Group RP Team Sunsteel - Race for the Sun Flute

Wemberly saluted her higher ranked commanders before turning to the work they allowed them to take care of. The responsibility of cleaning rocks from the temple itself was almost more than she would have thought a grunt like her would do. The walk here hadn't even been that interesting, she barely remembered walking at all.
"But this is real work." She whispered while starting with smaller rocks first, to put them in semi-neat piles in a different location. It wouldn't do to just place them farther away from the altar, if they were still in the temple. An even better idea would be to either grind them into dust to more easily destroy the mess, or make a smaller temple from the rocks.
"Or even another glyph!" She snickered as thoughts of smaller temples filing up beside the best one, filled her mind. But the stones closer to the Altar were larger and heavier to move causing her happiness to momentarily be heightened, for she needed strength.

A few moments later, Snappy joined her to push, carry, or bite the larger rocks and stones to a place a bit farther from the entrance. Here they took turns smashing the rubble into a powder that could be spread by the wind. What was too heavy to grind, became the beginnings of a smaller monument. Wemberly became distracted with her idea, though Yppans kept his eyes out for any new commands from the higher-ups.

 

There was a rumbling behind the huge rock pile up, shaking the ground. It seemed like it was getting closer and closer to the group. They looked up and saw that a huge boulder was rolling right towards them! Somehow, a boulder trap was triggered.

 

Vincent joined Isaac in snapping photos of the glyphs and carvings. It was a long-extinct language, not spoken by any in thousands of years, at least. Vincent turned to face his fellow scientist. "Solgaleo's proved itself to be difficult to track down. Do you think this could be it? I get the feeling we're-"

A rumbling sound caused him to pause mid-sentence. Almost immediately, the source became clear. A massive boulder rolled towards them, threatening to crush them all if it wasn't stopped. Isaac's Beheeyem had managed to slow it down, but that alone wouldn't be enough.

Vincent was quick to pull one of the Pokeballs out of his coat. From it, Vinc2nt's Metang emerged. "Turing! You're up!"

Turing hovered in front of the suspended boulder, and began repeatedly driving its iron claws into it. Chunks of stone fell to the ground as, little by little, Turing's claws chipped away at it. Eventually, all that was left of the boulder was a pile of rubble.

 

Ethan greatly respected his superiors, so he followed his orders without any complaint. He remembers the briefing they've received before venturing to the ruins, so all grunts were aware of how important this place truly is. Unable to move most of the big rubble, he called upon his Machoke to assist him.

"Hey big guy, ready to do some heavy lifting?" He asked his companion.

As for his response, he simply lifts a large piece of debris and holds it on his shoulder. Without much delay, they begin carefully moving the rubble, making sure not to obstruct the path or break anything of importance. After a good few minutes of moving debris, Ethan begins to feel the ground underneath him quake, followed by the sounds of Isaac shouting. Turning around, both Ethan and Machoke see a massive boulder rolling down towards the group. He noticed that it was being slowed down by what seemed like psychic energy, but it wasn't enough. Without much thought, he commanded the Machoke to stop what he was doing, and to assist his companions in stopping the boulder. The Machoke quickly dropped the rubble he was holding, and ran up to the falling boulder, but before they can get themselves involved, Vincent's Metang turned the opposing boulder into even more rubble.

Seeing as he was unable to be of much assistance, he commended Vincent for his quick thinking, and got back to cleaning up the rubble that was now all around them.


(Note: The reason it says I edited my post was because I was unaware of Ridlings typing his own reply, so I kind of just posted a scene that made no sense. Fixed it though.)

 

Vincent nodded. "Very well. I'll leave the rest to you, then." Taking out his own tablet, he brought up all of the photos he'd taken so far. With a few taps on the screen, he sent them to Isaac. He approached the grunts, who were still hard at work clearing out rubble. "Be on the lookout. We've already triggered one trap, and there may very well be more."

He took a closer look, trying to find whatever triggered the falling boulder. It didn't take long for him to find it. Despite their age, most of the tiles were still level with each other, except one single tile near the area where the grunts were working. It had receded into the ground slightly, most likely as a result of someone stepping on it. "A pressure plate... There may be more of them around here."

Looking around the room, his eyes fell upon another offset tile, closer to the center of the room. This struck him as odd. They'd only set off a single trap, so why had two different pressure plates been triggered? Upon closer inspection, a very clear shoeprint was visible on this second pressure plate. There were two possibilities. The first was that this trap was simply a dud, and hadn't been triggered when it was stepped on. The other possibility was that someone else had entered this ruin and triggered this pressure plate before they'd ever gotten there. Vincent desperately hoped it was the former.

He stood up. "Everyone, your attention, please." He waited a moment, until every pair of eyes in the room was on him. "I have reason to believe that we aren't the first ones to enter this room. This may sound strange, but I need to see the bottoms of your shoes." He leaned in close, to get a good look at the shoeprint. If it matched with someone from Sunsteel, then everything would be fine. If not, it could potentially jeapordize their entire mission.

 

Yppans bit into the hind quarter of Snappy, alerting the other head to wake Wemberly from her day-dreaming. He didn't have to bite him, but the first boulder scared him enough to inflict damage on itself in confusion. Was the team being attacked, and for what purpose? Snappy trotted over to his grunt, butting Wemberly with his knobby horns until she faced him with a puzzled look on her face. Both heads motioned as one to where the remains of a boulder lay close to the entrance of the temple, and along side it a Metang that looked a bit dusty. Wemberly felt a bit bad that she hadn't been around to help, though she enjoyed the hard work while it lasted. She patted both heads, first Yppans, then Snappy before returning them to her ball belt. Walking back in a creeping manner to the temple entrance she saw Vincent gesturing about something that he probably deemed important, though she was late to figuring out why. Deciding against trying to sneak past a rather large Metang, (For all of them were pretty big and intimidating,) she stood at attention in the entrance.
"Grunt reporting for more duties please." Wemberly watched the others lifting their feet awkwardly. She didn't want to join in, but there also might be something disgusting on the ground that Vincent might want to study. Taking a deep breath, she walked forward and lifted her right foot outwards, balancing on her left as well as she could.
"Grunt reporting her shoes do look rather dashing." She whispered once she could hold her breath no longer.

 

While it was a weird request, Ethan understood its necessity. After showing them his shoe, he decided to get back to work. But now he felt slightly uneasy. As Vincent said, there's a posibility that they weren't the first to show up to these ruins. He didn't want to be a worry wart, but he'd rather be safe than sorry. He reached for another pokéball on his belt, and called forth a Pidgeotto.

"Hey buddy, ready to do some scouting?" Ethan asked his Pidgeotto. "I need you to go outside and fly around the jungle. Try to see if you can find a camp, or a group of unknown individuals. If you do happen to find one, try not to get spotted, and return immediately."

The Pidgeotto quickly left the ruins and began flying around the jungle. He would return in a few minutes, Ethan thought to himself, so he'll continue dealing with rubble and debris. If Pidgeotto does happen to find anything, he would immediately report it to his superiors.

 

Despite the strange request, all of the grunts complied, as well as Isaac. Vincent's eyes darted between the shoes of his teammates and the footprint on the pressure plate. For good measure, he checked his own shoe as well. One by one, he compared them, but not a single one matched. Letting out a sigh of defeat, Vincent stood up. "This footprint doesn't match anyone in our group. That means someone was, indeed, here before we arrived."

Ethan took the initiative and sent one of his Pokémon to scout the area. Vincent did the same, sending out his Vikavolt. "Tesla, you do the same. Scout the area, and return if you find someone." With two Pokémon searching, it would certainly speed things up.

He gave Turing a pat on the head. "You've done well. Rest for a while." As he returned the Metang to its Pokéball, he turned to address his teammates. "This footprint could belong to someone from Prismatic or Moongeist. As soon as Isaac's translation is finished, we'll need to start moving."

 

As he was about to leave, one of the grunts handed Vincent an Ariados needle. She seemed to think one of the traps had unleashed a horde of spiders, though he had doubts about that. He began thinking out loud for a moment. "Let's see... The Salandit found the stingers here, and the pressure plate's here... Assuming they travelled in a straight line, the source would be..." Drawing a line in the air with his finger, he ended up pointing towards several small holes in the opposite wall.

He took a closer look at the stinger. "They must have harvested these stingers from Ariados to launch them at intruders. It must be thousands of years old, yet it shows no signs of decomposition." He took out a small vial, and placed the stinger inside. "This likely has nothing to do with our current mission, but I would love to analyze it further once we're in a less time-sensitive situation. I'd love to find out how they managed to preserve it so perfectly."

By this point, Isaac's translation had finished, and the next step of their mission was made clear. They had to head to the north, to a shrine where the sun and moon flutes were kept. "In that case, the sooner we leave, the better. Let's get going."

He headed outside, and using two of his fingers, let out a loud whistle that echoed through the jungle's canopy. Moments later, the familiar buzzing of Tesla's wings grew louder as he returned, landing on Vincent's back. It was safe to assume that he hadn't found anything.

 

As soon as he heard that they had to take another hike up north, he decided to quickly get his things together. As he's organizing his backpack, he hears the sounds of flapping wings behind him. Assuming it's his Pidgeotto, he turns around to see if it has anything to report on. The Pidgeotto seemed to be holding onto a familiar looking object with its talon.

"What's this?" He asked his Pidgeotto, taking the object from his Pokémon to get a closer look at it. After a quick inspection, he realized that it was a Moongeist helmet. "That's... not good."

Without a second thought, Ethan makes his way towards both Vincent, and Isaac, to report what he found.

"You guys might wanna see this." He told them, handing them the helmet.

 

"Hup, hup, hoo!" Wemberly crowed, putting away her helpful Pokémon before following her glorious leaders and higher-ups, to the north. She tried not to tromp ahead of them, eager as she felt. If Wemberly outpaced any of her teammates, she paused in her quick march to release Dewpider, who could create a form of drinkable bubbles for them to stay hydrated on.

 

A click happened underneath their feet, and then, the floor dropped from under them suddenedly, causing all of the Sunsteel members to fall about 15 feet below them into a pitfall trap.