CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST DUNGEON

Beach Path

Ben was kicking up a lot of dust as he ran through the main street of the town that led back towards the beach, and Ryan and Lena struggled to follow. Ryan, in particular, was having a bit of difficulty running on all fours, though he was definitely doing better even compared to earlier that day.

“Slow down!” the sneasel shouted after Ben. “We can hardly keep up! Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Yeah!” the eevee added. “Plus, all that’s this way is the lighthouse Lena and I are staying in and some cave with a foggy entrance!”

The litten skidded to a halt. Oh shoot! They think I don’t know what I’m doing! Quick, think of something! Ben turned around to face the duo, who had caught up by this point.

“You said something about a cave, right?” Ben asked the eevee.

Ryan tilted his head. “Yeah? What about it?”

“That’s no ordinary cave, that’s a mystery dungeon!” Ben said excitedly. “I bet the berry thief hid in there to escape the consequences of their actions!”

Ryan nodded to show that he agreed with the litten’s theory. More importantly, this confirmed his suspicions about which version of the Pokemon world he had been sent to. Although he didn’t show it, he was a bit nervous about the prospect of fighting other pokemon when he had just mastered… the ability to walk. Despite this, he continued with the other two towards the beach.

Soon, the trio arrived where the forest met the beach, near the bluff where the abandoned lighthouse stood. Instead of continuing up the bluff, the trio crossed the sand toward the cave entrance that Lena had seen the day before, and before long, they stood just outside it. Lena adjusted her bag, and Ryan took a deep breath, as the trio entered the mouth of the mysterious cave, disappearing into the fog.

Coral Cove Mystery Dungeon

The trio started off in a room with two branching pathways: one in front and the other to the left. Ryan looked behind him and was shocked to find that the way they had come in had seemingly disappeared. There was also a funky smelling breeze, amplified by Ryan’s newly strengthened sense of smell, which he found odd because the pokemon were clearly in a fully enclosed room with rocky walls. Clearly, the Mystery Dungeon games had not prepared him for this.

Well, we’re in here, the eevee thought to himself as he started walking forward with his teammates in tow. No turning back now. Let’s just hope whoever took the berries is actually hiding in here…

Ryan hoped that he wouldn’t have to fight off anything, although he knew that even if a wild pokemon did attack, he had Lena and Ben, who did know how to attack, even as he didn’t. Fortunately, there didn’t seem to be any ferals on this floor. Or, perhaps, unfortunately, because it was eerily silent inside except for a small breeze and the trio’s footsteps. The eevee tried to think of something to say as the trio traversed the hallways, but Ben spoke up first.

“So, Ryan… can I ask you how old you are?” the litten asked.

Ryan hummed in thought. “Well, I got here yesterday, so… that would mean my twenty-first birthday is in exactly two weeks.”

“You’re almost eighteen?” Ben replied in disbelief. “That’s funny, because my twenty-first hatchday is in a few months, after the um… that day of the year… when the day and night are the same amount of time…”

“The fall equinox?” Lena chimed in, then realized, “Wait, how do I know that?”

“Yeah, that,” Ben affirmed. “Normally, pokemon have already evolved by my age, but my parents never really let me do any sparring or exploring on my own to get stronger, so now I’m the only ‘mon my age in the village who hasn’t evolved yet.” He sighed. “Well, I was until you showed up, Ryan. Speaking of which, I heard that eevee has eight options for what to evolve into. Have you given it any thought?”

“Not really,” Ryan answered as he handed an apple he found to Lena for her to place in her bag. “In fact, I’m hoping that I can get back home before I ever end up evolving.” After this, he muttered, “Now I have to hope I didn’t just jinx it.”

“What was that about jynx?” Ben asked, thinking that his eevee companion was talking about the humanoid psychic pokemon.

“Nothing, never mind. The important thing is, I hope I don’t end up evolving, but even if I decide to, I have no idea into what.”

“And why do you hope you don’t evolve?” Ben asked, curious about why Ryan would want to avoid something most pokemon that can evolve see as part of growing up.

“I’m worried that if I do, I’ll lose what remains of my humanity… that I’ll never get to go home… and I don’t want to forget that I was a human in the first place,” the eevee chuckled nervously.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Ben answered. “You and Lena aren’t the first humans to be sent to this world from another, and those other humans? They all evolved and they still remembered that they were human.”

Ryan was too worried about not evolving to grasp the implication. “Maybe, but still, I-“

Lena interrupted the two and pointed a claw forward. “Stairs ahead.”

Sure enough, in the room in front of the trio, there was a perfectly cut stone staircase leading deeper into the dungeon.

“Yes!” Ryan fistpumped. “We made it through without running into any wild pokemon!”

“Actually,” Ben responded, “this dungeon has four floors, although the bottom one is just one large room that never shifts.”

The eevee’s ears flattened. “Oh…” he said disappointedly.

“Wait,” Lena added, “how do you know this? I thought you weren’t allowed to go exploring?”

“Yeah,” the litten shrugged, “but that doesn’t mean I listened to them.”

“And how haven’t you evolved, then?”

“Oh, that’s simple, in my bag I have an everstone because if I evolve my parents’ll know I’ve been going into the dungeon without their knowledge.”

Although she still wasn’t satisfied with that answer, she shrugged. “Whatever, let’s just continue.”

And with that, the trio descended the stairs.

As Ben, who was making up the rear of the party at the moment, stepped onto the floor from the bottom stair, the staircase seemingly vanished behind the trio, leaving them in another room, this time with only one path leading out of it. After Ryan picked up a nearby blast seed and buried it in his tuft of fur, the trio continued down that walkway. This one was a particularly long hallway, so Ben struck up another conversation.

“So,” he began, “I heard that unlike those other humans, you actually remember your life before coming here.”

“Guilty as charged,” Ryan answered. “Anything in particular you wanna know?”

“I have a burning question for you! What’s the last thing you remember before waking up on the beach?”

“A portal exploding, only the explosion was blue and not orange like a fire would be… also, I wasn’t the only one in the room when it happened.” Ryan’s eyes went wide with realization. “Wait, MY UNCLE! I completely forgot about him! He’s probably in this world somewhere! This could be both very good and very bad… on one hand, that could make getting home way easier, but what if he’s dead? Also, we might not even be on good terms because the last time we saw each other, we were arguing about-“

Lena put a claw to Ryan’s mouth to make him stop talking. “Shush. There’s ferals in the room ahead, I can feel it.”

Sure enough, they entered a room with several wild pokemon in it: a shellder, shellos, and tirtouga, all fast asleep in separate corners of the humid room. The eevee was unsure how easily they could be awakened, but he wanted to take no chances, so he treaded as lightly as he could, and his companions did the same.

In this moment, the three pokemon were highly on edge, expecting them to wake at any moment. Unfortunately, their worst fears would prove to come true as the eevee tripped over an inconveniently placed rock, uttering an exclamation of pain. He didn’t think he had yelped that loudly, but it was loud enough, because the three ferals had woken, and they approached the trio, ready to fight.

In a panic, Ryan pulled out his blast seed and hurled it at the shellder, the seed exploding upon contact and greatly harming it. However, it backfired, as the eevee was also hurled in the opposite direction, crashing into the wall and leaving an eevee-shaped imprint. After falling onto the ground, he got up, finding that he hadn’t been hurt nearly as badly as one would expect from an explosion, although his fur was covered in dust from the impact, with his paws getting muddied by the damp floor.

Not knowing how to use any attacks, Ryan could only watch as Ben kicked the tirtouga rapidly and as Lena scratched up the shellos using her sharp white claws. Both wild pokemon collapsed, defeated. Nervously, Ryan approached the tirtouga, worried that Ben had killed it, heaving a sigh of relief when he could feel the movement of breathing. Behind him, Ben had his arms crossed, a frown on his face.

“What were you doing?” he said in disbelief, shoving his arms out. “You coulda helped me or Lena, ya know!”

“Look, I would, but…” Ryan looked away, almost embarrassed. “…I don’t actually know how to attack.”

The litten was shocked. “What?! What pokemon doesn’t know how to defend themselves?”

“Give him a break,” Lena said defensively. “He hasn’t even been a pokemon for a full day yet.”

Ben sighed and put a paw behind his head as the trio continued into the next hallway. “Right, right… but Ryan, if you’d like to go back home in one piece, you’re gonna need to learn how to use your attacks. It’s not like you’re gonna always have blast seeds on paw, ya know.”

Ryan sighed. “You have a point…”

The trio did not encounter any more ferals on this floor before reaching the room with the stairway, which they promptly climbed down.

The sudden disappearance of the stairs as the three pokemon reached the bottom was not as shocking to Ryan the second time around. What did shock him was the dewpider on the other side of the room, rapidly crawling straight towards the eevee, whose ears were flat against his head, his body frozen in fear.

“Come on, Ryan! You can handle this!” Ben said encouragingly, thrusting a paw into the air. “Just tackle the thing!”

The eevee vigorously shook his head to snap out of his fear and adopted a battle stance before charging straight at the spider, slamming into it headfirst. The impact knocked the dewpider back a fair distance, but all it did was make it angrier. Instead of approaching again, however, it just spat out bubbles. Ryan knew enough to know that this was an attack, so he rushed forward again, carefully trying to dodge the bubbles. One got in his eye, and it stung, but he pushed through it and tackled the dewpider again, this time successfully knocking it out. He landed back on the ground, panting.

“Yes!” Ryan exclaimed, raising a paw into the air. “I actually did it!”

“You sure did!” Ben said excitedly. “Now come on! The thief’ll have finished off the berries by the time we get to the bottom if we don’t hurry!” He dashed towards the hallway on the right side of the room.

The rest of the floor was relatively uneventful. Not many pokemon reside this deep in this particular dungeon, so the trio had little trouble making it to the stairs, which were being guarded by a sleeping corsola. Fortunately for Ryan, Ben didn’t force him to take this one on, instead sneaking around it and down the stairs. This staircase felt longer than the previous ones. The eevee was slightly worried about the possibly upcoming confrontation, though he felt more confident now that he actually knew how to attack, so he started to think about other things.

Where in the world is Uncle Terry? Ryan thought. I don’t actually know what to do after we finish this escapade, but I bet he would.

The trio descended deeper and deeper until…

“Hey!” Ben called from the front. “I see the bottom!”

“Okay!” The other two responded before Ryan went back to his own thoughts.

Oh, Uncle Terry… you may be a pain in the backside sometimes, but you’re the only family I have left. I really hope that wherever you are, WHATever you are… I hope you’re okay…