Quinn flinched the moment when Route One Oh Two became the smallest bit wet. It was not enough to keep from carrying on, but she kept thinking about it as it took further and further steps. Quinn was intimately familiar with mud, for reasons they rather kept to hirself. As Route One Oh Two became a full-on bog, Quinn spent more time looking for the safest places to step than zir stated goal of hunting for Pokémon. Cassiopeia had to help with a few of those jumps, putting all her effort into pulling upwards, giving Quinn just a few extra moments of airtime to navigate safely. It did not always work, and every piece of clothing below Quinn’s knee suffered the consequences, but there was still entertainment in the process, so Quinn did not mind. There were wild Pokémon to encounter, of course, and for those, Quinn did faer best to stay in place. Normandie did not seem to mind the environment fighting with her trademark ferocity, and Cassiopeia was unaffected by most terrain in general. The Pokémon that truly caught Quinn’s eye, however, was a Bearble standing stock still and facing away from her as it approached. Quinn recognized it immediately. “Peat? Where is your friend Nathaniel?” Quinn asked. But the Bearble did not respond, still looking ahead and growling under his breath. “Ahead, then? What is he doing without you?” Quinn made a move to continue, but Cassiopeia suddenly jerked its hand back, pulling the rest of the young ghost back with her. “Oh!” Quinn said, in more of shock than actual pain. “What is with you, you silly balloon?” That was when xe heard the whispers. In all likelihood, they had always been there since first stepping into the marsh, but it had taken breaking focus to notice them, and now they were impossible to ignore. The whispers in the back of Quinn’s mind were incomprehensible, but in the sort of way that promised comprehension if one only listened harder. Quinn tried again to approach the statue -- the whispers had to be coming from there, right? -- but Cassiopeia once again refused. “Do you want to go back into your Pokéball?” Quinn asked. That seemed to be an acceptable compromise for Cassiopeia, who practically opened her ball for Quinn as ze took it out. Approaching the statue alone made staying clean a practically impossible task, but Quinn no longer cared. The statue’s aura was awesome in the literal sense, with all the terrifying implications that that implied. It was no wonder that both Cassiopeia and Peat were not interested in such a place. Nathaniel was also there, hesitating just before placing his hand on the edifice. Quinn did likewise but overcame that final mental barrier to find out what the statue felt like. The statue was warm, but not in a way where the rock had absorbed sunlight all morning and was now radiating excess heat, nor was it warm because Quinn’s skin, as a ghost, was naturally cooler. No, it felt warm because it felt like it was alive, an impossibility in itself, but that was what it felt like. Even more, it felt like it was breathing, too. There was a pulse of energy in the statue. Its rhythm was slow, but it was there and it was consistent. Quinn could tap along with it if they didn’t feel compelled to keep his hand on the rock. “Material or Astral, I have never encountered anything like this,” Quinn said, Quinn’s voice soft. The voices in her head got louder, and faster too. And yet, Quinn still could not understand it. “What secrets do you hold?” Quinn mused. Still keeping faer hand touching the rock, Quinn began walking clockwise around the base, searching for more phenomena to experience -- an irregularity in the rock, perhaps, or a change in the statue’s beat.

Have just enough interest, so OOC now

Nate and Peat rushed into the water of the marsh without hesitation. The water went up to Nate’s ankles, soaking into his sneakers and socks. The mud beneath clung to his shoes like it was reluctant to relinquish him. Nate bulled forward. Peat, beside him, cut through the water with far more grace than he usually had on land. He barked and smiled and raced past Nate. “Oh no ya don’t!” the trainer shouted, pulling a burst of speed he hadn’t had a moment before. Wild Pokémon scattered into cover as the two raced by. Nathan was not a perceptive man on his best days, but even he might have noticed how the amount of Pokémon dropped severely the closer they got to the statue, if he hadn’t been so distracted.  “Ha! Caught ya!” Nate was winded when he caught up to Peat. “Not as fast as ya thought, are ya, bud--bud? Peat?” Peat had stopped running. His teeth were bared and he was staring ahead at the statue in the marsh.  It was probably only a few yards in front of them now. It was much more interesting up close; towering over the area and chiseled with the skill of someone that had obviously been a master of their craft. Nate felt the sudden urge to touch the statue. Which wasn’t that weird. His Mom had told him a thousand times throughout his life that he didn’t need to touch everything when he went to the store, but he lived in the physical world. His senses were driven by touch.  He hadn’t ever felt the need to touch a statue though. He could guess how they felt. Smooth. Cold. Wet, in the case of the statue before him.  Still, his Pokémon had stopped for a reason. Peat seemed unwilling to move even a step closer.  “Wait right there, bud,” Nate said, moving toward the statue. “I won’t be long. I just… I just need to look. To get my hands on it. What if it has something to do with that rare Pokémon we heard about?” Peat gave him a look that he interpreted to be uncomfortable, skeptical, but he barked again and took a fighting stance. Nate usually trusted Peat. He trusted the instincts of Pokémon more than he did his own. They were connected to the world in a way that humans could never hope to be; more than one trainer had lost their lives by not listening to the Pokémon around them. But something was calling him forward. A tugging in his thoughts that demanded he investigate. “I’ll be right back.” Nate jogged toward the statue.