Chapter 24 – Recurrence

Munternplatz, 21. Erntemond, 919 n. d. B.

Kim,

Ich freue mich, nach so vielen Monaten voller Fehlstarte endlich einmal eine gute Nachricht zu überbringen. Ein Empath aus unseren Reihen der in der Lage ist, Auren zu spüren, konnte zufällig kurz die Aura des jungen Drachens in der Nähe der Urquellhöhle spüren. Mit der Präsenz, die sie darin fühlte, war es ein untrügliches Zeichen dafür, dass die Dyade nahe ist. Basierend auf dem, was ich und Ihre Untergebenen mit mir zusammengetragen haben, scheint es, dass die Dyade weiter in Richtung der weiter westlich gelegenen Dörfer vordringt und nicht näher an die Front, wie ich befürchtet hatte.

Vielleicht sollte die Sache damit erledigt sein und wir bleiben vor dem Munternplatz auf der Lauer, um auf Sie und die anderen zu warten, aber ich muss gestehen, dass ich beunruhigt bin. Nur einen Tag bevor ich diesen Brief schrieb, wurde ich von einem örtlichen Seher angesprochen, der mich anflehte, Frieden mit der Dyade zu schließen, die wir verfolgen. Dass es unbedingt erforderlich war, dass wir ihn aus den Kämpfen und der Not in unserem Land herausholen, damit er in Frieden erwacht und wir nicht selbst ins Unheil geraten.

Ich verstehe genauso wie Sie und König Sansa das Versprechen gut, das dieses Erwachen der Dyade in unserem Land mit sich bringt. Eine Zukunft, in der die Göttin, die wir „Unsere Tröstung“ nennen, neben einem Gott wohnen kann, den wir „Unsere Friede“ nennen können. Unsere Feinde von jenseits des Meeres erkennen sicherlich auch die Ungeheuerlichkeit der Situation, denn sie haben Himmel und Erde in Bewegung gesetzt, um ihn zu ergreifen, als sein Fluchtversuch sie zu nahe an ihre Positionen brachte.

Nach dem Wenigen, was wir über den Frospino erfahren konnten, scheint er trotz seines Hintergrunds keine besonders starke Affinität zu Ideale zu haben, und er scheint keine bleibenden Erinnerungen zu haben, die darauf hindeuten würden, dass er nicht geeignet ist, Ideale zu zwingen, nach dem Erwachen Frieden zu schließen. Und doch haben wir diesen jungen Drachen, das Gefäß der Hoffnung, auf dem die Hoffnungen des Königs und der Wahrheit ruhen, kaum besser behandelt als den Feind, der derzeit vor unseren Toren steht.

Ich verstehe, dass unsere Mission von König Sansa selbst kommt, aber ich kann einfach nicht anders, als besorgt zu sein. Dass wir uns vielleicht in Angelegenheiten einmischen, in die wir uns nicht einmischen dürfen.

– Dringende Depesche von Oberstleutnant Elly Panzeronstochter an Oberst Kim Brutalandasohn

Much as Zeuge told her, after a brief walk down the hallway and a couple turns later, Sophia came across a broad, open space. It was a part of the ancient building where portions of the floors above had been cut away to form a large chamber that was unobstructed aside from a few supporting beams. Off to her right, light from nighttime auroras filtered through window panes arranged in tall vertical strips onto an open space riddled with shapes lit up by the cool blue glow of Luminous Moss lanterns. It was a bit hard to tell from a glance, but some of them appeared large enough to take up space on a public pedestal much like a statue.

“Well, this is the place along the way to your reading room that I told you about,” Zeuge said. “It’s just on the other side of this display floor and down a flight of stairs.”

The crow let her beak flop open as her eyes adjusted to the room’s lighting and she realized that the shapes were all relics of various sorts. Display cases filled with strange objects inside, signs and banners with ancient glyphs on them, husks of ancient machines that looked like they were fashioned entirely of metal… Why, this made the Royal Museum which was open to the public elsewhere in the Administrative District look like a child’s collection!

“By all means, Frau Kranoviz, feel free to go around,” Zeuge insisted. “It’s a bit of a walk over to the stairs, so you might as well take some time to look at the exhibits.”

Sophia glanced at the Serperior briefly, before pacing forward and making her way past the exhibits as they passed her eyes. There was a set of faded papers behind glass filled within strange runes she couldn’t recognize, along with pictures that looked more lifelike than any painting she’d ever seen. A little further down, there was a display of curious spheres about the size of Apricorns with their top and bottom halves connected by a hinge of some sort. And just past that, there was a set of chipped white cups and a pitcher of some sort placed next to a strange wooden box. Sophia wasn’t sure what on earth the box was supposed to be since she couldn’t see any sign of a lid for it. There were a pair of metal knobs on its face with strange runes labeling an arc-like design behind scratched ancient resin, and a design of a pair of red comets swirling in on each other just below them.

The sigil of ‘Vector Ah-ghee’, which surely meant the little box had quite the story behind it. She supposed that just about everything in this room surely did. After all, they were all little fragments and pieces of a hazily-understood past they could only scratch at. And these were just the ones that Zeuge had found convenient enough to gawk at along the way to the reading room!

“I didn’t know that the crown had all of these,” she murmured. “How on earth did all of this get recovered-?”

Sophia felt her wing brush up against cold metal and her eyes widened with a start. She hurriedly threw it out to steady whatever she might have knocked over, only to gape up to see what looked like large, vacant eye sockets from a metal skull.

“A-Aah!”

Sophia hopped back with a startled caw and batted her wings out ready for battle. Her heart pounded in her chest, only for her to realize that the thing that’d given her such a fright was the gray skeleton of some sort of strange, metal contraption.

The machine had a front that looked much like a beak, and a closer inspection of its ‘eye sockets’ revealed that there were ground-down flecks of broken glass around their edges. Did those use to be windows? Sophia stepped to the side and saw that beyond the front, there was a rust-flecked tube following with faded orange paint at its base that had been riddled with tears and holes, held together with metal latticing. About halfway down its length, there was some sort of cross-brace on top with pods on either end, one appearing misshapen and deformed.

How in Wander had she not seen that thing in the room until now?

“Oh, I see you found ‘Der Stählerne Rabe₁’.”

Sophia turned to see Zeuge slithering up past the display of curious spheres, coming to a stop beside her as he raised his tail and pointed off at the contraption set out on display. She traded glimpses between her guide and the rusted, gouged hulk with a befuddled tilt of her head.

“… A ‘Steel Raven’?” she asked. “Herr Zeuge, I’m not sure if I follow you. Since I certainly am not seeing the resemblance here.”

“It’s a bit of a pet name that we have for it in the Royal Reliquary,” the Serperior explained. “From what we’ve been able to piece together, it was most likely some sort of air carriage from the human era. Except instead of being flown around by Carriers, it used machinery to push air out of those ports at the ends. Much like how a Golurk might.”

This thing used to be an air carriage? Sophia supposed that it should’ve been less surprising when there were stories of humans having wagons that moved without Pullers, but she wasn’t sure what would compel humans to make a machine that looked like this. Why, it looked more like the skeleton of some fearsome monster that’d be right at home laying waste to villages than some sort of transport.

“It’s actually one of the centerpieces of the Reliquary’s collection of human machinery, along with- oh, there it is!”

Sophia walked past a break in the hull of the human transport and came across a metal pod resting against a support pillar. The contraption was about the size of a Cetitan, and had what looked like metal rods attached to it. Three of them were abruptly broken off with shorn metal at their ends, while the final one was still complete and had some sort of almost skeletal-looking metal arm attached to it, complete with five appendages that vaguely resembled fingers.

“So what is this one and what’s it called?” she asked. “‘Der Eisenmann₂’?”

“Well, Herr Friedrich would sometimes refer to it as a ‘Doll’, but from historical record, humans apparently called this machine and others like it as ‘Skells’,” Zeuge explained. “From what we’ve been able to tell, humans used these contraptions as suits of armor that could somehow double as transports. Parts of these machines occasionally turn up even to this day, especially in the desert Provinzen further south.”

The crow blinked at the Serperior’s reply. She supposed that the contraption did sort of look like some sort of skeleton, so she could understand where the ‘Skell’ name came from, if not the ‘Doll’ one. But she failed to see how the thing could possibly function as a suit of armor. The floors of this building had originally been built in mind for human occupants, and had the ones above not been cut away, it never would’ve fit inside.

“… How on earth would a human be able to move around in this thing?” she asked.

“Well, it was a machine, so it had a power source of its own much like Der Stählerne Der Stählerne Rabe,” the Serperior explained. “Though unlike most other machines from the human era, this one still has the remains of its power source in it.”

Sophia walked forward and hopped up onto a small wooden stool set beside the center of the ‘Skell’ and looked down into the gash. Inside it, there was some sort of surface with a raised, gray crystal on it that looked like a rod with shortened cross-arms. It was almost like that clip that Eevee from that Exploration Team that she and Lacan bumped into back in her hometown wore over her ear, except it was bigger than she was.

“Wait, but how would this jewel be used to generate power?” she asked.

“Well, the Wehrtürme that the city walls are built around have crystals like these inside them, just much larger. We know those jewels used to generate tamed thunder well into the reign of King Klaus from energy gathered from a distant source, so it’s our current hypothesis that these smaller ones also did much the same…”

Sophia just stared at the Serperior for as he continued giddily prattling on about things that were all arcane gibberish to her. He noticed her vacant expression and began to trail off, before uncomfortably shifting the leaves about his neck.

“Yes, r-right, we’re getting a bit distracted right now,” the Serperior stammered. “Anyhow, we should be headed to your reading room.”

Zeuge hurriedly slithered ahead, prompting Sophia to pace after him. The entire time, she couldn’t help but have her mind turn back to the strange crystal. She had heard of cases where stones had grown charged with electricity, enough to sometimes float above the ground, but to gather power from a faraway place from gods-knew-where?

It was hard for her to wrap her mind around the concept. It would’ve sounded fantastical to hear it attributed to the doings of some divine entity, much less to some sort of machine.

Sophia looked up after noticing the cool blue light around her had grown stronger, and looked up to see that Zeuge had led her into a set of hallways outside the relic chamber. These spaces evidently were more purpose-oriented, with bare concrete and metal along their surfaces evidencing their present users hadn’t seen fit to give them much in the way of furnishings.

Left, then down a flight of stairs and a quick turn to the right. The pair now stood in front of a metal panel with a Rotom standing guard. Zeuge leaned in and passed a few words onto the Rotom, who buzzed back an “Understood” in affirmation before phasing into a scratched, glassy square to the door’s right. The square suddenly came to life with a blue glow and strange glyphs flickered over its cracked surface. A sudden chirp and woosh followed as the metal panel slid into the wall on the left.

Sophia blinked in astonishment. So it was a door, a downright ancient one at that from the way it operated. It was no secret that Newangle City was riddled with relics from the human era thanks to it having the most plentiful and best-preserved ruins in Varhyde, but it never occurred to her that some of them would potentially still be working.

The panel wooshed again and slid shut behind the two with a low click as Sophia looked up to see a room lit with cool, bluish tones from tubes of glass and ancient resin hanging from the walls that had been filled with Luminous Moss. There was a low, featureless wooden table with cushions set on the floor, and precious little else beyond a padlocked wooden chest set out on it. Why, if it weren’t for the expense spent on the lighting, she’d have thought the place was a prison cell instead of a reading room.

Maybe that was the point, especially considering the nature of her and Lacan’s mission. It wasn’t as if the crown would just let her take original copies of letters back to Lacan’s quarters in Newangle City, not when they were still deemed crown secrets a full century after they were initially written.

“It was a bit of an ordeal tracking these old letters from King Sansa’s loyal servants as part of ‘Operation Avalanche’ down on such short notice,” Zeuge chuckled. “But when both the General Staff and His Majesty himself insisted that they be gathered together, we here at the Reliquary could hardly allow them to go disappointed.”

Sophia tilted her head as the Grass-type hurriedly tugged a small metal key out of a satchel slung alongside his neck and passed it over. The bird gaped down at it, before looking back at the serpent with a puzzled frown.

“Herr Zeuge? What’s this for?”

“Well, you’d hardly be able to read any documents while they’re stowed away in a locked box, no?”

Sophia blinked and made her way up to the chest and slotted the key into it with her beak. After fiddling around with it, she felt it turn with an audible click and stop. She pulled the lid back and looked down, where inside, there were a set of glass panes with yellowed sheafs of paper pressed between them. The Corvisquire took one out and began to rifle through the others in their places in the chest one-by-one. They were all letters bearing dates from the spring and summer of 919. And all bearing the signature and stamped prints of one of two Pokémon…

“… All of these letters are signed by either ‘Oberst Kim Brutalandas’ or ‘Oberstleutnant Elly Panzaerons’.”

She turned back to face Zeuge, who visibly stiffened up and started to fidget his tail in obvious discomfort.

“I-I’m afraid that those names don’t mean anything to me, Frau Kranoviz,” the Serperior said. “Was it not what were you expecting?”

No, these were very much the names that she’d remembered mentioned during briefing for Operation Spark, but… ‘Oberstleutnant Elly Panzaerons’?

She’d heard that the planning for Operation Spark had been drawn up by the Generalstab based on one ‘Operation Avalanche’ conducted near the end of the Advent War, but she didn’t expect that it’d have extended to sharing an operational structure. Why, she even saw a passing reference to a ‘Fähnlein Jugend₃’ in one of the letters!

Sophia eventually made her way to the bottom of the chest and after inspecting it a second time, found it bare after just a small talonful of glass panes. She blinked before turning back to Zeuge, with a dubious tilt of her head.

“Is this really everything that King Siegmund was able to provide? Operation Avalanche surely involved more than just these two, didn’t it?” she asked. “Graf Wellenhafen needs as full a picture as possible regarding what happened with Oberst Kim’s mission. Did King Sansa not ever write back to them? Or any of his confidantes like Feldmarschall Pritchard?”

Zeuge flicked his tongue with a nervous stammer as he dutifully tried to turn his glance away from the table.

“I- I would presume they did, Frau Kranoviz,” the Serperior insisted. “But this is all that we could find in the archives. If there’s anything that King Sansa or his confidantes wrote in reply to these two, they have been lost to the mists of time.”

Sophia paused and narrowed her eyes at Zeuge. The Serperior was visibly squirming now. She knew that she was broaching on crown secrets, but she was getting the distinct impression that the Serperior was hiding something from her. The fate of untold multitudes potentially hung in the balance based on whatever had gone wrong with Oberst Kim’s mission so many years ago, and she could ill-afford Zeuge or anyone else being coy with any records that might be present.

“… Zeuge, is something the matter? You’re acting rather strange right now,” she insisted. “Is there something wrong with the letters that are here?”

“It’s- It’s just that… those letters are supposed to be crown secrets,” the Serperior gulped. “I… actually wasn’t supposed to be in this room when you opened that box.”

Sophia blinked at Zeuge’s reply, before looking at Zeuge’s blue scarf. Right. Zeuge was a scribe, and one who was likely not of high standing in the Royal Reliquary based on how he’d mentioned being Herr Frederick’s pupil. No wonder he’d looked so petrified after she opened the box, all this time, she’d been endangering the poor ‘mon’s job and gods-knew-what else!

The Corvisquire hastily pushed the glass panes behind the box, before raising a wing and giving a reassuring smile up at the scribe.

“… I see no reason why anyone but the two of us needs to know about that, Herr Zeuge,” she said. “Sometimes it’s better to settle matters quietly even if it’s not necessarily in full accordance with protocol.”

Zeuge let out a sharp exhale as it seemed almost as if a weight was lifted off the Serperior’s back. The scribe gave a grateful nod, before raising his gaze to meet her.

“You’re too kind, Frau Kranoviz,” the Serperior said. “Though… for both our sakes, I suppose I should relay the warning I was told to pass onto you.”

The Serperior raised his tail and gestured off at the chest on the table, along with the laminated papers still poking out from behind them.

“The source materials you review here must remain onsite at all times and the only things you are permitted to bring from this room are any things that your sponsoring member of the Hofstaat allowed you to,” the scribe explained. “I don’t know the full story behind it, but the notice we received from King Siegmund insisted that in your case, it is only whatever you can transcribe into your own writing.”

Sophia hesitated a moment. She supposed that the stipulation shouldn’t have surprised her, but something about it still made her uneasy. Just what was in Kim and Elly’s letters such that their contents were still sensitive enough that she needed the King’s permission just to bring notes about them from this place?

She supposed that was why Lacan had trusted her to come here on his behalf: because they didn’t know what was in these records. The very fact that King Siegmund wasn’t able to delivery a summary of their contents to Lacan in advance likely meant that the Mienshao himself didn’t know of their specifics either.

Their fate, along with their mission’s and those of untold Pokémon in Varhyde potentially hinged on whatever their predecessors had written down. The least she could do was take advantage of the opportunity that she had and just get at whatever truth lay within.

“… Understood, Herr Zeuge..”

The Serperior bowed before slithering off for the doorway, knocking on the panel with his tail and calling out for ‘Tommy’ to open the door. The chime and woosh sounded out again in the background and after hearing Zeuge slither off in the hallway and the ancient door woosh and clamp shut, Sophia pushed the chest back on the table and turned her attention back to the glass panes that the letters were pressed in as she moved them along and perused their date headers.

She quickly realized that they’d been sorted by their date of writing, and covered a span of roughly twelve months. Eight of them from before the final battles of the Advent War were fought, with the remainder surely overlapping with the time after Edialeigh sued for peace and hostilities ended.

This was really all that the General Staff had preserved from such a critical watershed of King Sansa’s reign? She would’ve hoped that there would have been more than a talonful of letters from two Pokémon who she only knew of through her mission briefing to try and understand what exactly had gone wrong with Operation Avalanche, but she supposed beggars could not be choosers.

After all, even if Operation Spark succeeded, the records of Fähnlein Stärke and its activities would likely not be dealt with openly until well after most of the Pokémon involved had died of old age. Operation Avalanche had been conducted before the founding of the Generalstab… even if anyone had thought to preserve records relating to the Operation, quite a lot had changed since then. And that wasn’t even getting into the season of tumult the land went through before House Baanders became the present royal line.

Sophia shook her head. She was getting distracted and without the luxury of being able to assume how much time she had to work with, it was best to get straight to work transcribing. She slipped on a writing pad onto her right foot and mounted a charcoal nub into it before turning her attention to the first letter of the lot. She glanced over its header and read it to herself under her breath: 15. Lenzmond₄, 919 nach dem Blitz, before continuing on into the letter’s contents.

“Ich muss gestehen, dass ich Zweifel an Ihrem Urteilsvermögen hatte, als ich hörte, dass mein Auftrag mich nach Herbergau führen würde. Da die Hunde von Ideale aktiv unser Land durchstreiften und plünderten, konnte ich nicht verstehen, warum Sie mich mit einem ganzen Fähnlein an Truppen in ein kleines Dorf schicken, das näher an Großnebel als an der Front liegt, auf der Suche nach dieser „Dyade“, von der Ihr Seher sprach.”ᴰ¹

The Corvisquire continued reading, carefully transcribing each glyph of the letter’s contents into her own handwriting. It was a letter in Hightongue from Oberst Kim to King Sansa, and while there was nothing wrong with it, she couldn’t help but hesitate after her mind turned back to Zeuge’s warning.

If she were to bring this transcription with her, and Lacan’s mission happened to take them back to Edialeigh, was it really safe to keep this transcription as a reference? It being written in Hightongue would surely be enough to keep its contents hidden from peasants and common Rothäuter, but Edialeigh had an analogue to Varhyde’s Generalstab, and if they were required to study the Hightongue of their enemy much how Lacan and his peers were…

Perhaps it was best to hedge her bets and write a transcription in Commontongue, since even when taking pains to be faithful, some of the quirks of Hightongue simply didn’t translate into it. Perhaps her transcription would never leave this side of the Sundered Sea, but if it did and it were captured, the kneejerk reaction of anyone with actual decision-making importance in Edialeigh’s army who came across it in the language of commoners would surely be to dismiss it as a hoax.

She took another sheet of paper and readied her writing pad, dutifully omitting the date and location heading as she mused aloud a spot translation of the contents into Commontongue until she made it past the first paragraph:

I have no such qualms anymore. When we arrived at Errberk Village, we came across a young Frigibax who had been noted to have one day produced a ball of thunder about him while quarreling with another villager. We attempted to pull him aside for questioning, but it proved unnecessary. He fled our presence, and we saw with our own eyes that he manifested the very same ball of thunder, one whose shape bore the mark of the great tormentor of our land: Desire.

Sophia paused and blinked at the runes on her paper. She stared back at the runes on the original, and sure enough, it said ‘Herbergau’ on it. Her hometown, and the birthplace of untold defenders of Varhyde in her Ritterorden. She couldn’t square away what would’ve compelled that Dyad to flee, until she kept reading.

I still have chills thinking of that encounter, and how humbling it is to witness one of the primal powers that mold our world in the flesh. To think that but a few months ago, this ‘Dyad’ as we have been instructed to call him, had apparently been trailing along in an Edialeigher Tross. I know not if they were already aware of his true nature, but we do now, and my troops and I troops will pursue him to the ends of the earth if need be.

I do not know whether it is possible for this land to hail ‘Desire’ alongside ‘Reality’, but if your seer is right, we have a unique opportunity to secure the favor of both and secure a lasting peace for the Kingdom of Varhyde. After all, I know full well what Edialeigh would do with such favor, and I for one do not intend to stand aside and let them claim it to burn the Throne of Truth a second time

The Corvisquire trailed off as she got to the letter’s signature and stamp as it bore the mark of draconic claws. Something about the letter had been off-putting when she first started reading it, but after writing out a translation into Commontongue, she realized why:

Just from this first letter, the events surrounding Operation Avalanche sounded eerily familiar to their present circumstances. There were obviously details that were different here and there, but Sophia had to admit that the resemblance between her and Lacan and this ‘Kim’ and ‘Elly’ was… uncanny.

Considering what became of Operation Avalanche all those years ago, she hoped that it wasn’t an omen for their future.

She was falling again.

The dreams of this sort all began the same way: with her consciousness returning to her in a dull haze. The first thing that occurred to her was that she was freezing her scales off and everything hurt with a dull pain. She had a vague awareness that her body was curled in on itself, but no matter what she tried or how hard she willed it, she was unable to move. Not even to glance to the side and see her tusks… if she even had tusks in these dreams where she was falling. She hadn’t been able to tell.

The air whistled past her as she spun head over heels and she began to see plumes of smoke and glint of fire below her. It wasn’t until she fell further that she was able to tell the difference between which dream of falling she was having. There was no gray figure in this one, and as her muddy vision made out the ground below, she could see there were no rooftops this time. Just lights zipping back and forth between opposing positions along with dark shapes, and a faint, roaring din in their direction.

“Frau Theresia! Frau Theresia!”

And then of course, came the frantic cry from above. Her body spun in the air when she saw the speaker as she always did: a battered Charizard clad in green Varhyder armor, pitted and torn with gouges, a few of his plates stained in dark colors. The drake’s scarf was torn and frayed to the point where she could no longer tell what rank he had in the army, and yet, the first time Irune had this dream, she remembered feeling a strange relief at the sight of the soldier.

She didn’t know why she would feel relieved when the army had made her life a living hell for the past year since Cade helped her first escape them to flee home. Maybe it was just the freezing feeling making her hungry for any sort of warmth. Or maybe it was because in spite of never being able to make out the words he tried to say, something about the soldier felt strangely familiar.

And strangest still, for whatever reason, the Charizard in her dreams was always bigger than she recalled Charizard being. As if she could fit snugly into his claws which reached out to her for shelter.

“Frau Theresia! Halten sie durch! Ich hab’ sie-!ᴰ²”

She’d stopped feeling that, if only because she’d grown numb to the parts of the dream that followed.

A whistling noise rang out as a dark shape abruptly zipped in. A conical tip, a set of fin-like shapes at the other end. It was the last thing Irune would always see before it found its mark near the base of the Charizard’s left wing.

Then came the deafening burst of multiple Blast Seeds detonating in unison. As usual, there was a flash of heat and wooden fragments dashed against her and the explosion pushed her away. Then her body began to spin in the air, as she noticed something hot and wet fleck her side just beyond her field of view.

She was pretty sure they were blood spatters. And after having had this dream enough times, she was pretty sure they were the Charizard’s.

The last she’d hear of him would be that agonized roar which fell off into the distance, which always filled her with an overpowering urge to scream and cry. And yet, those screams and tears would never come. She was never able to open her mouth to do so. If she even had one.

More shouts and cries. The roar of attacks being thrown between soldiers, of cannons and dart-throwers firing, and still more screams cutting through it all. They grew louder and louder as she fell, sign enough that she was nearing the ground.

A flash from a brilliant beam of light lit up the ground below her. There, shapes crumpled on the ground near the edges of her murky vision as Irune made out a collection of rocks below her with bodies laying limply about it.

The awful roar of battle cries filled the air all about as she fell, before finally seeing the dim blue glow of an abandoned Luminous Moss lantern. There was hard stone waiting beside it, marred with dark, ugly stains.

Irune had never seen what came afterwards in that dream. Since, whenever it reached that point, it always abruptly went black.

The next thing Irune knew, she was jolting up from her bed back in her team’s room in the Möbius. There was a sharp pattering noise, and she whirled over with her heart still pounding in her chest. Kate was there, having jumped back and crouched on the ground. The Sneasel’s eyes opened wide for a moment before she narrowed them back with an annoyed frown.

“Would it kill ya to let us know when you’re going to suddenly wake up like that? she huffed. “Seriously, it’s like you’re trying to scare us!”

Irune panted and looked down at her bed with a quiet shiver as her breaths came out in ragged, uneven pants. She noticed Lyle and Dalton making their way over as Kate stood upright and hesitated. The Sneasel’s red eyes studied her briefly, as the sharp frown on Kate’s face eased and her ears fell.

“You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”

Irune quietly nodded her head back, as the Sneasel and her teammates hesitated for a moment. Gods, she must’ve looked so pathetic to them right now. How on earth were they supposed to think that she could do anything to stop them from pushing her around as they pleased when she couldn’t even keep her wits about her from a nightmare.

The Axew snapped to attention as she felt something stroking under her chin. She looked up, where there was Kate leaning in with a paw cupped past her jaw, as a small smile spread over her face.

“Hey, it’s just until we get that treasure from the Divine Roost, right?” she insisted. “After that, we’ll all get what we came for and all of this will be a distant memory.”

That was right. Once she was there, she’d get her treasure, her key she’d lost to putting her nightmare with Lacan and the army behind her. If they were right about what she really was, it’d be just what was needed to hide that power in her away so nobody could misuse it. So that nobody could hurt others with it. Her teammates would get the loot she’d promised, and hopefully be able to sort out their lives afterwards.

Everything would end on a happy note for once. She didn’t know whether or not these three would really be able to get the peace they were looking for afterwards, but it’d be their own problems to worry about.

She’d told herself similar things in the past. She just hoped that this time, things would finally be different.

“Just one problem with that, Kate,” Lyle’s voice piped up. “The Thieves’ Guild is still on our ass right now. How are we supposed to get anything done in town if we can’t even set foot out the door?”

Irune blinked and looked over at the Quilava as he traded a worried glance with his teammates. Right. Igna and Ansel had chased them in here the other day. And the two were emphatic that they weren’t just going to leave them alone.

How were they supposed to go about the city with them breathing down their backs? Let alone make it to Dalton’s university?

“Dalton, I know that you suggested we pay the Thieves’ Guild off by stealing something from your university, but is it even going to be safe to approach them?” Irune asked.

“No,” Dalton said, shaking his head. “But based on what those two told us yesterday, I doubt we’d need to go far to run into them again.”

Irune quietly set her teeth on edge at the thought of Igna and Ansel just lurking in wait for them outside. The idea clearly unnerved Lyle as well from the way he held his ears back against his skull.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” the Quilava said. “Do we really not have any better options for meeting them than just stepping outside and hoping they don’t tan our hides?”

Dalton paused and blinked for a moment, seeming to weigh a matter over in his head before he tilted his head up in thought.

“Actually, we just might,” the Heliolisk insisted. “The receptionist said while coming in today that no business was to be settled here in the Möbius outside the ‘playhouse’. I’m assuming that that’s normally payment, but I assume that negotiating terms wouldn’t be out of bounds either.”

Everyone’s attention remained firmly trained on Dalton after that, as Irune shuffled off her bed with the clack of glass brushing up against glass. She stood there, and blinked a moment, before giving a curious tilt of her head up.

“Okay… but how do we find it?”

“We ask the front desk, obviously.”

Team Forager retraced their steps down the Möbius’s hallways and steps, and before they knew it, they found themselves back in the inn’s lobby. From there it was just a matter of asking that “Ecks” receptionist where this ‘playhouse’ was and letting her know that they wanted to discuss terms with the Thieves’ Guild there. The Crobat pointed out a corridor beside the steps headed upstairs with a curt “follow the corridor until you reach the lobby, then go left through the doors” for instructions.

She insisted that they wouldn’t be waiting long for an audience. Lyle wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

They’d barely made it a dozen paces down the corridor before Lyle started to feel his stomach flutter and have second thoughts about the whole idea. The surrounding decor wasn’t exactly helping either. There was worn carpet in some sort of shade of dark red or green that looked almost like blood with dim, circular lights hung from the ceiling or on wall-mounted lanterns that gave the place an ominous air.

Like they were marching towards a dangerous presence.

The Quilava’s ears pricked with every creak and slight sound as they walked. After following the corridor around a right turn and briefly spotting a tight spiral stairwell that headed upwards, Lyle looked back at his teammates and discovered that he wasn’t alone in getting bad vibes from this place… aside from Kate, who looked as unflappable as she usually was. Irune in particular seemed to be on pins and needles as she kept stealing glances around her surroundings, before shooting a worried glance back at him.

“We’re sure this is a good idea?” Irune asked.

“Eh, it’s been a night,” Kate replied. “How mad could those two still be at us? Hell, they’ve probably moved along to mugging some sap in a back alley or something.”

Lyle sucked in a sharp breath and fought back fire from his vents. He sure hoped Kate was onto something there. The corridor made a turn to the left, where there were a pair of wooden double doors that had been left slightly ajar. The Quilava pushed the door open and stepped out waiting for his teammates to file out, as he looked around and discovered that they’d entered a lobby of some sort. He looked across the room as he suddenly failed to hold back the fire from his vents.

It was the helmeted head of an Aggron behind a counter leveling a piercing stare at him. Thankfully, it wasn’t Sheriff Mack—the lack of green armor on his body and the scarf pattern that matched the receptionist’s indicated as much, as did the curious teal shade of the stranger’s hide and his eyes that matched his scarf’s shade. But even so, there was a dangerous air behind the ‘mon’s eyes that gave Lyle the distinct feeling that if he had to pick a fight with an Aggron, that he’d much rather try his luck with Sheriff Mack, armor plates and all.

“You’re a bit early to see any performances right now, Quilava.”

Lyle glanced over at the walls of the room and noticed that there were posters depicting various dramatic scenes with loose runes labeling their corners: ‘A God-Slaying Story’, ‘A Missing Year’, ‘Founder’s Tale – Part Five’… Were those posters for plays? He knew that the receptionist called this a ‘playhouse’, but this place actually showed plays here?

He was going to go ahead and guess that this was that ‘Wye’ ‘mon that she’d mentioned the other day. He certainly looked like he’d be the sort who’d be called in to deal with problematic guests. Permanently, from the vibe he gave off.

“Y-Yes, but we were told by the front desk that this was a place to handle business at the Möbius,” Lyle stammered. “We were looking to try and talk business with a ‘mon from the Thieves’ Guild.”

The Aggron briefly raised a brow, before shaking his head with a quiet harrumph.

“I’m not sure what you’ve been up to to convince one of Justin’s ‘mons to stop by the theater, since they’re hardly cultured types,” the Steel-type scoffed. “But I suppose that your types are just full of surprises these days.”

The Aggron raised a claw, pointing off at an entrance to the left at a pair of doors left ajar in front of a darkened chamber.

“To the left and into the viewing room,” Wye instructed. “It closes for visitors without tickets fifteen minutes before and after showings, not that I expect you’ll need to wait for long.”

Lyle turned his head and warily made his way through the doors with the rest of Team Forager as they entered the darkened hall. He could see dim light at the end glinting off something at the other end of the room and pushed fire out his vents for illumination. As his eyes adjusted, the room’s features filled into view: a stage with an embroidered purple curtain, plain walls with wood and plaster with flecks of bare concrete showing through damaged parts, and a shock of what he assumed was red carpeting between two stairwells along the walls that held a half-dozen rows of wooden stools.

“Hup!”

Lyle turned his head just in time to catch Kate hopping from the top of one stool to the next to make her way towards the stage. A quick glance revealed the stools had small rungs to help shorter Pokémon up, though from how sturdy they’d been, Lyle could already tell that the stools could hold a decent amount of weight on them. Maybe even enough for that Aggron at the counter to sit in. He sighed and started to make his way down with his teammates, as the design of the embroidery came into view: some sort of floral pattern with rings, it looked like.

Were they just supposed to sit and wait here? And if so, how’d they know if the ‘mon they ran into was from-?

“You’ve been keeping us waiting for a long time, stoat.”

Lyle flared up with a start before whirling around to see the lanky Marowak hop down from the stage as ghostfire sprang to life at the tips of her club. From beside him, Irune’s mouth flopped open.

“H-How on earth did you-?!”

“Side entrances,” the Marowak sneered. “Gotta love them, and there’s one just on the other side of this auditorium where all the actors’ rooms are.”

Lyle’s breath caught in his throat as the strange Marowak sauntered forward with a pat of her club against her free hand. Screw this, he was getting the hell out of here. The Quilava’s nerves failed him and he attempted to scurry back up the steps for the door, only to see a flash of brown dive in and stumble back as Ansel swooped in from the rafters and perched on a nearby stool with a thrust of his sharp beak into empty air.

“You’ve got some nerve to want to talk with us after everything that happened yesterday!” the Fearow squawked. “Wye wouldn’t bat an eye if Igna and I dragged you out the front door to settle things, either. I heard Quilava fur makes for a great rug for ‘mons that don’t ask too many questions about their flooring.”

Lyle gulped as he and his teammates looked to see that they were cut off from both directions on the steps. Igna at the stage below them, and Ansel from above. The only one of them who was in any position to try to slip away was Kate, who was still on one of the stools, with nothing that would provide cover from a Bonemerang from Igna or from Ansel diving at her. The Quilava froze briefly and traded looks with Dalton and Irune wondering what they were to do. A sharp scoff snapped him to attention and alerted him to Kate walking over from the stools with her arms folded. She rolled her eyes as she approached, and blew a puff of icy air up at her ear feather with a low grunt.

“Look, we get it, you two don’t like us and we don’t like you either,” she harrumphed. “Fortunately, we weren’t planning on being here in this dump for long. That’s why we wanted to offer something to help smooth over that whole misunderstanding from yesterday.”

For a brief moment, Lyle thought he saw Ansel’s eyes raise in surprise, only for the moment to fade as soon as it came.

“Pah, what do a bunch of amateurs like you think you can do to impress us?” Igna snorted. “What, were you planning on buying us off with some hatchling’s milk money?”

“Well… the main thing we needed before we were ready to move on were some books from the Universität von Wahrheit,” Irune offered. “Books aside, there’s surely no shortage of things that could be stolen from there. If there was anything in particular that you had in mind, maybe we could work something out.”

Igna raised a brow in reply at the Axew’s reply. While Lyle still got the distinct impression that Igna didn’t care for them, the Marowak seemed to ease up a bit after hearing the proposal. He cast a glance back at her Fearow companion just in time to catch him ruffling his feathers. If Igna was coming around to Irune’s proposal, he certainly didn’t look like it from that piercing glare on his face.

“Yeah sure,” Ansel scoffed. “Why don’t you just steal us a Scheffel of Perfect Apples while you’re at it? How on earth do you expect us to believe you’ll get anything from there? Especially your friend with his messed-up arm?”

Well that was certainly low and uncalled for. Thankfully, Dalton didn’t really acknowledge the comment beyond a small frown, as he reached his free arm for his satchel.

“Well, I can’t do anything about the Perfect Apples, but I know my way around the university, and have a way of looking like I belong there,” Dalton explained. “And I don’t just mean this student scarf that I’m presently wearing.”

He fished around inside it for a brief moment, before pulling out his university badge and flashed it. First to Igna, who paused at the sight of the metal bauble, then to Ansel, who similarly was taken aback by its appearance. After growing satisfied with their reactions, Dalton hardened his expression and continued on.

“We wouldn’t have made the offer if we didn’t have a way of getting in,” the Heliolisk said. “And if we were the ‘amateurs’ you two make us out to be, we wouldn’t have given you the slip yesterday.”

Lyle stayed still, his fur bristling tensely as he expected the two thieves to descend upon them at any moment. One Slumber Orb from either of the two and the four of them were done for.

And yet, neither Igna nor Ansel budged from their places, as the pair continued to eye them carefully. They seemed to be wavering, but not yet convinced. That was probably his cue to try and speak up, especially before Kate ran off her mouth with some sort of lippy remark.

“Look, we get that we stepped on a few toes yesterday, but we genuinely don’t want any trouble before we get out of this city,” Lyle said. “We’ve got the will, the means, and the appetite for risk to try and make up for things. Surely we can work something out, no?”

Igna and Ansel hesitated and seemed to relax their postures, if not their demeanors. Still as gruff and unpersonable as ever, the Marowak folded her arms and turned her snout up with a sharp scoff.

“And what’s your game?” Igna demanded. “Why are you even here in the first place if you’re not planning on staying in the city?”

“We were in the middle of a job outside of it and needed to shake some heat,” Lyle answered. “All we need is to be left alone for a day to snag what we need and figure out a way to get past the walls. From there, it’s just a matter of us diving into a Mystery Dungeon and getting far, far away from this Provinz. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

The two thieves traded looks with each other, only for Igna’s mood to visibly darken as she visibly tightened her grip on her club. Lyle gulped down a lump in his throat as his vents began to flare to life and he and his teammates drew tighter in towards each other expecting a sudden lunge as the Marowak leveled her bone out with a sharp scoff.

“I say you should learn how to negotiate better, Quilava,” she said. “But fine, we’ll bite… assuming that you’re able to throw on an extra stop to whatever you were planning on doing at that university.”

“… And just what would that be?” Lyle asked.

“Ansel and I need someone to pick up some reading material from the Royal Library,” the Marowak explained. “It’s right on the edge of your buddy’s university, and the rest of you won’t obviously stick out while poking around in it.”

“If you really are in such a hurry to get out of town, we’ll take the goods by sundown, and they specifically need seals showing they came from the Royal Library,” the Fearow said. “We’ve already got a list of things that need to be snatched. Get them however you need to, and bring them back to us.”

Ansel motioned over to Igna as she reached into a satchel of her own and pulled out a folded up piece of paper. She unfurled it and briefly eyed its contents, only to briefly stop and then shoot an unamused frown back at the Fearow.

“The Complete Tales of Shiren the Wanderer? Really, Ansel?”

Lyle blinked and turned his head back to the Fearow, who set his beak on edge, who ruffled his feathers and glanced back with a sheepish shrug.

“What? Nobody said we couldn’t put in personal requests of our own,” Ansel said.

“So why didn’t you ask for something like the latest volume of Founder’s Tale? Or one of those copies of Monado: The Beginning of the World with the extra chapters at the end?” Igna snapped. “Those aren’t easy to find either, and they’re actually age appropriate for us!”

“Oi! Plenty of grown ‘mons read stories about Shiren the Wanderer!” he squawked. “And I’d been looking for a collection of those stories with the one about the desert castle in it!”

Maybe a set of childish stories like that was a bit more fitting than Igna let on from the way they were bickering like this. Kate was clearly having a laugh at the turn of events, as she curled her mouth up into a smarmy grin at the Fearow’s flustered response.

“Easy there, Marowak. It can’t be helped if your partner just has a thing for fairy tales,” she said. “Though on that note, Fearow. Aren’t you a bit old for Day Care stories-?”

“Igna, just give them the list already,” Ansel snapped.

The Marowak rolled her eyes and held out a slip of paper. There was a moment of hesitation between the group before Lyle went up and took the paper, scanning its contents over. Sure enough, there really was a request for The Complete Tales of Shiren the Wanderer on it. There were about half a dozen other entries on it that all sounded like dry reading such as a tome of ‘The Varhyder Chronicles – A Brief History of our Kingdom’s Early Years’ or one from ‘The Royal Lexicon of Sciences and Arts’. Had these two had the same idea they’d considered of stealing texts to sell back to students or something?

Though, now that he thought about it… did the Thieves’ Guild really need other Outlaws to take books from a public library? His teammates seemed similarly skeptical, even Kate, who twitched her ear feather and shot an askew glance at the Marowak.

“Okay, and what’s the catch to all of this?” she asked. “You really couldn’t have just twisted the paw of some student from the university to just borrow these books for you and lose it in a back alley?”

“Because security around the university in general’s gotten a bit tight lately and we specifically needed books from the Royal Library, seals and all,” the Marowak harrumphed. “Why doesn’t concern you, but this is really something Ansel and I need taken care of sooner than later. You’re the ones so desperate to get us off your tails, so ‘tonight’ sounds like as good a time to get the goods as any.”

Lyle’s heart skipped a beat. That… was one hell of a catch there. They didn’t even have any idea if word about them had gotten around from their incident in Arsenal Avenue yesterday, and if Igna and Ansel were saying security had gotten tight…

The rustle of feathers and wingbeats rang out behind him, followed by a yelp from Irune. He looked down to see her grabbing at him and looked back to see Ansel had settled on the stairs above them.

“We’re on a bit of a tight schedule, so if you’re going to take this job, we should leave right now,” Ansel added. “There’s a passage to the Undercity behind the stage. Igna and I will lead you through it and to an exit in the Administrative District’s Lower Streets to see you off.”

Going alone? With Igna and Ansel? Through territory that those two were familiar with and they weren’t? That sounded like an obvious trap if he ever heard one.

“We can find our way to the Royal Library on our own, thanks,” Lyle grunted. “Besides, we’d need a chance to prepare and-”

A sharp, flinchworthy thump rang out as Lyle and his teammates glanced back at Igna, who rapped her bone against the floor before tightening her grip on it.

“Bold of you to think that you’re in a position to be making demands here, Quilava,” the Marowak harrumphed. “Need I remind you that you’re the one who’s set to have a very unpleasant time in this city if you leave this place without some sort of understanding with us?”

“Maybe, but if you’re expecting there to be potential trouble around the university, wouldn’t that be all the more reason to want to give us a berth? What do you think would happen if we got followed?”

Lyle looked over and saw Dalton step ahead with a piercing scowl at the Marowak, his body posture tense and seemingly ready to come to blows at a moment’s notice. Ansel beat his wings in response, and until that point, Lyle hadn’t realized how big Fearow were with them spread wide.

“Tch, it’s going to rain later today, you’ll survive,” the Fearow said. “Besides, we’re not a charity and we’re already cutting you four a lot more slack than we normally would already.”

“And you trust that to hold up going around a place that will stay mostly dry?” Dalton shot back.

Everyone stared each other down silently for a moment, each waiting for the other to make a move on each other. The Heliolisk studied the pair, before shaking his head with a low harrumph.

“If they find our scent or trail in the Undercity, it’ll be significantly harder to shake them. Does the Thieves’ Guild really want to risk Grünhäuter rooting around through whatever you’ve got hiding down there?” the Electric-type asked. “Wouldn’t it be easier for us to find our own way and just give you the goods once we’re back? If we get caught, it’d be on us, and we wouldn’t exactly have anything to give up to the local guards.”

Ansel ruffled his feathers and Igna opened her mouth briefly only to catch herself. What on earth was that reaction about? Still, the pair seemed to waver a moment, before Ansel sighed and slung a bag from off his back before fishing through it with his beak.

“I suppose I can’t argue with that,” the Fearow huffed. “Though if you’re planning on getting around peacefully, you’re going to need more than just our good word going for you.”

He reached in and pulled out a scarf of the same design as his and Igna’s that had a small glinting bauble pinned on it. He took a few moments to say a few words under his breath, before throwing it to the ground. Lyle went over and inspected it scarf and found that the bauble pinned to it was a badge, which had the same double-loop design from the inn’s signboard scratched into it.

“Keep those on you someplace a guard won’t find it if you get stopped by another ‘mon from the Thieves’ Guild,” he said. “We arranged for our client to come and close our deal at the Möbius, and picked up a badge from the front desk to check for their arrival. Show them that the story checks out with Ecks or Wye, and they’ll back off.”

Did that thing actually work? He gave it a dubious poke when Irune came over and unpinned the badge from the scarf. She scooped it up, before giving it a firm squeeze.

“Hello? Is this thing on?”

Silence. The Axew shook the badge, before speaking into it again.

“Uh, so do I just leave a message, or-?”

“I heard you the first time! Leave your message and be done with it!”

Irune jumped back with a start and Lyle couldn’t help but flinch himself as he heard the Crobat receptionist’s voice hiss through the badge. He didn’t remember seeing a Psychic on-duty in either of the lobbies they’d gone through, so it meant that someone was handling the messaging on her behalf.

But… who?

“Don’t lose that. And don’t count on getting much help from it either,” Igna said. “Ecks and Wye only answer questions about things like their guest list or room availability. ‘Proprietor’s policy’, they say.”

Lyle bit his lip. He didn’t like the idea of Igna and Ansel heaping a job on them, especially when they’d already been stirring the pot up to this point. But what else were they supposed to do?

“Last chance to change your minds,” the Fearow said. “Just saying, if you really need to make yourselves scarce from this town after this job, going through the Undercity will be the easiest way for you to pull that off.”

He traded looks at his teammates, only to see Dalton and Irune vigorously shaking their heads back, while Kate seemed tense and hesitant. Truth be told, he couldn’t say that he really trusted these two himself, or liked the idea of letting the two jerk them around like this. But it was hard to see any good alternatives here. Trying to fight their way past Igna and Ansel just meant being stuck in the Möbius when he wasn’t sure if they even had enough money for a second night here. And if things worked out, surely they could talk the two into letting them use the Undercity to get out of this place tomorrow, right?

The Quilava shook his head, before giving a low grunt back at the pair of brigands on the steps.

“Tch, you drive a hard bargain,” he grumbled. “We’ll send a message that we’re on our way once we have the goods.”

Igna let out a quiet snort, turning her head aside with a sharp frown.

“Fine. Just remember that you’re the one who insisted on making this harder for yourselves,” Igna huffed. “And don’t bother showing your faces in this city if you don’t have those books by the end of the night.”

Lyle and the rest of Team Forager grumbled back agreements, before he and his teammates shuffled up the steps and back to the theater lobby. He made his way out past the Aggron behind the counter, past the doors and out onto the street, looking back to see a circular wooden marquee built over the entrance with its name in gilded runes along with that same double-loop pattern. He supposed that this side of the Möbius wouldn’t be hard to miss coming up the street.

Lyle suddenly felt scaly digits tugging at him and looked over to see Irune glancing up while pawing uneasily at her shoulder.

“Why does it feel like we just got taken for a ride back there?”

Honestly, they probably did. And Lyle didn’t like how well their own plans seemed to line up with this job. He didn’t know what on earth Igna or Ansel or the Thieves’ Guild were up to, but that sounded like one hell of a coincidence.

“Let’s… just try and get this behind us as soon as we can,” he said. “We wanted to get out of this city before the guards started catching onto us anyways, so let’s not complain too hard about catching a break.”

“Besides, it’s just grabbing a few books and handing them over,” Kate scoffed. “How much trouble could it give us?”

Lyle pinned his ears back and struggled not to throw a paw over his face.

He could already tell that they would get an answer to Kate’s question soon enough.