common evolution stones of various grades and a rusted set of armor that the aura masters of the past wore. I didn't even bother with the armor as it was so corroded that the only thing keeping it from turning to dust was the lack of airflow in the building.-
The evolution stones on the other hand had been carefully stored to prevent the energy in them from leaking out so they were as good as the day they were stored. The most valuable had to be the peak grade five fire stone that was just a bit away from reaching grade six. The rest of the stones I stored in my bag before moving on to the next building. There I found ruined armors and weapons as well as clothes and beds that told me this was likely a bunk house.-
There were a few bits of stuff that survived till now such as some coins, jewelry and a single conduit weapon that had been sealed in a airtight container that had kept it preserved till now though that was clearly not the intent considering what it was. It was a small object shaped like a diamond prism that looked fairly plain but I knew better than to touch it. It was a dark artifact that bore the name[Carnivore] that allowed an aura user to rip the aura out of other living things and consume it to strengthen their own reserves.-
Now that sounds good but like all dark artifacts it came with a very big downside, it eventually turned the user into a mindless hunter that drained the lifeforce of anything they could find while growing them more powerful over time. More or less a manmade monster, nasty stuff all around. I stashed the artifact in my bag not because I'd ever be stupid enough to use it but because the materials that made it were super fucking rare and I could disassemble the thing later for something I actually would use.-
Conduit weapons without power like that artifact were just normal things and didn't have the incredible durability that a powered conduit weapon might. I moved on from that building to the next and then the next after that as I stopped finding things worth taking. Soon enough I had cleared out everywhere except the main building that was shrouded by a weak layer of Giratina's power. I got some nice things from this trip if nothing else so even if I didn't find anything useful in the main building I could be satisfied with my loot.-
'No turning back now I guess.' I thought as I steeled myself and pushed my palm against the thick stone door of the main building. Immediately the energy surged towards my palm but rather than repel me like I thought it would it climbed over my palm before rushing into the mark on the back of my palm. It burned for a moment as the mark began to change shape from a diamond to a three pointed star. I hurriedly checked the skill and found that the energy drawing ability of it had increased qualitatively. The amount and speed of energy getting drawn in was now almost double as potent as before.-
'I have a sneaking suspicion that this wasn't an accident, but why? Better yet how did it know I would be the one to dig this up and prepare for it in that short span of time?' I pondered with a deep frown. As far as I understood it Giratina was only aware of me for a total on a few days before it went on it's rampage and got sent to the distortion world which was absolutely not enough time for it to set this up.-
If anything it shouldn't have been able to even move much less do something like this in that span of time considering it was fighting off whatever was corrupting it. I simply couldn't wrap my head around how Giratina had set this up until a thought occurred to me. 'What if it set it up so only someone with it's blessing could get in but I was just the only person who qualified after that event?' I thought and it certainly fit as if I wasn't wrong those four priestesses were the last people from that time who got the blessing so this place just got permanently locked until now as a result-
Honestly though there was no way for me to know without actually asking Giratina and I wasn't going to try and open that door at all if I could help it. I was just glad that the thing hadn't ripped open the dimensional barrier between this world and the distortion world and dragged my ass in the moment I came back to the present. It had me more than a little worried because the option was sort of hanging over my head at all times like the blade of Damocles but I tried not to think about it.-
Cautiously I pushed open the door to the building after I recovered from the surprise of my mark getting an upgrade and was confused at what I found within. The building was not all that large and the inside was even smaller but the place was absolutely COVERED in paintings that depicted the entire process of Giratinas corruption. I had mixed feeling when I came to understand what the source of the godly legendries corruption came from, people. The legendary had apparently grown attached to one particular person at some point and when they died did something absolutely taboo for all aura users, it used it's own aura to resurrect the person.-
Oh yes it was possible to resurrect a newly dead person using aura but it twisted ones aura because of this absolute defiance of the natural order. The paintings depicted that at first Giratina was fine but as time went on the corrupted part of it's aura began to spread as it refused to stop unnaturally extending the persons life until it was too late and the corruption became semi-sentient and began to actively consume the original personality of Giratina.
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