Chapter 12: Secret of the caves
We took a brief break so that Gaia could recover some of her stamina and let her frankly crazy healing ability fix the minor damage she took as she ate some of the rocks nearby for nutrition. I wondered if her healing ability was the norm for pokemon or something specific to her but I had no way to tell until I either got another pokemon or rejoined society. Neither were in my plans for the moment so I chose to ignore it. An hour later she was good as new and we started looking around for treasure or whatever secret this cave system was supposed to hold.-
It became pretty clear that we were getting closer to the source of the water as the moisture on the stone walls and air was increasing as we went deeper. Along the way I found a grade 3 dusk stone and even an unusual claw fossil which was strangely shaped. I remember what regular claw fossils looked like in the games but this one was wider and serrated which the normal version was not. We also got into a couple more fights along the way mostly with Parasect but three times we had to straight up defend ourselves from the Graveler that were quite territorial sometimes.-
It was only three times because Gaia made an example out of those three that told the rest we can and will kill them if they seem like they want to attempt to kill us. It was a cruel but effective method that got the point across without unneeded conflict. I had already accepted that killing was now a part of my life that I would only ever stop when I stopped being a trainer or died. Such was the nature of this world I was in.-
After all of that however Gaia had hit level sixteen and learned rock slide at level fifteen. She had also reached adept in her bite which made the dark type energy in it stronger increasing it's damage. I noticed the cave growing much more humid and the sound of gently moving water reached our ears. Soon we saw light, yes light , show up in the distance and started to eagerly speed up to find out why that was. What we found was honestly one of the most beautiful and terrifying things I have ever seen.-
we rounded a corner and immediately froze as we gazed upon a cavern with glowing crystalline walls and ceilings. Majority of the cavern however was a small lake with crystal clear water and a small spit of land in the center of it. the lake didn't hold a single pokemon but that didn't surprise me considering where the water was coming from. There in the center of the spit of land lay a single ivory tooth three times taller than me and Gaia and nearly twice as wide. Water gently trickled down it's length and collected at it's base before flowing into the lake.-
I looked at Gaia "You can't swim very well can you?" I asked dead set on getting to that spit of land. She had a look of displeasure as she shook her head and huffed since she clearly had the same idea as me. "Do you want to wait here with the torch or get put in your ball till I swim over?" I asked seriously. "Lar!" she said which I roughly understood via our bond as the word "ball" so I pulled out the white and black ball from my bag and hit the button clumsily returning her.-
Putting the ball back in the bag I zipped it up turning it waterproof before carefully stepping into the water of the lake. It was actually fairly warm so I had no problem at all walking into it until it was at my waist before leaning forward and starting my swim to the center. I didn't exhaust myself by trying to swim quickly but leisurely glided forward while gently kicking my feet and reaching out with my hands cupped. I also regulated my breathing to use the air in my body to help me float at the surface.-
While I was swimming my torch went out which I noticed but was helpless to do anything about as I honestly hadn't expected it to last this long to begin with. Thankfully I was pretty sure I could collect some of these glowing crystals in order to light the way out of the cave. after ten minutes of swimming I finally felt the hard stone of the islands shore against my feet when I extended to straight down. Walking out of the water I ignored how my clothes clung to me and reached into my bag to free Gaia from her ball like promised.-
The red light shot out of the ball after I pressed the button and landed on the ground before rapidly taking the shape of Gaia. "See it wasn't so bad right?" I say teasingly and she huffs at me in response. She gets over her irritation at needing to ride in her ball almost instantly however when she turns to look at the massive ivory tooth not more than twenty feet from us. It was far more intimidating up close than at a distance as I could see how it looked like it had been snapped off from whatever had it originally not more than ten minutes ago.-
Obviously that wasn't actually true since it had clearly been here for a very long time but it certainly didn't look like it as it almost seemed to have a sort of vitality to it. My eyes lit up however when I looked at it's base and saw four large dark blue crystals that looked like they had bubbles in them. That's right water stones and after using appraise on them I was left speechless as they were all grade 5. Using appraise on the giant tooth I learned why as well as how this cavern formed to begin with.-
[Item name: Kyogre tooth
Grade: Relic
Description: An ancient tooth once belonging to the sea god Kyogre that was lost in one of it's many fights with the land god Groudon. Due to the way it was lost this tooth still bears a fragment of it's previous owners power over the seas and so weeps water forevermore. The power in this tooth allows any water type power to be mastered at an accelerated pace. Any water taken directly from this tooth will contain dense water type energy and is a massively beneficial supplement for water type pokemon.]-
I was absolutely stunned at the systems appraisal of this tooth , how could I not be? This was the tooth of a literal god! No amount of in game knowledge could prepare me to face such a thing , are you kidding? A fucking TOOTH that was snapped off eons ago still had enough power in it to produce dense water type energy FOREVER. The sheer amount of power that Kyogre itself must have is beyond comprehension and I firmly believe that the games nerfed the unholy hell out of the thing in them as it was nowhere near so big or powerful in the games.