Chaser and the Faraway Island

Chaser and the Trial of Lightning

It wasn't too far down the stairs that the torches once again began to light up, though Goh was still curious as to the mechanism that caused them to light up. Back in the ruined Pokélantian castle, he had assumed it had something to do with pressure plates (because how else would an ancient castle bereft of modern technology detect movement of all things?) but walking down these stairs, he didn't notice anything of the sort. The torches, for their part, seemed to be lighting up continuously the further Goh headed down rather than light all up at once.

Chloe shuddered. "This is creepy..."

Goh nodded, wordlessly agreeing. This felt pointlessly creepy.

In Stone Town, the different chambers were directly adjacent to each other, but Goh understood that was due to the need of the mechanisms to interact with each other. After all, if there was a chain running an electric generator in here, putting them further apart would just require that much more chain. But there was something about this that felt odd. Unnatural, even beyond the distances.

But he put those thoughts out of his mind as he reached the bottom of the stairs and came to the next door. Inscribed with thunderbolts and other signs that he would associate with electricity, Goh could easily read 'Lightning' in the Pokélantian script.

"Guess we're here..." he said, more trying to steady his nerves than anything else.

Chloe patted him on his shoulder while Ash (standing on the same side as Grookey was) gave his back a friendly slap. With his friends with him, he steadied himself. "Alright. Let's get through this next one."

"Grooki!"

"Pika!"

"Eievui!"

Goh and Ash pulled the stone doors open without too much trouble, and the three of them entered the Lightning Chamber, with Quillon and Danika close behind.

What was in front of them was something Goh wasn't quite expecting.

In the center of the room - indeed, taking up most of the room inside the chamber - was a series of interconnected metal bars that looked at first glance to be a grid with many connections starting from a single point before fanning out with two terminuses. One pointed out towards a large, almost glass looking container that reminded Goh of the channels that poured the energy of their moves into Arcanine in the Fire chamber. The other seemed to connect to a strange wooden orb that sat on a stone dias, similar to the one that had moved when Arcanine blasted it to let them move forward.

At the starting point of this grid, on the side closest to where Goh and the others entered, there was a tablet with the inscription on it, and though Goh could read it, he wasn't sure what it meant.

"'Beware the Lord of...Levin'?"

"It's a word that means 'lightning'," Danika explained before cracking a grin. "I guess whatever made it so you can read this stuff didn't come with an instruction manual."

Chloe shrugged. "It's a weird word but it does at least look similar to the word Pokélantians normally use for lightning. Though now I wonder why they're using a different one."

"Focus," said Quillon. "Etymology is neither important nor interesting at the moment.

Danika crossed her arms, pouting. "You're no fun."

Ignoring her, Quillon continued. "Look at the grid. While it looks like it's complete, it's not actually. There's breaks in places that would prevent electricity from flowing to the other side."

And at that, Goh looked across the grid and did see these breaks. There were places where the ground was intended slightly, where two pieces of metal were both touching the same indentation, but neither touched the other.