Chapter 8 – West

DAY 4

The quilava wakes up the next morning with expectedly sore muscles, groaning as he tries and fails to push himself up to his feet. Neither Mudkip nor Zoo are anywhere to be seen.

Considering how Zoo greeted that ‘gatekeeper’ or whatever earlier, he assumes she’s off talking with some other random guild member – possibly the guildmaster about his and Mudkip’s joining into the guild, if that happens.

Mudkip… might be with Zoo, but the quilava truly hasn’t the faintest of ideas if that isn’t where he is.

He manages to get himself onto all fours after failing a second time, stretching the sleep out of his body, and blinking it out of his eyes.

After a yawn that sends a shiver throughout his entire body, however, he decides that staying in his hay-made…

He looks down at the bedding he’s in. It is definitely not hay.

Half-kneading it, half rubbing at it with a paw as he slowly lowers himself once again to his stomach, it definitely feels much softer than what he remembers from the previous place. The word for it’s right at the tip of his tongue, but he just… can’t remember.

He can probably ask about it later if he cares enough to remember to.

After about five minutes of poking and prodding and picking at it, he looks up at the sound of Zoo’s voice from the hallway, along with someone else’s he doesn’t recognize. Unsurprisingly. That sound’s followed briefly by the sound of what he’ll assume to be footsteps – clopping, in this case – as two figures stop in front of the room Kai’s in; Zoo, and… some long-necked yellow and black quadrupedal creature he of course doesn’t recognize, standing at around twice the height of the azumarill.

“…-could probably take around like… thirty minutes to give them a tour of the place, then we can just let ‘em do whatever they want.”

As Zoo finishes her thought, the two of them turn to look into the room, only to… look somewhat confused. The azumarill opens her mouth, closes it after one moment, then opens it after another, slowly letting her attention drift to the tired quilava now in front of her.

“…Kai… do you know where Mudkip might’ve gone?”

‘…Welp.’

“Uhm… no, I haven’t seen him,” he mumbles.

“Ah-…”

She bites her lip, shooting a glance at the creature next to her, mumbling something to them, before the both of them stare at something in the back of the room. Kai follows their gazes, seeing… the room’s window. One without the two skinny pieces of wood that he remembers having seen on windows at the previous guild.

‘Proooobably not a design flaw.’

“Guess that’ll be a thing to deal with later, I guess.”

She turns back to Kai, as does the creature beside her.

“So!” she claps her paws with a hearty grin, “Kai. You awakeish?”

He rubs an eye, pushing himself up from his bedding once again. “Uhh yeah. …Sore, but sure.”

“Fair enough. We’re planning on doing a little go-around through the guild for you in a couple of minutes if you’re up for it. Unless you want to go back to sleep?”

“No, no…” Kai sniffs, fully orienting himself, “I’m up for it. How big is the guild…? I don’t… I don’t think I remember anything between when we actually arrived at the guild and… right now, I guess.”

The black and yellow quadruped answers, “You lived at Zywie’s guild for a while, yeah?”

‘Zywie… oh. Green plant creature guildmaster. Probably.’ “Yyyyeah. …I think it was for… a bit less than a day, actually.”

Zoo looks at the quilava confused, mouthing something to herself as the yellow and black creature’s eyes widen. “Oh! That’s… surprising…”

She clears her throat, “Ahem – okay. I don’t know how much you actually explored that guild, but this one is… a good bit bigger I think…?”

She turns towards the azumarill for confirmation, receiving a nod in return. She continues, “-Yeah. Also…! Before I forget, my name is Atari, and I am a girafarig. I am-…”

She abruptly stops, glaring at something behind her, and the quilava can just barely see her back leg move to hit that something. She grunts, as does whatever is – or was – there. She turns back somewhat smugly.

“As I was saying,” she sends a quick glare behind herself again, “I’m a normal and psychic-type. That probably doesn’t do much for you, but hey – it makes me more open, I think? Oh yah, and I’m this guild’s guildmaster assistant like Zoo.”

‘Is someone… behind her or something…?’

Zoo puts a digit to the girafarig’s side with a sly smile. “And she’s also the youngest of the guildmasters and guildmaster assistants.” “Hey-“ “-not by much, though.”

Kai stares at them mindlessly, still picking at the bedding in slight boredom, and still half-heartedly trying to figure out what the girafarig had kicked a few moments ago.

Atari notices his shaky interest, shifting her stance a little. “Okaaay… I’ll talk about things as we walk, but do you guys wanna go on that guild tour? Shouldn’t take too long ‘cuz we won’t really be making any big stops. Guildmaster’s a bit busy talking with someone from another guild at the moment and you can probably talk to him either later today or tomorrow if ya want. We can probably talk with a few others here as well, maybe grab a bite to eat and check out a few of the things outside the guilds, but yeah. We can do a more… more detailed tour when Mudkip… comes back, I guess…?”

Zoo continues with a nod, “Yeah. I kinda figured today’d be a rest day anyways, so we should be fine just getting nice little guide to where everything of note is before I let Kai go do whatever he wants for the day.”

The quilava very briefly meets Zoo’s eyes.

“So. We ready?” Atari finishes.

Kai nods, as does Zoo.

“Alright! Oh, and… Kai. Probably better that I warn you about this now than later, but uh…”

She turns around somewhat in the doorway, revealing what she’d kicked earlier. A… tail…? One with a face, though one much smaller than Atari’s, one with a very circular head, and one that’s looking at him almost with shame, if that’s what he can describe it as.

It then gives an annoyed little grunt before turning away.

Kai stares wide-eyed until the girafarig turns around again. He stares for a few moments longer at nothing too, before shaking himself the slightest bit more awake, and shifting his glare to the floor below him for a final moment.

‘Is that… normal…? It doesn’t feel normal, but…’

He closes his eyes, rolls his shoulders, and tilts his head back up with a puff of bread.

‘It’s… interesting, I guess. I’ll say that I’m glad I didn’t wake up with… not something I want to think about right now, actually. Never mind.’

He opens his eyes again as the girafarig takes in a gulp of air of her own, smiling nervously. “Yeah. Some pokémon find my tail a bit weird, considering it is… at least somewhat conscious. Honestly I don’t really know what it does either, other than annoy me, honestly,” She chuckles.

“I leave it be for the most part though – it has its uses with certain things, and I’ve lived my whole life with it.”

Kai nods hesitantly, unsure what to say in response.

‘I don’t even know how cre-… I don’t know how pokémon work, much less whether or not they’re… whether or not this place is… some mental construct or whatever.’

“That’s…” he struggles to parse through his thoughts, “…interesting…?”

“…Yeah,” she agrees.

The room remains silent for a second or two longer, before Zoo breaks the silence. “So! Tour?”

“Ah! Right, right – my bad. Let’s head out then before we get caught up like that again.”

Both Kai and Zoo nod once more, and they set out, Atari up front and Kai in the rear.

They walk about ten steps out of the room before stopping, the girafarig turning around abruptly with a smile, and Zoo stepping slightly out of the way.

“Alright. Starting off, this little area we’re in-“ she gestures with a hoof, “-is the guild’s sleeping quarters. We’ve got around… twenty or so rooms. Only 11 or 12 of the rooms are in use normally, but having the extras is always nice. Especially when someone-“, she subtly jabs in his direction, “-wants to join the guilds!”

Kai shifts his shoulder, letting a front paw hang a centimeter or two from the ground as he thinks about the implications of that for a moment, before wondering aloud, “How many… how many pokémon are working with the guilds, anyways? And how many… actually are there around the world?”

Atari tilts her head. “…Um, I think about 200? You’d have to ask Maddox for the actual number – guildmaster’s name. As for… your other question… I’ve legitimately got no idea. Maybe like… three thousand or so…? Almost all of them are ferals, and there’s a pretty solid chance I’m vastly underestimating that number, but yeah. At least a couple thousand pokémon out there including those in the guilds, probably not including us as well.”

He nods, they continue out of that hallway, and into some main room area with a couple of tables scattered around the place. Like the cafeteria, but with no food place. The entrance is on the opposite side of the room, the quilava notices.

“This is just an announcement-type room, where the guildmaster makes announcements about whatever’s happening here. New goals and stuff. To our right though-“, she gestures as such again, “-is the cafeteria. Not too much exciting stuff happening there, unless someone decides to do something wacky with the food. I dunno. It’s happened before, but doesn’t happen often.”

She flips to their left then, and starts walking. Kai follows behind. “Everything else is over here. We’ve got the workshops, testing rooms, miniature meeting rooms, all sortsa fun stuff.”

A few steps in the hallway, she stops once again, this time next to two small leaf-like curtains on each side of them – one fully open, and one fully closed.  

Whispering, she continues, looking at the one to their right first, “This is the guildmaster’s office. As I said he’s doing something right now so we can probably bother him about official introductions or whatever later. Other one’s mine, not too much to cover in that regard right now.”

They step away, entering a second large room after a few more paces.

“This room is pretty much just a common area minus, like, one thing that makes it a little bit special.”

She gestures at table in the corner with various little wooden square things on it, each with different little markings.

“This is a mission table. If you’re looking for something to do for the day, just… bring one of these to the guildmaster, and he’ll give you a corresponding mission. More markings usually means more danger. It’ll be explained better to ya when you officially join the guilds, or when the mudkip’s around as well, but yeah. Simple stuff for now.”

They move on, rounding the table and taking the left. They walk for a bit before stopping in a hallway that looks… very similar to the last one – with two leaf curtains. Both are open this time though, and more are in front of them. The farthest one directly in front of them is closed off.

“This area’s where you find the meeting rooms. There’re 9 in total, 8 along the sides and one directly in front of us – the one in front being bigger than the rest. Not much else to say with these, let’s get to the fun stuff!”

They backpedal, and take the centermost path, stopping a few steps in as well. This area is… far more noisy than anywhere else so far. Echoes of voices sound from different rooms. Some excited, some frustrated, some tired, and some cautious.

“I’ll check in with one of the stations and see if they’re willing to let us watch for a brief moment, but this is what I like to call ‘Experimentation Row’.”

The girafarig’s tail looks up at the proclamation, eyes widening randomly at something Kai doesn’t see. Atari doesn’t notice, instead continuing, “In these rooms, we pretty much just play around with the stuff we find in dungeons. Orbs, seeds, wands, stones, whatever we find. Because, we’ve discovered, there is quiiiite a bit we can do with those things. Teleportation, water-breathing, invisibility, ability buffs, all sortsa wacky things. In this area, we observe, test, and play around with the items, seeing what we can get them to do, and how we can possibly make them better. We’ve come quite the ways in the last couple years.”

She looks on in pride for a few moments, only to be startled out of it by her tail turning around, and biting at her flank with a growl.

The bite startles the girafarig, though she doesn’t react how the quilava would expect.

She stares at her tail for a few moments blankly, and it stares back with… at least a little intent. From there, she looks back at Kai and Zoo apologetically.

“Sorry – I’ll be back in a sec, just gotta check something. Guildmaster called for me. Hopefully won’t take too long.”

With that, she scuttles away, and Kai watches as she gallops her way to the tent they’d passed by earlier – first sticking her head in, then going fully through a few seconds later.

He doesn’t look at Zoo as she starts speaking, “I really didn’t show you much of our guild, huh.”

The quilava turns to her then, though, and she continues, passively looking around at the rooms. “Showed you the medical ward, daycare area, mine and the guildmaster’s rooms, the cafeteria, and the little library. …Well, most of our stuff’s outside anyways, but still.”

“…”

“…Ah well. You’ll get to see all of our stuff eventually.”

The quilava simply nods, before letting his attention wander back to the sounds of conversation from the various rooms in the hallway they’re in.

One particularly loud boom of energy startles him, managing to draw up quite the powerful wind, as is evidenced by one of the leaf curtains nearly getting forced clean off of the wooden rail it’s hanging from. Presumably in that room, he can hear the sounds of the two individuals probably responsible yelling at one another and… laughing…?

He can’t hear what they’re talking about from where he is, though.  

The girafarig returns to the two of them with a happy trot, her clopping hooves getting the quilava’s attention.

“So!” she starts, smiling wider as Zoo turns to her, “Apparently, it was found out that there’s a combination event about… fourty or so rest stops away from here? We haven’t gotten one of those in a loooong while. I don’t think you’ve went to one of those either, Zoo. Have you?”

“It’s… been quite a while.”

The azumarill turns to look at Kai, who just… looks lost. She can’t help but laugh a little at his expression.

“Ah, heh, yeah…” Zoo breathes, “You don’t know what that is. How to describe this…”

“I got it,” Atari jumps in, “A ‘Combination Event’ is… eh, we can just build down from this- yeah. So it’s basically when two dungeons combine with one another, probably for stability reasons, but we’re not entirely sure why? But – regardless – it looks really, really really cool. It’s like… two entirely different environments combining together to form into… some sort of dome-like structure, constantly moving. I think my favorite one was when one of the beach dungeons combined with a mountain dungeon near the exploration guild? I think that’s the one. They all looked really cool though. Also surprisingly safe.”

Kai, completely confused, mumbles out a quiet “What…?”

She continues as if he’d prompted her, “Yeah! For some reason the two combining dungeons don’t generate anything to attack you! They don’t generate items either, probably to conserve energy. The guildmaster’s planning on holding a meeting about it in a bit with the guild. He’s got a method of getting everyone’s attentions anyways, so we’ll know when to come. So! Let’s finish up the tour quickly.”

She hastily backpedals from the hallway they’re in, back into the common area. Kai stands there for an extra second, moving mindlessly when he registers the lack of a presence where the girafarig was previously, and he just barely catches what she says once all caught up.

“-final section of rooms connected to the common area is just a good couple of quiet research rooms. There’s about twenty of ‘em in total, each varying in size, and they’re just there for when you want to read something from the library, you want to study an item by yourself, or you just want some alone time. They’re not used by everyone, but there’re still a good few of us that like to spend some time in there every so often.”

She turns back to Kai. “Aaand that’s the guild! The inside parts, at least. There’re a few connected places too like the library I mentioned and a few storage locations. Zoo can probably point ‘em out for ya after the meeting happens-“

Suddenly, the girafarig stops, staring into space. Looking over at Zoo, he notices the same thing. They both seem… paralyzed…?

It only lasts for a moment though, as the two bring themselves back to reality with a shake from the girafarig and a little hop from Zoo, the former turning back to Kai.

“Thaaat’s the signal! Didja feel it?”

He furrows his brow, turning towards where he assumes he’ll next see the guildmaster and shaking his head.

“…No…? I don’t think so…”

Atari tilts her head in confusion. “That’s… weird. And a bit concerning. We can figure out what’s wrong with that later and hopefully workshop it, though. If all else fails we can easily just give you some item that functions the same way as the signal if worse comes to worse. Hmm, stuff for later.”

He nods, watching as two new creatures exit out of the guildmaster’s leaf curtain room. The shorter one is purple and white with folded ears and very unkempt fur, while the taller one – nearly twice the shorter one’s height – has a tan and brown coloring, holding its tail in its paw with a splash of… some material on the end of it. Maybe paint…? Far neater-looking, though.

The girafarig leaves him and Zoo in the dust quite immediately, dashing over to take her place beside the shorter purple creature.

Kai follows after much slower with Zoo quietly following at his side, looking to be thinking about something.

They reach the so-called announcement room without much fanfare, only one or two additional teams there already. They stop just outside of the room, wondering where they’re supposed to sit.  

Kai stops, at least. Zoo just continues thoughtlessly, settling herself down at the closest table. Kai follows suit soon after.

The room fills up very quickly, most of the front tables getting occupied. The quilava receives a few curious looks while the azumarill gets a few surprised ones. Realization dawns on some of the creatures’ faces too, though it is mixed with some confusion.

Outside of Zoo and Atari, the quilava manages to recognize exactly one face – that of the mushroom creature from last night, Baz – who unceremoniously drags himself out from the sleeping quarters with only a tad bit more life in his eyes than he’d had the previous night, and settling himself next to three other rambunctious creatures that do not at all match his energy levels.

The two briefly meet each other’s gaze before Baz breaks it, turning to his teammates as one grabs his shoulder with a boisterous laugh.

Kai turns away too as a voice clears its throat from the center of the room. The shorter, more disheveled creature stands in front of the other they were with, and with a… to Kai, slightly unnerving glow of its eyes, the room goes from loud and raucous to dead silent within a fraction of a second. He’s briefly able to see the dazed looks of some guild members before the creature starts talking. Kai can’t tell if he’s excited or sleep-deprived.

“Sorry ‘bout that, but here we go! We’re having this guild meeting today to go over a matter that’s been discovered by the Exploration Guild, as their member here-“ he, as Kai determines, gestures at the taller creature holding its tail, “has disclosed to me – two dungeons have entered a ‘Combination Event’!”

The guild erupts into quiet discourse that continues long into the creature’s next spout. “The two dungeons that combined are Oran Forest and a newly formed mountainous dungeon that was unable to sustain itself. This could be a really good thing, but it could also kinda suck because, as is its namesake, Oran Forest is pretty much the only place we can find oran berries.”

The discourse grows in volume. A younger voice chips in with a question – some cr-… some pokémon sitting at one of the further back tables. “Have dungeons with unique items combined like this before?”

The guy that Kai now assumes is the guildmaster nods. “Yeah, though it’s been over a year since then. It was… Shimmer Hill, if I’m recalling correctly?”

He sends a brief glance at the tan creature, who nods.

“Yeah, Shimmer Hill. I think it was some prairie-like dungeon that combined with a forest dungeon. It’s got a lot of really useful items that come from the massive tree that formed on the final floor. The forest dungeon had weather orbs and a few other orbs like it, and those definitely carried over. Even made a new orb from ‘em – the sunlight orb. But yeah – hopefully it’s not a problem? It’s hard to exactly predict what’s gonna happen with it.

“More important, though, while it’s still merging, who wants to see the dungeon? I need to get some numbers so we can gather our supplies. If ya decide to come, we’ll be leaving tomorrow in the early morning so I’d like to have a concrete list by tonight. We’d be passing by about 40 checkpoints for reference. Just come by my room sometime during the day if you’re interested – I’ll be there doing… something, probably.”

He gives a tired wave, before briefly meeting Kai’s gaze and jumping in surprise, turning back to the gathered pokémon.

“Oh! And we might have two new guild members joining us in the future! One is…”

He squints at Kai, before turning to Atari for a brief moment. His semi-confused expression does not leave his face.

“One is… somewhere, I guess. He’ll turn up eventually. The other, however, is sitting by the Medicinal Guild’s guildmaster assistant!”

Kai reclines a bit at the sudden spike in the number of eyes now on him.

“Based on what I’ve been told, two more will be joining us within the coming days as well! I won’t tell you guys how to greet ‘em, just don’t be too overbearing. Y’all get it?”

The room echoes with confirmation. He grins widely, giving a half-hearted wave.  

“Coolio. Aight, meeting adjourned. Go explode some shit or whatever. See y’all.”

With that, he strolls out of the room, the tan creature following closely behind. Atari, rather than following, walks over to Zoo and Kai before anyone else in the room can think to. Some of the teams leave, some stay to talk, and an additional team or two observe their surroundings passively.

Kai is… definitely glad he wasn’t immediately swamped by others asking random questions he likely doesn’t have answers to.

Atari comes out with one of those questions herself, actually. “So! Do you ‘mons wanna go?” She pauses for a moment, before reiterating, “If you’re not still recovering from what went on yesterday, at least.”

Zoo makes to say something, turning her attention to Kai for a moment.  

“So it’s… kind of like a sight-seeing type of thing…?”

The girafarig grins at her, “Exactly! We’ll still have a couple of precautions just in case – pretty sure around a half of the strength guild’s coming, and those ‘mons make up over half of the guilds’ populations. The ventures will be done in groups, and each will have a couple of strength guild members guiding them through. Overall, though? Nothing’s ever happened, and we haven’t really seen how something really could happen to ‘em in that state.”

“Sounds nice. I…” The azumarill looks around uselessly for a moment, before frowning. “If we do want to go it’d make sense to ask Mudkip as well, so… we’ll have an answer later today for ya.”

“Ah…” The girafarig looks down, seemingly sad, before jumping right back up, startling her tail that’d apparently been sleeping into a yelp. She looks back at it slyly as she continues, “Well then, why don’t we finish the tour, then? Maybe we’ll find him then. Considering the windoe he’s probably outside, and that’s the only area we haven’t looked, sooooo.”

Zoo nods, and Kai does a second later.

“Cool! Let’s do it, then!”

She steps a bit away from the table, watching as Zoo rises to her feet and Kai shakily rises to his. The quilava’s in particular still ache mightily, but he’ll probably just relax at the library or in their room when everything’s said and done.

Or the study room, if he heard it right. That’d probably be nice.

His stomach gives him a fourth option as well, rumbling with greed. Zoo hears this with a side-eye, stopping the girafarig before she can get too far. “It’s… probably for the best that we take a breakfast run beforehand.”

“O… Oh, yeah true. Alright, I’m gonna probably go back to help Maddox for a bit then. Just get me when you guys are done if you want.”

The azumarill gives her a quaint “gotcha,” they dip their heads to one another, and Zoo turns around, guiding a tired quilava towards what his stomach desires.